The doctor looked at the couple over steepled fingers, his expression grave without being grim. Telling people bad news was not a part of the job he enjoyed, but it was an essential part nonetheless, so he had honed his skills. The couple exchanged glances and reached out to take each other’s hands. They were as ready as they’d ever be.

“Mr and Mrs Merrick,” the doctor said, keeping his voice flat and low pitched, “I’m afraid your son has Klinefelter Syndrome. You may have heard it referred to as XXY Syndrome.”

The couple looked nervously at each other before returning blank looks to the doctor.

“It means he has an additional chromosome. In general, humans have forty-six chromosomes, and your son has forty-seven.”

“Are you telling me my son’s not human?” Mr Merrick’s tone was confused, but veering towards angry.

“Not at all Mr Merrick,” the doctor said hastily. “He’s as human as you and me. It’s just that in his case, something didn’t work quite as it should have when he was conceived. Either your sperm or the ovum it fertilised experienced an error in cell division that we call nondisjunction, and an additional X chromosome was transferred into the embryonic nucleus.”

“So now you’re telling us it’s our fault?” Mr Merrick’s mood was worsening.

The doctor suppressed a sigh. Anger and denial were common responses to bad news. They required patient handling.

“Mr Merrick, I’m saying nothing of the sort. This kind of problem can happen to anyone. In fact, Klinefelter is one of the most, if not the most, common genetic condition, occurring once in every six to seven hundred male births. It doesn’t happen because there’s something wrong with the parents, but because of an unfortunate random event taking place during conception.”

“What does it mean for Phillip, doctor?” Mrs Merrick asked, placing a gentle, restraining hand on her husband’s arm.

The doctor smiled gratefully at Mrs Merrick. It always amazed him how it was the women, usually so emotional and irrational in a crisis, who were so often the calmest and most reasonable in times such as this.

“It’s hard to say at this time; the condition affects different individuals to a different extent. The symptoms which prompted you to bring him to me are fairly pronounced though, so I suspect he will be one of the less fortunate ones, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, but in what way less fortunate?”

“Well, you’ve already noticed signs of late development. As he grows older, he may exhibit a degree of dyslexia or dyspraxia as well as shyness and social awkwardness. When he reaches puberty, his body may develop in a less masculine way…”

“What do you mean by that?” Mr Merrick was on the aggressive again.

“He has an additional X chromosome Mr Merrick. A normal male will have one X and one Y, whilst a normal female will have two X’s. The additional chromosome interferes with male development, and sometimes results in slightly more female traits. Broader hips, narrower shoulders, lower physical strength, less facial hair, and there is the possibility of gynecomastia.”

“What’s that?” Mrs Merrick asked, her voice showing the first sign of tremor.

“It means breast development, Mrs Merrick.”

“You’re trying to tell me my son is going to turn into a girl?” Mr Merrick’s anger continued to build.

“No Mr Merrick, your son is what he is, and what he always will be. He is a young man with complications. Perhaps the most severe is that his genitals may not fully develop. His penis and testes will almost certainly be smaller than usual, and he may never be able to have children.”

Mr Merrick slumped back in his chair. It was a cruel tactic, but sometimes being confronted with the bare facts could knock the fight out of someone, and both parents would need to reach acceptance if they were to help their son deal with his condition.

“You can fix it though, right? Now that you know what it is, you can cure him?”

And so to the bargaining phase. It was a good sign.

“I’m sorry Mr and Mrs Merrick. Your son’s condition is genetic – not inherited, or inheritable, but genetic nevertheless. The abnormality exists in every one, or very nearly every one, of the thirty-seven trillion cells in his body. Medical science just isn’t advanced enough to cure something like this.”

“So what can we do?” the more reasonable Mrs Merrick asked.

“We can offer occupational therapy to help with any dyspraxic tendencies he may have, I can and will write him a statement to ensure he has adequate support in school. When he starts to go through puberty, we can give him testosterone replacement therapy to help his body develop more like a normal man. Breast reduction therapy as and when – and if – it becomes necessary, and counselling since gender identity issues are common in people with Klinefelter. Unfortunately, that’s about all we can do at present.”

The couple sat in stunned silence.

“It’s a shock, I know,” the doctor continued. “You will need time to process it, but there’s no reason why your son shouldn’t live a relatively normal and happy life.”

“Relatively? What kind of relatively with all that going on?” Mr Merrick was in danger of slipping back into anger.

“The sort of relatively that means he will have two arms and two legs, Mr Merrick. The sort of relatively that means he will be able to go to school and learn alongside other children without seeming particularly different. He will be able to get a job and live a full life. He will have trials to face, I’m not denying that, but we all do, and he at least will know what most of them are ahead of time. He will also, unless I miss my guess, have two supportive parents to help him face his demons and make informed decisions as to what will be best for him.”

The doctor stood. “I am sorry,” he said. “I know this is a lot to take in, and I think the best thing you can do right now is take some time to do so. Think about what is best for your son. I have details of a number of support groups,” he picked up a small pile of pamphlets and offered them across the desk, “people who have had to deal with the same things you are facing now. I suggest you contact them and find out more about what your future holds. I, of course, will be here for when you wish to discuss matters further.”

Mrs Merrick stood, followed by her husband. Silently, she took the pamphlets and offered the doctor a wan smile. Mr Merrick’s face was too stunned to show much emotion. The two of them allowed the doctor to lead them out of the office and into the waiting room where young Phillip was happily playing with a small pile of Lego. What he had built wasn’t recognisable as anything in particular, but he gave his parents a cheerful smile and offered it up for inspection even so.

“That’s very nice dear,” Mrs Merrick said distractedly, “but we have to go. Why don’t you put it down so some other children can play with it?”

Phillip did as he was told and followed his parents out of the surgery.

-oOo-

“Mr and Mrs Merrick?”

The voice held traces of a German accent, the face was partially obscured behind milk bottle glasses.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs Merrick responded, her husband still deep in shock and unable to respond. “We’ve just been given some, er, difficult news. We really need to be alone right now.”

“This news is in relation to the health of your son, yes?” The man with the milk bottle glasses said. It was enough to bring Mr Merrick out of his dazed state. He turned and stared alongside his wife.

“My name is Doctor Wiesner,” the man continued, “and I believe we can be of mutual assistance to one another.”

“How do you know about our son?”

Dr Wiesner shrugged. “There are ways. Please, I will buy for you some tea, and we can talk.”

“How do you know about our son?” Mr Merrick repeated, clenching his fists.

Dr Wiesner raised his hands. “The company I work for has arrangements with many doctors around the world. We let them know the sort of person we are looking for, and they send us details of any of their patients who may match our criteria. We choose the most likely patients and approach them, as I am doing now with you.”

“That’s illegal.” Mr Merrick’s anger was resurfacing.

“In strictest terms, perhaps it is, yes, but we operate in total confidence, and it seems the most, er, kind to do things this way.”

“What do you mean?”

“We do not have many places for patients in our research. If we were to ask the doctors to refer patients to our organisation, then we would turn away perhaps many hundreds in order to find one or two. This way seems better to us. We can select the most suitable candidates from the information we are given and make our own approach. If our manner of operating is offensive to you, please, I would ask for you to accept my apology. Either way, it is possible that we may be able to help your son, and his involvement in our research may aid us. This arrangement I would like to discuss is of mutual benefit.”

“What arrangement? I thought there was no treatment.”

“Please, it will take some time to explain. It would be more pleasant to do so in comfort. There is a restaurant here.”

“Our doctor told us there was no treatment,” Mr Merrick insisted.

“The medical world has no treatment, this is true, but there are many institutes and organisations around the world conducting research, and you would be most surprised what some of them have achieved.”

“You think you can cure our son?” Mrs Merrick asked.

“I believe it is possible, yes. Please let me explain over a cup of tea or coffee.”

The couple allowed themselves and their young son to be led into the restaurant.

-oOo-

“Merrick!” The voice sounded exasperated, as though it had been calling for some time, which, in fact, it had been doing.

“Yes sir,” I called out. “Sorry sir.”

“Well don’t just stand there, you pathetic excuse for an I-don’t-know-what, you’re first team, get out there and warm up.”

I didn’t need telling twice, which was probably as well since Grimesy wasn’t known for his patience, and I’d already gone a way towards exhausting it. I joined the rest of the team on the pitch, running its length back and forth.

“What kept you Merrick? Off with the fairies again?” Peter Bailey was the team captain, so the rest of the team laughed dutifully at his pseudo-joke.

“Something like that,” I admitted. It was hardly worth denying it as I had something of a reputation for phasing out, be it in class or out here on the rugby pitch.

“Scrumhalf,” Bailey said to me, “and keep your mind in the game this time.”

“Sure,” I said.

“And you’re a couple of laps behind the rest of us, so you can keep going when we stop in a minute.”

That didn’t bother me. I may have been undistinguished in the classroom, but I was pretty fit. Not the biggest guy on the field by a long chalk, otherwise I’d end up as a prop forward, but I had some muscle tone, and I was quick, with good stamina.

I didn’t much care for playing sports – they all seemed a little pointless to me – but it was the one thing I seemed to be good at, so I kept getting picked for the better teams, and because it helped me make and keep friends, I stuck with it.

It wasn’t just that though. Most of my school experience was a disaster. I’d try to pay attention in class, but my mind would always wander. It was like the biggest part of my brain was constantly searching for something, leaving very little to focus on school work. Sports was different. For the most part I didn’t need to think, so I could let my mind free and let my body react without interfering. Grimesy told me once that it’s probably why I’m so naturally good at sports – I don’t try to take control. That and I have kept in pretty good trim.

I don’t know why I’m so spaced out most of the time, but I’ve been this way since as long ago as I can remember. My first memories are a jumble of confusing snapshots, mostly of something that seems to come from a bad science fiction horror movie, with big machines and serious men in a bright, brilliantly white place filled with corridors and laboratories, machines and chemicals. It was a scary time, and all I’m left with is a sense of having lost a part of myself.

There was a time I thought it might actually have been a film I saw when I was younger, and I’ve searched for it, but nothing from ten or twelve years ago comes even close. I’ve seen some that have scared the excrement out of me, but all the while they’ve been nothing more than stories with made up, usually bad and unbelievable, plot lines. My crazy memories have an odd sense of reality, and it’s where my mind spends most of its time, reliving those experiences, but only ever giving me glimpses.

“Hey Merrick!” Baily called.

I looked over to where the rest of the team were standing around, watching me.

“You can stop now. You’re making us look bad.”

I hadn’t noticed them stop running, couldn’t tell how many extra laps I’d done.

“Sorry Pete, I lost track for a while there.”

“Yeah, well none of it right? You need to get your head in the game. We win as a team or we lose as a team, and I don’t want to lose.”

Have you ever noticed how sportsmen tend to speak in clichés?

At the end of the day it's a game of two halves. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you're over the moon, sometimes you're as sick as a parrot.

A bunch of preassembled phrases bolted together in semi-random order in the hope that they at least sound like they make sense. Minimum brain activity required, and to all appearances, minimum brain activity present much of the time.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew that. I was just... distracted. All I needed to do was to keep at least some of my focus on the game for the forty minutes we'd be running about.

School rugby you understand. Only enough time for half a game if you factor in the getting changed and the obligatory shower afterwards.

Shouldn't be too hard.

It wasn’t. Well, I say that. I did drift away once or twice, but only for short periods and while we were waiting for someone to fetch the ball. I can’t say I played as well as I could, but we did win, and a lot of our break away moves started with me reading the field and passing to the right person. I even managed to score one of the tries myself when no-one was open and I just hung onto the ball and ran with it.

Certainly I did well enough to earn a fair few well-meant congratulatory slaps on the way back into the changing room.

“Merrick!”

It was Grimsey calling me over. I broke away from my team mates and jogged across. You didn’t walk in Mr Grimes’s class.

“Sir?”

“I’ve seen you play better, Merrick.”

“Yes sir.”

“I want you on top form on Saturday against Crestwell.”

“Yes sir, I’ll try.”

“No, you will do better. There is no try.”

Grimesy was always mangling film quotes, and Star Wars was more his era than mine. You learned not to comment on it if you didn’t want a lecture and an extra twenty press-ups.

“Yes sir.”

“Okay then. Now go and get showered before you stink the place out.”

“Yes sir.”

So it was into the showers and on to maths, which I hated with an incandescent passion. How to go from one extreme to the other. Still at least it was the last lesson of the day.

Algebra! What happened to all the numbers? How the hell could you do maths with letters. I tried to listen but it just came across as a mindless blah, blah, blah. I tried to do the problems, but the letters and numbers started swimming on the page, and none of it made sense. My mind sought to escape and I drifted away into disturbing dreams that made even less sense.

“Merrick!!!” Miss Fallon could generate decibels when she wanted to, and I’m guessing I was the last straw at the end of a long day. I started and stared back at her, her face white with rage. “Would you like to come to the front and show the class how to do this?”

“Er, I wouldn’t know how Miss.”

“No that doesn’t surprise me. You know why? Because you weren’t listening!”

I bit my lip. It wasn’t worth arguing with Miss Fallon when she was in rant mode.

“Headmaster’s office, now. Take your things. I don’t want you back in my class until your attitude improves.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then reminded myself it wasn’t worth it. It took just a few seconds to scoop my books and other belongings into my bag, then pausing long enough to give Miss Fallon a moderately poisonous glare, I stormed out of the classroom.

Next stop the headmaster’s office where his PA raised her eyebrows at my approach.

“Mr Leighton is busy, Phillip. Take a seat and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Never great news when the head’s PA knows you by name.

I sat and mused on the unfairness of it all. I mean it wasn’t as if I did it on purpose. One minute I’d be trying to make head or tails out of a page full of incomprehensible drivel, the next I’d be reliving last night’s dream.

It was always the same dream, with minor variations. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in my room, in my bed, in my pyjamas, but somehow I’d be in the body of a six or seven-year-old girl. I’d get out of bed and my pyjama trousers would fall down, not that that mattered since the jacket was long enough to reach to my knees. I’d usually need to go to the toilet, which used to feel weird, but now the dream was so common, I was used to it.

I’d wander into the kitchen where everything was so much bigger than it should have been. I couldn’t reach the cupboards, or even the work surface for that matter so I’d usually take a glass or a mug out of the dishwasher and a bottle of milk from the fridge door, and I’d pour myself a drink.

I’d sit in the lounge for a while until I became bored, and then I’d go back to bed. Sometimes I’d have a sense that someone was watching me from the top of the stairs, but when I’d look there’d be no-one. Usually when I woke in the morning, my pyjama trousers would be on the floor by the bed, but then you do weird things in dreams, don’t you?

“Phillip!!”

Only two exclamation marks, but then the headmaster’s PA was a tolerant person. I looked up to find her friendly face inclining towards the head’s door. Time to face the music.

Mr Leighton let out a long, exasperated sigh as I walked through the door.

“Well you nearly made it through the day, Merrick. Who was it this time?”

“Miss Fallon, sir.”

“The usual?”

“Yes sir. She said she didn’t want me back in her class till my attitude improved.”

“Well, it’s nearly the end of the day, so no point in calling your parents. Take a seat outside and stay there till the bell goes. I’ll have words with Miss Fallon later and see if I can change her mind. Why do you do it Phillip?”

“It’s not on purpose, sir. It’s just when I’m faced with something I can’t do, I don’t know, I just space out.”

Mr Leighton shook his head. “The real tragedy here is that I believe you, Phillip. Okay go and sit outside, I’ll see what I can salvage from this.”

“Yes sir.” I knew better than to say thank you or sorry. Mr Leighton was a good sort, but he didn’t much like being thanked for letting someone off lightly, and as for sorry, I’d heard him say to any number of students that if they were sorry, they’d damn well stop doing what got them in trouble. In my case that wasn’t an option because I didn’t even know I was doing something wrong until someone yelled at me.

I walked out the office and sat down. Better than maths? Maybe, but I don’t know, I’d still rather have been in class than in trouble. In class I could at least try to do the work and hope that I wouldn’t drift off again, but out here there was nothing to give me even a chance of keeping my mind anchored. I mean I’d tried talking to my parents about the dreams, once long ago. My dad had gone ballistic, telling me they were weird and unnatural, the signs of a sick and depraved mind. He said I was to stop having them.

How in Hades do you stop yourself from having recurring dreams?

Short answer is you don’t. You just stop talking about them. Mum was good at stuff like that. Most of the time she looked like she wanted to say something, but she always managed to stop herself.

The dreams didn’t happen every night, but they did come frequently enough, and even when they didn’t come, I had some sense of something having happened in the night.

I needed someone to talk to about it, but who? The ‘rents had made their position clear, and I hadn’t faith enough in any of my friends to share something as damning as that. Friendship between boys is more like a sort of uneasy truce. Even with the best of your mates, you share something potentially embarrassing, and it’s all over the school by the end of the day, and they never let you forget it. Girls are a bit of a mixed bag, but most of the girls I knew had BFFs, or whatever the modern equivalent is, and they shared each other’s deepest secrets, supposedly. It worked the opposite way to male bonding. It was like they were looking for ways to make the friendship closer, more complete, and a show of faith, a sharing of embarrassing or must forget moments achieved that. There were times when faith was misplaced, or a friendship fell apart big time, and the shrapnel would take the form of secrets revealed flying every which way.

I could handle risks like that, but I was a guy, and a sporty one at that. Girls didn’t see us the way they saw their friends. I mean being a decent all-round sportsman, representing our school in different events and bringing back an occasional trophy, meant I could probably have picked from more than half the girls in my year, but all most of them wanted was to be able to say they’d been out with Phil Merrick, sporting superstar. No real hope of a deep and meaningful relationship with people that shallow, and probably a very real danger of having my secrets revealed to the world if I was ever daft enough to share them. Sport stars aren’t supposed to dream of being little girls.

Oh, I did date a few of the nicer girls. It was kind of expected and would have led to accusations of homosexuality if I hadn’t. Not that I have anything against homosexuals, you understand. Just wasn’t one. The thing is I didn’t much appreciate being someone’s trophy boyfriend either, so none of my relationships lasted long.

That was another weird thing though. It was usually in the middle of dreaming I was a little girl that I’d figure things out, like how shallow the girls in my life were being. It was kind of like whenever I dreamt of being a girl, I actually ended up thinking like one in the dream.

“Phillip.” The head’s PA was crouched in front of me, her hand resting on my shoulder. “The bell went ten minutes ago.”

“Oh flip! The bus!! Thanks Miss.” I grabbed my bag and legged it.

Running in the corridors was not approved of, but there was no-one around to show said lack of approval. The teachers were all outside herding the masses through the doors and making sure order was maintained, and the masses were all being herded and looking for opportunities for disorder – at least some of them were. I made it outside and across the road just as the last kid was climbing on the bus I wanted. The driver was one of the decent ones though, and he was used to my vagaries. He waited the few extra seconds it took for me to get to the bus.

“Nearly too late.” He stated the obvious with a gently reproving smile.

“Yeah,” I breathed showing my pass. “Thanks for waiting.”

He waved me on and I climbed to the upper level where my friends would be waiting.

“Hey, Merrick,” Bailey called from the front of the bus. “Nearly didn’t make it there.”

What was it with people and stating the obvious?

“Heard you got kicked out of Fallon’s class. What’s that about?”

A couple of the other lads in our immediate vicinity were in my maths set, so no surprise that the news had already made it into the public domain.

“You know how it is. Maths is boring and Fallon only makes it worse.”

“You still okay for Saturday?”

“Mr Leighton didn’t say anything to suggest otherwise.”

“Don’t mess this up Merrick. We need a decent scrumhalf out there.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, that’s what Fallon was so upset about.” Jack Slater said, and he and a number of his friends collapsed in a mess of immature snickering.

I sat behind the group. Close enough to be a part of it still but withdrawn enough that I wasn’t likely to stay the focus of attention. After a few moments they all went back to whatever they’d been talking about before I arrived.

“Hi Phil,” a soft voice breathed from behind me. I turned to find Stacey Owen leaning a little too close for comfort.

“’Sup?” I asked without much enthusiasm. Memories of the little girl from my dreams noting the overly made up face, the rolled up skirt, the rather overwhelming perfume. The word slut hovered at the edge of consideration. I wanted to be more generous, but Stacey made it hard.

“You playing on Saturday?”

“Should be, yeah.”

“I’ll be there too, cheering for you.”

“Sure, thanks.”

She stood and gave me a lingering look before sauntering back to her friends. The infantile among our number burst into laughter again and a few unkind comments were bandied about, just loud enough to be heard at the back of the bus.

“Hey guys, leave off with the insults.”

“Don’t tell me you fancy her?”

“All I’m saying is there’s no reason to be mean.”

“I don’t believe this, Merrick’s got a crush on Stacey Owen.” It was Jack Slater again, and he really didn’t know how to keep his voice down.

The bus was pulling in to a stop. It was still half a mile from my place, but I didn’t fancy being subject to Jack’s puerile sense of humour for another ten minutes. I got up and headed for the stairs.

“Hey where you going, Merrick?” Jack wouldn’t let up.

“Somewhere I don’t have to listen to you.”

I headed down the steps and off the bus. I didn’t mind the walk. What I hadn’t counted on was Stacey following me.

“I didn’t know this was your stop,” I said.

“It isn’t.” She was all shyness and smiles. “I heard what you said back there.”

“Don’t read too much into it Stacey. I just don’t like it when they start tearing into people like that.”

“Are you saying you don’t like me?” She was suddenly on the edge of tears, and with that much war paint, the resulting landslide would be horrendous.

I sighed. What could I say? “You try too hard Stacey. I mean you are pretty, so what I don’t get is why you go so overboard with the makeup and the short skirts and everything. You heard what the others were saying about you.”

“Do you think the same?”

“I don’t want to, but you don’t make it easy. Look Stacey, I don’t mean to be unkind, but when you get home take a look in the mirror and try and be honest with yourself about what you see. Then be honest with yourself about whether that’s who you want to be.”

“I thought you liked it when girls kind of, you know…”

“Throw themselves at me? Not really, no.” I turned and started walking towards my house.

“Can I walk with you?”

I paused and looked back.

“My house is that way too. Would you mind if I walked with you, or are you really that disgusted with me?”

Guilt trip much?

“We can walk together, but friends, okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She came alongside me, hugging her bag to her front. She wasn’t smiling.

“I’m sorry Stacey, I wish I could have been kinder.”

“No, it’s okay, and you’re right, I do act like a slut.”

“Do you mind if I ask why?”

“I thought it’s what guys like you looked for in a girl.”

“Not me.”

“But you’ve been out with Jenny Marshall, Laura Plummer, Katie…”

“I know who I’ve been out with, and yes I guess a lot of them were a bit unsubtle, but none of them lasted more than a couple of dates, if you remember. All they wanted was to be seen with me.”

“You are pretty much the cutest guy in school you know?”

“I’m not. I look two years younger than I actually am.”

“It’s called boyish charm, and most girls really fall for it. I mean think Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber…”

“Please don’t compare me to him.”

“You have the same kind of thing going for you, though. You have no idea what effect you have on girls.”

“Well they don’t have the same effect on me.”

“So why do you go out with them?”

“What would people say about me if I turned down every good-looking girl in school?”

“Oh. Oh! You’re not are you?”

“Of course not! But neither am I as shallow as most of my friends, or yours for that matter. I don’t really know what I’m looking for, but arm candy is not it.”

We walked on in silence for a while until…

“Well, this is me. Well up that way. Thank you, Phillip. I think you’re the first person who’s been both honest and kind to me in a long while.”

“You’re welcome. You still coming on Saturday?”

“Would you like me to?”

What could I say that wouldn’t lead her on or knock her flat?

“Yes, I guess I would, but as a friend, yeah?”

She bit her lip. “You know I think I might like that.”

For some reason I managed to stay focussed the rest of the way home.

-oOo-

The next day started with a summons to Mr Leighton's office. Miss Fallon had relented somewhat and was prepared to let me back into her class if I went to detentions with her during breaks and lunchtimes for the rest of the week.

It meant I wouldn't see much of my friends for a few days, but it wasn't as if I had much choice.

I arrived in good time for my first appointment with her and was greeted with a glowering look and an indication that I should sit at a desk where a pile of papers were waiting for me.

I stared blankly at the top sheet for a few minutes, then looked up to where Miss Fallon sat marking her way furiously through someone's exercise book.

"I'm sorry Miss. I know you're busy, but I really don't get this."

She snorted her disapproval at me before stepping out from behind her desk. It took most of the break period, but by the end of it, mainly because I'd been able to ask questions as we went along without fear of being ridiculed, I began to get it.

The bell rang, and Miss Fallon gathered up the papers from my desk.

"Do you take school dinners?" she asked.

"No Miss, I have a packed lunch."

"Fine you can come here at the beginning of lunch and eat while you’re working."

"Yes Miss, and thank you Miss."

She looked up at me sharply, looking for any amount of facetiousness on my part, but I'd meant what I said.

Lunchtime went better with me completing several of her sheets without bothering her. Afternoon break she had to show me something new, but I was beginning to get my mind around the concept of it, so it didn't take so long.

The next day went much the same way. I still struggled in most of my classes, but I only phased out in the worst of them. In the maths detentions, I felt I was making progress, and it felt good for a change. I did have a maths lesson, though Miss Fallon wasn’t prepared to allow me in, and sent me off to exclusion with the pile of papers I'd been working through. I completed a fair few of them, but then started something new which I needed help to understand. I made an effort, which won me some points with Miss Fallon at my next detention, but I'd misunderstood what was being asked, so she had to spend time explaining things before I could get on.

By the end of Friday, I was about caught up to the level of the rest of my class. Miss Fallon told me to turn up for the lesson as usual on Monday and we'd see how things went.

It was the end of a long week in which I'd only really seen my friends on the bus, and they hadn't been too keen to talk to me since I'd stormed out on them over Stacey. As it turned out I hadn't seen anything of Stacey either, but that probably wasn't such a bad thing, given that I didn't particularly want to repeat the awkwardness of our last meeting.

"See you tomorrow," Bailey called to me as I got up to go. "We're leaving the school at ten-thirty, so don't be late."

I waved my acknowledgement and headed down the stairs and off the bus.

-oOo-

I dreamt of her again that night. Of being her I mean. I woke up in my oversized bed in my oversized room, tangled in my oversized pyjamas. And I was lying on my hair. I’d been aware of her hair all along – almost waist length, dark, lustrous – but this was the first time I’d noticed a detail like what it felt to lay on it.

The moon was up and shining silvery light in through the window. I sat up and looked at my little girl self in the mirror in my wardrobe.

“Who are you?” I asked. The face in the mirror mouthed the question, and the high-pitched tones of a young girl gave it voice, but for all that it still felt like me asking. Whoever she was, none of her was present there in the dream.

I struggled out of bed and, as usual, my trousers fell around my ankles. I walked up to the mirror and examined myself. There was something about the eyes and the face that reminded me a bit of Mum, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest I’d seen her anywhere but in my dreams. I looked deep into her eyes looking for… something. I don’t know what it is that people look for when they do that, but all I saw was me looking back, only me inside this little girl. It made no sense.

My bedside clock read three seventeen. The night had a long way to go, so I went to answer the call of nature and then to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. By the time I made it back to my room with a half glass of milk, all of ten minutes had passed.

I sat on the floor opposite the mirror, careful to keep myself covered. This dream felt different, so much more real, and I had no desire to find out how real. The carpet felt rougher beneath my bare legs than anything I’d experienced before. So, what now?

I reached for my school bag and pulled out the sheets of algebra Miss Fallon had given me. Scanning through the questions and answers, it all made as much sense as it had earlier that day. I pulled out my history homework and read a sentence or two, out loud but quietly.

“Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism.”

It made no more nor less sense than when we’d read it in class. So, dream or whatever this was, I still had my sixteen-year-old mind inside the head of this six or seven-year-old girl.

Reading by moonlight was a little hard on the eyes, but something inside warned me against turning on the light. What if Mum or Dad should hear me? What if they noticed the light under the door and came to find out what I was up to? What would they find when they opened the door? I’d been intrigued by the dreams, but this felt different and I wasn’t ready to discover exactly how much.

I guess nervous rather than fearful described my feelings. I mean it had bothered me that I dreamt of being a girl, and I knew how seriously my life would be over if my friends ever found out that I did, but now with things feeling so much more real, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. That I had dreams meant I was just a bit weird. That there might be anything more to it made me feel so strange deep inside I couldn’t face it.

Not yet anyway.

A floorboard creaked outside my room and I held my breath.

“Phillip?” Mum’s voice sounded quietly through the door. “Are you alright?”

If I answered, would she hear my voice or a little girl’s? Was I even awake to answer? Was she even asking, or was she just a part of a very realistic dream? Again, I didn’t want to know the answers to any of those questions. I grabbed my pyjama trousers off the floor and climbed into bed, covering myself completely with my bedclothes.

The door opened. I don’t know how I knew, I mean there were no lights on out in the corridor, and I was deep under my duvet in any case, so I couldn’t have noticed a change in the lighting. My door opens silently, or nearly so, so I doubt I heard anything, but something changed, and I felt Mum’s presence in the room. I kept as still as I could until I heard the door shut very gently a few seconds later.

I lay still and waited for my heart to stop racing, then forced myself to continue lying still. I don’t know if it was nervous exhaustion following the adrenaline rush, but a short while later, I was asleep.

-oOo-

When I awoke, I was myself again. Not wearing pyjama bottoms, but with them in the bed beside me. I looked around my room to find my maths and history homework stacked neatly beside my bag. There should have been a half-filled glass of milk somewhere on the floor, but that was gone.

My clock read eight-thirty. Two hours to get ready and get down to the school; loads of time.

I pulled my pyjama trousers on and put my dressing gown over the top, then headed downstairs. Mum was sitting at the kitchen diner with a mug in her hands. She didn’t look as though she’d slept much. In the sink was a half-filled glass of milk.

“Morning Mum,” I said, trying to keep relaxed and nonchalant.

She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret, then forced a smile. “Good morning sweetheart. Did you sleep alright?”

“I guess. I did wake up about three. Nervous about the game I suppose.”

“So, nothing unusual then?”

“What do you mean?” I headed for the fridge and grabbed the orange juice.

She teetered on the brink of saying something, then pulled herself back. She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, nothing I suppose. I woke up in the middle of the night myself with an odd feeling. It was most likely nothing.”

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

So okay, I kind of like Shakespeare. I don’t phase out when we’re studying his stuff.

“I need to be at school by ten-thirty for the rugby match.” I poured myself a glass of OJ and collected bowl, cereal, spoon and milk.

“That’s fine. Your dad’s going into the office to do some work at nine-thirty. You’ll be a bit early, but would you mind riding with him?”

“No, that’s no problem. I’ll text a few of the guys, see if we can meet up early for a knock around.” I dropped the makings of my breakfast on the diner and headed off to my room to fetch my phone. In the few short seconds it took me to find it and return to the kitchen, Mum’s vacant expression had returned.

“Hey, Mum, are you alright?”

“What?” She shook her head as if to clear it.

“I thought I was the one who spaced out in this family. What’s up?”

“Oh, er… it’s nothing dear. Don’t worry.”

“You sure?”

“Yes dear.” She forced a smile. “Nothing to concern yourself about.”

Well if she wasn’t going to talk about it… I sent of a quick text to my friends and settled down to a breakfast of sugar augmented carbohydrate. Every now and again my phone would buzz to interrupt my shovelling.

It made me look sideways at Mum again. Usually she’s pretty strict about us having phones at mealtimes, even breakfast, but today she continued to sit and stare into space with her half-filled mug of cold coffee in her hands.

Breakfast consumed, I transferred my used bowl and utensils into the dishwasher and replaced the cereal and milk. I can’t say it’s something I usually do, since usually I’m too spaced out, but I seemed to be on top of myself. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for Mum as she offered no thanks or encouragement for my efforts.

Yeah, I know she shouldn’t have to, but she was always one to say something positive when I made some change for the better.

I didn’t have time to do much about it though. I needed to get showered and dressed and make sure I had all my rugby stuff before Dad wanted to leave.

When I made it back downstairs again, fully washed, dressed and carrying my sports bag, Dad had ambled into the kitchen, and he and Mum were having a whispered conversation, which evaporated as soon as I stepped into the room. Neither of them looked particularly happy, though at a guess that had more to do with them not agreeing with one another than it did with anything I’d said or done.

Dad was ready to leave, so we headed for the door.

“Phillip,” Mum said stopping both Dad and me in our tracks. I turned to see what she wanted, but not before I caught a glimpse of the warning look Dad steered in her direction.

“What?” I tend to get a bit bolshie when I feel conspiracy vibes.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Always am, Mum.” With that I followed Dad out the door.

-oOo-

"Hey Dad, is Mum alright?" I asked once we were underway.

"What do you mean, son?"

"She seemed a little distracted."

"That's a bit rich coming from you." He laughed, but it sounded forced.

"I know it's kind of my thing, but that's why I'm asking. I don't ever remember seeing Mum like that."

"I wouldn't worry about it, son. She's fine. You need to get your head into today's game."

Sports clichés from Dad now. If that wasn't a deflection, then I don't know what would be.

"The game's not for three hours Dad. What can I be thinking of now that could possibly help? I mean, someone chucks me the ball, I look around for someone to pass to, if I don't see anyone, I either try and run with it myself, or I punt it, or I drop and protect it. That's hardly going to need hours of mental preparation."

"Think about your team mates," Dad replied. "Where do they usually run? How fast are they? Where on the field would you expect to find them?"

It was annoying when he was right, more so because he so often was. Dad could usually back his arguments up, and this suggestion was valid.

"What so you know about this team you're playing?" he continued.

"Crestwell? Pretty much nothing.?

"Didn't you play them last year?"

"Yeah, but they were mainly year elevens, so most of their side has changed, same as ours."

"Do they have the same coach?"

"I suppose so."

"So, chances are he'll train his team the same this year as last."

Again he had a point. I thought about the defensive tactics they'd used last year, and a few ideas began to form.

Dad gave me a grin and a nod, and the rest of the journey passed in silence.

-oOo-

Several of my friends were already at the school when I arrived. We were all early, but when you're running to a tight schedule, early is definitely better than the alternative.

Bailey wasn't there yet, and he liked any new ideas to be passed through him, but I didn’t think there would be any harm in chatting through some of the things I’d been thinking about in the car with the guys. I joined them kicking a ball around.

"Hey guys, you remember when we were playing this lot last year?"

I went on to outline the tactics I’d remembered from the previous year, and what each of us could do to put us in better positions.

"Okay," Jack said when I paused to draw breath, "who are you and what have you done with our mate?"

I was saved having to think of a comeback by Bailey's arrival. The others seemed pretty stoked by my ideas and were all over sharing them with him. He gave me an odd look as he listened to them, and the occasional correction from me, and at the end he nodded his head.

"All sounds good to me," he said. "We'll give it a try to start with, but if it doesn't work out, we fall back on the original plan, okay?"

The original plan was the same tactics as we’d used the previous year, and they hadn’t worked that well, but then I wasn’t the captain.

We went back to kicking the ball around, and Bailey had us running some gentle exercises. Every now and again his gaze turned my way, pensive and displeased.

He sat next to me in the minibus, me against the window, him in the aisle seat, and he made sure we were the last to get off.

"What are you up to, Merrick?"

"What do you mean?" I swallowed. Bailey was a big guy, and his voice held a hint of menace.

"This sudden interest in tactics. You want to be team captain our something?"

"No, I..."

"Good. Because you don't want to cross me."

"I don't mean..."

"Next time you come up with ideas like that, you bring them to me first, capiche?"

I nodded dumbly.

"Good. Glad we had this chat." He stood and exited the bus, leaving me too stunned to move.

"Come on Merrick" Grimsey yelled, breaking my stupor. "Don't start with the day-dreaming already."

I guess I had the reputation, but it still felt unfair; I hadn't felt less spaced out in a long time, at least not until Bailey had threatened me.

-oOo-

The others were already pretty much in their kit by the time I reached the changing rooms. Bailey turned a self-satisfied smirk my way as he laced his boots. I guess as long as Grimsey thought I was a space cadet, there was no chance of him offering me team captain – not that I wanted it anyway.

"Out on the field in two minutes, Merrick," Mr Grimes said to me. "The rest of you, get out there and start warming up."

A stampede of studded boots followed, and I was alone. I stripped off my clothes and pulled my kit on as quickly as I could, which was probably why I didn't hear him coming.

"Hello, Phillip. It is good to see you again after all this time."

I spun around from tying my boots to find an old, balding man with grey temples and thick glasses smiling at me. His accent sounded slightly German.

"You're not supposed to be down here, it's restricted. If you don't leave, I'll call out."

"And this will be good, yes? For a member of the rugby team to scream like a girl?"

That wouldn't be good, no. "What do you want?"

"Your mother called me. She wanted me to talk to you."

"You know my mum?"

"And your father also. And, as I have mentioned already, you as well."

"Well, I don't have time now. I have to get out on the pitch." I made for the door, but he stepped in front of me.

"This is important, Phillip. You must be aggressive out there."

"Well, yeah. It's a rugby match. Of course I’m going to be aggressive."

"No. You must not be submissive at all. Be in charge of yourself. Do not let anyone dominate you. This is very important."

"I don't know who you think you are mister, but you'd better get out of my way right now."

"Yes, this is good. Like this. It is important. But if you feel something unusual, you must run and hide. Remember this." He stepped to one side. "It is very important."

I ran past him and out onto the playing fields.

"What kept you, Merrick? Trying to make yourself look beautiful?" Grimsey yelled. "Get out there."

Like most PE teachers, he liked to compare us to girls when we weren't pulling our weight. It was supposed to spur is on, because who likes being called a girl, right? Only his words left me with a hint of a weird soft feeling inside. I fought it, looking for the aggression and competitiveness I'd need for the game.

We warmed up for fifteen minutes, Crestwell's team doing the same at the other end of the pitch. There was a pretty good crowd for a school weekend fixture, but then this was something of a grudge match as there was a fair amount of rivalry between our two schools.

"We trying those new tactics, or what?" I asked.

Bailey gave me a dangerous look. "We'll try them once, but if they don't work, we go back to what we know does."

“What do we know works?” I wanted to ask, but I kept my peace.

We won the toss and started off with possession. The new positions and directions I'd suggested left them wrong footed, but then Jack ran the wrong way and was pulled down after just a few yards.

"Okay," Bailey said. "We've tried your way and it didn't work. Now we go back to our usual plan."

"It was working though," I protested.

"You going to argue with your captain, Merrick?"

It wasn't a great thing to do in the middle of a game, so I backed off, and there was that soft, squidgy feeling again.

"I messed that up," Jack said. "It was working, and Bailey's being a prat."

"So how about trying this," I said, and outlined a play that would put Jack out of position for Bailey’s tactics. It left us with a hole in our defence, but if things went well, that wouldn't matter.

It still wasn’t a great idea to challenge the captain on the pitch, but the growing belligerence inside me was pushing that weird softness away, and after that old man’s warning, it felt like the right thing to do.

The whistle blew, the ball came to me and Jack ran across behind me. I passed him the ball and started running myself. They fell for it. Both teams, in fact, and because my lot were chasing after me to defend my run, the other side responded by coming after me as well, leaving Jack out in the open with a clear field ahead of him.

The crowd yelled, but it was too late. I ended up with several of their bigger guys pulling me down and landing on me, and Jack had a clear run into the goal area, grounding the ball pretty much between their posts.

"And just what was that?" Bailey yelled at me after I'd extracted myself from the pile of bodies that had landed on me.

"I think it's called a try," I replied calmly. "It's how things would have worked the first time if they'd gone as planned."

"You left us wide open!"

"You have to take a risk every now and again."

"Not your call!"

"No, it was yours." I could feel my own anger building. "But if you're not prepared to make it."

The others joined us, having been busy congratulating Jack.

"Pete, it was a good call," Jack said.

"Sure, you're going to say that," Bailey replied. "You got all the glory, but we had a hole in our defences as wide as a bus..."

"Which we wouldn't have had if everyone had been doing the things I'd suggested earlier."

"Listen, Merrick, there's only room for one captain on this team."

"Then be the flipping captain," I spat back at him. "Not a flipping prima donna. Do what's best for the team, even if it's not your idea." I stormed away with definitely no squidgy feeling inside.

The conversion was straight forward, the ball going down pretty much centre field, and we lined up to defend.

Bailey and I glowered at each other. I had a few ideas on defence as well and suggested them, but Bailey chose belligerence over good sense and set us up with a standard defensive line. I had a quiet word with a couple of our guys, telling them what to look for, and possibly because of that, we managed to hold off their advance.

Bailey looked all smug about it, taking it as justification of his ideas, and I just ground my teeth.

If I challenged him again, I’d risked division in the team, and we couldn't afford that, so I let him get on with it.

He wasn't a bad captain, but his tactics lacked imagination. None of his offensive strategies had a chance, which meant we spent most of the rest of that half on the defensive. It was tiring and demoralising, and in the last five minutes of the half, Crestwell managed to break through and equalise.

When the whistle blew, we trudged off the pitch with our heads hanging in a mixture of exhaustion and dejection.

-oOo-

"What are you lot playing at?" Grimsey followed is into the changing room in a rage. "You're acting like a bunch of girls. That first move was ballsy, really impressive, but then you just wimped out. What I'd happening to you?"

"Merrick..." Jack began.

"Shut it!" Bailey yelled.

"Merrick what?" Mr Grimes wanted to know. He turned towards me.

"I had a few ideas, sir. I guess I wanted to try them out. I shouldn't have in game like this, I'm sorry sir."

"That first move your idea?"

I didn't want to answer, but there were enough of the guys on my side that they did so for me.

"So try them," he said, turning on Bailey. "It has to be better than what you've been doing now for the past half hour. A good captain listens to his team Peter." His voice had become measured, conciliatory. I guess a good coach knows when not to ball out his players. "Let's hear some of them then, Phillip."

That had me backed into a corner. Without any alternative, I repeated what I'd shared with the others in the playground.

Grimsey had a few comments of his own, things I'd missed or hadn't thought of, and by the time the second half was due to start, we had a new plan, and it was mostly mine.

With everyone up and on their way out to the pitch again, Bailey looked across at me and drew a finger across his neck. The gesture was unnecessary because I could see the hate in his eyes. Like I said, he's a big guy. I felt myself shrink inside at the threat, where I found that soft feeling again.

The second half went more our way. We had them on the defensive for most of it, but they adapted quickly, and we couldn't break through their line. It looked like we were heading for a draw, right up to the last minute, when I found myself with the ball in the middle of their half, facing a stampede and with no-one clear to pass to.

Normally the best thing to do under those circumstances was to punt the ball forward into the other team and block them as they brought it back our way, but there wasn't enough time left for that to lead to a try for either of team. The posts were a long way off, but I had to try. I drop kicked the ball a fraction of a second before I disappeared under a wave of muscle and attitude.

I tucked in and waited for the maelstrom to subside. When it did, I could hear cheering, and I was pulled out from under the pile of bodies and lifted onto a couple of the guys' shoulders. Somehow the kick had flown straight and far enough to pass been the posts.

"That was a stupid risk," Bailey said when the celebrating had died down.

"What else was I going to do?" I asked.

"You could have gone down and protected the ball."

"Which would have achieved what?"

"It would have protected the draw."

"It's better to win though, isn't it?"

"What if you'd fumbled?"

"I didn't, and what's the point of playing if you're not going to try?"

"Watch your back, Merrick. You may be everyone's hero right now, but one day soon, I'll make you sorry for what you pulled today."

You'd have thought he'd be happy. A win with him as captain did more to benefit him than a loss, no matter whose play brought it about. Unless of course he’d planned to throw the game.

That was an unworthy thought. I shook it away.

We played on to the end of the match, and we were pretty amped up by the drop goal, so they had no chance of breaking our defences. The whistle blew and we ran off to cheers from the whole crowd. The Crestwell captain shook hands with Bailey, then came over and did the same to me.

"Blinder of a field goal, mate. No shame in losing to a play like that."

I grinned back at him and there was that soft feeling again, stronger this time. I swallowed and tried to suppress it.

"Hi Phil."

I recognised the voice, but the person who spoke was a stranger. I did a double take.

"Stacey?"

She was wearing a very pretty and respectable summer dress. White with blue and pink flowers on it. Her face was unpainted and showed off a pretty spray of freckles. She looked stunning.

"I took your advice," she said. "I didn't much like the girl I saw in the mirror, so I kept trying things til I did."

"You look lovely," I said, and she blushed. The way she moved, hunching her shoulders and squirming in the spot, put me in mind of that soft feeling I'd been experiencing, and brought it to the fore. Somehow though, this time it seemed to bloom and grow inside me. I had no control over it.

"What's the matter?" Stacey asked.

Run and hide the man had said. How did he know?

"I gotta go," I said and ran. Where to though? The changing room was going to be full of my team mates, so no hiding there. I made a dash for the school complex. I didn't know the layout at all, but I had to hide before this feeling overwhelmed me, somehow I knew I had to.

I was a fast runner, which meant I made it into cover in next to no time. I found a bike shed and dashed behind it. Moments later, the softness washed through me filling me with an unexpected wave of pleasure. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around myself, letting out a gasp as the feeling took me over completely. I have no idea how long it lasted, but when I finally opened my eyes, the world was very different.

Twice as big for one thing. My shorts and socks had fallen around my ankles, my feet felt tiny inside my boots and my rugby shirt was hanging around my knees. Long, dark hair framed my field of vision. I looked at my hands, tiny against the sleeves of my shirt, and slender and delicate. I didn't need anyone to tell me what had happened, except it was impossible, wasn't it?

I was my little girl dream self, but how, in the middle of the day with me wide awake? This sort of thing just didn't happen. I felt tears welling up inside me. What was I going to do?

"Phil?" a gentle voice asked tentatively from the other side of the bike sheds.

"Go away," I said, unfortunately in a little girl voice.

Stacey appeared around the corner, wide eyed, staring at me.

"No way!" she breathed.

"Leave me alone," I said, squatting where I stood, hoping that somehow she'd think I was some waif from a nearby estate and let me be.

"That is you, isn't it, Phil? I mean that's your kit, but how..."

The tears burst through at that moment, and Stacey wrapped her arms around me. I don't know why it felt so good, but it did. I was terrified. Scared of what was happening to me, scared of what people would say and do when they found out what I had become, scared of everything, and to have someone's arms around me while I washed the terror from me with my tears was, wonderful.

At last the flow began to subside. There was no way I could convince Stacey I was someone else now, besides, I needed an ally.

"I'm supposed to be getting changed and going back to school with the rest of them," I snivelled. "I can't go in there looking like this."

"Why don't I go talk to Mr Grimes?" Stacey suggested. "I'll say you're walking home with me. I can pick up your things and..."

"And what? Grimsey won't let you take my stuff, and he'll want to know where I am. I'm guessing they'll be talking about that field goal all the way home."

"I could call your Mum," she said, reaching for her purse.

"I don't know her number. I mean it's in my phone, but that's in the locker room. They're going to come looking for me soon, then what'll I do?"

"Why don't I go and talk with Grimsey anyway? It'll at least give us a bit of time before they start looking, and if we disappear after that, he won't be all that worried."

It wasn’t the worst plan ever.

"Okay, but don't be long. I don't like being alone."

With her off on her errand of mercy, I tried to sort something out with my clothes. My shorts and pants were a waste of time. I had about half the waist I was used to and there was no way I'd be able to persuade them to stay up. The socks were similarly not doing me any good, and I'd have a better chance using my boots as boats than as footwear.

"So, you had the good sense to run, at least," the guy with the glasses peered around the corner at me.

Now I really was scared. Little girl me had no chance against this guy if he decided to try something. I couldn't fight him, I couldn't run from him. What's more, he knew something about all this. Had he done it to me?

"What do you want?"

"I want you to be okay, Phillip. This day has been coming for a long time. I would have liked to give you some preparation before today, but your father refused to believe me."

"What's happening to me?"

"That I will explain at a later time. For now, that boy on your team you were arguing with on the field..."

"Pete Bailey? He's the team captain."

"He is a dummkopf. He does not listen to your ideas, even though they are good, and he is angry that the team won because of you, not him."

"I suppose, but I shouldn't have..."

"Nein, nein, nein. You must find your anger towards him. He nearly lost the match. Think about how you felt when you were shouting at him. Feel that anger again."

"Why should I?"

"Because anger is your way back, yes?"

"Did you do this to me?"

"In a way, yes, I suppose I did. Yes, if you cannot feel anger towards your friend, feel angry toward me. Find your anger though, and let it grow. Do you want to be a little girl forever?"

"No." The thought terrified me, and I started to cry again.

"Don't cry," the man said. "This will not happen. You will be a boy again, but you need to find your anger."

"Why is this happening to me?" I wailed, fear and misery filling me, but no anger.

The man snorted in exasperation. "Because you do not try. You do not try. You do not try at school, so you are always in trouble, and you do not try now."

"I do try though." There, a spark.

"I do not believe you. You nearly lost your game today because you did not try."

"That's not true." Definite anger, and growing.

"So, if you try, how is it you only win today because of luck? If you try, why is your bag filled with extra work to improve your mathematics? If you try, why is it all your results and your expected grades are E and D? If you try, why is your mother so worried for you?"

"Stop it!" I could feel myself growing, my voice deepening.

"Good." He nodded. "Hold onto your anger and pull up your shorts. Your shirt does not cover you now. I will talk to you again soon."

He turned and hurried off, just as Stacey and Mr Grime's voice reached me.

"I told you, Mr Grimes, he said he was going to walk me home."

"Yes, and I wasn't born yesterday Miss Owen. Behind here, is he?"

I grabbed my shorts and pulled them up just before the two of them appeared around the corner.

"Mr Grimes, no." Stacey tried to grab him, but he shrugged her off.

"Mr Merrick," Grimsey fixed me with a knowing grin. "Thought you'd celebrate your win with a little roll in the hay, did you? I thought you had more sense, and more self-respect."

"Sir, it's not like that."

"Yeah, sure it's not. Go and get changed. And you, Miss Owen. I'll be having words with your parents."

"Sir," I insisted, "it's really not like that."

"Which of course is why you were just pulling your shorts up when I arrived."

"It's not what you think, sir."

"Then do tell me what you were doing."

I had to turn his attention onto me, make it my fault.

"When they beat us at home last time, I heard one of them took a dump behind our bike sheds. I figured I'd return the complement." I managed to look shame faced. "I told Stacey I'd walk her home and sent her to try and talk you into giving her my stuff. I figured it would give me enough time."

"I'm not sure I believe my ears. Do you have any idea who would get to clear up a mess like that?"

"No sir."

"Well it wouldn't be the Crestwell rugby team, would it? Groundsman maybe? And what has he done to deserve you making his job that much more disgusting."

"I didn't think of it that way sir."

"Well that's you all over isn't it Merrick? You don't think. Get to the changing room and get your gear. You, Miss Owen, you'd better get off home. And watch it, I have my eye on you."

Stacey flashed me a grateful look and ran. I was in trouble now, and there wouldn't be any praise for my part of winning the rugby, but at least I had something to hang my anger on.

-oOo-

"Where is he?"

Dad's hackles were definitely raised. Best to face the music earlier rather than later. I climbed off my bed and headed downstairs.

The trip home in the minibus had been one long lecture on appropriate behaviour when visiting other schools. It didn't help that the more juvenile members of the team found it so funny they couldn't keep from smiling. It may have deflected some of Grimsey's anger, but it fuelled it too. When we arrived back at the school, he dismissed us and made a bee line for his office. That meant phone calls and eventually this awkward encounter.

I edged cautiously into view until Dad caught sight of me.

"Would you like to explain to me what your teacher was telling me about you having a dump in the other school’s grounds?"

"I didn't do anything, Dad."

"Not for lack of trying from what I hear."

"I said it to protect someone."

"Yeah right."

"The girl I was with. Mr Grimes thought she was, er trying to show her appreciation behind the bike sheds."

"And was she?"

"No. I mean she has a bit of a reputation for spreading it about, but she's trying to change. She didn't need a false accusation going back to her mum and dad."

"So, what were you doing behind the bike sheds?"

"I was hiding, Dad."

"Hiding? Who from?"

"Everyone, Dad. I didn't want them to see that I'd turned into a little girl."

That got a reaction, though I couldn't quite make out what.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dad said, not at all convincingly.

"Don't treat me like an idiot, Dad. He said he knew you and Mum."

"Who did?"

"The guy with the glasses and the accent. He said Mum had called him."

Dad shot a poisonous look across the lounge, promising an argument for later, when I was in bed.

"What did he tell you?”

"He said not to be submissive, to keep aggressive, and if I felt something weird, I was to run and hide. I didn't really get the weird feeling till the game was over, then it felt like I was drowning in it, so I ran. When Stacey found me, I was two foot shorter, ten years younger and missing a few crucial bits of my anatomy."

"I don't believe this, it's not possible."

I'd managed to hold onto my anger all this while, but now I'd had my say, it melted away like a snowball in summer. I could see Dad hadn’t hidden things from me on purpose; he was just trying his best not to believe any of it. Then there was Mum, stuck in the middle, trying to balance what she knew and wanted to tell me against Dad's refusal to accept the not-so-impossible. She gave me a look that expressed all her regret, and it melted me from the inside out.

The softness was back. I could probably have stopped it if I’d wanted, but it was about time Dad got himself a reality check, or unreality check, or whatever this was. I reached for the feeling, immersed myself in it, experienced the same wave of pleasure. When I opened my eyes, everything was two feet taller.

"Well by all means, have a go at explaining this."

It was becoming a familiar feeling, kecks round my ankles, oversized shirt hanging to my knees, long dark hair cascading over my shoulders, squeaky little girl voice.

Both Mum's and Dad's faces were priceless. Eyes wide, jaws loose. I stepped out of my trousers and went to Mum, holding up my arms and climbing into her lap.

"I don't have any underwear," I whispered into her ear.

"It's alright darling. I'm so sorry."

"I know. Daddy, it's still me, and I don't know what's happening. Please tell me what I am."

He walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a stiff drink, downed half of it and turned to me.

"Can you control it? This change you do?"

"Not really. This is only the second time it's happened to me. The first was after the match when I got this really soft feeling inside and it took over; I couldn't have stopped it if I'd tried. The second was just now, when I stopped being angry with you and Mummy, I felt it again, only this time I kind of reached for it."

"How did you change back last time?"

"The man with the glasses made me angry. I think he did it on purpose."

"Can you change back now?"

"I don't feel angry, just tired."

"But what if you're like this in the morning?"

"I don't think she will be, or he. Phillip, you've done this a lot more than twice."

"My dreams, yeah."

"Your dreams?" Dad demanded.

"I told you I dreamt of being a little girl once. You got quite angry and told me to stop."

"So why didn't you?"

"When was the last time you managed to control one of your dreams?" I turned to Mum. "You watched me sometimes, didn't you? I could feel someone."

"I hope I didn't scare you."

"No, it made me feel safe." I offered her a smile.

"So, what do we do now?" Mum asked.

Dad shook his head.

"I think we should call Dr Wiesner."

"He's the one who caused this," Dad said angrily.

"He's the one who gave us our son back in the first place. And he did warn us something like this might happen someday."

"I thought he was joking."

"Well evidently not. He helped Phillip today, he might be able to help him more."

"Who is he, Mummy?"

Mum glanced at Dad, who shrugged his shoulders.

"There was a time about ten years ago when we took you to see the doctor, I don't know if you remember."

"With the big machines and the tubes and wires everywhere?"

"You remember that? But it was so long ago."

"Hard to forget Mummy. The place scared the willies out of me, literally it seems," I added putting my hands into my very empty lap. I couldn't help giggling at my own joke.

"How can you laugh about something like that?" Dad wanted to know. "I can't believe you're not totally freaked out about it. I am going out of my head just looking at you."

"It did scare me badly the first time, but… I don't know how to explain this. Now I’ve had a chance to think about it calmly, I guess I feel it completes me, sort of. It's like this is the bit of me I've been missing for years."

“What do you mean the bit of you that’s been missing?” Dad asked.

“I felt like I lost a part of myself back with those big machines and stuff. Between that and the dreams – which I guess weren’t dreams at all – I’ve had a hard time concentrating on anything.”

Mum looked at Dad with one of her imploring looks. "David, Dr Wiesner would be so much better at explaining this than either of us. Please."

"Sure, why not? Since you seem intent on calling him regardless of what I say."

"I only did what I thought was best for Phillip."

"And I haven't, I suppose?"

"You've been too busy pretending there isn't a problem."

Dad bit back whatever retort had sprung to mind, then he threw his hands up in the air. "Well, go on then. You've made your mind up."

"I want it to be a decision we make together."

"Well I don't have a lot of choice, do I?"

"Okay, tell me what you think is right for our child."

I squirmed around making myself comfortable. I thought about putting my thumb in my mouth, but that might have been pushing things too far.

His shoulders slumped. "I guess you're right. Call Dr Wiesner."

Mum picked up a phone and dialled. A short conversation later, she hung up. "He says he'll be here in fifteen minutes. I've just had a thought, let me have a look in the loft. I think I may have something that will fit you."

Five minutes later, she was back with a dusty old box filled with some of my old clothes.

"Why on Earth do we have that in our loft?" Dad asked.

"There was a time we talked about having a brother or sister for Phillip, about the time his problems rose to the surface. The doctor told us that the chances of us having another one like him were slim to none, but you decided against it. I put these away just in case you ever changed your mind."

They were boy’s shorts and shirts, socks and underwear. Looking at them filled me with an odd sense of disappointment, but I put them on anyway, and they were more comfortable.

The doorbell rang and Dad answered it, returning with the guy with glasses.

"Ah, Phillip, I see you have found your inner girl again. How are you feeling?"

"Tired, confused and a little bit anxious to understand what's happening to me."

"Just so, just so. And what have your parents told you?"

"Nothing much. Just that they took me to see a doctor ten years ago."

"Good, then I can begin at the beginning, yes?"

"Sounds like a plan."

-oOo-

"What do you understand about genetics?" Dr Wiesner asked.

I shrugged. "Pretty much what we learn in school. Nucleus contains chromosomes which are made up of DNA. DNA is a couple of long strands of amino acids in a specific order. Groups of the amino acids are called genes, and they act as the template the cells use to create proteins, enzymes, hormones, that kind of stuff."

It had been one of my rare good days when we studied genetics.

"Nucleic acids rather than amino acids, but otherwise correct. How many chromosomes are there in a human cell?"

Okay not perfect, but still good for me.

"Er, four, er forty-six."

"Good. What if I told you that you were born with forty-seven?"

"That doesn't sound right."

"And yet it happens. When you were conceived, the sperm that fertilised your egg possessed both an X and a Y chromosome."

"How do you know it was my sperm?" Dad asked.

"We analysed Phillip's X and Y chromosomes and compared them to yours and your wife's. One of the X's matches your DNA.

"The condition is called Klinefelter's Syndrome. It is quite common and can have quite severe side effects. Your parents had you tested at a young age because you showed signs of slow development, and when the diagnosis was made, your doctor contacted me.

"Modern medicine has no cure for your condition, but I had, and have, been working on an alternate therapy. It's highly experimental, even now, but you were an ideal candidate.

"I explained what the treatment was, what its benefits might be, as well as its risks, and your parents agreed to it"

"You did not tell us that something like this might happen," Dad said.

The doctor refused to be drawn into an argument.

"My method works by tagging specific chromosomes with a radioisotope. In your case, that meant the X and Y chromosomes that came from your father. I then used something called a quantum resonator to copy all untagged chromosomes, then a phase shifter to take a copy of those copied chromosomes, along with the X chromosome from your father, and push them into an alternate space, slightly out of phase with our own reality. Essentially, I made two copies of you, the one you have inhabited for the past ten years, and this one, which has been uninhabited and existing in a sort of timeless limbo for most of the same amount of time."

"I didn't think that's how genetics worked though," I said. "If I had mixed DNA to start with, and it made a sort of muddled version of me, how would separating out the two sorts of DNA unmuddle what had already been done?"

"It didn't. Time did that. You were young, and with the right drugs, your bodies were able to correct themselves."

"But you said this body was in a, what did you call it? A timeless limbo. How did this body find time to correct itself?"

"You're very clever, very observant, so I believe you may have a suspicion or two. You may have noticed your other body hasn't developed quite as much as your peers. This is because during the night, this body has been asserting itself for two or perhaps three hours. You haven't been aware of it because you were asleep, except your mother tells me you have been dreaming.

“I told your parents this change would happen, but they probably wouldn’t notice it for some time. For the past ten years, the female version of your body has been shifting into this phase while you slept, and because it has been putting all of its energy into repairing itself, you have not been aware of it. Now that it has more or less finished with the adjustments, you have started to become aware of your other self when you shift into it.

"I told your parents that they would perhaps not notice the little girl phase for many, many years, and I must say I didn't expect it to repair itself this quickly, but Mr Merrick, I did tell you that your child's female side would always be close, and would perhaps cross into this world from time to time. I did tell you that he would need my help to adapt."

"Yeah, but I thought... I thought you meant he would have a tendency to act girly, not actually become a girl."

"That's why you encouraged me to get involved in all the sports things,” I said. “You were trying to man me up." Weird words to say when you have the voice of a six-year-old girl. "Anyway, what happens now?"

"You have to learn to live with it. You know the feelings that make you change. Once you have learned to recreate those feelings inside yourself, you will be able to change whenever you choose. But you will also have to learn to guard against those feelings, so you don't change when it is inconvenient.

"Overall, you are very fortunate. You have two lifetimes to live, and you will experience life as a man and as a woman. It is good yes? Certainly better than if I had not treated you."

“I don’t know what I would have been like if you hadn’t treated me.”

“Not so clever, perhaps a little clumsy, you would have a body that was mainly male, but with more female features, like breasts and wide hips. Instead you can be both a normal man and a normal woman at different times.”

"Not entirely normal, and it's going to be a bit tough explaining what's happened to me when I change in the middle of the school day."

"This we can help with a little I think, and you also can help us."

"What do you mean?"

"This I need to discuss with your parents as well, but you are uniquely qualified to do some things in secret, because your other self, this self," he indicated my current state, "is not known to anyone."

"Are you talking about turning my son into a spy?" Mum asked. "Because absolutely not!"

"Not a spy, Mrs Merrick, but perhaps an agent for justice. He is already fit and strong, and we can train him well enough to keep him safe."

"Can you promise me he won't get hurt?"

"Of course not, but there is risk in all life. Surely it is better to be prepared for when there is danger than to hide away and try to be always safe."

"He's right, Mum, and I do think we owe him for what he's done."

"How can we know you're the good guys?" Dad asked. "I don't want my son getting involved in anything illegal."

Dr Wiesner reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin wallet which, when opened, identified him as having a respected status within both NATO and Interpol.

"We will have to take you out of school to train you."

"That shouldn't be too hard,” Dad said. “He's just been given a week's suspension for grossly inappropriate behaviour at school."

Dr Wiesner looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment, then light dawned. "Ah, what you told your teacher at the school today. That was clever. Inventive, and thoughtful to protect your friend."

"You heard that?"

"Yes. I was close for all the time you were at the other school. I would like also to talk to your friend. It is important she tells no-one about how you can change."

"I don't have her number, and I only know roughly where she lives."

"With her name, this should be enough."

I told him what I knew, and he made a call.

"She will be brought here in maybe half an hour. Perhaps you should change back."

"I don't feel angry though."

"Anger is not necessary, just easiest. When I spoke of your working for us, how did you feel?"

"A little bit scared, a little bit excited."

"Yes. It is the fear in this matter that comes from the girl inside you, and the excitement from the boy. Perhaps you should change out of your little clothes before you try this."

I ran to my room and came back wearing only my oversized dressing gown.

"Good," the doctor said. "Now think about working for us. Push down your fear and focus on the excitement."

I did, and in a similar way to before, the more aggressive side of my nature grew to fill me, and I was back in my usual body.

"That’s just freaky," Dad said. "I never thought I'd be living in a science fiction world."

"You have been for many years Mr Merrick, but many of the new discoveries, like the one that helped your son, are kept secret, and very many are not being used for good. Most often it is private corporations where power is given to the unscrupulous and greedy, but also there are governments using such technology for personal gain. This is why we need people like Phillip, to help bring things back into balance."

The doorbell rang and Dad answered it, admitting a nervous Stacey who'd been brought by a chatty and cheerful young woman.

"Miss Owen," Dr Wiesner greeted her. "Please don't be nervous, you aren't in any trouble."

"She said she was from social services, said she needed to hear about what happened with Phil at the school. Honestly, he did nothing. He was trying to protect me."

"I know, and neither of you are in trouble, I assure you. It is from concern that you saw your friend looking a little different that I have brought you here."

"What, you mean the little girl thing? That was so unreal. I'm still struggling to believe it actually happened."

"We need you to keep quiet about what you saw, Stacey," I said.

"Well duh. It's not as if anyone would believe me anyway."

"Yes, good, but we may need a little more from you as well. Your friend has agreed to help with some investigations. These will happen during school visits, and he will need someone to cover for him. You would be willing to do this for him perhaps?"

Stacey looked at me. "Well yeah, I guess. I really owe you for taking the hit today. This is above board, isn't it?"

I nodded and the doctor showed her his credentials.

"There will be some appreciation shown for your help," the doctor said. "Not money I'm afraid, but there will be payment of a sort.

"But now, I need to speak with your parents, Phillip. Perhaps you and your friend would like to be alone?"

I looked at Dad, who nodded, then indicated that Stacey should follow me to my room.

"You okay? I asked as soon as the door was closed. I mean Grimsey called my Dad. I was wondering if he called your folks as well."

"Yeah, he did. They're not happy, but Grimsey couldn't say for sure that we were in cahoots, so they're giving me a warning. Thanks for covering for me. It would have been a lot worse if my folks had thought we'd been, you know..."

"Yeah, that's what I figured."

"What about you though?"

"I've been suspended for a week. It's no big deal."

"No, it is. That'll go on your permanent record. It'll affect you when you go to college or university. It'll affect you getting a job."

"I doubt I'll be going to college or uni, and I think I've found the job I want to do anyway."

"Is he for real, that guy?"

"Yeah, apparently he treated me for a condition I had when I was younger, and this changing thing I can do is a side effect."

"So you really do change? I wasn’t sure I trusted what I was seeing earlier."

"Oh, it's for real."

"Can you change now?"

"I guess I can try."

I tried to feel for that soft place, but I couldn't find it. There were all sorts of other feelings getting in the way.

"Nothing's happening," she said, rather obviously.

"I know. I guess I don't feel much like being a girl right now."

"What do you mean?"

I looked her in the eyes. There were traces of makeup, but nothing like the plaster job she'd been doing, and she was wearing a different dress, again not too revealing, not too short. She seemed relaxed in it, if a little nervous over being here, but she was her real self, and that made her beautiful.

"I mean," I said feeling nervous, "I'd really like to kiss you now."

There was that breathless moment as we drifted gradually closer to one another, then our lips met, and it was magical. The softness filled me and suddenly I was too short, and it was all totally weird.

"Wow!" She pulled back, wiping her lips. "Is that going to happen every time we kiss?"

"I hope not," I squeaked. "I don't know what happened there."

"Well, no worries. We can always try that again later. I did bring something for you, just in case all this was real." She reached into her somewhat cavernous handbag. "My little sister's about your age, and she's just grown out of a few things. I wondered if you'd like them."

The first thing she pulled out was a dress. It was all frills and flowers, and my heart quite literally leapt at the sight of it.

"Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you so much. Are you sure?"

"My mum was going to take it down to the charity shop, so yes."

I squirmed out of my dressing gown, which wasn't particularly difficult as I want so much wearing it anymore as inhabiting it.

"Wow, you really are all girl, aren't you?"

I looked down to where she was looking. It certainly wasn't masculine genitalia, though I hadn't any first-hand experience of other girls, so I wasn't really in a place to judge.

I grabbed the underwear I'd been wearing earlier and pulled it on, then I held up my arms so Stacey could put the dress on me.

"Yep, really all girl, from head to tail."

I don't know what it is about wearing a dress that makes it feel so good. I felt so soft inside, I felt like I never wanted to change back, and I couldn't stop grinning. The girl of my dreams had been pretty enough just in my pyjama top, but the reflection in the mirror now was truly spectacular.

There was a knock on the door. "You two alright in there?" Dad asked. "You're not going to make me regret letting you take a girl into your room wearing nothing but your dressing gown, are you son?"

I threw the door open and flung my arms around his knees. "Look what Stacey gave me Daddy, isn't it lovely?"

I jumped back and twirled for my father.

He stood, stunned and silent for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not sure which is worse, this or what I thought you might be getting up to. Dr Wiesner is leaving now, and his friend said she'd take Stacey home, so would you both come downstairs with me please."

Mum's eyes widened at the sight of me, and a dreamy smile drifted across her face. Dr Wiesner raised an eyebrow and suppressed his own grin.

"I will see you on Monday, Phillip," he said, and placed his hat on his head.

"I guess I'll see you in a week," Stacey said, giving me a gentle squeeze. “Can I have your number though, so we can keep in touch?”

I fetched my phone and gave her my contact details. The house emptied, and it was just the three of us.

"I can't believe my son would get so excited about wearing a dress," Dad said shaking his head

"Dad, you're going to have to get used to it. Right now I'm not your son."

"What do you mean?"

"This body may have started out as a boy, but for the last ten years, for as long as I've been sleeping in it, it's been fed on oestrogen. No slugs and snails left here Dad, just sugar and spice."

"Yes, but your mind hasn't changed, has it?"

"No, but then my mind was always missing something, Dad. This is it. However weird this sounds, this completes me, and I'm sorry if you don't like it, but while I'm a girl, I will be all girl, Daddy."

"Well, since that's the case," Mum said, "how would my daughter like to go out shopping with her Mummy tomorrow?"

"You're both crazy," Dad said in response to my delighted squeal. "What if someone recognises you? They know you don't have a daughter."

"I might have a niece visiting," Mum said, "or we could go some distance away where no-one knows us."

"And what if he turns back into a boy in the middle of the shopping centre?"

"There's really no danger of that, Dad. Right now I have no idea how I'm ever going to change back into my male self. I feel so girly, and I'm loving it."

"I need a drink," he said.

"You need to face up to reality, darling," Mum said, "and accept that the world doesn't always work the way you'd like."

"Daddy, can't you be happy for me? I mean if I'd been born a girl, you'd have loved me just as much wouldn't you?"

"You weren't born a girl."

"No, from what Dr Wiesner says, I was kind of born a mix. Then he separated the two parts, and now you get to have both of me."

"Fine have your girly time. I'm going down the pub." He grabbed his coat and was gone before either Mum or I could react.

-oOo-

I'd always hated clothes shopping, always needed an incentive; the promise of an ice cream, or a toy or a comic or something. This was totally different.

Dresses, skirts, tops, shorts, shoes, even underwear, it was all a delight. Accessories too, bags and jewellery, Mum even bought me some toys appropriate to my apparent age and gender.

"What if you need to play with other girls your age? You’ll need something."

So I ended up with a couple of dolls, a My Little Pony set and a toy makeup kit.

"We can decorate the small room for you as well," Mum said. "What colours would you like?"

"Pink and purple," I answered immediately and somewhat inevitably.

"We need to think of a name for you as well. I can't keep calling you Phillip."

"How about Philippa then."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it sounds a lot like my boy name, so even if one of us makes a mistake, it should be easy to cover up."

“It’s not that likely that I’d name my children Phillip and Philippa.”

“So I guess I’ll have to be your niece, and maybe Aunt Lilly liked Phillip’s name so much, she decided to use something like it on me.”

"Well, alright Philippa. Welcome to the family. Do you think you'll be with us for long? I suspect your father would prefer to have his son back."

"I'll try when we get home this evening, but right now I'm enjoying myself too much."

"Me too. Personally, I am rather loving having a daughter – or a niece – to spoil."

The rest of the day was a joyfest. There was fish and chips for lunch and ice cream in the park afterwards. We found a travelling funfair and went on the Ferris wheel and the roundabout, and the ghost train. It was all a bit naff, but I had little girl hormones, regardless of my actual age, and somehow, they made the experience magical for me. What's more, there was magic to spare and my enjoyment of everything bubbled over into Mum, so we both loved it.

It was getting late when we staggered through the front door, our arms laden with the spoils of our morning exploits. Dad was waiting in the lounge, and he wasn't happy.

"Where have you two been? I've been waiting here all day."

"I left you a note, David," Mum said calmly.

"Yeah, I read it. Gonna make a day of it, you said. What did you expect me to do?"

"Well, you didn't consult with me before you made a night of it last night. Then when you finally came in, you were not in a state to talk, and this morning you were still passed out at eight-thirty when we were ready to leave. You want to have a discussion on the topic, why not start there?"

Dad actually had the good grace to look ashamed. It looked like they were going to make up any moment, and no self-respecting teen should be forced to experience that.

"I'll just go and get changed," I said, and disappeared to my room with as many bags as my little arms could manage.

In my room I changed out of my dress and into my dressing gown. It was enough. I could feel the hard, self-reliant centre of my male self, and I reached for it. It took a while to embrace it fully, because I’d really enjoyed being Philippa and I didn't want to stop, but I told myself there would be a next time, and it would be so much the better if I stopped now before I wanted to. Cold, hard logic. Another predominantly masculine trait. It swung the balance, and I was me again.

Well I guess I'd still been me as Philippa, but this was the original me. I found I rather liked being back this way.

I dug a pair of jeans and a tee shirt out of my wardrobe, dressed and re-joined my parents who'd just made it past the grossest part of making up. Well apart from the sex, but euw, I was not ready to even think about that.

Sorry about the euw; still some little girl in there somewhere I suppose.

"Well," Dad said, "I guess we're going to have to redefine getting changed in this family."

"Welcome back, Phillip," Mum said. "Your choice. Help me make dinner, or go watch the football with your Dad?"

"Sorry Dad, I guess I'll stick with Mum a bit longer."

Dad shook his head. "You may not be wearing a dress anymore son, but you might as well be."

"You could always help too," I suggested.

"No thanks, I'm good."

"And that's why you miss out on great things, like today," I said and pulled out the pinkest, frilliest apron I could find in the drawer. I did it deliberately, to get a rise out of him, and it worked. Mum and Dad may have made up, but I guess I was still a little angry with him.

-oOo-

Monday morning arrived, and so did Dr Wiesner, bright and early at six o'clock. Mum was up and let him in, then knocked on my door.

I staggered down in my PJ's and dressing gown, yawning wide enough to swallow the world.

"On a school day I don't usually get up before seven-thirty," I said, gratefully accepting the glass of OJ Mum gave me.

"Well, you are excluded from school," she replied with a gentle smile, "so there ought to be some degree of punishment."

"I already told you, I didn't do anything wrong."

"This is true," Dr Wiesner said, "but then the school does not know this. When you return in a week, you should seem happy to be back, so I will make sure you are."

"What do I need to bring?" I asked around another yawn, as a bowl of cereal appeared in front of me.

"Just some clothes. Your phone as well if you wish, but you will not be able to use it much, and it will be taken from you if you do not leave it when you are told."

"Little girl clothes?"

"Perhaps some, but you will not need many."

"It's alright Phillip, I already packed for you."

I finished my breakfast, then did my impression of a zombie going for a shower. By six-thirty Dr Wiesner and I were out the door with my small bag of clothes.

We drove for an hour and a half out into the middle of nowhere, and ended up at an abandoned airfield.

Well, not quite abandoned. There were soldiers on the gates and patrolling the fence.

"To keep people out," Dr Wiesner explained. "They're there for your protection."

"So if I wanted to leave, they'd let me?"

"Well no. For now, we need also to protect you from yourself."

We drove onto the field, where a number of tents had been raised next to the main runway. Dr Wiesner pulled up beside one of them.

"Here is where you will sleep. There is a camp bed inside, and a place to leave your bag."

"What's the plan for the week?" I asked.

"For much of it, we will work on your fitness."

"I'm already fit, you said so earlier."

"Ha-ha-ha. You English and your sense of humour, always joking. We will also work on teaching you to control the change, and we will train you for your first mission."

"Already? I thought that was in the future, after I'd left school."

"No. We need you now. Does this displease you?"

"No, just surprises me."

"Okay then. We start easy today. You have ten minutes to put away your things and to change into the clothes you will find, then you will bring out the bergen that is in there and join the soldiers here for exercises on the runway."

"What about my phone?"

"Leave it. It will be safe in your tent."

"Where do I charge it?"

"There is electricity in the main building. You may bring it to charge when we eat our meals. For the rest of the time, I recommend you leave it turned off. You now have nine minutes."

"Ha-ha-ha. You Germans and your sense of humour," I said with a smile.

He didn't look like he was joking though. I jumped out of the car and dashed in the tent.

Less than ten minutes later I was back out in the open, wearing the course army fatigues that had been laid out on the camp bed and carrying the uncomfortable weight of the bergen on my back.

A group of soldiers stood nearby. I jogged over to join them. The guy standing in front of them did not look particularly happy.

"What are you dawdling for?" he bellowed as I approached.

I picked up my pace and joined them in short order.

"I am not happy," he yelled into my face. "My job is to get this lot into shape, and I do not like baby-sitting snot nosed, wet behind the ears, snivelling little turds like you. You will keep up; do you understand?"

"Yes sir!" I yelled back in his face.

"You will call me sergeant," he yelled back, to which I gave the expected reply. I'd seen enough war films to know how things like this worked.

We started off by marching the length of the runway and back. My stride was naturally shorter than most of the others, so I had to step longer than I normally would, which meant I was tiring before we'd completed even one full length. By the time we'd been doing it for a couple of hours, I was beginning to see why Dr Wiesner had laughed at me. The others weren't even breathing hard, and I was nearly spent.

Then the sergeant called for double time, and the column broke into a trot. The straps of the bergen were really biting into my shoulders, but I ground my teeth at the pain and tried to keep up.

Twice more we covered the mile of runway back and forth before arriving back outside my tent.

The sergeant called for a halt, then proceeded to yell at us for a further ten minutes. He walked up and down the line of soldiers, commenting to each one loud enough for his insults to be heard by all.

"Pathetic," he yelled into my face. "My six-year-old daughter could do better."

I stood as straight as I could, breathed as shallow as I could, and held onto my anger. There was a part of me inside that just wanted to break down and cry, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. Or to risk what that might bring.

"Thirty minutes to chow down," the sergeant yelled at us all. "Fall out."

I noticed more than one pair of shoulders slump as we headed for our various billets. I dumped my bergen and hunted out my phone and charger before heading for the hangar and the promise of food.

The afternoon was calisthenics. No weight on our backs, but more running and stopping for press-ups or sit-ups, or any of a number of different exercises. I was washed out by late afternoon when we stopped.

I was given orders to shower and join Dr Wiesner in the hanger, which I managed, although I had very little strength left.

He smiled as I entered. "Good afternoon my young friend. You are feeling fit?"

What I wasn't feeling was in a mood for his playful banter. I grunted.

"Change into this please," he said handing me what looked like a wrestler's singlet, only for someone half my size.

"It's a little small, isn't it?"

"It is designed to stretch. There is a screen here."

So I changed out of my clothes and into the costume. The legs came down to just above my knees and the arms almost to my elbows, but surprisingly it wasn't tight.

He nodded approvingly when I emerged.

"This will be better for you than your underwear," he said. “Now change.”

"What, back into my clothes?" I asked, more than a little stupefied in my exhaustion.

"No, into your other self."

I gave him an incredulous stare. "I'm too tired."

"And yet you need to learn to control this at all times."

I took a deep breath and tried to focus. Fortunately, my outing with Mum was fresh in my memory. I thought about the best of the day, of looking through all the clothes and finding a succession of delights to try on – little girl clothes really are among the prettiest things you're likely to find – of screaming with fright and exhilaration at the rather mundane fairground rides, size making all the difference to the experience.

A smile slowly spread across my face and I felt the softness envelop me.

"Very good," Dr Wiesner said. "Now change back."

I opened my eyes and found the doctor looking down at me from twice the height.

I looked at myself, and the singlet was now more of a body stocking, the legs and sleeves now reaching to my ankles and wrists. It didn't feel much looser, and it looked kind of neat. Perhaps not the sort of thing a seven-year-old girl would normally wear, but it was comfy and it felt right for me.

In response to Dr Wiesner's instructions, I directed my attention to my feelings for the sergeant. The way I felt about him made the change back easy.

"Very good. Now back to the girl."

And so the afternoon passed with me flipping back and forth between my two selves. By the time I'd been doing it for three hours, I could pretty much achieve the change more or less instantly.

Five o'clock arrived and I was allowed some time to myself. I collected my phone and turned it on. A succession of texts scrolled across the screen, most from my mates at school, several from Stacey, and even a couple from Mum.

I read the ones from Stacey first. They were friendly and upbeat. A couple were for me as Phillip, and one for me as Philippa. In the privacy of my tent, I changed into my different personae for each of the messages and ended up thoroughly confusing my feelings. The Philippa me responded first, all girly and gushy and telling her about my shopping with Mum, then I transformed back into Phillip and wrote a couple of friendly, tending towards more than friendly, texts. For all that I'd been repulsed by the slutty Stacey, I found myself really liking the reformed version.

Next, I fired off a few messages to my mates, telling them about the boot camp Mum and Dad had sent me to. All part of the story to make this seem more punishment than preparation for whatever Dr Wiesner had in mind.

Finally, I read what Mum had sent. I was impressed that she'd figured out how to, not being particularly enamoured of modern technology. She'd received a stack of work from the school that I was to complete by the end of the week and wanted to know if Dr Wiesner could collect it for me. I replied to say I'd ask. I didn't much fancy facing all that homework, especially not without any teachers to ask, but if it got me out of some of the drill...

Dinner was at six-thirty, after which I joined the troop I'd been training with in the morning for a run around the perimeter track. A lot of it was overgrown with brambles and bushes, making it more of an assault course, but that just made it more of a challenge. I didn't finish first, but I beat half the field, the advantages of being small and lightweight overcoming their greater fitness.

Lights out was at nine, and early as it was, I was ready for bed. I didn't even have enough energy to shower and was out seconds after my head hit the pillow.

-oOo-

Reveille was at six the next morning. I was tired and aching, but ready to wake up. I'd slept in my singlet and found it quite comfortable. I slipped it off and shrugged on my dressing gown before heading to the communal shower. Regardless of how comfortable it was, it wasn’t likely to earn me any kudos if I was seen in it.

Not that that was likely to happen, since the others steered clear of me. Which was just as well because I felt intimidated by them, and the Philippa in me lurked close and ready to take over should I let such feelings run away with me.

The water was cold, so showering was a short necessity rather than a long luxury. I towelled off and ran back to my tent where I slipped on the spare singlet Dr Wiesner had given me and pulled my fatigues on over the top. I had no intention of transforming myself in front of the others, but wearing it helped me feel safer and better prepared.

The second day was much like the first. Punishing physical exercise throughout the morning and early afternoon, then constantly flipping back and forth between my two selves afterwards.

For some reason the transformation, which had become almost second nature the previous day, proved too hard and I faced a discouraging failure. I managed a couple of changes, but after that I became stuck – unfortunately as Philippa.

It looked like the little girl in me was here to stay for a while at least, and that would mean I’d miss dinner. Apparently Philippa's existence was above the security level of most of the personnel on base, including all the soldiers training alongside me. As usual, I was given some time to relax, and I spent it catching up on the texts my friends had sent me. Stacey in particular.

She'd sent a text for Philippa, which I read through with delight and another longer one for Phillip. It was all the push I needed to change, so at least I would eat, not before more work though. Unfortunately, the pack of homework from school had arrived, and there was a lot of it. I tackled the English first, since I didn't totally hate the subject, and the maths, as we were still on a topic I now understood. I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest.

After dinner was a repeat of the previous day, except the sergeant had threatened something unpleasant to any of his men who failed to beat me, so this time they pushed me, tripped me and held me back whenever they could. One particularly violent tug tore my blouse – yes they do call it that in the army – and revealed my singlet, which earned me some odd looks. I didn’t comment though, so they ended up just shrugging and moving on.

I thought about letting them all win but recognised that as coming from the Philippa in me. As much to keep her suppressed as anything, I fought back, taking a wider route and overtaking a good half-dozen of them before making it back to camp. I even found myself chasing a couple more guys in the sprint for the finish. One made a desperate attempt to trip me, but I jumped his sweeping leg and crossed the line ahead of him. The other guy beat me by a short head.

Or maybe I held back just enough. He gave me a grateful look as the two of us sucked in much needed oxygen, so no prizes for guessing what he thought.

I was grubby from being pushed in the mud over and over, so I forced myself to take a shower that evening. The Seven soldiers I'd beaten were all on their knees scrubbing the latrines with toothbrushes. The rest of the troop were making fun of them, which didn't seem fair.

"Tomorrow it'll be all of you," I said, as much to push Philippa down as for any other reason.

They didn't take kindly to that.

Wednesday started with something different. The sergeant had heard about my comment from the previous day and he wasn't pleased. He reamed me out, then suggested a game of fox and hound that evening, with me as the fox. He'd give me a five-minute head start then the rest would come after me. If any of them caught me, I was to be their servant for the next day. If I made it round the track and collected the dozen flags that would be placed along the way without being caught, I'd get to command the troop for the day instead.

It terrified me and excited me at the same time. I focused on the excitement to reinforce my male side and agreed.

We still had a full morning of heavy exercise, only this time I was decidedly excluded from the rest of the group.

Afternoon, I focused on changing, and used Stacey's texts to inspire me. It worked, and I had Dr Wiesner nodding approvingly after only an hour and a half.

He was all for giving me more time to do my homework, which gave me the opening I needed to talk to him.

I told him about the fox hunt, maybe hoping he'd call it off, but he seemed to think it would be a good test of my abilities. He gave me permission to switch if I wanted to, but only if I wasn't observed in the process.

Philippa wasn't anywhere near as fast as Phillip, so changing would only help me as a disguise. There weren't supposed to be any children anywhere near the base, so I'd have to stay hidden as a girl no matter what. If my abilities were going to help me, I'd have to come up with an imaginative way of using them.

I also mentioned the school assignments I couldn't do, and he suggested I ask my friends in the troop, which wasn't the greatest advice since I didn't have any. It planted the germ of an idea though, which made winning the fox hunt much more important.

I muddled through my history assignment for a while, but muddle was the best description I could give to the final result. In frustration, I turned my mind to tactics for the evening activity.

It would remain light throughout, so sneaking about in the dark was a non-starter. I couldn't allow them to see me as Philippa, so how could she help me. I went for a quick jog round the track. The flags weren't in place, but the tubes that would hold them were. All defensible positions, but hopefully vulnerable to the unexpected, if I could only figure out what the unexpected was. I studied the layout of the place and slowly a plan began to form.

At dinner, I ate sparingly, hid a few biscuits and energy bars in my fatigues, and left early to quiet jeers from my soon-to-be adversaries. On my way back to my tent, I nicked a half dozen tent pegs, one each from the first six tents I passed.

Back in my tent, I tore up an old yellow tee shirt I wasn't overly fond of, then secreted my spoils about my body and sat back to wait.

The challenge was weighted heavily against me. I needed to run the full length of the track to collect all the flags spaced along its length, whereas my rivals only needed to get ahead of me and wait. If I was to win this, I'd really need to outfox them.

Time for the evening’s entertainment approached, and I joined the troop. I'd have a five-minute head start, which wouldn't be worth anything if I ran straight and expected them to follow. Which was why I didn’t.

Part one of my plan was to try and get them to underestimate me. I was just a sixteen-year-old kid, and I looked fourteen, so I doubted they had a particularly high opinion of me. Hopefully when I set off round the track in the normal direction, they'd think I was expecting them to follow me. I'd be hidden in the undergrowth by the time I reached the first flag, and that would be when I'd take things up a notch.

Part two relied on correctly guessing what they'd do. Since they only needed to get ahead of me, their simplest course of action would be to run the track backwards, get to flag twelve and set up an ambush. Since there were Twenty of them, they'd most likely split up and leave four or five guys at each of the last few flags.

To beat them, I'd need to cut across from the first to the last flag without being seen and before my head start was over. As Phillip I had no chance. There were drainage ditches, but they were too shallow for me to hide in, and there were culverts, but they were kind of tight. As Philippa, I'd be able to squeeze through with no difficulty though, and even weaker and less fit as she was, I figured I’d be able to get across in less than five minutes.

Once at the twelfth flag, I'd replace it with one of my home-made ones that I’d constructed from a tent peg and a strip of tee shirt. I had no idea what the actual flags looked like, and I was gambling that the others wouldn't either. I'd run on replacing flags until I ran out, and with any luck, they'd settled down to their ambush without knowing I'd already been there.

Part three would simply involve me running the track backwards until I had all the flags, then taking them to the sergeant. Again, the trick would be to do so before they got suspicious and changed tactics.

They say that no plan survives contact with the enemy, but mine did pretty well, probably because it involved having no contact with the enemy.

Getting to flag one was the easy bit. The first real hurdle was changing into Philippa under stress. I thought of that outing with Mum, but the joy of the experience was fading with the many times I'd brought it to mind. I focused on my first kiss with Stacey, and slipped right into girl mode. I stashed the first flag with my uniform and hung my trainers around my neck The dash from flag one to flag twelve wasn't so straightforward either. Without shoes that fit me I was running over rough ground barefoot, and it was painful. Gritting my teeth and fighting through the pain threatened to change me back into Phillip, so I had to let the tears flow and suppress my squeals.

I didn't have a watch, being the sort of person who uses a mobile phone for that kind of thing, but I hadn't heard the sergeant tell the others to go. When I reached flag twelve, I used the pain in my feet to change back, switched the flags and ran on, still barefoot, replacing the flags in the next five positions.

I made it as far as flag three before things went pear shaped. I hadn't counted on my adversaries splitting into two groups and running the course in both directions. It meant I'd deceived half the group, but now I had two flags left and both would be guarded.

Fortunately for me, the third flag had been planted under a tree. The branches were too thin to hold my weight as I was, but as Philippa, I had a good chance.

They'd positioned themselves on the path, concentrating their attention outwards. Once more I chased after the memory of Stacey's first kiss to turn myself little again and snuck through the undergrowth to the base of the tree. I needed to change back to reach the first branch, but after I was in the tree I resumed girl mode and eased my way carefully out onto the branch.

It was a stretch, but my little arms were just long enough to reach the flag. A little more careful manoeuvring and I was back at the trunk where I sidled around until I was out of sight of the guys guarding the flag. I hung from the branch and turned back into my male self, which put me in contact with the ground. Turning back into Philippa made me small and stealthy enough to sneak away without being noticed.

The last flag, the second of the course, wasn't so easy. It was surrounded by the inevitable undergrowth, but there was no way I'd be able to get to it without being spotted. I snuck as close as I dared in Philippa mode, then changed into Phillip and put my shoes on.

I ate a couple of energy bars and felt the much-needed sugar course through my tired veins. I'd need to run back via flag one to recover my uniform and the first flag from where I'd hidden them, and that would make the race really tight. I took several deep breaths, to oxygenate my blood, focused on the flag, and sprang out of hiding.

I grabbed the flag before they noticed me. In fact, the first they saw of me was as I ran past the two who were looking back along the path. I’d been tempted to kick the legs out from underneath one of them, as he’d been the one who’d tried to trip me the previous day, but that would have been a great way to lose balance and get caught, so I settled for running by him as fast and close as I dared. I left them in disarray and ran on, unencumbered by a uniform and younger by several years than any of them.

They called out to the rest of the troop as I’d expected. The four behind me would be closest, but I’d have guys coming at me from at least two directions now. I told myself not to look back. I’d learnt that early on when I’d lost a hundred metres sprint from doing so. You lost speed, balance and direction and gained nothing. I couldn’t hear footfalls that close behind me, and I was coming up on the site of the first flag. If they were closer than I thought, no amount of looking would save me.

I ducked off the path towards where I’d hidden my uniform. I lost a second slowing to pick them up, and heard someone swear behind me, though not too close. No sense going back onto the path now. I ran on through the thicket and out into open ground. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, I told myself and ran on. There were drainage ditches to cross, but I was back up to speed now and jumping them was easy. I could see the others coming from flags eleven and twelve. They were bearing down on me and tempting me to veer away from them, but my best bet was to run straight and fast, so I did.

Another curse from behind me as one of my immediate pursuers missed a jump across a ditch. No time to gloat, don’t look back. I ran on. A hundred yards left, fifty and it seemed like I would be outrun by the group who’d been guarding flag twelve. I dug deep and found another spurt of energy. Twenty yards and I swerved and jumped to avoid an attempted tackle. Ten yards, and home.

Two bodies slammed into me and knocked me onto the tarmac. My singlet saved me from much of the road-rash, but I ended up with grazes on my arms and legs. More bodies landed on top of me.

“Hey, get off,” I yelled. “I made it back with the flags.”

“Looks to me like you got yourself caught,” the sergeant said, glaring down at me through the tangle of bodies.

“I made it back with the flags,” I said struggling to protect myself from my assailants. More bodies were landing on me, and several of them apparently thought I could do with a bit of a kicking. Fortunately, it wasn’t my first time being sacked by the equivalent of a rugby team.

“You didn’t make it round the track, squirt. By my reckoning you didn’t run the stretch from flag twelve back to here.”

“I ran to and from flag one though. I ran from flag one direct to flag twelve, then around the rest of the course. I ran more than the length of the course.”

“That’s still not completing the course, you little snot-ball. I say you lost, which means you belong to these guys tomorrow. Now go get a shower, all of you. Your smell offends me.”

And that was it. The rest of the troop climbed off me, cheering themselves and jeering at me. When I was able, I stood and dropped a flag. It silenced them, so I dropped another, then another. I dropped them all one after the other, then turned and limped off to my tent.

My arms and legs were raw from the grazing on the runway, and my torso was sore. I sat down on the bed and tried peeling the singlet off but found it too painful. Time to be practical. I let go my anger and reached for the tears that weren’t far under the surface. Moments later, my feet weren’t touching the floor, and my body was in considerably less pain. I undressed and twisted about to examine as much of myself as I could. The grazes were gone, replaced by red, raw rashes, and covered over with a layer of bloody, dead cells.

I reached for the anger – not far away after recent events – and turned back. Still the tenderness, still the sloughed off, damaged skin. It looked so much worse than it was, especially since it now felt so much better. Time to push the guilt trip. I slipped on my dressing gown, grabbed my towel and washbag and headed for the showers.

Most of them were there ahead of me. My arrival silenced the chatter and they watched as I stripped off my dressing gown and stepped into the shower area. It seemed like no-one moved or said anything for the two minutes it took me to wash off the filth and gore. I towelled myself dry, revealing the rawness on my arms, legs and back, slipped my dressing gown back on and walked out in silence.

I had an hour before lights out, so decided to make an attempt at some of my homework. Chances were I wouldn’t have much time in the morning. The geography involved a bit of reading and the writing of a short essay. I could at least get the reading out of the way.

-oOo-

Waking to the sounds of reveille was becoming a habit. I was stiff and aching, but the raw tenderness in my skin had subsided considerably. I sat up in bed and my geography book fell to the floor. I couldn’t remember what I’d read from it, so I must have been more tired than I’d thought.

It’s possible that I took a little longer than usual to get up after the bugle call, because the shower block was empty when I reached it. By the time I’d washed and struggled into the fresh singlet Dr Wiesner had left for me, there wasn’t much time left for breakfast. I went over to the mess in any case, ready to be bombarded by a succession of orders from the guys.

Instead they all stood when I entered. One of them held a chair for me to sit in, two more picked up trays and went to fetch me a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cereal. The rest stood until I’d seated myself and then followed suit.

“I thought I lost,” I said, not a little confused.

“We talked it over,” the chair holder said. “Whatever the sergeant says, we reckon you won on points.”

“What were those flags you left made from?” another asked.

My breakfast arrived. I vaguely recognised the two who had tackled me at the end.

“We’re sorry,” one of them said. “We didn’t mean to hurt you like that.”

“Bang out of order,” the other said.

“You know,” yet another interjected, “you’re a tough one for all that you’re a scrawny little snot.”

“You’d best eat up,” the one who’d held my chair for me said. “We’re due on the parade ground in ten minutes.”

It was ten fruitful minutes. I didn’t say much, being too busy eating. I did give a brief summary of my tactics from the previous day, but for the rest of it, I let them talk. I didn’t get all their names, but I made a good start. It seemed I’d won myself some respect.

Out on the parade ground, the sergeant waited with a malevolent smile on his face. I jogged up with the rest of the troop, all of us arriving with a minute to spare. The sergeant came straight to me.

“Right, you horrible little maggot,” he said into my face, “it seems to me that since you are going to be this lots’ servant today, you ought to be more appropriately dressed.” He pulled out a frilly maid’s uniform and handed to me. “Get changed, maggot.”

I stared at the dress dumbfound. There was a part of me that wanted to put the dress on, but if she got her way, I’d end up changing more than my clothes in front of this lot. This was going to go badly whatever I did, but I couldn’t afford to let the secret out, Dr Wiesner had been quite explicit about that.”

“No,” one of my new friends said.

The sergeant wheeled on him and stared him in the face, anger and incredulity fighting for supremacy in his expression. “What did you say?”

“No, sergeant,” said a second of the troop, then a third, then all of them.

The sergeant had no idea how to handle things for a few second, then his eyes narrowed. “Fine, it’s a little rebellion in the ranks, is it? Well we can do something about that.” He snatched the dress out of my hands. “Double time, full length of the field and back.”

Which was how we spent the morning. The good thing was it loosened up some very stiff muscles. The not so good was that it was thoroughly knackering, and when lunchtime came around, we were all dehydrated and exhausted.

“You guys are going to get this after lunch as well. I mean I appreciate your standing up for me, but I hope you don’t end up regretting your decision.”

“Like I said, we decided you won yesterday. That means we get to do what you say, and we even get to protect you from sergeant dip…” He snapped his mouth shut mid-insult as the sergeant marched in. Fortunately for us, he didn’t feel like joining our table.

When he’d gone, one of the others picked up. “So what would you like us to do for you today, other than cover for you with his nibs there, and get you breakfast and lunch?” His words were emphasised as a large plate of whatever the canteen was serving landed in front of me.

“Er, well there was one thing I was hoping you’d be able to help me with.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“I have a stack of homework to do before I go back to school next week, and I don’t understand most of it. I was wondering if any of you could help. My worst areas at the moment are science – that is all three sciences – history and French. I mean I don’t want you guys to do it for me, just help me understand what I need to do.”

“We can do that, can’t we lads? Francois here is French, so if he can’t help you with that bit of it, I don’t know what use he is. Frank, didn’t you say you studied history in college? And Doug and I are planning on pitching for the Royal Engineers when we’re done with this lot. Between us we should be able to help you out with the physics and chemistry. Not so sure about the biology, but we should be able to cope with, what is it, GCSE level?”

“Yeah, yes it is. Wow, thanks guys, you have no idea what this means to me.”

“If it’ll pay off an obligation, we’ll be more than happy to do so. Look, we’re all under orders in the afternoon and after dinner, so why don’t we agree to a couple of us helping you out after we’re dismissed this afternoon, then the rest at different times tomorrow? If we’re still all here over the weekend, we can arrange something for Saturday and Sunday as well.”

“I should be able to help you with the biology,” another one chipped in. This was Bill, who wasn’t much older than me, but I’d take help where I could get it.

“Anyone know much geography?” I asked and a different hand went up. I had more tutors than I needed now.

After lunch, Dr Wiesner set me running through a variety of obstacle courses he’d set up in his lab, first as Phillip, then as Philippa, then as either or both. By the end of the afternoon, he had me running courses that I could only complete via multiple changes. It was kind of fun.

I was done by five, which was usually when the rest of the guys knocked off as well, only this time, they were still drilling half an hour later with no sign of stopping. I didn’t trust myself to achieve anything without help, so I jogged over and joined on the end of the formation.

“What do you think you’re doing?” One of them whispered to me.

“I can’t do my homework without you guys,” I murmured back, “so I figured I’d join you til you were done.”

It took the sergeant a couple of minutes to notice me. He called a halt then came up and yelled in my face, asking me in no uncertain terms exactly what I thought I was doing.

“Drilling sergeant,” I yelled back into his face.

“You drill with this lot in the mornings and after dinner only,” the sergeant yelled. “Now fall out and go do whatever it is you do at this time.”

“No sergeant,” I yelled.

His face turned a satisfying shade of beetroot, and he bellowed, “Get off my parade ground!”

We were drawing attention, with even Dr Wiesner looking our way.

“No sergeant,” I yelled, then more quietly, “not until you dismiss these guys. They’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Over my dead body,” He snarled.

“I’m not sure if Dr Wiesner would go quite that far, but he’s coming our way.”

He stood up and spun about, marching off to intercept the doctor, but Wiesner wouldn’t be deterred. He came up to me.

“What is this Phillip? What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry doctor. Some of my friends here offered to help me understand my homework assignments. All this week they’ve finished drilling by five, so I just figured I’d join in until they were dismissed, because I’m sure it won’t be that long.”

The doctor turned to the sergeant, who had a somewhat constipated look, I suspected from keeping his feelings in check. “It does seem strange that you are still drilling the men this late sergeant,” Dr Wiesner said.

“It looks like I’ve overrun a little sir,” the sergeant said. “I’ll dismiss them right away.”

“Perhaps since you’ve kept them working over, you might forego the evening exercise as well. I would like Phillip to have his assignments completed before he goes back to school next week.”

“I suppose that should be possible, sir.” I thought he might burst a blood vessel from holding in his true feelings.

We were dismissed and Doug and Andrew followed me to my tent.

“You know, you’ve probably turned the rest of this week into a living hell for all of us, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t really thinking. You guys are still going to have to deal with him after this weekend aren’t you? I didn’t mean to make your lives any more difficult.”

“No, it was absolutely worth it to witness that. We all rotate after this week anyway, so we won’t see him after the weekend’s up. He’ll really have it in for you though, so watch it.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I doubt he has permission to kill me. You don’t happen to know which is his tent, do you?”

Andrew pointed with his chin to a slightly crisper, cleaner one on the end of the row. “What are you thinking?”

“Pre-emptive strike,” I said. “You know I nicked half a dozen tent pegs from different tents around the camp? I really ought to replace them.”

“We didn’t hear that, right Doug?”

“Hear what Andy?”

Science was actually fun with those two. They managed to do something which no teacher had ever managed before, which was make me interested in it. For each of the tasks I’d been assigned, they explained what was going on with real life examples, and stories they’d heard from other army engineers. It was not a substitute for all the years I’d lost to poor teachers and worse concentration, but it was a start, and enough to get me through my assignments. After dinner I worked until the lights went out, then I lay in my bed until my eyes had adjusted to the night.

Once I could see clearly in the dark, I changed into Philippa and slipped outside. There was enough of a moon to see by, and I made my way unerringly towards the sergeant’s tent. Andy had suggested in passing – ostensibly as part of his tutoring – that a tent with no pegs on one side would be highly unstable, especially if they were missing from the side the wind was blowing from. The wind was due to pick up later that night, Doug had confided, and would be coming from the West, so no surprise, I pulled up all the tent pegs on the west side of the sergeant’s tent.

True to my original intention, I made my way to each of the tents I’d stolen from the previous day and replaced the pegs before returning to my own bunk. I stopped by the shower block on the way back. Little girl sensibilities I suspected. I did not like having dirty hands.

Some hours before reveille, a loud commotion woke the whole camp, and the troop, myself included, were lined up in front of an incandescent sergeant.

“Right, you miserable little ticks. None of you is going back to bed until I find out who’s responsible.”

It didn’t take long to realise he meant it, so I stepped forward. “It was me sergeant,” I admitted.

Doug stepped forward and said the same, followed by Andy, and in very rapid succession, the rest of the troop.

“Fine,” he hollered. “If that’s the way you want it, you can all stand out here til the sun comes up.”

“I don’t think so sergeant,” Dr Wiesner said from the entrance to his tent. “Phillip is a minor and to subject him to such a punishment could endanger his health, and I cannot allow that. Furthermore, I don’t see what you can achieve by punishing the rest of your troop for what seems very likely to be a young boy’s prank. Dismiss your men, and I will deal with the young fellow in the morning.”

True to his word, the doctor had someone at my tent as reveille sounded. I was marched across the grounds in my dressing gown to Dr Wiesner’s lab.

“Tell me everything Phillip. Leave nothing out.”

His tone offered no leeway, so I did just as he instructed. He already knew about the fox hunt since he’d approved my taking part, so I started by telling him how I’d approached the challenge, and why the sergeant had disqualified me. I told him how the rest of the guys had decided I’d actually won, and when the sergeant wanted to put me in a maid’s uniform, they had refused to let him. That in turn had led to the morning’s excessive exercise, and the long afternoon drilling. Which had led to my seeking a little retribution.

He heard me out and leaned back in his chair. “You have put me in a difficult situation, Phillip, though perhaps I should take some of the blame.

“It was me who suggested you take part in this fox hunt without considering the consequences, but now you have compelled me to overrule Sergeant Langham's orders twice, undermining his authority, and if any person needs unquestioned authority in this world, it is a drill sergeant.

“I believe you have benefited as much as you can from his training, so you will no longer join his troop for exercises in the morning and evening.

“It will be told to the sergeant and the men that I am punishing you privately, and you will play your part. You will work with me all through the next few days, continuing your training specifically for your first mission. In the evenings your friends can assist you with your homework, if they still wish to do so. Sergeant Langham can then do what he needs to reassert his authority before the weekend, and all will be well.”

“He's a bully though.”

“Yes, and chosen because of it. Soldiers need to learn to obey orders even when they do not wish to. You are not becoming a soldier, and I think you do not have the aptitude even so; you are too independent minded.”

There wasn't much I could do other than accept and go shower before breakfast. When I made it to the mess, the guys had a place saved for me. I didn't need to pretend to be miserable.

"So, what's up?" Andy asked.

"Wiesner's decided I shouldn't drill with you guys any more. He thinks I'm too much of a disruptive influence. I'm sorry. I think the sergeant will end up taking last night out on you."

"Don't sweat it," Doug said. "It was worth it to see him brought down a peg or two. What happens to you though?”

"I'm not sure. Wiesner's going to be working me through the day now, so I probably won't see you, except at meal times, and maybe after we knock off at five, that is assuming you still don’t mind helping me with my homework?"

"Depends on if the sarge gives us any free time," Andy said, "but we'll try."

After breakfast, the doctor had me transform into my little girl self and put me through a gruelling series of exercises. As Philippa, I had very little strength, due to a combination of no exercise, six-year-old body and little girl muscles. It was hard work like I've never known, and when the determination to push through the pain grew strong enough, I found myself inadvertently changing back into Phillip. The doc was strict with me and worked me hard so that even once I’d changed back into my fitter, older self at the end of the day, I was still shattered.

Francois came and helped me with my French when he was dismissed a little after five. He and the others were pretty spent after spending the day route marching with full kit, but between us we managed to get me understanding things enough to make an effort at the homework.

Friday was much the same. Two days wasn't enough to build muscle, but I was finding ways of achieving what I needed with technique, so I was more with it at the end of the day. Frank and another guy whose name I couldn’t recall came to help with my history and geography homework, and they were able to speed up the learning bit by talking through the topics rather than have me read them. By the end of the day, I had all the work done. Not perfectly, but well enough, and certainly better than I'd have managed on my own.

Saturday the guys left for their next assignment, as did the sergeant. I was given a chance to say goodbye after breakfast, then Dr Wiesner told me to get changed and ready to leave, which was when I rediscovered my phone.

I turned it on and watched the screen fill with increasingly urgent text messages, some from Mum, the rest from Stacey. My mates had tried sending me stuff as well, but they'd given up when I hadn't replied.

I did a blanket send to everyone, apologising and saying I'd had my phone confiscated, then I sent Stacey and then Mum a more detailed description of my week. The replies started arriving as I headed out to the car wearing my civilian clothes over the ever-present stretchy singlet.

Dr Wiesner handed me a bag with what looked like a month's supply of singlets, which I didn't mind since they were both comfortable and practical.

I slumped in the front seat and caught up on home news, while the doctor drove in silence. A couple of hours later, it occurred to me that we weren't going to my home and I started taking interest in my surroundings.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"London. I thought tonight we should try you out. Please climb into the back and change into your other self, then take off the underwear and put on clothing more appropriate to a little girl."

I'd figured that the doctor didn't like talking much when he was driving, so I did as he asked without commenting. It felt oddly good to be back in a dress. I was beginning to realise I enjoyed being both girl and boy, and indulging in the pleasures of each. I suspected that if I spent too long as Philippa, I'd reach a point when I’d begin missing being Phillip.

"Good," the doctor said, glancing at me. "We stay at a hotel tonight, and you will be my granddaughter. After we are checked into our room, I will tell you what is to be done after."

Traffic was slow, so I took time to text Stacey as Philippa, and we enjoyed a girly exchange until finally the doctor pulled into a hotel car park.

"We're here. Gotta go," I sent and put the phone away.

We parked in an empty bay and the doctor took care of our bags, leaving me free to skip about like a… well like a little girl. It was an indulgence, and one I found I thoroughly enjoyed, once I’d overcome the slightly self-conscious feeling that came along with it. This was decidedly not appropriate behaviour for a teenage boy, but once I’d reminded myself I was neither teenage nor a boy anymore, I started to enjoy myself, skipping off to investigate everything that caught my eye.

“Philippa,” Dr Wiesner called. “Stay close now, leibchen.”

“Yes grandpa,” I replied, but stayed at the limit of his vision, ducking in and out of sight as I satisfied my curiosity every way I could think.

“Philippa, come here.” The doctor sounded angry. I came running. “Didn’t I tell you to stay close? Now stay where I can see you.”

“Yes grandpa,” I said glumly, but my head was already looking about for something new, something different. Just as he finished checking in, I drifted off again, having seen a fish tank over against one wall.

“Don’t overplay it,” he murmured in my ear, then louder. “Come on Philippa, our room is ready.” He took my hand and led me towards the lifts.

There was a security camera in one corner of the lift, so I stood quietly, twisting my body back and forth as we ascended. There were more cameras in the corridor, all of them standing out from their surroundings as though the hotel owners wanted to make a point of their existence, which maybe they did.

Finally, we were through the door and into our room. If there was surveillance in here, it was more subtle.

With the door closed, Dr Wiesner let out a long sigh.

"I take it we're okay now," I said wandering over to the window and looking out on London's skyline.

"We are. You can change if you like."

"No, I'm good," I said.

He shrugged and put his briefcase on the coffee table.

"Is our reason for being here anything to do with the conference?" I asked. There had been a number of signs in the reception area mentioning it.

"It is good to know you are aware of your surroundings. And to answer your question, yes."

"Did it bother you that all my school reports said I had such poor concentration?"

"Eh?” He looked confused by my non sequitur.

"You had this sort of thing in mind for me when you started treating me ten years ago, didn't you? It must have worried you that I seemed to have such a short attention span."

"It would be a lie to say that I wasn't bothered, but I am quite impressed with how you've turned out. What changed, do you think?"

"I found my other self. And the freedom to express myself completely."

"I'm sorry, I do not understand what you mean."

"Your machine separated me into two distinct parts, then took one of them away. For the past ten years, I've felt that a part of me was missing. That sense of absence has been there for as long as I can remember, constantly demanding my attention."

"Without my machine, those same two parts of your nature would have been constantly fighting, confusing you."

"I suppose that's true. Their combined influence would have turned me into something our society prefers to ignore, someone who is neither fully male nor female. By separating my two selves you helped me find a place, which I wouldn't have had otherwise. But by cutting me off from a part of myself, you still made me less than I am. I'm not just a boy, any more than I am just a girl. I'm both, and both aspects of me need freedom to exist.

"Your machine has given me the physical forms to be entirely male and entirely female, which is a more magical, more precious gift than you can possibly imagine, but my whole mind, perhaps my whole soul, is made of those two natures combined. Take one away, or suppress it, or whatever you did, and you make me less than I am. Then, aware of that loss, what remains of my mind will spend every waking hour, and quite possibly many sleeping ones, distracted by the search to find wholeness.

"I am only fully me like this, doctor, possessed of both my natures and able to express them both. I do owe you a considerable debt of thanks. My life would have been a confused muddle without your machine, but it would have been easier if I'd known my true nature earlier."

"You must excuse me," he said laughing nervously. "To hear a six-year-old girl speak this way is truly unsettling. You don't even sound like a sixteen-year-old."

"I suppose it’s my reaction to this change. Living with loss matures you. I have a friend at school who changed dramatically after his mother died. "

"And how is it you are living with loss?"

"Oh, I'm not anymore. But I have lived with loss for the last ten years. I'm living with found now, and that's better than living with neither.”

Dr Wiesner looked confused.

"One of my teachers showed us a documentary once about an American teacher who taught her class about prejudice by separating them into blue eyed and brown eyed."

"I know of this. The teacher was named Jane Elliott, yes? But how is this relevant."

"During the experiment, the persecuted kids did worse in class, and the privileged ones did better, but after the experiment was over, they all improved. That's kind of what I feel right now. It's been a hard experience, but now it's over, I think perhaps I'm better off than those who haven't experienced anything like it. It's like my brain has bounced in the opposite direction, from super distracted to super alert."

"Well, if this is the case, we should take advantage of it, yes?"

"Sure."

"So, you noticed the cameras, yes?"

"About half a dozen in the reception area, one in the lift, several down the corridors. I'm assuming none in the rooms." I looked around but nothing was obvious.

"This is so. All public places are monitored. There are a very few blind spots, but we should be able to make use of them to do what we have come to do."

"Which is?"

"To steal a device."

"I thought we were the good guys," I said nervously.

"We are. I said to your father how we live in a world of science fiction now, where many of the more unbelievable inventions remain hidden and in the hands of unscrupulous corporations or individuals, you remember this?"

"Yes."

"Here is an example. There is a small research lab whose chief executive has, in this last few months, become very rich on the stock market."

"Why is that particularly unusual?"

"Because of the way it has happened. He made some very risky decisions with his buying and selling of stocks, but each time he proved to be correct.

"At first we suspected insider trading, but we have no evidence of him having contact with people who know the markets ahead of time. Furthermore, some of his biggest pay-outs have been over changes in the market no-one expected.

"So, we thought perhaps he is influencing people, and our investigations showed people he has association with booking into hotels where there are business related meetings that affect the market."

"Like the trade union conference here on Monday." I stated, confirming my earlier guess.

"Yes, we think they mean to influence the delegates, perhaps persuade them to go on strike for no good reason. If he knows this ahead of time and sells his stock, then buys back when it reaches a low value, just before the strike ends..."

"Then business is disrupted, people lose jobs or income, and he makes a pot of cash."

"Yes, and without appearing to break any laws.

"We need to have information on how this device works so we can build something to cancel its effects, or at least detect its presence, so we can stop him in the future."

"Meanwhile he gets away with everything he's done so far?"

"Sometimes you can only limit the damage, not reverse it."

"Fine, so what's the plan." It was anything but fine, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

-oOo-

I spent the rest of the day running around the place; just a naughty little girl making a game of hiding from her grandfather.

Dr Wiesner kept coming to look for me, then he would go to the hotel reception to ask for help. They always found me, of course. Running through the surveillance footage would show where I'd gone, and sometimes even where I was hiding, so they came and fetched me soon enough.

By the end of the day, the hotel staff were heartily fed up with me, which was part of the reason for the exercise, and I had a much clearer idea on where all the blind spots were, which was the rest of it.

I was sent to bed early, and made enough of a racket over that to drive our immediate neighbours into making a complaint.

The next day the doctor headed down to breakfast alone.

"I allowed her to stay up late in the end," he confided with the receptionist. "She will sleep late now, so I thought I would have breakfast early."

Of course she didn't sleep late. She snuck out of the room a few minutes later and wandered down the corridor towards the lifts and stairs. She was wearing a pink dress over what looked like a pink top and leggings.

At the end of the corridor was a supply closet. It was under the occasional watch of a camera tracking back and forth. I waited immediately under the camera until it was pointing away from the closet door, then dashed forward to open it. The doctor had supplied me with a master key without telling me where he'd acquired it.

Inside the closet I was free of surveillance but had to get to a ventilation grill above a top shelf. The shelves were firmly bolted into place, so I stripped of the dress and changed into Phillip to make it easier to climb. The pink singlet didn't exactly look masculine, but I rather liked it, and with no one there to watch...

Agility and strength got me to the top shelf where I changed back. The doctor had also provided me with a belt of tools made from the same stretchy material as the singlet/catsuit. I pulled out a multi-tool and swiftly unscrewed the ventilation grate. The shaft was a tight fit even for little me.

With my dress hidden on the top shelf – I didn't want to get it dirty – and the grill loosely in place, I went off in search of a way down to the first floor; six floors down.

The schematics the doctor had shown me the previous evening had indicated each floor's ventilation was linked to the next by vertical shafts. First hand inspection now showed them to be too narrow for big me and too challenging a climb for little me.

After checking and rejecting all potential routes in the ventilation, I made my laborious way back to the supply closet.

Where I found a pair of overalls hanging on the back of the door.

I changed into big me, climbed off the shelf and slipped the overalls on. They were a bit loose, but they'd do. There was a peaked cap too, which would help me hide from the cameras.

With my little girl dress secreted in a case of cleaning materials, I ducked out of the closet and onto the stairwell, keeping my head down all the way, and turning it away from where I knew the cameras to be.

On the first floor, I found an equivalent supply cupboard and stripped down, climbed up and entered the ventilation as before.

This time it was just a matter of following directions. Third left, second right then immediate left and follow it round. I found myself looking through a ventilation grill into a room where something unrecognisable, except that it had an obvious pointy end aiming in the direction of the conference hall, had been set up in the middle of the room. Several people wandered about, checking things, tapping on keyboards, adjusting knobs and dials. I needed them out of there.

I backed off from the grill and called Dr Wiesner. "Can you set off the fire alarm?" I asked.

"Not easily. Why do you ask?"

"Three technicians, all looking busy."

"Any chance they'll be coming down for breakfast?"

"I doubt it. I think I saw a room service trolley in there."

"Can you see the device?"

"Oh yeah."

"What does that mean?"

"It's pretty big, about as big as me, standing on a tripod in the middle of the room. There are three laptops connected to it, and a sizable rack of switches and twiddlies."

"Okay, so we cannot take it with us. We'll need pictures inside and out, and we'll need a copy of whatever's on those computers."

"I think we need to get these guys out of the room first."

"Yes we do, but before that we need a plan for what to do when we achieved this."

Well duh, I hadn't thought of that.

"You have a clone drive in your belt, but you'll need one for each computer. I have more in the car. How many shelves are there on the rack?"

"I'm not sure, I think maybe five our six."

"Are they open or closed?"

"Open I think. Why does that matter?"

"Open means easy access to the electronics, for repairs or modification. It usually means they are still working on it. It is also better for us. We can photograph the circuits more quickly. The device itself, it has a cover?"

"Yes."

"How is it fixed?"

"Screws I think."

"Don't think. Make sure. Have the correct tool ready before you start. My guess, they will be quick release, so only a quarter turn to remove them. Is there anything else in the room?”

"I don't know."

"Go back and look. Make sure there is nothing you have missed, then meet me in the ground floor toilets in ten minutes."

I sidled up to the grating again and examined the room bit by bit. The only thing I’d missed was a handwritten journal sitting on one of the bedside cabinets. The only reason I spotted it on the second look was because one of the technicians went to check it. It was thick with more than a hundred pages.

Once I was as sure as I could be that I hadn't missed anything, I withdrew quietly to the janitorial cupboard, changed into Phillip and put on the overalls, then, mop and bucket in hand, I made my way down the last flight of stairs and into the gents.

Dr Wiesner was there already. He handed me two USB drives and asked if I'd noticed anything else. I told him about the journal.

"You'd better take this as well," he said, handing over something half the size of my phone.

"What's so special about this?" I asked. From the looks of it, it was nothing more than a compact camera.

"Hi definition in low light, records at one hundred frames per second, has enough solid state memory to record for one week continuously," he responded nonchalantly. "Press this button here when you are ready to enter the room, then just point the lens at what you wish to photograph. Press and hold the same button for five seconds to turn it off. When filming, every few seconds it uploads its images via burst transmission.

"Here also is a magnetic monopod so you can attach it to ferrous surfaces." He handed me the gizmos. "You will have to set a real fire, I think."

"What! Why?"

"From your description, it is unlikely the technicians will leave there post unless they believe there is danger. Also, you will need time to photograph the book. A false alarm would give you less than five minutes, whereas if there is smoke, they will have to wait outside for the fire department.

"So, drives first. Just plug them in and they will copy all automatically. Second, open and photograph the inside of the device and the circuits in the rack. Third, set up the camera on the pod and turn the pages in the journal as fast as you can. The high frame rate of the camera should mean you can video the journal in perhaps two minutes. The whole operation, from the moment everyone leaves, should take between five and ten minutes."

And it did. The whole operation ran with clockwork precision. I found a tin of grease in the janitorial closet and wiped a few paper towels with the stuff, before screwing them up and adding them to a bucket. A packet of cigarettes and a lighter provided me with my igniter.

I took the time to secure the grill behind me when I entered the vent in the cupboard. With the fire, it was doubtful I'd be coming back this way. My utility belt provided me with the perfect tool in the form of a magnetised screwdriver bit that turned back on itself. Apparently vents and grills like this would be a common feature in my future career.

The same tool let me into the room once the technicians had left, the grill swinging out of the way on its last screw. The filming of everything took less time than the copying of the drives. While I was waiting, I flipped through the journal, giving special attention to the pages which opened naturally. They described the settings required to influence different emotions, and looking at the computers, they were set to induce aggression.

Out of curiosity, I looked to see what the settings were for submissiveness, and they were remarkably similar. Just a couple of dial settings different.

The journal was full of crossings out, especially the settings pages. I found a pen and altered the two pages so they read the opposite, then changed the settings on the computers.

Everything went back where it had been. The alarms died about the time the computers finished copying. I retrieved my equipment, used my Phillip form to climb back up to the vent, then turned into Philippa to squeeze in. I was just putting the last screw in place as the techs returned. I lay still and held my breath.

One of the techs looked at the computer screens, checked the journal then shrugged. It had been a gamble, but it looked like it had paid off.

The layout of the hotel was the same on each level, so I headed for a grill that I knew opened out on a blind spot on the seventh floor. A quick check with a small dentist's mirror showed the same here. I had to wait a while until all the hotel guests had finished returning to their rooms or wherever they had been, then I emerged into the dead spot, cleaned off the worst of the grime from my arms, legs and face, put my dress back on and headed for the lift, where I was captured by hotel staff a few minutes later having pushed every single button.

"Where were you?" a frantic Dr Wiesner asked, scooping me up into his arms. It felt strangely uncomfortable, even though I knew he was just playing a part.

"I was playing hide and seek, Grandpa," I answered master of factly. "It was so much fun; there were so many people."

"There was a fire, liebchen. Didn't you hear the alarm?"

"Oh yes, it was very loud."

"This is why you should not run away, liebchen. You could have been hurt."

We kept up the pretence all the way back to our room, Dr Wiesner holding me in his arms, and me looking just a little worried.

He put me down as soon as the site was closed. "Did you get it all?"

By way of answer, I handed the USB sticks and the camera back to him. "The computers took the longest time."

"And they suspect nothing?"

"I don't think so. I waited after they came in, but no-one showed any signs that anything was wrong."

"It's a shame we could not stop their plans for Monday. The fire engines arrived very quickly and put out your fire before it spread. The damage is not enough to close the hotel."

"They'll probably sack the janitor."

"If they can find him. All they saw was a young man with a cap on."

"If he loses his job, you make sure he's okay," I said putting on a determined face that might have been more effective had it not been my six-year-old self making it.

"We cannot afford..."

"You will if you want me to work for you. Nobody innocent gets hurt if we can help it."

He held my gaze steadily for a few seconds, then dropped his eyes. "I will do what I can," he agreed. Maybe the six-year-old face was more effective than I'd thought.

-oOo-

We checked out the following morning, the bill including a number of Disney princess movies, from Beauty and the Beast to Frozen. They'd been intended to maintain cover and explain why I hadn't gone running off around the hotel again, but I found my little girl perspective changing the way I appreciated them and could barely pull my eyes from the TV.

The journey back home was uneventful. The doctor insisted I change back into Phillip, which was a shame as I was enjoying being a girl.

"What will your neighbours say if, having taken you away on Monday, I bring back your cousin today?"

It made sense, and so with some reluctance I turned back into Phillip.

"I have a lot of girl time to catch up on," I said when I was back in boy mode.

"I would ask you to use it only a little," Dr Wiesner said. "Whichever of your bodies is out of phase does not age, but when you inhabit it, it does. This means two things. The more time you spend as Philippa, the more slowly Phillip will age, and this might raise suspicion with your friends and teachers. Also the more you are Philippa, the quicker she will grow, and for now it is convenient to have someone so small on the team.

"Since I conducted my procedure on you, you have spent perhaps two hours of every day as Philippa. She has grown a year for the nine you have grown. If you remain as Phillip all the day, then Philippa will come in the night, so you must be her sometimes, but please, no more than two or three hours of the day. We have an agreement here, yes? I do as you ask when I can, like you asked with the janitor, and you do what I ask."

"I'll do what I can. Mum may want to take Philippa out for longer than two hours at a time, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum."

Mum and Dad were glad to see me, Dad especially showed relief that I was still Phillip, plus all the exercise had made its mark, and he approved of the better muscle tone. Mum, I think, was a little disappointed that it was her son and not her daughter, or niece or whatever, who came back, but I'd make it up to her with evening cuddles as Philippa during the week.

-oOo-

School was a bit of a let-down after the previous week. I'd not realised how the teachers looked at me until I took their assignments back to them. Each regarded me with suspicion and left me wondering how much of my poor performance might have been down to their having more or less given up on me.

Classes were actually better now. Since I'd discovered Philippa and let her into my life, I found I wasn't distracted any more. I had a lot of catching up to do, but I was determined to do it. It would take time to overcome my reputation, but I took the wary looks most of my teachers were giving me as a good sign.

Morning break saw me summoned to the head's office. This would be my official dressing down for crimes admitted but uncommitted at Crestwell. I sighed. There was always something waiting to ruin my day.

Stacey was in the office with him when I arrived, which had me worried that she'd be in trouble too. She was still trying to change her image as well. Skirt very much at regulation length, and barely a trace of makeup. She looked stunning.

"Sir, Stacey had nothing to do with what happened at Crestwell. It was all on me," I said as soon as I entered.

"That's not what she's been telling me, Phillip."

I looked across at her, but she had her head bowed and wouldn't meet my gaze.

"She didn't do anything, sir," I insisted.

"I'm sure you're right, Phillip, but then she says the same about you, so we do have something to cover up here, don't we?"

I looked at Stacey, whose eyes had risen to find mine. She was smiling, but there was a definite glisten of tears there.

What could I say? Turns out I didn't have to.

"Both of you have something of a reputation in this school," Mr Leighton said. "In the past, Miss Owen has been reported almost daily for uniform infractions, and on top of that has been insufferably cheeky to her teachers, however this past week, I have not received one single complaint, either for her dress or her attitude.

"As for you, Mr Merrick, you have equally been sent to me almost daily for daydreaming in class, for lack of effort, for not trying, and yet, Miss Fallon tells me last week you put in an exceptional amount of work during your detentions and have made impressive progress in just one week. What's more, the teachers who set your assignments for last week tell me that at first glance the effort you have made is far beyond what they were expecting.

"Now, I don't know what was going on behind the bike sheds at Crestwell, but it doesn't seem to me that your recent endeavours are in keeping with someone who would do such an unpleasant thing as Mr Grimes tells me you were doing, neither does your past behaviour at other school sporting fixtures. Miss Owen tells me you said what you did in order to protect her, and I'm inclined to believe her. Since nothing actually happened, I'm going to mark down last week as an authorised absence for you to attend a sports training camp, which from the look of you can’t be far from the truth. There will be nothing in your record to say that you were being disciplined.

"As for Miss Owen here, given her change of attitude and your defence of her in front of me now, I will take it on faith that she wasn't doing anything untoward either. Since it seems evident to me that you are both trying to improve your game, I believe you are owed a little faith on my part. You are free to go."

He stood, and we followed suit.

"Thank you," Stacey stammered, with me adding my own thanks.

"If you want to thank me, then make sure I continue to see less of you in my office."

We rushed out before our luck changed for the worse. We had five minutes before break was over and spent it together.

"I missed you," Stacey said. "Thanks for the texts though. I did get worried when you stopped sending."

"They warned me the phone would be confiscated if I had it when I shouldn't." I wasn't ready to admit that I'd forgotten all about my phone once the business with the fox hunt took off. "Why'd you go to Leighton over this?"

"I couldn't let you take the hit for my sake, especially since neither of us did anything wrong."

"Well, thanks. I appreciate your standing up for me. I'm glad it didn't get complicated."

"Leighton's a good sort. He had a long talk with Grimesy last Monday morning and ended up calling me in. I couldn't just sit there and say nothing, so I told them the truth."

"What truth?"

"That Grimesy was going to tell my parents what he thought we'd been about to do behind the bike sheds, and you'd come out with your thing to protect me. Grimesy wasn't too happy, but he admitted to it, which was when Leighton put everything on hold til you got back."

"What if he'd asked what we were doing?"

"Haven't you noticed? He doesn't ask questions when he thinks the answers might make the situation harder to explain. Anyway, if he had, I'd have said we were just having a snog.

"How was last week for you? I can see you picked up a few bruises."

Trust a girl to notice details like that. I'd have to spend some time as Philippa seeing if I could pick up on such little subtleties.

"It was okay. A bit rough at times, and the sergeant was a bit of a tool."

"Sergeant? It really was a military thing then?"

"Well, he said he was a sergeant, and we wore army uniforms and stuff. Whether it was really army, I don't know. I made some good friends though. They helped me with my homework."

"Don't tell anyone else that. They think you did it yourself."

"I did, after they'd explained what I needed to do. I didn't skive off or anything."

The bell rang.

"Gotta go," she said.

"Yeah," I replied. "Do you fancy meeting up at lunch?"

She smiled, and the world brightened. "How about round the bike sheds?"

"I'll see you there."

I hadn't caught up with any of my mates yet, but they could wait. I mean they'd been the first to stop texting me.

Miss Fallon's class, and we were giving algebra a break. Now it was all areas and perimeters. Simple stuff at first, which I finished ahead of the class, then some extension work which went into complex shapes.

"Miss, why are we doing this?" That was Jake Wallace. I mean this was pretty much the lowest set, and Jake was at the bottom end of it. "I mean when will I ever use this?"

"Well, let's see. Any ideas?"

A depressing lack of hands. After a few seconds I put mine up.

"Yes, Phillip."

"What if you're painting a fence, Miss? And the tin of paint says it covers five square metres. You need to know how big your fence is to know how many tins of paint you need."

"Excellent example. Thank you, Phillip. The same applies if you're laying carpet or putting up tiles, or if you're planning to build something. We'll be looking at some questions like that later in the week."

Miss Fallon gave me an encouraging smile. Jake gave me a filthy look.

History was a discussion, and the class was still on the topic I'd written about the previous week. With the in depth talks I'd had with Frank, I had a lot to contribute, very much to my teacher's and the rest of the class's surprise.

Lunch came, and I headed for the bike sheds in a buoyant mood, until Jake Wallace cornered me.

"You trying to make me look stupid?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Miss Fallon asked a question, I answered it. Listen mate, I'm trying is all."

"You're not my mate," he snarled, "and you carry on like this, you won't have any."

"What was that about?" Stacey asked when I reached her.

I looked back at Jake's retreating form. "Nothing," I said. "He wasn't happy about my answering questions in Fallon's class."

She pulled me gently out of sight and put her arms around my neck

"Are you ashamed to be seen with me?" I teased.

"No, just don't want anyone else to see you turn into a little girl when I do this."

She kissed me. I could feel Philippa responding inside me, but the previous week had taught me a lot of discipline and control.

We spent fifteen minutes in various states of lip lock until we were chased off by the groundsman. He gave me a particularly dirty look, which had me suspecting that Grimesy had been spreading stories.

Out in the open, it wasn't long til my mates caught up with us.

"Hey Merrick!" Slater called across at us. "What you doing slumming with that slapper, eh?"

Stacey gripped my arm. She looked hurt, but more worried.

"Well right now she's holding me back from giving you a right good kicking, so I'd be a bit more respectful."

"Are you serious?" He was incredulous. Always over the top was Jack Slater. "You and Stacey Owen?"

"Anyone can change, Slater. Even you, though I reckon it would take a massive effort for you to come back from git of the year."

Jack was a good foot taller than me and carried a lot of muscle. He was one of our team's prop forwards, and I didn't really want to fight him, but he didn't know when to let something go, so I needed to stand up to him now.

Fortunately, he was also pretty easy going. He shrugged and grinned. "Fair enough. Truce then. No hard feelings, Stace?"

"No," she smiled. "I've called you worse things to my mates."

He roared with laughter, then when he'd recovered a bit, he said, "You're alright, you are. Be good to him though, right?"

"I have every intention." She squeezed my arm. Crisis averted.

"So, what happened to you last week?"

So I told them. The expurgated version, of course.

-oOo-

I started to enjoy school after that. I mean there was Stacey for one thing. For another, I kept doing a lot better in my lessons, and by the end of the term I had jumped from bottom set to second or third in most of my subjects. The one exception to this was maths where Miss Fallon bumped me from bottom set directly to the top. As head of maths she taught both top and bottom sets, and I wasn't sure if it was that she saw something in me, or if she just wanted to keep an eye on me. Either way, maths became a lot harder, and a lot more interesting.

The incident with Crestwell blew over, thanks largely to Mr Leighton's decision not to pursue it further, and I went back to being the sometime sporting hero of the school. Even the nickname that Slater came up with fizzled out, for which I was grateful. I didn't fancy being known as the Turdmeister for the rest of my school career.

Roughly every other weekend, Dr Wiesner took me away for a couple of days' training. Sometimes as Phillip, but mainly as Philippa in an effort to develop my underused muscles and to improve my suppleness. After the second, I suggested that ballet classes might help to achieve his ends, and with his agreement, Philippa enrolled for sessions every Thursday evening.

Every so often, Dad would take off with his friends and go fishing, as he had done for as long as I could recall. Those weekends usually turned into totally girly mother-daughter sessions, which both Mum and I thoroughly enjoyed.

When I wasn't being Philippa with Mum or Dr Wiesner, usually I was being Phillip with Stacey. One exception to this was when she invited me – as Philippa – to her younger sister's birthday party. Weirdly enough, Emma and I became good friends, and I ended up having to share my weekends between my girlfriend and her sister. It was complicated, especially when Emma had a sleepover, but we made it work somehow.

Eventually the end of term drew near, and Dr Wiesner arranged for Stacey to join me on a training weekend. I have no idea what he told her parents, but she was sitting in the car already when I left the house with my own weekend bag.

As usual, we drove in silence for a few hours before arriving at a remote location – a manor house this time – with its contingent of guards at the perimeter. The journey had been far more bearable than usual since Stacey and I had spent the trip snuggled together on the back seat.

We each had our own bedroom in the large and luxurious house. It was a far cry from the usual weekend away accommodation, which usually consisted of a cramped and uncomfortable camp bed under canvas, but I wasn't about to start complaining.

After a delicious meal in a large dining room that could have accommodated ten times our number, Dr Wiesner led us through to the other side of the building where what looked like a ballroom had been set out for making presentations. The doctor dimmed the lights and turned on a projector.

"Hey," Stacey said. "That's the place we're going next week, isn't it?"

"The Wexler Research Centre, yes, and the site of your next mission. But, Phillip, this time there must be no deviation from the plan."

"I don't know what you mean," I stammered, my guilty expression saying the exact opposite.

"I think you do." His voice was stern.

"How did you find out?"

"It became evident after Monday when the trade union voted to accept the deal they were offered. It was unexpected, even though the deal was a fair one, and especially with the machine present. Our friend definitely did not expect it as he lost a great deal of his wealth when the markets did not swing in the direction he had anticipated.

“Your mission was to take photographs of all the workings of the device and to copy the software, not to interfere with what they were doing.”

“My original mission, as I recall, was to steal the device.”

“Which we couldn’t achieve because of its size. Making a copy of the device was a good alternative, and if we could do it without them knowing, we could start to influence their use of the machine also without them knowing.”

“I thought that’s what I did anyway.”

“You took a risk. I imagine you changed the settings on the computer? What if they’d checked the journal?”

“I changed the settings in the journal as well. There were a lot of crossings out. I just added a few.”

“And what if they’d noticed your changes?”

“I don’t know.”

“They would have known we were investigating them. They would have gone into hiding. They would have suspected we took photographs and copies, and they may have found a way to modify the machine so we could not affect it, or perhaps detect it.”

“Instead they tried to use it and it didn’t work. They lost a lot of money and they think it’s broken.”

“Except now when they try to find out why it didn’t work, there is a good possibility they will discover your alterations. And if they consider them to be sabotage, we will again have lost our advantage.

“Phillip, sometimes it is necessary to allow a battle to be lost in order for the war to be won.”

“Even if that means innocent people get hurt?”

“Yes, even so.”

“I don’t like the way you think.”

“No, neither do I sometimes, but you must obey my instructions, without deviating. When you are older and more experienced, perhaps you will make a better leader than me, but for now, if you cannot obey my instructions, I cannot use you.”

Stacey’s hand snaked out to take mine. She nodded her agreement with the doctor’s words.

“Okay, but I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to. Just do it is all.”

The rest of the weekend involved going over the plan for our school trip. It seemed straightforward enough, but then so had the hotel job. Stacey’s part in it was mainly covering for me while I was out of sight, and she was coached in a number of ways of doing so. Meanwhile, parts of the mansion had been altered to mock up certain rooms and areas in the institute where I would be going. Stacey got to watch some of my exercises, I think to give her a better understanding of what I would be doing and why I wouldn’t be able to respond to her communications at times.

Yeah we were given some really cool gadgets, like bone transduction communicators, at least that’s what I think the doctor called them. They fit over our back teeth and picked up and transmitted sub-vocalizations, ignoring anything that wasn’t. You heard what was sent to you through vibrations in your teeth and bones. It tingled a little and it was eerie hearing someone else’s voice in our heads, but cool at the same time. Mine had the added feature of resizing itself automatically to fit when I shifted between me one and me two.

Most of the other stuff was extra gear for my utility belt. The thing was bulky when I was in Philippa mode, but quite well hidden under my school uniform as Phil.

It was a long weekend. What I was being asked to do was involved, tricky and likely to take every moment I had in the place. By comparison the job at the hotel was very much a kiddie wheels training exercise.

Late Sunday afternoon, Dr Wiesner declared us – referring to me mostly, I think – as ready as we were likely to be, and he drove us home. There was additional stuff we could do to prepare during the week, but essentially that was it. We were on our own.

-oOo-

The Wexler Institute was truly impressive. A finger of steel, concrete and glass that stretched perhaps twenty floors above its nearest neighbour. It stood towards the edge of the built-up city centre, and somewhat arrogantly declared its presence to the world. It didn't help much that it sat in – or near – one of the most depressingly rundown city centres in our nation, but then again, we have so many depressing cities, the odds were pretty good that the Wexler Institute would end up as a diamond shining in the excrement.

Anyway, short version – long and depressing coach journey, pretty jaw dropping arrival. I mean they had a fountain out front, which thus far had not been noticeably tagged by the local graffitiatsi, and they had an immense sign in embossed stone over the entrance. Whoever ran this place was filthy rich, and into bold statements.

"You're up," Stacey's quiet murmur made its way into my head via my vibrating teeth.

"Sir," I called to Mr Hennessy. "I could use the loo, sir."

"Sounds like a good idea." Our head of science had warmed to me since my grades had started climbing. I was no longer a statistic in a long and depressing career, but had now been upgraded to a potential feather for his cap. "It was a long coach trip. Okay, everyone, toilet break before we get started. I don't want the route to be interrupted by a long succession of urinary crises. Go now or hold it in til lunchtime."

So instead of just a few of us breaking off to find the facilities, we had the entire year group milling about looking for them. Downside, I didn't get to make as quiet an exit as I'd planned. Upside, there was enough mayhem that I was still able to slip away. Double upside, I ended up with a ten-minute head start.

I founded a deserted copy room in which to change – not clothes, bodies. My uniform and abruptly oversized shoes went into my bag, and, left mini me wearing little more than the tight-fitting cat suit that had recently been a singlet.

The copy room had its own ventilation, which put me just four screws away from the inevitable ventilation shaft.

From there it was slow going. A pair of vision enhancement goggles showed up a grid of laser trip alarms every Twenty feet or so. The grids would have been impossible to pass for even a small adult, and they weren't that easy for my little girl self. The few weeks' ballet lessons had done wonders for my strength and flexibility though, and I made it through.

I needed to get to the building's atrium. It was a vast central space that extended all the way to the top of the structure and provided fresh air to its many floors. The lifts operated in the same space, which meant heading back toward the reception area where most of my schoolmates and teachers were still waiting

"Right, all done? All present and correct? Where's Merrick?" I heard Mr Hennessey ask.

"I think he went on ahead." Stacey's voice replied. On the coach, I persuaded a small group of keener students to talk one of the other teachers into breaking away from the masses and starting the tour early. It would mean they'd get more out of the trip as they wouldn't be with the inevitable troublemakers and foot draggers, and for my part it would offer plausible ambiguity as to my whereabouts.

"You think, or you're sure?" Mr Hennessey asked. "The way you two have been joined at the hip this term, I'm surprised he'd leave you."

"He was talking about going with them sir. He wanted me to go as well, but there was a long queue for the girls' loos, so I guess I missed them." She sounded suitably upset.

"Okay, well it can't be helped. If we run across them, feel free to join them, but tell me first, okay? I thought I had the names of everyone in Miss Langley's group."

"Yes sir." She really didn't sound like she was going to be enjoying the visit. Quite the accomplished actress, my girlfriend.

I suppressed the now familiar feeling of my male side trying to reassert itself and continued on my way to the atrium.

It was a truly immense space, yards across and extending up to a tiny patch of sky, hundreds of feet above. It was shaped like a square with one irregular wall where the steel enclosures of the elevator shafts broke up the straightness and gave me some shadows where I could hide from the building’s control room, which had a window on the opposite side, overlooking the base of the atrium. Just ten feet above was an immense fan, perhaps thirty feet across, turning lazily and providing the building with its life’s breath.

I needed to get to the fiftieth floor. Not quite at the top, but definitely not something I wanted to climb myself, not even if there were stairs. From my briefing, I knew there was only one lift that reached that high, and looking around the atrium, it was obvious which one. Most of the shafts ended at the fortieth floor, with only one continuing all the way to the top.

Each of the lift shafts had a maintenance door. Locked of course, but not for long thanks to the lock picking skills I'd learned on one of my weekend training sessions.

The inside of the shaft was dark, too dark even for my goggles. I activated the infra-red torch on the side of my headband, and my environment sprang into view.

No lift. It was somewhere in the darkness above. I'd have to call it, but then I had a way to do that. It was a small box of electronics, based on a Raspberry Pie minicomputer apparently, with a small set of wires coming out of it. I didn't understand exactly how it worked, but I'd trained on how to connect the wires. Once linked, the little box would recognise which controller it was attached to, after which I could direct the lift using a small remote control.

Two minutes to open the access panel and attach the device, then a single button press on my remote and I could hear winches starting up high above.

I pressed myself against the maintenance door. This was the bit I hated. In theory there should be easily enough room between the lift and where I was standing. In practice it always felt way too close. As with my training though, the lift arrived with room to spare.

It was difficult to turn into Phillip when I was scared, so it took a few seconds of deep breathing to get my emotions under control. I could hear the lift car filling with noisy school kids. Here was an opportunity. It gave me the focus I needed to change, then to jump and pull myself up onto the top of the lift.

I overrode the lift controls, cancelling the button press for the eighteenth floor, and choosing the fifty-second instead.

The lift shot up. As we passed the eighteenth floor, I heard Mr Hennessey's muffled voice a few feet beneath me. "Slater, what did you do?", and Jack's reply, “Nothing sir, honest."

We reached the top floor and I quickly slipped into a harness and found a place to attach a carabiner while a short conversation unfolded below.

"What are you doing up here?"

"I'm sorry, one of my students must have pressed a wrong button or something."

"You shouldn't even be able to get up here without a key."

"What can I say? Some kids have a knack for this sort of thing. Please, rest assured I'll deal with the culprit. We should be on the eighteenth floor though, so if you'll excuse us."

There was a ding as the lift door closed and the lift disappeared into the darkness beneath me.

I unwound enough thin rope to reach down two floors. It really was thin and didn't look strong enough to support me, but I'd trained with it and I knew it was. There was a small access panel that opened into the atrium here as well. I'd need to get to the roof, so it made sense to open it now when I had time. A couple of bayonet fit screws and the panel moved to one side.

Bright sunlight poured in through a wide grate just a few feet above me and illuminated the four-hundred-foot drop to the bottom of the atrium.

Very abruptly, I was six years old and hanging in a very loose harness.

-oOo-

I muttered something very unladylike under my breath.

"What's up?" Stacey's voice sounded in my head.

"Oh, nothing much. Just swinging over several hundred feet of empty space in a harness that's too big for me. The view down into the atrium is kind of breath-taking."

"What on Earth are you doing as Philippa? Change back you idiot!"

"Can't. Kind of terrified out of my wits right now."

"Close your eyes," she said, her voice deliberately calm.

"Done," I squeaked.

"Do you remember at Emma's sleepover a couple of months back, when you came into my room and we had a cuddle."

"You mean when I tore my way out of my dress?"

"That's the one. Imagine you're back there now, and I have my arms around you, telling you how much you mean to me."

I felt the harness tighten and strain as my size and weight more than doubled.

"Thanks, I'm back." Very much in Phillip's voice.

"Okay, so try not to look down again."

It was advice worth taking. I turned away from the panel and concentrated on my two-level descent to the fiftieth floor. It didn't bother me looking down from in the lift shaft as there was only light enough to see down about twenty feet.

With my nerves calming and my emotions back in control, I rappelled down, then eased my way round to the lift door. One of my new gadgets allowed me to listen through to the other side, where I could hear sounds of movement. I waited for silence, then set my remote to open the doors on my level.

I'd changed into Philippa before the doors slid open. For one thing, I felt a bit awkward wandering around where people might see me dressed as a WWF wrestler. For another, if anyone had caught sight of me, they might later be able to identify me as one of the visiting school kids. For yet another, it was easier to hide with Philippa's small size. For still yet another, I figured there was more shock value in coming across a six-year-old girl in your secret lab, than if they'd met a sixteen-year-old boy, especially during a school visit. Mainly though, it was because it felt right.

The corridor was clear, so I scurried down the memorised route to the lab where the thing I’d come for sat waiting to be stolen.

There was the lab. Key card entry as predicted. Yet another of my gizmos went in the slot. No flashing lights or whizzing numbers like in the movies; just a plain white card that seemed to do nothing for nearly a minute, then the door clicked open. Wiesner had said my gizmo would remember any codes it cracked, so next time access should be instantaneous.

There were people in the lab. They turned my way when the door opened, but I managed to duck in and out of sight before they spotted me. One of them came to check the door, shrugged at his companion and went back to work.

"Should we report it?" He asked.

"Add it to the snag sheet. I mean it's not as if we're being attacked, is it? They say you know you're using cutting edge tech..."

"... because it never works properly," the first one finished. He started writing something in a book.

It had always been a possibility that I’d find myself sharing the lab with people who worked here and gave me an opportunity to try out my weapon. It really didn’t look like much – just a cheap plastic pen and a cheap plastic cigarette lighter – but they joined together to make a pistol of sorts with a small trigger springing out of the lighter part.

The fuel in the lighter provided the propellant and the pen contained a small compartment with small needle shaped crystal projectiles. The range was less than ten feet, and the needles would only go through thin material like cotton or nylon, but if only a third of the crystal dissolved into the target's bloodstream, he or she would be out cold within seconds. I’d have to take out my two targets more or less simultaneously, which would require some careful positioning, but first I needed to knock out the surveillance.

That required a different piece of technology. From one of my belt pouches I dug out a mini catapult consisting of two rubber bands that fit over my fingers and a small plastic cup into which I could drop any of a number of paper spit balls. The cup helped improve my aim, but more importantly protected me from whatever was impregnated into the paper, some of which was decidedly nasty stuff.

There were two cameras I could see in the room. One over the door – which I hoped hadn't caught sight of me – and the other in the centre of the main lab's ceiling. I chose a pellet impregnated with hydrofluoric acid, dropped it into the cup and squeezed it to release the acid.

My first shot went wild, and I bit back on an expletive. I didn’t have a lot of ammunition. Philippa me wasn’t the best shot with the catapult, which had been designed more for Phillip’s hands. I made sure I was well hidden and changed into my bigger self.

My second shot landed squarely in the middle of the camera dome in the centre of the room. The acid laden pellet sunk into the smoked glass and spread outwards, crazing the surface as it went. A third shot took out the camera over the door.

My next two shots were with my little gun in Philippa mode. Smaller hands fit the makeshift pistol much better, and the girly me seemed to be more coordinated as well as small enough to sneak closer. I put one needle in the ankle of the nearest lab tech and another into the neck of his companion when he came to investigate.

Check the refrigerated units, looking for a glass vial with a particular label on it. There it was. It also had a bio-hazard symbol on it.

Which was why I had what looked like a cigar tube. Aluminium, screw lid, padded interior. I used tongs to transfer the test tube into the case, then screwed it shut. For good measure, I wrapped bio-hazard tape around the lid.

Time to get back to the lift. A little ducking and dodging to avoid prowlers in the corridor, use my fancy remote control to opened the door, careful not to fall into the gaping hole, grab the rope, door closed.

Harness on. Back into Phillip mode. Manual climbing out to haul myself back to the top floor. Don't look down this time.

Yet another pocket in the utility belt, yet another new piece of equipment. It looked like a long sock made of material so thin it might tear if you looked at it wrong, and a small cylinder of helium.

A squirt in the open end and the balloon partly inflated and rose to squeeze through the access grill above the atrium. Tie off the bottom of the balloon to the cylinder with the test tube. Add more helium until it starts to rise, activate the homing beacon and let it fly.

With the difficult achieved, now it was time for the impossible. Whatever was in the test tube, they couldn't be allowed to make it again. That meant finding and destroying specific pieces of equipment and corrupting the relevant part of their data storage, including backups, then removing all traces of my having been there and rejoining the advanced group.

"How’s it going?” Stacey's murmured question reverberated in my head.

"So far so good," I responded. "Part one complete, just working on two. You found the advanced party yet?"

"Not yet. Beginning to wonder if we'll ever catch up to them."

"Don't need to catch up. Just find them and join them."

"Have you seen the size of this place? They could be anywhere."

"Do what you can. If you can't find the other group, I'll come up with something."

"Okay. Phil?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful."

"Absolutely."

-oOo-

Back in Philippa mode, I headed back to the lab with the two dozing technicians. One had been working on a computer, which meant I already had access to the network.

The computer had timed out, so needed unlocking. There was a fingerprint scanner though. I switched to Phil and used his strength to hold the unconscious man up while I swiped his digit across the scanner. One long-standing weakness of biometric security. If you had access to the relevant body part, you didn't need anything else.

Corrupting the data was easy. Having logged on, I simply inserted a USB drive which uploaded a worm to seek and overwrite all relevant information. It was designed to copy itself into any offline storage and do the same there, so part of the job was done. The other part involved finding and destroying the machine that had made the substance in the first place.

Part of my weekend training had involved familiarising myself with different computer systems. I already knew Windows pretty well, and a friend at school had given me a brief tour of his Mac, but there were a lot of others to look at. Unix, Linux, OS2, MSDOS, and a ton of others I'd never heard of. They all did pretty much the same thing though, so it hadn't been hard once I’d grasped the basic concept.

It didn't take me long to hunt out building schematics and run a few searches. The machine I was looking for was large, and as far as I could make out, only one lab was big enough to contain it, and that was up on level fifty-one.

And so to the trickiest part of the mission. A lab the size of that one would have quite a few people in it, and I didn't have needles enough to take them all out. I'd just have to figure out a way of sneaking about in broad daylight and setting half a dozen charges on the machine in question.

What came after would be straightforward by comparison. Call the lift and ride it to the eighteenth floor, use my control to detonate both the remote override and the charges on the machine. Stacey could tell me where her group was, and I'd join them, saying I'd lost contact with the advanced lot. It wasn't elegant, but it should work.

Level fifty-one was busier than I'd anticipated. Waiting for a clear corridor took longer than I liked, but I found enough of a window to dash unchallenged to a nearby room. From there, I climbed up into the narrow space above the false ceiling and turned into my smaller, lighter, alter-ego. It was all taking way longer than planned, but I found my way into the larger lab and, by occasionally lifting ceiling tiles and peeking through, I manoeuvred my way over the contraption.

I had four charges to place. I'd been trained on where they should go, but at this stage I figured that dropping them as close as I could would at least damage it, and delicate as it was, it would take a long time to repair.

"Where are you?" Stacey's murmured question almost had me losing my balance.

"Nearly finished," I replied.

"Well, so are we," she said. "I reckon we have another ten minutes before we head back to the ground floor."

I dropped the last of my charges and made for the lift, but I rushed it.

"What was that?"

"There's someone up in the ceiling."

"Call security."

It was all over. The whole mission had relied upon me remaining unobserved. They'd lock the building down, part of which would mean shutting down the lifts. Eventually I'd be trapped, so I might as well give in early.

So pretty much the shortest career in industrial espionage ever, which was disappointing given my abilities. All I could do now was decide if it would be better to be captured as Phillip or Philippa.

There were obvious advantages to letting them capture Philippa. It would be totally unexpected and should be impossible to link with the school, so Stacey would get clear at least. They wouldn’t be able to arrest me, being as young as I was, and I could say I was only doing what the ‘bad man’ had told me.

On the down side though, Philippa didn’t officially exist. Without a birth certificate, my parents wouldn’t be able to claim me as their own, and without any legal guardians, I would be lucky if I ended up in foster care. If I was unlucky, I’d simply disappear. After all, people who don’t exist don’t have rights.

There would also be the problem of explaining what happened to Phillip. He was on record as having entered the building with the school visit. If he didn’t reappear, they’d tear the building apart looking for him, and when they couldn’t find him, there’d be hell to pay, and only my parents to pay it.

No, on second thoughts, Phillip was pretty much the best way. He was involved either way, whether he reappeared or no, and it would be easier if he did turn up, even as the culprit. It also meant I had Philippa in reserve, if the opportunity arose to make use of her abilities to help me escape.

"Intruder on the fifty-first floor," an amplified voice came from somewhere beneath me. "This building has been locked down, you have no means of escape. Surrender yourself now or we will use force."

I could hear boots running in every direction below me. These guys were serious.

"Mission's blown," I said to Stacey. "Get rid of your communicator, but don't let Hennessy leave without knowing what happened to me." However much trouble I was in, it'd be far worse if the bad guys were able to make me disappear.

I changed into Phillip and gingerly lifted a ceiling tile. The corridors were filled with jackbooted security types. The two closest had Tasers pointed at me.

"It's a kid," the closest yelled. "Come on down, you, and no sudden moves."

Clichés again. I wondered if he was a sporting type.

I lifted a ceiling tile out of the way and lowered myself through the gap.

"How d'you get up here, kid?" my captor asked.

"I used the lift. Am I in trouble?" Playing the innocent card wasn't likely to win the trick, but it was the best one I had for now.

Actually, I did have one more. I still had the remote control, which was currently linked to the explosives I'd dropped on the machine, as well as my lift override. Setting off the charges would give me a small distraction, but not enough with this many guys around.

Besides, I'd lose control of my only way off the floor, and between the damage and injury I'd most likely cause, I'd end up in a lot more trouble.

"You are in a lot of trouble, kid. Why are you dressed like that?"

"I didn't want to get my uniform dirty. Look I just wanted to see how far I could get before you guys caught me. Can you take me to see my teacher?"

"You aren't going to see anyone anytime soon, kid. What you got in your hand?"

"It's what I use to control the lift," I said. It would require a specific sequence of button presses to set off the charges. Chances were they wouldn't figure them out. Maybe Dr Wiesner could come by at a later time and finish the mission.

"And where d'you get it?"

"I made it. This is just a transmitter. The rest of it's connected to the control board on the bottom floor."

"And how would you know how to build something like this?"

"Electronics is a hobby," I shrugged. "I thought it would be a cool project, and I could try it out here."

"And what about the two guys you knocked out downstairs."

"I don't know anything about that," I said. If you're going to lie, keep it simple, keep it vague, keep it plausible. I'd probably overdone it with the home-made controller story, but it was the best I could come up with.

"Well, we'll see about that." He took the controller from my hand and led me towards the lifts.

-oOo-

It took a while, but I outlasted them. They put me in a small room with a mirror – one way at a guess – a table and a few chairs.

They left me alone for what felt like hours. Every so often, a couple of them would come in and fire questions at me, trying to intimidate me.

Yet again, I was prepared for it. At least two of my weekend camps had been on resisting interrogation, and I'd learner well. Mind you it wasn't hard. They couldn't use force on me while I was a minor, and the yelling wasn't much worse than Sergeant Langham had dealt out at my first boot camp. All I needed to do was weather the decibels and the flying phlegm until they ran out of steam, then quietly ask for a lawyer.

They eventually complied when they realised I wasn't responding to their techniques. My mum and dad came as well, but the fourth person who entered the room came as a surprise.

He was tall, well built, and moved like a cat, and he was so handsome I almost flipped into Philippa mode at the sight of him. He dropped a photograph on the table.

It showed Dr Wiesner.

"Do you know this man?" he asked.

I glanced at Mum and Dad. Dad had his eyes down and wouldn't meet mine. Mum's eyes were brimming with tears, and she nodded at me gently.

"His name's Dr Wiesner. Henning Wiesner, I believe. He performed a medical procedure on me when I was young."

"And?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Martin Keen, MI5." He dropped a thin leather wallet on the table with some very authentic looking paperwork in it.

I picked out up. "I don't understand."

"Phillip," the lawyer said. "I've checked Agent Keen's identity directly with the Security Service, and he is genuinely an agent with MI5."

"But Dr Wiesner works with NATO and Interpol. Surely you know him."

"Did you check his credentials?"

I looked at Dad, who still wouldn't return my gaze. "Well no, but they looked good."

"Like these, perhaps?" He placed a thin briefcase on the table and started removing identity cards. "It's astonishing what you can do with a decent laser printer and a laminator these days."

"Are you telling me...?"

"That your Dr Wiesner has never worked for anyone but himself."

"But the training..."

"It seems he considered you worth a significant investment, and from what you achieved today, I can see why."

"How much trouble am I in?"

"Well, that depends on how cooperative you are now. How did you meet Dr Wiesner?"

"I already told you. He treated me about ten years ago."

"And more recently?"

"I was having complications with my condition. My mum called him, and he showed me how to handle them."

"Handle what?"

"I'd rather not say. It's kind of embarrassing."

Somewhat to my relief he let that drop. "Tell me about your involvement with Dr Wiesner."

I described the training week and the weekend mission that followed it.

"That was you? We've been trying to figure out what went wrong."

"That was you?” I parroted. “Why would the British Secret Service want to incite a bunch of people to go on strike?"

"Suffice to say that we had our reasons. You'll have to tell us what you did to the machine."

"Nothing."

"Rubbish. We haven't managed to get it working since."

"Who invented it? The mood machine thingy?"

"One of our scientists, not that it's any of your business."

"So why can't he figure out what's wrong with it?"

"You remember when I said how much trouble you're in depends on how cooperative you are now?"

"Yes."

"You're not doing particularly well so far."

"Well I'm not sure you're being particularly honest with me either."

"We’ll come back to this. What about the rest?"

"Several weekends training over the last term, then this."

"What was your mission here?"

"Steal a vial of something, corrupt the data storage related to that substance, destroy the machine that made it."

"And how far did you get?"

"What's in the vial?"

"A bit late now to be acquiring a conscience."

"I thought I could trust Dr Wiesner. Now I don't know who I can trust."

"I represent the government, young man."

"If that's so, then how come the government wanted to influence the trade unions to strike? I thought they'd want to prevent something like that."

"That's not your business young man."

"Isn't it? I've already been tricked into doing something for one crook."

"Yes, and he's likely to get away with some very dangerous stuff if you don't start cooperating."

"How dangerous?"

"Phillip," Mum said quietly, "please don't make things worse than they are."

"I put the vial in a sealed, padded tube and released it, via helium balloon, through the vent at the top of the lift shaft, I uploaded a worm to destroy all files relating to the substance in the vial, and I dropped four thermite charges onto the big machine in the lab where I was caught."

He responded with a string of expletives. "How were the charges to be set of?"

"By remote control. The same remote that controls the lift."

"How?"

"Five digit code on the remote."

"What's the code?"

"Why? Do you want to destroy the machine yourself?"

"What's the code?"

"Tell me why you want it. I decided not to blow it up when I was caught, and right now, I'm not sure whether I trust you."

"If we activate the controller in a shielded cage, we'll know which frequency to block, or do you think your Dr Wiesner might not have bothered putting together a backup plan to detonate the charges himself?"

"Oh. Seven, seven, nine, one, four."

Agent Keen pulled a slim phone out of his pocket and started dialling on his way out the door. As soon as it closed, my parents started speaking.

"Son, I messed up. I'm sorry, but you've got to cooperate," Dad said.

"Darling, please answer the man's questions," Mum said over the top of him. "This really is serious."

"Mum, Dad, I’m sorry, but I don't trust him. I've already apparently been tricked into doing something wrong by Wiesner, and it scares me how easily he fooled me. Whatever the consequences, I'm not going to do the same thing again."

"I have checked his credentials though," the lawyer weighed in. "I phoned MI5 myself and they confirmed Agent Keen's badge number."

"And yet they don't know enough about the first machine I sabotaged to fix it, and I really didn't do much."

"What did you do, dear?" Mum asked.

"Oh no, I'm not getting you involved. This is my responsibility, and I don't like that the government were already using that machine covertly against our own people."

Agent Keen returned, his face the same shade of grim it had been since we started. He looked around at us all before sitting down in front of me.

"Okay, that's the first sensible thing you've done today. Let’s see if we can make it the first of many." He held up a USB drive. "Is this what you used to upload your worm?"

"Yes, but I don't know if it'll do you any good. As far as I'm aware, the worm erases itself from the dongle once it's uploaded."

"We'll see what we can find. Tell me more about the tube and the balloon."

I gave him approximate dimensions of the kit I’d used to launch the vial and asked him again what was in it.

"Didn't you look while you were in the computer."

"I remember seeing something about a viral vector in all the gobbledegook. Is it something to do with gene manipulation?"

"You're not daft, are you? Yes, it's just that. More easily adaptable to different gene codes than most. Wexler was developing it as a treatment for genetic illnesses, like cystic fibrosis and Downs Syndrome."

"What do you think Dr Wiesner wants it for?"

"A man like him? Heaven knows. Genetically targeted biological weapon, genetically enhanced super-soldiers, something most of us haven't even thought of yet."

"You're suddenly way more friendly," I said suspiciously.

"And you're way too astute for someone your age. What are you, fourteen?"

"Sixteen. And I'm not going to tell you how to fix that other machine. It's not something anyone should have."

"Your friend Dr Wiesner has it."

"There's not much I can do about that. He said he wanted it so he could figure out a way of detecting or blocking its effects. Can I suggest you work on doing the same, then no-one has the advantage?"

"Why don't you tell me how you made it past the laser detection in the ventilation shaft."

"What can I say? I'm pretty limber."

"Wrong answer." He was grim and angry again. "You may be a minor, but there are special accommodations for people who take deliberate action against the interests of the country, regardless of their age, and I can lock you up without trial for as long as I like if you continue not to cooperate."

"Well, I guess that's what you're going to have to do then, because I don't trust you enough to tell you what you want to know. Once bitten and all that."

Which is pretty much where the interview ended. Keen stormed out of the interrogation room, and a few minutes later, a couple of burly soldier types came and frogmarched me out to an armoured prisoner transport. I was padlocked into the back with a guard on either side. I didn't have any chance of escape whatsoever, and a couple of hours later, I was stuck inside a prison cell on what looked a lot like an army base. Concrete walls, solid steel door, tiny barred window.

This wasn't good. The more time I spent as Phillip, the more likely I was to spontaneously change into Philippa during the night. There only needed to be a surprise inspection while I was changed and I'd lose the only advantage I had left.

The first week, I made sure I used a cubicle every time I went to the toilet, and a soon as I was out of sight, I'd allow myself a little girl time.

It wasn't ideal, but it worked. They kept me pretty isolated, which lack of human contact suited my male side and helped to suppress the girl in me. I survived it reasonably well, and passed the time looking for weaknesses in their defences, especially ones that Philippa could exploit.

There weren't many, but then you'd expect that. Military prison maintained by a professional army – not likely to have many holes. The fact that I found even one was pretty amazing. The fact that I spotted it after less than a week was nothing short of a miracle.

I picked up on the possibility during my third day, then spent the next four going over all possible contingencies. There were a lot of things that could go wrong, and not much I could do about any of them if they did, but I didn't fancy spending the rest of my life behind bars without even the possibility of a trial. I hated to think what my parents were going through, but since I had chosen to be less than perfectly cooperative, I'd essentially been exiled to an indefinite exile. I wasn't allowed visitors, and even my guards weren’t permitted to talk to me.

Fortunately, this worked in my favour. I tried to become the invisible man. Hunched, slow steps, no noise, no body language to speak of. I think it was about the fifth day they started to ignore me completely. It wasn't just that they had orders not to communicate, but they started to dissociate themselves with me.

This was essential, because part one of my plan had to happen during one of my exercise periods, and since I exercised on my own, I'd have to persuade them it was okay for me to disappear from sight every now and again.

The disappearing wasn't so difficult. It was an immense exercise yard, and even though I was the only person in it during my exercise, there were blind spots and it didn't take long to find them.

At first the guards were nervous, yelling for me to come back where they could see me, and each time I complied, but then a few minutes later would disappear again. After a while they realised they were stuck between their orders not to communicate and their orders to keep an eye on me. Figuring that I couldn't escape the yard, they decided that the lack of communication order superseded the other. I didn't want to disabuse them of this, so each time I disappeared, I would only remain hidden for a few seconds before coming back into view.

Another essential part of the plan involved getting through the fence of the exercise enclosure. First, I needed to know if it was electrified. There weren't any signs which, in our nanny state, was pretty much all the proof necessary, but the army did sneaky things, I was certain.

"You want to know if something is live," I remember Dad telling me once, "brush the back of your hand against it. For one thing it'll hurt less if it is, for another thing you won't grab hold of it and end up electrocuting yourself."

I hadn't understood all he was saying but I'd taken it on board. I gently brushed my hand against the chain link fencing and breathed a sigh of relief when there were no sparks.

How to cut through was another gem from my dad. He'd wanted a length of stiff wire to use as a probe once and had fetched a wire coat hanger. Bending it back and forth for a couple of minutes, the wire had eventually weakened and broken in two.

I remember Dad winking at me. "Metal fatigue," he’d said. "Any metal will give eventually as long as you can get it to bend, even a little."

The chain link had been awkward as it had been quite tight, considerably stiffer than a coat hanger, and shorter, but I'd persevered, and after a couple of days working at it for a few seconds each time I ducked out of sight, it eventually gave.

The really neat thing was, the break was almost invisible. It would remain hidden until I needed it, then it would be just a few seconds work to unravel it enough to give me a hole I could squeeze through.

The last and most crucial part of the plan hinged on a conversation I'd overheard between two of the guards. The prison was on a base with family accommodation, and once of the guards had arranged for a group of his six-year-old daughter's friends to be bussed on site for a surprise birthday party. If I could find the party location, sneak in and steal a party dress, then maybe they'd overlook there being one extra guest on board when they left.

Yeah, lots of ifs and buts. I did say there were a lot of things that could go wrong.

I had to wait until the bus came on site. If they noticed me gone, they'd lock the base down and there would go my ride. Fortunately, my cell window gave me a view of the front gate. Maybe it was part of the psychology, give me a view of freedom and see how long it would take me to break.

Anyway, a minibus arrived an hour before my afternoon exercise. I watched it to get a rough idea of where it was going, and listened for when it stopped, for the sounds of excited children.

Yup definitely, and about a quarter of a mile away.

My time in the yard came. I kept my first disappearance short. The second a little longer than usual. The Third short again, looking for signs of nervousness among the guards. None. My fourth, I didn't come back.

As predicted, it only took a few seconds to unravel the wire and squeeze through. It took a few more to thread the links back together, hopefully it would keep them guessing as to how I'd escaped, or even whether or not I had.

The next was unknown territory. I didn't have much idea on the layout of the base – how many more fences, where the guards were – but this is where fitness and training came in. The first fence had a building nearby, so I scaled a drainpipe and jumped over. The second had an unguarded gate of all things. The third was the outer wall of the prison. It had razor wire across the top, so I stripped off my orange jumpsuit – it was too distinctive a colour anyway – and threw it across the wire.

You know that trick where Jackie Chan runs at a corner and climbs it more or less by walking up the wall on either side of the corner? It's not that tough if you're in shape. I made it over first time, grabbing my jumpsuit and tearing it off the top of the wall. No sense in leaving a trail.

I was a couple of houses inside the family part of the base when the alarms went off. I ducked out of sight into a nearby garden, hid the jumpsuit behind a shed and started making my way carefully through one garden after another. I didn't want to risk being seen, but it was a beautifully sunny day, and there had to be some washing on a line somewhere.

There. A frilly pink dress in about Philippa's size, along with some underwear and frilly socks. No-one visible in the window. I took a chance and ran in, grabbing the clothes and ducking back into cover.

A change of body and clothes later, and all I was missing was a pair of shoes. Couldn't be helped. I continued to make my way towards the sound of children, most of them crying now.

The reason became obvious when I saw them all being herded back onto the minibus by a couple of armed soldiers.

I took as roundabout a route as I dared and joined the kids lining up. A very distracted and worried looking woman was looking around at the children, still milling around and slowly making their way onto the bus.

Act like you’re supposed to be there. I approached the woman and tugged her skirt.

"I can't find my shoes," I said, matching my tone to that of the other kids.

"Never mind dear," the woman replied. "We'll find them later and get then back to you. Now you really must get on the bus, all of you." Her voice raised. "I'm really sorry about this, but you must get on the bus."

It was like herding cats, and I really didn't envy her. I couldn't afford to be the first on, regardless of how much I wanted to be, so I joined the milling throng of small bodies and allowed myself to be the third little person captured and eased gently onto the bus.

Eventually we were all seated, with the distracted woman doing a head count and looking worried.

"I'm sure there were only nine," she muttered.

"Miss, it's her," the girl next to me raised her hand and pointed at me. "She wasn't with us."

"I came late," I responded in an annoying, sing-song, I know better than you voice. “You didn't see me."

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Girls, girls, settle down."

"Mrs Preston, is everyone on board?" a soldier called from the doors. "We really need to get this bus off site."

"Well," she said, still looking worried. "No-one's missing."

She withdrew, the door closed, and we were out on the road with the camp gates closing behind us.

I'd done it. But I couldn't afford to be complacent. The girl next to me wasn't ready to give up.

"So, who are you?" she demanded.

"Emma," I replied. "Emma Owen."

"Never heard of you."

"Well, I've never heard of you either."

"I never told you my name."

"I don't care. You're mean."

"Girls," the driver said sharply from the front. "I don't want to have to stop this bus. Please settle down."

I stuck my tongue out at my newest threat, and she did the same to me, but at least she shut up.

I didn't recognise where we were going. For all I knew we could still be hundreds of miles away from home. My plans to slip away when we reached our destination were dashed when we arrived outside a primary school where a crowd of anxious parents awaited our arrival. I was soon singled out as not having anyone to collect me.

"What's your name sweetheart?" one of the mothers said, crouched down to my level.

"My name is Emma Owen," I said. "My sister, Stacey, is supposed to pick me up here at six."

"But you weren't meant to be back here until seven."

"At seven," I said as if I'd meant to all along. "I'm supposed to ask someone to call her if anything changes."

"Do you know her number?"

You tend to commit things like your girlfriend's phone number to memory, don't you? Or maybe I'm weird, I don't know. I reeled off a stream of numbers and had to repeat them twice.

The woman held the phone to her ear. "Hello, is that Stacey Owen? Do you have a sister called Emma? Yes, the party finished early, can you come and collect her?"

I prayed that Stacey would have the sense to find out more. She did.

"Yes of course," the lady said. "Your sister wants to have a word."

I took the phone and spoke into it. "Hello Stacey. The party finished early. You have to come and fetch me from Whitecotes Primary School, Whitecotes Lane, Chesterfield, S40 3HJ." I read the name of the place from the sign outside using a stilted, early reader's voice.

"Philippa?" Stacey asked. "How am I supposed to get to Chesterfield? It's miles away."

"You have to come," I insisted. "Remember Mummy and Daddy said?"

"You want me to ask your parents?"

"Yes," I sobbed. "You have to come. They said they couldn't come, remember?"

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"You have to come, but get here soon, please. The quickest way you can."

The lady took back the phone. "Your sister's quite upset," she said. "Yes, I understand it might take you a while. Look, I live quite close to the school, just around the corner on Fenland Way. Number seven. She can come home with us and play with my little Faith. No, it's no trouble. We weren't going to do anything this afternoon anyway. How long do you..? Really? Well alright, but if you can get here sooner... Yes, I'll pass you across."

The phone came back to me.

"I'll ask your parents to drive me to Chesterfield, then I'll come and fetch you from this lady's house. Is that alright?"

"Thank you," I managed, my tears of relief not entirely fake.

"I don't know how long it'll take to get to you. I guessed about two hours, but I'll see you soon okay?"

"Okay," I said and handed the phone back.

It turned out Faith wasn't anywhere near as inquisitive or obnoxious as the girl I'd sat with on the bus. We spent an hour playing with her dolls, which was wonderfully calming on the nerves, then we stopped for some tea. Fish and chips, since Faith's parents hadn't planned on feeding either their own daughter or their unexpected guest.

Stacey arrived just as we were finishing.

"Do I have to go?" I asked in as truly a childish a way as I could manage. "Me and Faith are having such a good time."

"When you called, you couldn't wait for me to come and pick you up."

"But Stacey." I dragged her name out into a whine.

"No buts little Miss Trouble," she said. "You've already messed up my afternoon. You're not going to mess up my evening as well. Besides, these nice people probably have plans."

"Oh, no trouble, really. They've been wonderful together. Perhaps you'd like to come and play with Faith another time, Emma?"

"Okay," I said managing to sound suitably disappointed.

"We do live some way away," Stacey said, making our excuses, "but thank you for looking after her, and sorry it took me such a long time to get here."

We made our exit and Stacey led me around the corner to where my father sat in our car. He wasn't in a great mood.

-oOo-

"What were you thinking?" he asked as soon as we were underway. "You're a fugitive now. How do you hope to live a normal life with the authorities on your tail?"

"Phillip's the fugitive," I said matter of factly, "not Philippa. And what I was thinking was if they could keep me locked up and in isolation for a whole week without letting me see anyone – not my parents, not my girlfriend, not even a lawyer – then they could probably keep me locked up forever. My only hope for a normal life was to escape."

"And what about your mother and me?"

"I imagine you'll be okay as long as Phillip doesn't show up on your doorstep."

"They'll keep us under surveillance until you do. And how are we going to explain having a six-year-old girl in the house?"

"I'm still working on that one."

"Can't we use that thing about you being your cousin?" Stacy asked.

"Not if they look into it," I said. "Aunt Sally doesn't have any children."

"She's always wanted one though," Dad mused. "How would you fancy going to live with your aunt and uncle for a bit?"

"Sure, if it'll help keep the authorities off yours and Mum's backs, but won't they be keeping an eye on all our friends and family?"

"No-one's been watching me that I can tell," Stacey said.

“Yeah, but why should they? I was safely locked up until this afternoon. I bet there’ll be people camped outside your house by the time you get home today.”

"I don’t know," Dad chipped in. "I think you're overestimating their resources and their resolve."

"Better than underestimating it."

“True, but I think we could still make it work. Your Uncle Mike works for social services, so he might be able to fiddle the paperwork. They’ve been in the system looking to adopt for a few years now, so the most of what they need’s already in place. All it’ll take is a few false signatures and a little bit of fiction.”

“And Uncle Mike’d do that? He’d be putting his career on the line, just like that?”

“He’d take the risk for you. Both he and Sally always had a soft spot for you, you know?

"Besides the risk probably isn’t that great. As Philippa, you don’t have a history to find. I have a mate down the pub who could cobble one together for you which should be good enough to pass muster. Then all it’ll take is a few greased palms. Like you said, they'll be looking for a sixteen-year-old boy rather than a six-year-old girl, so they shouldn’t investigate you that closely. That is assuming they don't know about this side of you."

"No, they don’t; that's how I escaped."

"Might they be able to figure it out?"

"They might do. Jumpsuit hidden in the bushes, dress missing from a washing line, one extra child on the bus out of camp. I guess the clues are there. It just depends on how ready they are to believe in my ability to turn into a little girl."

"I'm guessing not very. I've seen you do it, and I struggle to believe it," Dad said.

"Well, I've got nothing better. Let’s go see Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally. What are we going to tell them though?"

-oOo-

Apparently we were going to tell them everything. For one thing, none of us could come up with a plausible reason why Mum and Dad might be searching for a home for a mysterious, anonymous six-year-old girl. For another, Dad didn't think it fair to get them involved without letting them know what sort of trouble might come their way. I guess when you want someone to help you, there’s nothing more persuasive than the truth.

I undressed and wrapped myself loosely in a towel, then focused on bringing Phillip to the fore. I'd been him quite a lot over the previous week, so my body – bodies? – was/were reluctant to cooperate. Thankfully, Stacey was there, and her presence had become an easy way back to masculinity.

Yes, Mike and Sally were shocked. Yes, they struggled to take it all in. Yes, of course they agreed to help us once they’d accepted the truth of our situation. As Dad had predicted, Mike said he knew the ins and outs of his job well enough to sort the paperwork, and their pre-existing adoption application would make it all relatively above board. As it happened, he didn’t need Dad’s mate’s help in coming up with false papers for me. “It’d amaze you,” he said, “how many kids get dumped on our doorstep with nothing but the clothes they’re standing up in.”

It didn’t take him long to come up with a plausible back story for my little girl persona, and he shut himself away in his study, apparently logging into work in order to start generating the relevant paper trail.

Dad sat awkwardly with Aunt Sally for a few moments, then drained his mug of tea. He’s always seemed a little uncomfortable around her, especially on the occasions they’ve been alone. I’ve had half an inkling for a while now that maybe he fancies her. In Philippa mode, my girly intuition, underdeveloped as it was, went into overdrive and confirmed my suspicions.

"So, I suppose we'd better leave you to get acquainted," he said, coughing nervously. “Mum and I will visit at the weekend and bring some of the clothes she bought for Philippa. I imagine we'll be dropping by more frequently from now on."

"Can I come?" Stacey asked. Dad didn't look to convinced.

"Actually," I said, "I’m not sure that’s great idea. I mean, if they’re keeping an eye on you, they might be suspicious about any changes in your lifestyle.”

Dad blinked and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that. Mind you, Philippa’s been seen around our neighbourhood with your mother enough times in the past few weeks. I’m pretty sure a lot of her friends will already be under the impression that your aunt has an adopted daughter who’s been visiting us regularly. I ought to tell Mike to backdate the adoption papers to when you first appeared.”

“How do we explain that Philippa hasn’t been here?” Sally asked. “It’d be a bit weird that she’s visited my sister without living here, don’t you think?”

Dad called Mike in and we reviewed the story of my reinvention. He was quite good at fiction, was my Uncle Mike. “What if we say our home wasn’t child friendly when Philippa came into the system?” he suggested. “What if you and Jennifer agreed to look after her while we got this place ready? Yes, I think that’ll work. What was the date Philippa first appeared, did you say?”

Dad told him and he scurried back to his study.

“So, we’ll be back at the weekend with all the clothes your mother bought,” Dad said to me. “It would make sense that we’d do something like that. All the trouble with Phillip being arrested meaning we couldn’t look after Philippa any more, Jennifer wanting a bit of moral support from her sister. Makes sense?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. Can I have a word with Stacey before you go please? Just the two of us?"

"Dressed like that?" He indicated the towel currently wrapped around my waist.

"Unless you want me to put my frock back on and do it as Philippa. Then there’s always the risk doing an Incredible Hulk on everyone and destroying the only dress I have. I can pretty much guarantee I’d end up being a lot less decent than I am now. I wouldn't mind having a few of those stretchy singlet things Dr Wiesner gave me."

"I'm surprised you want anything more to do with that man."

"With him, no, but the gear he supplied is still pretty decent."

"I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, I suppose this,” he indicated my towel, “will have to be alright, but only a couple of minutes, mind, and we'll be right here."

Stacey and I stepped out into the hall. I couldn't meet her eyes.

"You are not about to do what I think you're going to do."

"What do you think I’m going to do?"

"You are not going to break up with me, Phillip Merrick."

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Too flipping right I’m not! What the hey, Phil? I thought you liked me.”

“More than like, Stacey, but you have to see this is nuts, us trying to make this work. I have the government chasing after me. If you stick with me, they’ll be after you too.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should; it’s a big deal.”

“Yes, it is Phil, and if you were one of the bad guys, I wouldn’t want anything to do with you. But you’re not. You thought you were doing the right thing helping Wiesner. I mean we both did. You shouldn’t be among the UK’s most wanted.”

“And yet I am, but that’s my battle to fight.”

“Rubbish! Who did you call when you needed help today?”

“But that’s just it, Stace. I mean, yeah, I’m grateful for what you did…”

“Grateful? Grateful!?”

“Yes, grateful. Really grateful, but I shouldn’t have done it. I mean all this afternoon I’ve been thinking. I put you in danger when I called you, and I don’t want that for you.”

“Well tough, ‘cos that’s my choice to make. What does Philippa think about this?”

“I am Philippa.”

“You’re Phillip. You’re different when you’re her. How does she feel about you doing this?”

“She doesn’t want me to, but that’s not the point.”

“That’s totally the point. We’re two to one against you.”

“Well, she’s more of a half…”

“Okay, one and a half to a half. It’s still a majority.”

“But this isn’t a democracy.”

“Neither is it your personal dictatorship.”

“Look, I deliberately stuck with being Phillip to do this because I know how emotions get caught up in the decision-making process when you’re a girl. I can be more detached, more logical.”

“No wonder you’re making such a mess of things then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Since when did logic have anything to do with the way two people feel?”

“Since getting what you want means putting the person you care about in harm’s way. Since we’re stuck in a relationship that hasn’t got any future…”

“What do you mean no future?”

“I’m going to have to hide out as Philippa for the foreseeable future, possibly for years. That means that Phil’s not going to age much. We don’t know how long this is going to drag on for. I mean even now I look fourteen to your sixteen. What’s it going to be like in five years-time? You’ll be twenty-one, Philippa will be eleven and Phil will still be about fifteen. How’s that going to work out for us?”

“I don’t mind having a toy boy.”

“Stacey, be serious.”

“I am being serious. You need me Phillip Merrick. You needed me today. You called me, remember. Not your parents or anyone else. Me! And if we have to deal with this weird age thing, then fine, we deal.

“I don’t care about the future. Right now I care that I’m with you, whether you’re Phillip or Philippa. If things start falling apart in a few years, that’s then. This is now, and I don’t want to miss it.”

“And if the cops start coming after you too?”

“Let them come. We’ll Bonnie and Clyde it, or Thelma and Louise if you prefer.”

“Things didn’t work out too well for any of them.”

“But at least they were together, and you know what? None of them would have given up the time they had to avoid their end.”

“In the movies.”

“Bonnie and Clyde was real.”

“I’m reasonably sure the real-life ending wasn’t the same as the one in the film.”

“I don’t care. If it comes to it, ours will be.”

“You’re not going to change your mind on this, are you?”

“No, and I know where you live. I’ll come here on the train if I need to.”

I took her hands in mine. I’d run out of arguments and Philippa was clamouring for attention inside me. It took all my strength of will to keep from changing into her.

“Thank you,” I said.

“What?”

“I really didn’t want to break up with you – we didn’t, that is – so, I guess, thank you for making it so flipping impossible.”

I managed a wry grin.

“You really are an idiot, you know?”

I shrugged.

She reached in and kissed me. Before I knew it I was two feet shorter and naked with a towel round my ankles.

Stacey grabbed it and wrapped it round me, then she picked me up and carried me back to where Dad, Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike were waiting.

“That’s going to take a bit of getting used to,” Uncle Mike said.

“Tell me about it,” Dad replied. “So, I take it Stacey’s coming with us in a few days?”

I nodded and sniffled before burying my head in Stacey’s shoulders. Blasted little girl emotions.

-oOo-

Six years old meant primary school, which grew old really quickly. By the end of my first day I wished I could – grow old quickly that is.

Uncle Mike pushed through all the paperwork and managed to get everything sorted within a couple of days, which paved the way for Aunt Sally to enrol me in the local primary school before the end of the week. On the plus side, that meant I was working towards an established and normal routine early on, but on the minus, I got to spend six hours out of every week day in the presence of dozens of other six-year olds.

Playing with Emma was one thing. She was a quiet and thoughtful little girl, at least she was whenever Stacey was nearby. Spending the best part of a day with a class full of my apparent peers was enough to take me to the brink of insanity.

I had boys pulling my hair – apparently a lot of them liked me for some reason – and I had girls chattering away inanely about things that made little sense to my slightly more mature mind. I found I did enjoy the chattering though. Girly emotions responding to the need for communication, even if the content left something to be desired.

I had to try and fit in though. If that guy from MI5 came snooping around and found evidence that I was anything but an ordinary six-year-old, he might start to do some advanced maths. “Two and two makes five for large values of two,” Miss Fallon had told us once. She’d thought it was quite funny, and I have to say, I didn’t really get the joke. I didn’t get the maths either, at least not at the time. It makes better sense now.

Rounding and stuff? Look it up, it’s supposed to be quite basic.

Luckily for me, I only had to endure a couple of days of primary school hell before the weekend came around. Sally and I had been out shopping for clothes already, I mean I’m hardly going to get by with one dress, am I? Besides I needed a uniform for school.

Drab grey skirt, boring white, cotton blouse, hideous orange pullover, lacy white socks and sensible T-bar shoes. None if it did much to excite the girl in me, but that was okay.

Mum and Dad arrived halfway through Saturday morning, but they were on their own. I gave them a hug but couldn’t quite hide my disappointment that Stacey wasn’t with them.

“It turns out you were right, son,” Dad said to me, still living in denial somewhat, or maybe speaking out of habit. “There’s been a car outside the house pretty much all week. We called the police, because after all it might have been someone up to no good. They sent a patrol car and the officer went and had a word with whoever was in the car. Then he came up to our door and apologised. Said the blokes in the car were there on official government business, that we had nothing to worry about.

“When they were still there at the end of the third day, your mum went out and asked if they’d like a cup of tea and some cake. They turned her down, and she asked what they wanted. They told her they couldn’t talk about it and asked her not to approach the car again. They were still there again yesterday, and today. What’s more, I think they followed us here.

“Your girlfriend called yesterday. She’s a bright one, that girl. She asked if we had any news about you. Said she was sorry she hadn’t called earlier, but they’ve had a bit of a bug problem. I didn’t catch on to what she was talking about at first, then it twigged, maybe if they were sitting about outside our houses, they might be listening to our phone conversations too. I told her we’d not heard anything since you’d been arrested. She said thank you, and asked me, if I saw you, to let you know she’d be heading into town with her mother and sister today. I suppose her way of saying she wouldn’t be joining us. Sorry son.”

I shrugged. It was a shame, but probably as well. Mum came over and greeted me while Dad emptied the car of all the bags of clothing they’d brought, and we went back into Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike’s house.

I went up to my room and peaked out the window. I tried to do it without touching the curtains, or getting close enough to be visible, but it was hard. Small as I was, I needed to climb up onto my bed in order to look out, and when I did, the first thing I saw was car parked opposite with two men sitting up front. The one nearest was looking up at my window.

I wasn’t sure if he could see me through the net curtains, and I didn’t want to act suspicious, so I leaned onto the ledge, lifted the net to one side and waved at him. He simply stared back, so after a few seconds, I dropped the curtain and climbed off my bed.

Dad and Uncle Mike brought the bags upstairs and dropped them in my room. My mum and Aunt Sally followed, chatting away, and started pulling my clothes out and hanging them up. I hunted through the bags until I found the one with my toys in and dragged it to one side.

With the clothes away, Aunt Sally took the bags back downstairs and Mum stayed. She sat down on the floor beside me, and without saying a word, I climbed into her lap and put my hands around her.

“I’m sorry about Stacey,” she said.

“I think it’s as well,” I answered. “Dad was right, you were followed. It would have been kind of hard to explain why you brought her with you. I’m sorry too Mum. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know. We have to accept some of the fault though. I mean it was us that let that Dr Wiesner do what he did to you.”

“That wasn’t a bad thing though, Mum. He did fix me after all, didn’t he?”

“I suppose he did, but I he still did it for his own reasons. I do wish you’d told the people who arrested you more though. I still don’t understand why you refused to cooperate with them.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it, Mum. I guess I was a bit quick to trust Dr Wiesner, and when he turned out not to be who he said he was, it made me a more cautious. That bloke from MI5 may have been genuine, but there were still things about him that didn’t ring true. I don’t know, I feel this is something I have to put right myself.”

“You’re still very young, Phillip, or should I call you Philippa.”

“Philippa’s probably best at the moment. Dad needs to get out of the habit of calling me son as well. I suppose I ought to call you Auntie Jennifer, and Dad Uncle Bill. At least until this is sorted. I will sort it, Mum. I mean Auntie Jennifer.”

Mum laughed nervously. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to get used to you calling me that.”

“You’re going to have to, at least for a while. If those men knock on the door, they have to believe I’m Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally’s adopted daughter.”

“Well, alright dear, I’ll do my best. We really ought to be getting back downstairs. You can bring your dolls if you like.”

After lunch, we all went out for a walk. There was a park nearby, and I did my part, running on ahead and getting all excited about going on the swings. Mum and Dad didn’t have to act much. They were worried, and by rights they should have been worried about me being held incommunicado for all this time. After the swings, I climbed onto the seesaw with Aunt Sally, or Sally as I called her. It felt too soon after the adoption for me to refer to her and Mike as Mum and Dad. Then after the seesaw, came the roundabout.

It was while I was spinning around and making myself laugh-out-loud dizzy, I noticed the man from the car. I waved at him again, and Dad noticed. His faced turned stormy, and he marched cross the playground to where the man stood, leaning against a tree.

“Why can’t you leave us alone?” Dad yelled at him. “It’s bad enough you’ve taken our son from us. Why the h…” He caught himself and glanced my way. “Why on Earth can’t you leave us be?”

The man was caught off guard. He held up his hands placatingly. “I’m sorry, Mr Merrick, I’m just following orders.”

“When are you going to let us see our son?” Dad yelled at him, his face turning purple.

I’m not sure how much of his tirade was him releasing pent up frustration, and how much simply a consummate piece of acting, but he had the man convinced. He backed off, stammering apologies.

Dad’s eruption disrupted the mood of the afternoon; I think it shocked us all more than a little. At Mikes suggestion, we headed away from the playground in the direction of an ice-cream van. Regardless of my real age, I was still enough of a six-year-old girl that a double scoop ninety-nine went a long way towards restoring my good mood, and with our government sponsored tail currently elsewhere, we actually had a pleasant rest of the day.

Mum and Dad left for home after an early dinner, and when I looked out of the window after my bath, there was no sign of the car from earlier.

-oOo-

I woke in the middle of the night for the first time in several months. The soft flannel nightdress I'd worn to bed hung from my shoulders in strips. But for the duvet, I'd have been pretty much naked.

“Good evening, Phillip,” a familiar voice said from the other side of the room. Moonlight glinted off thick glasses.

“What do you want?” I asked, fighting fear with belligerence, if only to hold onto my larger, more muscular form.

“Ah yes, you are a good student.” His tone was gently mocking. “I want what I have wanted always from you, for you to help me.”

“And what makes you think I would do anything for you?”

“I would like to think you would do this from gratitude for what I have done for you. I have given you a much better life than you might have had.”

“And then you destroyed it by conning me into breaking the law.”

“Conning. This means to trick you, yes? Perhaps yes, I did 'con' you, but I am not an evil man.”

“Good luck convincing me of that now.”

“Unfortunate you should feel this way, because I have no time to spend persuading you. It is unfortunate, but necessary that I should do this.”

He stepped forward and handed me his phone.

I stared at the screen, my blood running cold. The room grew around me, the phone equally growing in my hand.

“If you...” I couldn't muster the aggression for a threat, and my little girl voice held no menace.

“I will do nothing, at least for now. There is one more thing I need for you to acquire for me. When this is done, your girlfriend and her sister and mother can go back to their lives.”

He took the phone from my numb fingers. He knew I had no further need of it. The image wasn't particularly shocking compared to what I’d seen in the cinema, but it was real which made all the difference. Stacey with her mother and Emma tied to three plain chairs in a darkened room, strips of tape stretched across their mouths and wrapped around their heads. The look on Stacey’s face was one of undiluted anger, but both Emma and her mother were evidently terrified.

Wiesner had won and he knew it. I’d do whatever he asked.

He threw me one of the singlets my dad had brought with my other clothes. I disappeared under the duvet, removed the shredded remains of my nightie, and slipped the elasticated garment on. I found a pair of ballet shoes and slipped them on too.

“Follow me,” he ordered, and walked out of the room without bothering to see if I was doing so.

“What about my uncle and aunt?” I asked as we descended the stairs.

“They will sleep a little late tomorrow, but it is Sunday, no? This is not so bad.”

“They'll wonder where I am.”

“And perhaps call the police. This is of no consequence. We will be far from here by then, and it is unlikely the authorities will do anything before you have completed your task for me.”

“Where are we going?”

“So inquisitive. You never asked so many questions before.”

“I trusted you before.”

He laughed, loud enough to wake anyone who might be sleeping normally.

“What did you do to my aunt and uncle?”

“A simple sedative in the form of an aerosol.” He showed me a small handheld spray of the sort that might contain Mace or perhaps mouthwash. “They will wake in a few hours, perhaps feeling a little unbalanced, but nothing more. Whatever you may think of me, my friend, I am not a monster.”

“You're not my friend either.”

“I'm sorry you feel this way.” He held the car door for me, and I climbed in.

-oOo-

We drove in silence for half an hour. Being in Philippa mode, this didn’t sit well with me, so I broke it.

“So, are you going to tell me where we're going or not?”

“It wouldn't mean anything to you, I think.”

“So what's the harm?”

He sighed. “It is a research laboratory in the countryside. This is all you need to know.”

“And what do you want me to steal?”

“Acquire,” he corrected me.

“Does it belong to you?” I asked.

“No...”

“Would they mind if you took it?”

“Yes of course, but...”

“Then it's stealing, isn't it? When you take something that doesn't belong to you without the owner's permission, that's stealing.”

“This didn't bother you before.”

“I don’t remember you being so pedantic about what we called it. Besides, back then I thought you were one of the good guys.”

“Well, if you wish to have a discussion on semantics, perhaps we should start with this word, yes? What to you is good?”

“Good is when you don’t hurt other people.”

“Ah, this is a very clear definition; very black and white, yes? So, there is a man with a gun and he is pointing it at a woman. You can prevent him from shooting, but not without hurting him. What is the good thing to do here?”

“Well, I, er...”

“You have heard, I think, the saying that in order for evil to triumph, it is necessary only for good men to do nothing?”

“Sure. Yes, okay, so I would stop him, even if it meant hurting him. “

“Good. But the man with the gun is wearing a police uniform, and the woman is holding something in her hand which you cannot see.”

“You tricked me. Of course I wouldn't try to hurt a policeman. “

“Perhaps this is a trick, yes. Now you hear the woman shout out, ‘He isn't really a cop,’ and she holds up what you now see is a police badge. “

“You're trying to confuse me. “

“Exactly so, because it is necessary that you understand, sometimes it is not so easy to see who is the good guy and who is the bad.“

“You're still trying to convince me you're one of the good guys,” I said. “Like I told you earlier, good luck with that.”

“Not at all, my young friend – and please, I do still consider you my friend – it is my hope that you will lose your simplistic understanding of what is good or bad.”

I tried sulking, but that backfired on me. The doctor had no need to talk, whereas I still did.

“I still don’t get what you're trying to say,” I blurted, when I couldn't stand the silence any more.

“I think you do,” he answered infuriatingly. “Think about the scenario I gave you. Your response changed several times. Why was this?”

“You kept changing the scenario,” I responded, miffed.

“But I didn't,” he said. “At first, there was a man pointing a gun at a woman. Then the man had on a police uniform, but still there was a man pointing a gun at a woman.”

He fell silent, glancing across at me expectantly. Whatever else I might think about Dr Wiesner, he was a good teacher, and like every good teacher, he knew that lessons were best learnt by the student working things out for himself.

I turned my mind to the problem. What had changed? Still feeling the need to talk, I spoke my thoughts as they came to me.

“In the third scenario the man was still pointing the gun at the woman, and he was still wearing the uniform...”

The doctor nodded his head encouragingly.

“... but the woman identified herself as a police officer and said that the man was an impostor.”

“So what changed?” Dr Wiesner asked after a few seconds silence.

“You gave me more information to work with.”

“Would you say you had enough information to decide how to act correctly the first time?”

“Well obviously not, because I changed my mind every time you told me something new.”

“Good. How easy was it to make the decision each new time?”

That wasn’t a question I'd expected, and it took me a few seconds to process it.

“I guess it got harder, but I don't know why.”

“Perhaps each time you gained more information, you wondered more about what else you didn’t know?”

“So, at the end I was wondering if the woman's badge was real, and if she might be lying about the man.”

“Exactly. So why was it so easy to make decisions the first time?”

“I really have no clue.”

“And this is understandable, so I will tell you. It is in our nature not to think when we react. You saw for yourself that it becomes harder to decide if you think about it first, and to survive you must often react quickly, so it is natural for us to respond to our instincts. This helped our primitive ancestors to survive, many times even if they were wrong. In the army officers are taught it is usually better to act even if you are not sure how, because not to act is most often the worst thing to do.

“It is a benefit of age that instinct becomes more refined, and perhaps a gift of the female mind that your intuition is often better than when you are a man. Even so, there are many automatic assumptions we make that are naturally wrong, and so, when we have time to consider, it is better that we use deliberate thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take your situation for example. Is it a bad thing that you can turn from being a young man to being a girl?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Were you ever tempted to tell your friends at school?”

“No way!”

“Why not? If it is not a bad thing, why not tell them about it?”

“They'd freak out. Most probably wouldn't recover. A few might make my life hell because of it.”

“Because they react on instinct. Because it is unusual, so they do not trust it. If they thought about it for a while, they would realise you are the same person, their friend, and they would come to understand that, even though this thing is different, it is not a terrible thing.

“Now take our current situation. You do not trust me now. Why is this?”

“You lied. You don't work for NATO or Interpol. It brings into question your motives for everything we've done together.”

“This is a fair response, but if I had told you, at the outset, that I was no more than a private citizen, would you have done what I asked? Would your father have permitted me?”

“No,” I conceded, drawing the syllable out longer than it deserved.

“So, perhaps it was a mistake to tell the lie, but it was the only way I could be sure of gaining your trust, and that of your parents.”

“And of losing it once we found out.”

“Something I now regret, but a risk I felt was justified at the time. Another question. You did not tell the authorities much when you were captured. Why was this?”

“Because I didn't trust them. I learnt that from you.”

“Yes, like our little game with the man and the woman, you learn to question what is right and what is wrong; you learn to question whether the authorities you have been taught to trust instinctively actually deserve this trust, no?”

I had intended my comment to be accusatory, and it annoyed me that he'd turned it into a complement.

“I learnt to question whether or not he was telling the truth; whether or not he was what he said he was.”

“This also is a good thing.” Again, he turned my thorny comments into roses. “Though this Agent Keen who spoke to you, he is actually an MI5 agent.”

“Our lawyer said as much.”

“Do you trust his motives?”

“No.” The admittance was grudgingly given.

“Good. Very good. Tell me why.”

I thought back to my original interrogation. “I think more than anything it was the mood machine thing from that first mission. For one thing they all but admitted it was them using the machine. I thought you said it was some greedy corporate exec using it to manipulate the market.”

“I could hardly admit to you who the real culprits were, could I? You trusted me because I claimed to be a member of respected organisations. If our first mission was to be against your country’s own official defence network, it would shake your trust.”

“I suppose I get that. Agent Keen also said they hadn’t been able to make the machine work since that mission. It suggested that the scientist who developed it wasn’t too pleased with the way it was being used, and so wasn’t cooperating.”

“And so you take the first steps towards true independent thought. I am very proud of you. It is a considerable responsibility, but one more people should adopt, I think.”

“How do you know you’re in the right though?”

“What?”

“I get what you’re saying, it’s easy to trust the authorities, but they’ve proved they don’t always act in people’s best interests. If you choose to act on your own, like you obviously do, how can you be sure your motives are any better?”

The doctor turned introspective. When he didn’t answer immediately I looked across at him to see the usual infuriating arrogance wiped from his face. We continued in silence for several miles before he found a rest area to the side of the road and pulled into it.

“You make a good point. A very good point indeed. An individual working on his own – or her own, I should say,” he smiled at my little girl self, sitting beside him in what currently covered me like a catsuit, “would always be tempted to work in his or her own best interests. Power corrupts, I believe you say.”

“And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“This is a good saying, I shall remember it. It is also possible that a group of like-minded individuals might form an organisation together so that they might keep each other in check, and this has been done many times in the past. The problem here is that such organisations will elect one person to lead them, so that the organisation might function better. This leadership role then becomes a position of power, which attracts unscrupulous people, and many well-meaning organisations have been corrupted in such a way. This happened to the Christian church in the middle ages, I think you will find. But I digress.

“There is no easy solution to this, but one exists, thankfully, because of the power and anonymity of the Internet. Bear in mind that what is needed here more than anything else is accountability. There is increased strength to be had in the sharing of resources, this is for certain, but with any such collaboration, comes the possibility of losing control. So, what if a number of individuals choose to share only ideas online? To offer a suggested action for discussion before doing anything. For as long as each individual continues to respect the other members of the group, then advice can be given and taken, and actions can be moderated. There is even scope for occasional sharing of resources. If the majority of members of the group consider the proposed actions of one of their number to be appropriate, they can make resources available, by leaving them at dead drops and the like. Do you think such a thing would work?”

“I don’t know. If you’re all anonymous, it wouldn’t be that tough to abuse the system. Say I suggest one thing I’m thinking of and it gets approved. I ask for and collect a whole bunch of resources and then do something totally different with them.”

“Yes, but anonymity is not total. Individuals are only able to do so much alone. In the Second World War, resistance fighters solved this problem by forming cells of three or four people who knew each other but no-one else. If one was captured, or perhaps turned out to be a spy, he would only be able to give up information on his immediate cell. The cells worked together, making sure no individual worked against the whole. Groups of cells combined for larger operations. It worked.

“Also, you cannot simply become a member. In this organisation, to join you must be invited. An existing member will propose a new person to join, and he or she will be vetted by randomly chosen existing members from the rest of the organisation. If the consensus is that the new member should be invited, he or she will be approached, often by the person proposing them, and invited to join a cell.

“And what if a cell goes rogue? What if a small group, like your own for example, proposed a course of action, had it approved, asked for and gained resources, then went off and did something totally different, what then?”

“It would depend on the severity of the action. You remember each member is vetted by randomly chosen individuals? Under such circumstances the organisation might choose to investigate the identities of the members of a rogue cell, then take action, either directly or indirectly against them. Philippa, this is not perfect and there are many flaws with the foundation, but for the most part it works and has been working for many tens of years.”

“So, before you went after that mood changing machine, you consulted with this, what is it called?”

“The name of the foundation is Deus ex Machina, the god in the machine. Pretentious, I feel, but the name was chosen before I was invited to join. Its chief purpose is to take action to ensure that no government or organisation gains technology to make them too powerful. Yes, I consulted the group before going after this machine, and before going after the vector, also before going after today’s target.”

“Did they approve of your methods for gaining my cooperation?”

He sighed. “Perhaps it is time I took a risk with you, Philippa.” He pulled out his phone and did something complicated with it. A live video feed appeared on the screen and he handed it to me.”

“Stacey?”

“Philippa, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. it’s you I’m worried about.”

“We’re okay. We’re kind of locked in here at the moment, but as you can see, we’re not suffering.” In the background I could see a well-appointed suite of rooms. Emma was happily playing with some plush animals, and Mrs Owen was sitting on a nearby couch, having paused her reading when the video feed activated.

“What was that picture of you tied up all about then?” I asked.

“That was when we were first abducted. I think Wiesner wanted us to look suitably terrified, which of course Mum and Emma were. He settled for furious on my part, but then after the photo-shoot, he came in and cut us free before bringing us through here. He let Mum call Dad to let him know that we’re all okay. The door’s on a time lock, so we can’t get out of here til tomorrow morning, but there are beds and food and TV. Tons of stuff to do, so we’re fine. Maybe a bit rattled, but we’ve been treated well, and I really don’t think he means us harm. Call it intuition, but he doesn’t give off a bad vibe.

“I take it what he wanted you to do went okay?”

“I haven’t done it yet. I get the impression he’s giving me the choice.” I looked over at Dr Wiesner. “Can you override the time lock?”

He took his phone briefly and again tapped at it in unlikely ways. There was a metallic clunk from the video feed. “When you get home, call me on this number,” Dr Wiesner said to Stacey and reeled off a string of digits. He repeated them while she copied them down, then said, “Your car is outside. It should take you twenty minutes to reach your house.”

“I’ll talk to you in a bit,” Stacey said. Her mum was already collecting a gently protesting Emma from her toys. The screen went blank.

“So, what’s changed?” I asked.

“A great many things,” Dr Wiesner said. “It was with Deus ex’s support that I completed my research to treat you, did you know this? It was through one of their members that I was able to filter through many referrals to find likely candidates.”

“Did you treat anyone else other than me?”

“Of course, and the treatment has alleviated the symptoms in a great many individuals. For the most, they reverted to one gender type or the other, with the cells removed somehow not forming a viable alternative organism. You are the only one who has been able to switch as you do”

“So, they all have that sense of incompleteness I felt growing up?”

“To some degree, I suppose, although I believe all have adapted to it completely. It is an unfortunate side-effect, but they are better off than if they had received no treatment, let me assure you of that.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to take anything you tell me at face value right now, doctor.”

“Then I should continue to rebuild bridges, yes? I will admit, my reasons for treating your condition were to produce someone with your unlikely abilities. This, I realise will not please you, but it is important now, to build a relationship of trust, and at the heart of this is honesty.”

“A bit late now, doctor.”

“This is perhaps so, but not too late, I hope. When you finally transformed, I began to have such higher hopes for you than I had dared to dream. In you I saw a potential partner, not simply a foot soldier. I talked to the group about perhaps inviting you one day. They said you were too young, which is sound advice.”

“Aren’t you worried I might undermine the organisation, now that you’ve told me about it?”

“You know one of its members, and I know three more. The rest are safe. Whether they believe you about the existence of the organisation shouldn’t be a problem. I want to make up for not telling you all the truth before though, so I will tell you everything.”

“Including what you want me to steal today and how you plan to use it?”

“If that is required for your trust, yes. It is in keeping with the tenets of Deus ex in any case. I find I respect your judgement more each time I speak with you, so you will hear our plans, and you will decide whether it is right.

“Do you know what is the one greatest peril our planet faces at present? It is not global warming or any other environmental issue, though it does influence such things heavily.”

“Global warfare?” I guessed.

“If it involved nuclear weapons, it might possibly be, but a conventional war might help alleviate this problem to some degree. This sounds brutal, but it is true. You have no more guesses? Then I shall tell you. It is human population growth.

“Through most of the time humanity has existed on our planet, our numbers have remained below one billion. There were fewer than half a billion of us before the sixteenth century, then we reached one billion around eighteen hundred, two billion by nineteen thirty, four by nineteen seventy-five, and we are projected to reach eight billion by the mid twenty twenties. This means we are currently doubling in numbers every half century or so, and the world is already straining to support us all.

“Nobody speaks of it though, because there is no easy answer. The Chinese tried some years ago. They recognise that perhaps the greatest population growth is taking place in Asia, and they have made attempts to halt it. They implemented a one family one child policy, but this had undesirable side effects. Perhaps the harshest one they face is the prospect of having more people retired than working in some years, which will bring hardship on the current generation.

“Many animals have a way of dealing with this naturally. The tendency is always to have more offspring than will survive, so that the best adapted will ensure a species better able to live in its environment. You understand Natural Selection, yes?”

“We’ve studied it, and yes I get it.”

“One potential problem is that a species might overpopulate an area, causing food to become scarce. When this happens, fecundity – the ability of the animal to produce offspring – naturally drops. It may happen with us when we begin to run out of food, but so far, our ability to shape our environment means we have, for the most part, been able to keep ahead of this.

“There is a military research facility near here that has identified the gene that inhibits fertility, and they have created a virus that will activate it in humans. It doesn’t stop children from being born, but it does make the occurrence considerably less frequent.

“Our understanding is that they are seeking to turn this virus into a weapon. You are aware one of the greatest perceived threats here in the West is the rise in militant Islam?”

“You mean all the terrorism?”

“Indeed. Terrorism is nearly impossible to fight because the small number of militants are able to hide in the far larger population, much the same as Deus ex is able to hide in the world population.

“The idea here is that, if the virus can be altered to target one gene type only – one specific to Middle Eastern people only, then within a few generations, their numbers will be so reduced there will be too few left to hide the terrorists.”

“That’s horrible! Most of those people are innocent.”

“I agree. Another consideration is that it will become far easier for the West to take over the Middle Eastern oil fields if the number of people living in that part of the world dwindles. Do you see why we must take this technology away from these people?”

“But aren’t you planning to use it?”

“In a far more general way. All the world’s people will be affected, and out of necessity, not for war or greed. If we can activate this gene in the global population for even a generation or two, we could bring our numbers down to a level our planet can manage more easily. With fewer people, there will be less need for energy, so we will use our resources more slowly, we will cause less damage to the environment, and we will give places like the Amazon Rain Forest a chance to recover.”

“I’m not sure there’s that much of a difference. I mean shouldn’t people have a choice about something like this?”

“The majority will choose without thinking, in much the same way we have discussed earlier, and they will choose what is preferred for the individual – to continue as they are. The long term consequences of this could well be our extinction, possibly the extinction of all life on earth. At the very least it will result in death and privation on an unprecedented scale when our population rises so much higher than the world can manage.

“Philippa, this is one of those decisions that it would be dangerous for one individual to take for all of humanity. We have discussed it in Deus ex for some years now, and we believe it is appropriate action.”

“So, because a few dozen people think it’s right…”

“More like a few thousand, Liebchen. Deus ex is a much larger entity than you can imagine, and its members are generally both moral people and deep thinkers.”

“I can’t believe you would consider this.”

“It was a mistake, perhaps, to tell you all this in your female form. If you change to Phillip, you will be able to see more easily the pragmatism of it all.”

“How many women are there in Deus ex?”

“It is not known, because we are anonymous, but it is estimated a little less than half. Although those who have stated that they are women have agreed it is a necessary measure. Women also can be ruthless when they see the wisdom of an action.

“Would you please change into your male self? I think you are safe to do so here.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Perhaps this will help.” He reached over to the back seat, bringing forward a new version of my utility belt. He detached the rather bulky belt buckle and handed it to me.

“What is it?”

“It is at least one of the reasons I wished to acquire the first device. Press here.” He indicated one side of the buckle.

I pressed it and grew in my seat. The seat belt didn’t let go though, and for a moment I felt I’d be cut in two. Wiesner pressed the other side of the buckle and I shrank back down into Philippa.

“I am sorry. A foolish mistake.” He released the seatbelt and offered me the buckle again.

“How does it work?” I asked, pressing it and changing more or less instantaneously into Phillip.

“I isolated the waveforms the machine uses to enhance what are considered to be the most masculine and feminine emotions, then I constructed only enough of the machine to promote these emotions in a very localised field. It is enough to initiate the change, as you see.”

“So why did you put me through all those exercises?”

“I did not know how simple it would be to develop this device. Besides sometimes you will need to change when you do not have the device, or unable to reach it, so it is good to be able to control the changes yourself without help. However, when it is necessary for you to change instantly and without fail, this device will allow you do achieve this.”

“What else have you done with it?”

He pulled out what looked like a wooden wand, similar to those sold in toy shops everywhere in wake of JK Rowling’s continued success, except it had a group of small studs along its length. “This is highly directional and has a range of perhaps ten to fifteen feet. These buttons will induce terror, euphoria, sadness and rage. You must judge which ones your target is most susceptible to and which ones will be most effective in any given situation. It is not so much a weapon as a versatile tool.”

“And it looks like it does because?”

“I can be whimsical,” he smiled. “It is also good disguise for a child of either Phillip or Philippa’s age. If someone tries to use it on you, the buckle will automatically activate to lessen the effect.”

As Phillip, I could quite literally feel the horror I’d experienced at our recent conversation recede. With less emotion involved, I could also see much of the logic behind it all. The more I thought about it, the more I saw things from his point of view.

Since I had two lifetimes to lead, I’d most likely be only half-way through in fifty years, and if the doctor’s prediction of a doubling population was even close to accurate, that would mean I’d be living among a world population of about fifteen billion by the time I reached middle age, and maybe getting on for thirty by the time my life (lives?) finally drew to an end. Assuming I didn’t meet with an accident, some violent end or dementia before then, it wasn’t a future to look forward to.

“I’d be a fool to take your word for all this after what you’ve put me through.”

“Gullibility and innocence are not the same as foolishness, but I understand this point of view. What might I do to lessen your doubts?”

“I want to meet others from Deus ex Machina.”

“I will contact those in my cell and see if they are willing.”

He took his phone and pulled up something that looked like a messaging app. I assumed it was encrypted and not generally available to the public.

“One at least,” he announced after a minute. “Miriam Sellers is the person who brought me into Deus ex. I worked with her on the Klinefelter project. Her daughter was one of the first people we treated.”

“I thought Klinefelter only affected males.”

“Yes, the Y chromosome means that those affected present as males. Miriam’s son had a rare variant of the disease known as 48, XXXY which means that he had three X chromosomes and one Y. Following the treatment with my machine, there was insufficient of his male side to survive. The female part has thrived though.

“Miriam lives perhaps fifty miles from here, so we will meet half-way in about thirty minutes.”

“She’s prepared to come out in the middle of the night, just like that?”

“For Deus ex Machina we are all prepared to do much more than this. It should be no surprise.”

We drove in silence for a while, then the germ of a thought that had been niggling at the back of my mind started to sprout ideas.”

“This gene that’s supposed to reduce fertility when a population gets too large, you say it’s not activating in us because we’re not struggling to survive due to overpopulation, right?”

“Yes, this is what we believe is the case.”

“That’s not true all over the world though. Most of the overpopulated places in the world, like India, South America, Africa, they do have famines there. So why isn’t the gene kicking in in those places?”

“There is a great deal we do not understand about this gene, after all it has only just been discovered. We do not yet know what triggers it. Perhaps it is cannibalism, because some species resort to eating their own kind when there is little else available. Most human cultures have an aversion to this and even in famine, few would resort to such measures. Perhaps it is another thing we have not thought of yet. Whatever it may be, the conditions have not been met, or perhaps the gene is dormant and will not activate. Perhaps we are, after all, a cancer to this world.”

“I’m not sure I like thinking of us like that.”

The doctor shrugged. “A cancer is often a normal cell in the body that has mutated so the gene which tells it to stop growing no longer operates. When you look at us as a part of the world’s population, we are like this, no?”

I grunted. “Still, you’re talking about releasing a virus that will change the human genome so we don’t reproduce anywhere near as much. What’s going to stop our numbers from going down until there aren’t any more of us left?”

“It is possible when our numbers have reduced sufficiently the gene will deactivate naturally. We are, after all, not changing the human genome but rather activating a part of it that should already be operating.”

“Okay, but if the automatic process that should turn it on and off isn’t working, what’s to say that it will turn off when we’re down to a sensible size?”

“Perhaps it will not, but from tonights mission we will have genetic code that will turn the gene off as well as on. It will be as easy to combine each one with the vector you took from the previous laboratory. If the human population does not stabilise after perhaps two generations – this should be sufficient time for our numbers to drop to around two billion – then we will release the other virus to return the human race to normal.”

“And if we can’t reverse the effects?”

“There is no question of this. It is like I said, we are not doing anything more than flipping a switch. What can be turned on can as easily be turned off. This is certain, or we would be looking for another way.”

I lapsed into silence again. Dr Wiesner seemed inclined to leave me to my thoughts, so the quiet was well established when the abrupt ringing of the doctor’s phone almost scared me into a little girl.

“This will be your girlfriend, I think. Perhaps you will answer for me?”

I picked the phone out of the tray between our seats and slid the icon to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Phillip?”

“Yeah. Wiesner’s driving. You okay?”

“Yeah. Just got home. Mum’s just settling Emma, then we have an awkward conversation with Dad to get through, but we’re okay. You?”

“Better now I know you’re alright.”

“You don’t sound great.”

“Wiesner’s given me a lot to think about. I’m kind of trying to sort it out in my head.”

“You could tell me.”

“Yeah, and I will when I’m ready. I want to give these ideas time to settle first though.”

“Well…” She sounded a little disappointed. “I’m here whenever you feel like talking, okay? Either of you.”

A half smile quirked across my lips. That was probably what this was about. In Philippa mode, I’d probably have been more inclined to share rather than carry the burden myself. I considered going girl and running up Dr Wiesner’s phone bill, but it felt right to do this as Phillip, at least for now.

“Thanks,” I said. “That means a lot. What are you going to tell your dad?”

“That’s all a bit of a done deal, I’m afraid. Mum wanted to know how I knew Wiesner after the video call. Mind you he wasn’t hiding himself when he kidnapped us. No mask or anything.

“Dad had already reported us as missing before Wiesner allowed us to call home. The police didn’t want to know, but he had a visit from some guys from MI5 or MI6 or whatever ten minutes after he hung up the phone.

“I told them I met Wiesner shortly after I met you. Since then I’ve been letting them make it up for themselves. I don’t think they’re far from the truth though, sorry.”

“No that’s okay. I’m far enough up the proverbial polluted creek that nothing much you say will make things worse. I’d rather you kept yourself and your family safe. Just don’t let on you know anything about me. Except… aren’t they bugging your phone?”

“I kind of heard a weird click on the house phone once when I called your parents a few days back, so I’m not sure. I’m using my mobile at the moment, in the bathroom with the bath running, so I hope I’m safe. If I’m not and they do have my mobile tagged too, they’re going to have a fun time explaining to my dad why they didn’t go and rescue us after we were taken.”

“Well be safe and say whatever you need to in order to keep yourself and your family out of trouble. I don’t trust British Intelligence; they interviewed me after I was arrested, and I trust them a lot less then Wiesner.”

“Don’t right Wiesner off, Phil. I mean yeah, he hasn’t been entirely straight, but I have a feeling he’s one of the good guys.”

“Intuition?”

“Maybe a bit, but I think you feel the same thing, don’t you?”

“He has a way to go before he convinces me of anything, but I hear what you’re saying. Okay, my mind is officially open.”

“Take care Phil. I’ll let your parents know you’re okay and you’ll get in touch when you can.”

“Thanks.”

This would have been a good time for one of us to hang up, but it seemed both of us felt there was more to be said. The silence stretched taught between us.

“Stacey?” Yeah, so I caved first. What’re you gonna do?

“Yes Phil?”

The words were there, and I wanted to say them, but at the same time, I didn’t want to get her hopes up. My prospects were anything but good, and it would be unfair to suggest we might share a future when I wasn’t even sure I had one. I wanted to say thank you and sorry too, but I knew how inadequate that would be. She didn’t want either of those because it would feel like I was distancing myself from her.

I settled for honesty.

“I don’t know how things are going to work out from here, but I’m glad you’re in my life. If it’s at all possible, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you stay in it.”

“I’m going to hold you to that Phillip Merrick, ‘cos I’m not done with having you in my life either.”

There, not quite what was in me to say, but near enough for now.

“I’ll be in touch.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

The call had to end somewhere, and this one felt like it was already degenerating into clichés. You already know how I feel about those. I stabbed the button to end the call.

Dr Wiesner’s eyes seemed a little too focused on the road ahead. I dropped the phone back in the tray between the seats and turned back to my brooding. I didn’t feel much like being Phil, so tucked my legs up on to the seat and shrank down into little girl me. I’d done what I could with logic and felt a bit of girly touchy feely might help. I’m not sure it helped bring me closer to a decision, but I did at least feel better for a while.

-oOo-

“We’re here,” Dr Wiesner announced, rousing me from a sleep I wasn’t even aware had overtaken me.

I was still Philippa and looked out the windscreen at the approaching junction.

“It is perhaps safe to change now, but you must decide if you wish to talk to Miriam as Phillip or Philippa. In a few moments there will be other cars and curious eyes.

“Do I have anything more than this to wear?” I said pointing at my singlet/catsuit.

“I have clothes for both in the back seat. You can squeeze through to the back as you are and change as you like.”

So I did. Sliding between the two front seats was easy for six-year-old Philippa. I looked at the two sports bags – one blue one pink – and reached for the blue one. By the time the car pulled into a carpark, I was taller and dressed in a tee-shirt, sweater and jeans. I’d kept my Philippa form until I I’d climbed into the large clothes as far my small body could go, then I’d grown into them. It may have looked a bit odd, but it kept all the awkward squirming about to a minimum. I clipped the belt buckle over my existing belt and slid the wand up my left sleeve.

Wiesner got out first and an elderly woman stepped out of a nearby car. I followed suit and Wiesner introduced us. “Coffees for everyone I believe,” he finished off. “I will leave you to talk and return shortly.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.” Miriam had a slight American accent and a strong grip I discovered when I shook her hand. “I’ve been wanting to for a long time.”

“I understand you worked with Dr Wiesner on my treatment.”

“You’re welcome,” she said somewhat out of sequence. It took me a moment to recover.

“I’m not sure how grateful I am.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, I’ve spent the best part of the last ten years feeling like I was missing a big chunk of myself. Just recently I turned into a girl in the middle of a school which, even though I managed to stay hidden, totally freaked me out. Since then I’ve discovered I’m going to age slower than most people because whichever part of me is dormant, doesn’t change. If I live half time like this and half time as my other self, whoever I share life with will age twice as quickly as I will.”

“And yet if you choose to live your life almost entirely in one body then the other, you will be able to live two lifetimes, you will get to see life from both sides of the gender divide, and when you reach that point most middle-aged people do when they realise that youth is wasted on the young, you will have a whole other life to live with the wisdom of the first to inform you how to spend it. The glass is either half empty or half full depending on how you look at it.

“As for your life so far, it was never going to be ordinary, and untreated your Klinefelter would have brought you considerably more misery.”

“How can you be so certain?”

She reached into her handbag and dug out a wallet, from which she pulled a photograph.

A young boy of perhaps ten years age smiled up at the camera. He looked odd somehow, considerably prettier than a boy should look, and with vacant eyes.

“This was my Jamie just before his eleventh birthday. I found out he had a similar condition to yours some years previously. When I had his IQ checked, it came back as seventy-eight – what in the days before political correctness would have been referred to as educationally subnormal.

“Don’t get me wrong, he was a delightful child, and he would have found a place in the world, except that once he reached puberty, he would have ended up looking a lot more like a woman than a man, and the strata of society he naturally inhabited would have had a hard time relating to him after that. He’d have had a massive change to accept at that stage and without the mind to cope with it.

“There were times I caught him staring at the mirror, and he’d ask me why he couldn’t’ have been born a girl. Honestly, I could have let him live as one and he may well have coped better with life – right up until someone saw him undress, and I don’t think I’d have trusted him to be able to keep that a secret.

“It’s not often that Deus ex allows us to pursue personal agendas, but Jamie wasn’t more than five years old and recently diagnosed when I first encountered Dr Wiesner. I could see how my own field of research in quantum physics matched with Dr Wiesner’s expertise in gene manipulation. I suggested him as a member of the organisation and once he was in and a part of my own cell, we talked about possibilities and presented them as a joint project.

“Deus ex agreed to it, and we spent a few years developing the treatment. Jamie was getting close to puberty by then, which meant he had to be one of our first subjects if he was ever to be helped. Being the first in something like this has it’s risks, sure, but I doubt I’d have been happy using our technique on another human being if I hadn’t had enough faith in the outcome to try it on my own child.

“And he was actually the first human to go through the process. There are animals which exhibit a form of genetic variation similar to Klinefelter, so we already had some idea what to expect. In every case only one of the animal’s separated aspects ever survived, so when Jamie’s male self turned out to be so underdeveloped that it couldn’t sustain itself, we weren’t surprised. Her female side turned out to be everything we could hope for though.”

She pulled out a second photograph of a young woman, perhaps four or five years older than me. She was stunningly beautiful and laughing at the camera from the middle of a group of similarly pretty girls.

“Does she have a sense of missing part of herself?” I asked.

“Not much. She remembers being Jamie the guy, but says it was like living in a fog. She feels that she should always have been female, so she looks on the part Dr Wiesner’s machine took out of her as being something that should never have been there.

“I had her tested a few weeks after she was treated, and her IQ came out as one-hundred-forty-seven. She’s adapted entirely to being a woman and is currently studying nuclear physics at the University of Surrey. She wants to help develop nuclear fusion reactors. Jamie the boy might have been able to get a job as a janitor or tea lady at one of the labs. Jamie the girl could end up running one of the projects. Jamie the boy had very underdeveloped sexual organs, which would almost certainly not have matured fully in puberty. If he’d managed to find some girl who’d accept him as a man after what puberty would have done to him, he’d still have had almost no chance of becoming a father. Jamie the girl is fully formed and has every prospect of becoming a mother. So ask me if I regret turning my son into my daughter.”

“I’m not sure…”

“Ask me.”

“Do you…”

“Absolutely not. And neither do I regret the changes we made to every other child we treated. Yes, we have noted that many of them are aware of a missing part of themselves, but all of them – no exception – all of them are happier since the treatment.”

“I have to take your word for that, I suppose.”

She dived into her bag and retrieved her phone. “Doctor patient confidentiality gets in the way here – I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t want just anybody finding out about you, would you? It’s late, but my daughter is a bit of a party animal, so I’ll see if she’ll talk to you.”

She tapped in a short text while she was speaking, pressed send and looked up at me. A few seconds later the phone rang. She answered it on hands free. There was the sound of laughter and music in the background.

“Hi Mum. You’re up late.”

“It’s work related. Jamie, I have someone here who went through the same treatment as you with Dr Wiesner, I wondered…”

“Oh cool, let me talk to her.”

She handed me the phone.

“Hi, er, Jamie. I, er…”

“Oh, you ended up as a guy. I’m tempted to say sucks for you, but I guess you’re happiest this way. I mean you wouldn’t have turned out as a guy if you hadn’t been mainly a guy inside, would you?”

“I’m not sure...”

“How old were you when you were changed? I know Dr Wiesner was looking for younger patients, so they wouldn’t remember much of what things were like before, but I was about eleven when he put me into the machine. I mean wow, it was like waking up fully for the first time ever, and I was so excited to be all girl.”

“So, you don’t regret…”

“You’re kidding, right? It was like they took out everything that was holding me back from being me. I know I lost a bit of me, but I don’t miss it. You sound like your experience was a bit different though.”

“I was changed when I was six, and most of the last ten years I’ve always had this feeling that a big part of me was missing.” It felt like a triumph to reach the end of a sentence.

“Yeah, I guess I have that a bit, except I’ve always seen it as being something that should never have been there. I remember what it was like before the change, and that part of me was always getting in the way. It was like he was tripping me up. Not on purpose, just couldn’t help being clumsy and stupid.”

“But he died.”

“I don’t see him as a separate person, more as an extra bit that had been chucked in as an afterthought, kind of a piece of machinery that didn’t work with the rest of what was in there. Listen, the bit that was taken out of you was holding you back. You’re better off without it.”

“I don’t suppose you met any of the others like us who were treated?”

“Well…”

“It’s alright dear, you can tell him.”

“Okay. Kind of a perk of being related to one of the scientists who developed the process. In the early days I got to look after the kids while Mum and Dr Wiesner talked to the parents. They all felt they were missing a part of themselves, but I told them what I just told you, and it seemed to make sense to them. Overall, they seemed to think they were better off. I don’t think I ever met you though…”

“You didn’t dear. He went through the program after I left Dr Wiesner to run it on his own. Tell me you’re not neglecting your studies Jamie. I mean why are you out on the town in the middle of the week?”

“Mum, I’m fine. It’s Mandy’s birthday today so we came out to celebrate. I don’t have any lectures till eleven tomorrow, so it’s cool.”

“I worry about you.”

“Well that’s your job. Mine’s having a good time and learning about physics, and I’m at least as good at mine as you are at yours. Phil, it was great chatting, but I have to get back to killing off a few brain cells. Mum gave me too many and my friends don’t like me showing them up in class. Bye, love you Mum.”

The phone went dead. Dr Sellers shook her head.

“You kept calling her Jamie after she changed?” I asked, looking for some way to take the conversation forward.

“Well, it was James on his birth certificate, but then as he grew into such a beautiful child, Jamie became more natural, and worked just as well after she was treated.”

Time for the hard questions.

“What do you think about what Dr Wiesner is trying to do at the moment?” I’d just spotted him coming out of the service station with three cardboard cups and a paper bag in his hands.

“Reducing the world population? We need to do it.”

“Shouldn’t everyone have a say in what Deus ex are looking to do?”

“They wouldn’t have a say about how many died from famine or disease or war if it came to that. This is the most humane way of doing it. Besides, the worst thing about democracy is that most people vote in their own immediate best interests. Very few people are forward looking enough to see the long-term consequences of their selfishness.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because if they were, people around the world would already be taking measures to stop the runaway population growth we’re facing. Did you know, China actually tried to address the issue?”

“Yeah, Weisner said as much.”

“Yeah, did he tell you the details? The Chinese government imposed a one family one child rule back in 1979. Then, because Chinese culture values male children more than female, a lot of families who ended up having daughters allowed them to die so that they could eventually have that more valuable male child.

“Horrible thing to do, and with additional consequences. Now seventy percent of young Chinese are male. If that doesn’t count as enough reason to take the decision out of the general population’s hands, I don’t know what is.”

“But if Deus ex Machina is made up of so many deep thinkers as Dr Wiesner tells me, why can’t they educate the world rather than keep trying to change it?”

Dr Wiesner caught up with us and handed out the coffees. The paper bag contained pastries, which we also took with gratitude. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until then.

“It’s not what Deus ex is about. You know what the name means, don’t you?”

“God in the machine. Dr Wiesner thinks it’s pretentious. I tend to agree.”

She smiled and sipped at her coffee. “You evidently don’t know where the name comes from then. It actually a literary device. When an author backs his main characters into a hole from which there is no escape, if he – or she I guess – is lazy then he’ll introduce an unexpected random event that resolves the problem. You know, like when you have a cliff-hanger at the end of a TV series and can’t see how they’re going to get out of it, then the first episode of the new series comes up with some totally awful way of resolving the tension and then they get on with the story they want to tell.”

“Yeah, I hate it when they do that.”

“Because it’s unrealistic and unsatisfying. However, we at Deus ex Machina feel that the real world needs some unexpected, unexplained random events to stop it from imploding completely, so we see our place as hiding in the background and being the source of those unlikely events.”

“This is the meaning of the name?” Dr Wiesner asked. “I had no idea. With understanding it is an excellent choice.”

“We operate covertly, Phillip,” Miriam continued. “We can’t trust the world as a whole to make the right decision, and there is precedent to support our point of view. Look at the last four decades of presidents in the United States. Not just the most recent offering, but all of them. We’ve had one, maybe two, worthy of holding the post out of the last seven. I mean some of them have barely been able to tie their own shoelaces. And I doubt I have to mention anything specific about what’s been happening here in England recently.

“But what gives us a right to make decisions on behalf of the human race?”

“Individually, nothing. There has to be accountability, or we start sliding into fascism. As a worldwide organisation with proportional representation from all peoples, cultures and genders – including the alternative ones – and we agree only to act on majority agreement – significant majority if the matter is sufficiently important like this one – then we have the best of our kind thinking and acting in the best interests of us all.

“Phillip, Winston Churchill once declared, ‘It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ It shouldn’t, and it doesn’t, prevent us from trying something different, and perhaps we have found something less worse than democracy. This makes sense to a great many people, a considerable number of whom are more intelligent than any of us three standing here. It would be a mistake to dismiss it out of hand.

“You are uniquely placed to help in our efforts at this time.”

“And if I don’t, you won’t let me into your secret club?”

“Actually, this has been discussed. You are short-listed to be approached in the future, and what you decide now won’t change this. The general consensus within Deus ex is that people of your age are typically too impetuous to bring true wisdom to the group, so you cannot be considered for a position at present, and whether or not you are offered one in the future should not depend on any decisions you make it this age.

“Your decision to help us should be based purely on whether or not you believe it to be right. We don’t want you to be involved in something now that would have you feeling guilty for your involvement in the future. I’ll tell you right now, you have both a proposer and a seconder for consideration as a member of Deus ex in the future. Both Henning and I are impressed by your thoughtfulness and judgement, and this won’t change if you decide not to go ahead with tonight’s plan.”

“However, “Dr Wiesner interrupted, “the decision needs to be made soon. Our window of opportunity for this current venture is narrow. We are aware that what we are looking to steal is due to be transferred from its current location after tonight, and we have no idea where it will be going, though quite possibly to somewhere we have no possibility of infiltrating.

“Phillip, I must place this on you now. Take your coffee. There is another pastry here if you wish it,” he offered me the bag, “go and sit in my car. I shall talk with Miriam for a while longer. Your decision, whichever the outcome, must be made within the next thirty minutes if we are to have any possibility of success.”

I didn’t need the half hour. I’d already decided. I didn’t want to leave a world heaving with thirty billion starving humans. I’d just wanted to assure myself that I was siding with the right people, and between Philippa’s intuition and Phillip’s logic – perhaps with a little input from Stacey as well – I’d made up my mind.

I took the pastry anyway.

“We’d better get on the road doctor,” I said. “Thank you for your time Dr Sellers.”

It took us more than an hour to reach the target, and Wiesner had spent most of it briefing me on what to expect. The more he talked the more I regretted my decision, but I wasn’t about to back out now.

The place we were heading for was a bio-research institute that had been built into an old cold war bunker, which meant most of it was underground. The points where it breached the surface were a small building that served as entrance providing lift and stairs access to the bunker, and a couple of ventilation shafts that had been drilled down when the place was extended. The original design had the place sealed off from the outside world so that no fallout could enter after a nuclear strike, but in its new guise, with an increased number of personnel working in it on a daily basis, the original carbon dioxide scrubbers were impractical. Besides, there was always the concern of radon build up, a problem that hadn’t been identified when the bunker had been built.

The shafts made the place less secure, both from the point of view of break-outs and break-ins, so extensive measures had been put in place to ensure that nothing could get in or out. Unburned gases from the site’s generators were ignited inside the ventilation ducts every ten minutes, effectively incinerating any pathogens that might escape the labs in an accident, as well as adding to the defences against incursion.

The ventilation shafts were the easiest way in, which wasn’t to say they would be easy.

First obstacle, unsurprisingly, was the guards. Both entrance and ventilation shafts were surrounded by barbed wire fences and well guarded. The shafts were isolated from the rest of the base though, so subduing the guards without raising an alarm was at least feasible.

The second was the depth and narrowness of the shafts themselves, dropping some four hundred feet into the ground, and barely three and a half feet across. I could squeeze in as Phillip but because of the rest of what I would face, it would be Philippa going down the rabbit hole.

Third, there were detectors at regular intervals down the shaft, which would need to be disabled before we could attempt entry. The doctor assured me this could be done from the guard station at the vent.

Fourth – though in my mind these belonged higher up the priority ladder – were laser grid defences. Criss crossed arrays of high energy lasers capable of slicing through anything smaller than a rabbit. Think resident evil and you’re getting close to the idea. Okay, I wasn’t smaller than a rabbit, so wouldn’t necessarily be diced, but they’d still cut deep enough into my flesh to cause serious damage.

Sure, I naturally repaired a lot of my injuries every time I switched between bodies, but I had no idea how far that restoration would go, and this didn’t seem like a great place to test my limits. On the plus side, the lasers used a ton of energy whenever they fired, so they only activated when there was something to slice up. On the minus side, the activation time was measured in milliseconds, and the lasers were entirely self-contained, so there was no way we could hack into them. Dr Wiesner assured me he had a solution and not to worry.

Fifth, assuming I made it to the bottom in one piece, there was a pool of acid waiting to dissolve anything enterprising enough to make it so far.

Sixth, the ventilation ducts that led from the main shaft were smaller than the shaft. Certainly, too small for Phillip, and even unnervingly tight for Philippa. If I managed to get stuck in there, chances were slim to nothing I could get unstuck before the regular burn.

Which was, of course, the seventh obstacle.

It struck me that burning off excess fuel like that was horribly inefficient, but then the military has never been particularly thrifty or planet friendly. Efficiency from their point of view probably meant a solution they could turn on and forget about. It certainly made maintenance of the ventilation shafts unnecessary.

Dr Wiesner assured me he had a plan that would allow me to enter safely. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming with details though. I tried to distract myself by raising a totally different subject.

“What I don’t understand is why the world’s leading governments don’t do something about this population problem.”

“What do you suggest they do about it? The governments of most of the world’s wealthiest countries do not have so much population problem, and those in the countries that do would not welcome interference from the rest of the world. Most would not admit that they had a problem in the first place.

“Besides, it is not a simple problem to solve. I have mentioned China, yes?”

“Yes, so did Dr Sellers.”

“Also, it is a sad fact that most governments are kept in power by those with wealth and influence. These people tend to be those who run big business, and they are aware that if the world population is reduced, so is the size of their market and also the size of their profit. For this reason they will not permit it.”

“That’s cynical.”

“I have found the dividing line between cynicism and realism is becoming increasingly narrow. To my mind the influence of businesses on the way the world is run is the second greatest danger to our planet at present. These market forces are like an illness, a true cancer, which threatens to eat away at all that is good and wholesome in human society.”

“Perhaps the next target for your Deus ex Machina once we’ve solved the population problem,” I said glumly.

“Perhaps, though I am not the person to lead that battle. Perhaps you might like to consider it once you are offered a place.”

Conversation ended. I asked the doctor again about his plans for this infiltration, but he liked the theatre of the big reveal, and assured me — again — that everything had been taken care of. Instead he directed me to the glove box of his car and left me examining blueprints of the place I was soon to break, into along with patrol routes and timings and a whole bunch of other information.

-oOo-

We didn’t slow as we crested the rise and headed down into the hollow where one of the ventilation shafts was located. The half dozen guards on station turned their rifles in our direction.

With a smirk and a brief glance sideways, the doctor flipped a switch. Each of the soldiers fell to the ground, twitching.

“An unexpected discovery when I was experimenting with the mood-altering device,” he said matter of factly. “Quite by accident I identified a means of inducing a form of petit mal seizure. There is no permanent damage, but those affected become immobile and unaware of their surroundings for perhaps five minutes.”

“Perhaps five minutes? No more precision than that?”

“A minimum of three in the different subjects I tested. It will be enough time for us to immobilise them all.”

He turned off his epilepsy ray and handed me a fistful of large cable ties.

“One each about the ankles and the wrists. As tight as you can.”

I’m not sure I needed instructions, and it only took only a minute to hog tie each of our adversaries. Wiesner dealt with his quota then checked the bindings on mine, adding a cloth bag over each head. All weapons were taken from them, unloaded and stacked in the guard house. Bullets and spare magazines were placed in a large canvas sack along with combat knives and anything else that looked like it could be used in a fight, and the sack tied shut with an impressive looking knot.

He threw me a cordless drill with a screwdriver bit already in the jaws and pointed at the shaft.

“Remove the grill while I hack into their computer system. I have a little worm that will put their detectors into a diagnostic loop, which should last for perhaps thirty minutes.”

“I still want to know what you have in mind for the lasers.”

“It is taken care of, go and watch for the venting of the gas.”

I did as I was told with some bad grace. I was halfway through removing the screws securing the grill over the shaft when I became aware of a growing grumble coming from the hole. I made the mistake of looking to see what was causing it and only just managed to dive clear in time as a column of flame came roaring out, forming a brilliant, swirling shaft that reached twenty feet into the air.

The grill was painfully hot to touch immediately afterwards, but by the time I’d removed the last of the screws, it had cooled enough for me to haul it off and throw it to one side.

The doctor appeared with a contraption that unfolded into a tripod with a motorised winch suspended at its highest point. He handed me my utility belt — bulked out with a few additional items — and a harness that was too small for my current body. I didn’t need telling, and following a brief touch to my belt buckle, it was little girl me that stepped into the webbing.

“What happens if I change into Phil while I’m wearing this?” I asked. The harness wasn’t made of the same stretchy material that made up the utility belt, for obvious reasons. I mean neither of us wanted a repeat of what happened at the top of the lift shaft in the Wexler institute.

“It will be uncomfortable but bearable. The harness will stretch enough to accommodate your larger form, but not without restricting blood flow to your arms and legs. This will lead to numbness and weakness in your limbs if you stay as Phillip for more than a few minutes. You will need to make this change when you reach the bottom of the shaft in any case, but it is imperative you should remain so only for as short a time as possible.”

He pulled a thin cable from the winch and attached it to my harness, then he took what looked like an emergency sleeping bag and handed it to me - you know, the sort that look like its made of aluminium foil.

“What’s this?”

“This is what will protect you from the lasers.”

“What?”

“The first laser grid is a little over twenty metres down. By then you will be falling about sixty kilometres per hour and it will take you seventy milliseconds to pass through the laser grid. This material will reflect seventy percent of the energy from the lasers and will conduct the remainder across its surface. At this speed, the lasers will not be able to cut into the material, and seventy milliseconds will not be long enough to raise the temperature significantly. The remaining grids are further down, by which time you will be moving faster, and so spend less time in passing through them.”

“I begin to see why you didn’t tell me about this earlier.”

“I have tested it in the laboratory. It will work.”

“And what happens when I get to the bottom? The lasers sweep backwards and forwards don’t they, and they’ll keep discharging because they’ll detect the cable. How much damage will it be able to take? I mean, if it gets sliced through, I end up in that acid pool, and there’s an end to it all.”

“The cable is made from the same polymer as this sheet. While you are falling, it will be the same as you, always a different part being struck by the lasers, and so they will be undamaged. But you are right, the hardest part will be when you reach the bottom of the shaft.”

“You think?”

He ignored my sarcasm. “I tested the rope with the most powerful laser I have, and it was able to sustain continuous damage in the same place for a little more than three seconds. Once you reach the bottom of the shaft, you will have this long to find your own means of holding on to the sides before the rope is cut through.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“The shaft opens up at the bottom. It will be too large a gap for your small self, but still small enough for your larger form to reach across it. Once you have come to a rest, change into Phillip, and brace yourself against the sides of the tunnel. You know you can do this.”

“So, you want me to hang over a pool of acid with no rope with an undersized harness biting into my arms and legs until what?”

“You will have to identify the correct ventilation shaft and open it, then waited for the flames to be expelled. This will be only a few minutes, and the sheet should also protect you from the flames. After it has passed, reach into the ventilation shaft, turn back into the kleines Mädchen and climb in.”

“As simple as that?”

“This is why you have trained for so many weekends. Perhaps we have not done anything exactly like this, but the exercises you have undertaken have given you the strength and versatility to do this. But you must go now. You must be at the bottom of the shaft with the vent open when the flames come next.”

“Carpe diem,” I muttered, climbing into the reflective sack. It was large enough to fit me in Phil mode, so I had to gather the excess and hold it in a bunch with one hand. With the other, I held the cable to keep me upright and pulled the material across my face.

The doctor winched me above the shaft and steadied me. He counted down from three and I fell.

-oOo-

Plunging through darkness with a rock wall whistling past mere inches from my face was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I held tight to the terror and kept a finger on the girl mode side of my buckle. I was aware every time we passed through a laser grid. No fancy sci-fi zappy noise, but the material did crackle under the onslaught and despite the doctor’s assurances, there were definite hot spots painting streaks up the outside of my protective sheet.

I didn’t dare move. Even a slight twitch at this stage could bring me in contact with the rocks, which would both hurt and slow me down. It would almost certainly tear the sheet as well, after which I’d learn first hand what the laser grids could do to human flesh.

Three panic-filled seconds into the descent, the harness bit into my flesh and slowed me rapidly to a stop.

Trust the equipment, trust the plan. The shaft opened out at the bottom as the doctor had said, too large for the little girl, but not so far across that I couldn’t brace myself on the sides as Phil. The doctor’s precise planning should have placed me in that wider space a few inches below the ventilation shafts, and perhaps a couple of feet above the acid tank.

I swung myself horizontal and pressed guy mode on my belt. The shaft walls slammed into my back and feet, and the harness bit into my arms and legs. Not a moment too soon as I felt the tension in the cable give way and bits of it started falling on me from above.

I reached into my utility belt for my night vision gear — a headband incorporating infrared torches and IR sensitive image intensifying goggles. With them on, I eased my head out of the sack and almost swore. The good doctor’s calculation had been a little off leaving me a foot closer to the acid than I should have been. If I hadn’t flattened myself out before changing into Phil, I’d have dunked something in the fuming, oily liquid and I’m not sure I’d have got it back.

I located the vent I needed to use, a foot and a half above me, and just out of my reach. I’d climbed shafts like this before in my training, but not while encased in a thin polymer sack. It took me a minute to shuffle my way up until I could reach the screws holding the grill in place and another minute with my arm stretched awkwardly above me removing the screws from the grill. Both my legs and arms were aching painfully by the time I had the last screw loose. If they hadn’t been turning numb, I’m sure they’d have felt like they were on fire.

I heard the distant grumble I’d been expecting from the vent. It grew rapidly as I withdrew my arms pulled the opening in the sack closed as best I could. I felt more than saw the flames belch out of the vent.

Responding to the demands of physics, they mostly shot skywards. They were hot though, and enough of them eddied about me to push the material past its limits.

The singlet offered a little added protection, but in Phil mode my calves and forearms weren’t covered. I felt my skin bubbling and clenched my teeth against the pain. Even my face felt as though it was searing, despite having both my arms in front of it. The flames seemed to last forever, then very abruptly they were gone.

The pain in my arms, legs and face remained. I peeled whatever was left of my protective cover away, hissing as it stripped the tops off newly formed blisters, and let it drop into the acid beneath me. That done, I grabbed for the grill and pressed my belt buckle to change into Philippa.

There was only one screw holding the grate in place, but it was enough to support my reduced weight. All the pain went with my other self, leaving me sobbing with relief. The grill was hot, and my singlet had melted in places, but it was nothing compared to what I’d just experienced.

I allowed myself a few seconds to recover then climbed up to the top of the grill. It wasn’t easy as my six year old strength was still very limited, and when I reached the duct itself, I regretted dropping the cover as the metal inside the vent had absorbed and retained a lot more heat than I’d expected.

I clung there sobbing quietly. This wasn’t going to work. In less than ten minutes the flames would roar out again and I wouldn’t have any way to protect myself.

“Liebchen?” The voice tickled the tooth at the back of my mouth.

“I can’t do this?” I whimpered.

“You must Liebling. There is no time to waste.”

“I can’t.”

“What has happened Mausebär? Tell me.”

“The flames burned me — the other me — and I can’t climb into the vent; it’s too hot and I’m not strong enough.”

“You must Liebling. It is imperative that you move now. Whatever else is wrong, the flames will return in eight minutes. You still must crawl more than thirty metres before then to be safe.”

“I can’t. I don’t have the strength.”

“Phillip is. You must turn back into him.”

“I don’t think the grill will hold his weight. There’s only one screw holding it.”

“Then hold the edge of the vent. When you change, reach in as far as you can and brace yourself against the sides, then change back.”

“It’s hot though.”

“It will be much hotter in seven minutes and one half. Liebling, I know this is hard, but you must act now.”

He was right. If I was quick…

I reached for the lip of the vent. It was hot, but no longer hot enough to blister. I grabbed for the rage in me and felt myself growing. The acid wasn’t far beneath my feet, so I scrabbled up the wall and reached my arms as far into the duct as I could. There wasn’t anything to give me purchase, so I jammed my hands against either side. The skin on my arms, shins and face was still tight and painful, and the restriction of the harness continued to rob my arms of their usual strength. I felt myself slipping and let the rising terror turn me back into my smaller self.

I was half inside the tube with very little room for movement, but panic lent me energy and I managed to squirm and wriggle the rest of the way in. The duct was still hot enough to draw tears from my eyes.

“I’m in,” I muttered into my tooth mike, not quite suppressing a tremor in my voice.

“You should move then. Seven minutes remain.”

I started worming my way forward – caterpillaring might have been a better term had it not already been usurped by a distinctly unsavoury group of the human race to mean something entirely different. It was an effective enough mode of locomotion, covering space quickly and allowing me to limit the amount of time any part of my body was in contact with the hot metal. The more I moved forward, the more I felt my fears receding and my confidence returning.

I’d made about seventy feet of progress when the next problem arose.

“Er,” I sub-vocalised.

“What is it now?”

“Something’s coming towards me down the vent.”

“Be more specific, what is coming towards you?”

“At a guess I’d say an inspection robot. Long spindly legs – three at the front three at the back, equally spaced around the centre with wheels at the end. Central body seems to seems to be where the clever stuff is — sensors and the like.”

“Is there space to let it past you?”

“Tell me you’re joking. You know how tight this shaft is?”

“Look for a side passage you can squeeze into?”

“There was nothing on the blueprints, so what makes you think there’ll be anything here? All I have is one long, very narrow, metal tube all the way to the access port, now with an inspection ‘bot in the way.”

The robot was almost within reach now.

“Give me one minute to think.” Wiesner wasn’t great at thinking on his feet.

I didn’t have a minute. With my arms stretched out in front of me, I didn’t have access to my utility belt, which meant pretty much all I had to work with was my hands. Still, it didn’t look particularly strong. As it came within reach, I took hold of the central part and twisted.

“No time,” I muttered.

The robot evidently wasn’t designed to withstand any sort of punishment. The legs buckled under even my little girl efforts, scraping noisily against the side of the shaft as I twisted it and pointed it back the way it had come.

“What did you do?” Wiesner hissed. The sibilance made my teeth itch.

“I broke it. I’m moving again. How long till I get toasted.”

“Two minutes and forty seconds. The robot will almost certainly have reported a malfunction. You’re going to have company, which is not what we planned.”

“No escaping that. If not a malfunction, then a blockage. Either way I’d have ended up with company. How far to my exit?”

“Six metres now, but there will be people waiting for you.”

I was making the best speed I could, pushing the remains of the robot in front of me. The access hatch I was aiming for opened and a shaft of light filled the tunnel ahead of me. Ten feet, rapidly closing.

Your brain does amazing things on adrenaline . It reminded me of the wand I’d pushed up my sleeve earlier. I had enough room to pull it out and aim it. Terror, euphoria, sadness and rage. This guy was probably going to be a bit nervous wondering what had killed his toy. The moment the top of his head appeared above the hatch, I pressed the first button.

He screamed and fell back down into the room below the shaft.

“What the [redacted]’s the matter with you?”

Look, I don’t have to print an expletive just because someone said it. If you’re that bothered, insert the first thing that comes to mind, you’ll probably be right.

Still, it sounded like I had two people to deal with and very little time in which to do so.

“I don’t know. Something scared the [redacted] out of me just then.”

I made it to the hatch and eased over it. It gave me enough freedom of movement to reach my utility belt, so I slipped the wand back up my sleeve and retrieved the parts of my needle gun. They slid together smoothly, and I was taking aim when the first guy looked back up at me.

“What the…”

I managed to interrupt him before he got to the interesting words. He took a needle in the cheek and dropped like a stone.

That was going to make the next guy nervous and I needed to do something before he set off the alarm. I pulled the wand out and considered my options. It wasn’t quite right, but hopefully it would still work. I took a chance. Aiming in the direction I’d heard the second voice come from, I dropped my hand through the opening just far enough to clear the metalwork and pressed the third button.”

“Geoff, no!”

Sadness wasn’t the same as concern but it proved to be close enough. He ran forward and crouched over his colleague giving me a clear shot at the gap between his collar and the bottom of his buzz cut. A second later he was collapsed on top of his mate.

“You have ten seconds to get clear.”

No time to think. Sometimes you have to hope for the best and deal with what comes. I swung down into the room and changed into Phil, giving me long enough legs to brace myself on some of the nearby pipework. The harness dug into my shoulders and legs, squeezing me painfully in ways and places I’d rather not recall, and the blisters on my arms, legs and face came back tight and painful. Ignoring the discomfort I heaved the hatched closed, dogging it in place just seconds before the flames grumbled past overhead, the roar muffled and indistinct on the outside of the pipes.

I dropped down on top of my two recent victims, changing back into Philippa as I fell and took in my immediate surroundings. First things first. I stripped off the much hated harness. The blueprints had marked this place as a utility room, and that’s pretty much what it was. About ten feet by twelve, grey painted concrete brick walls, stone floor and half filled with cardboard storage boxes, the only half-way distinguishing feature was the wall furthest from the door, which was lined from floor to ceiling with pipes, trunking and ductwork, part of which had provided my means of ingress.

My first stop was a junction box in one of the conduits, which was easy enough to find, but not so simple to open. It was a press fit which held too tightly for my small fingers to prize off. In the end, I had to admit defeat and reached for my belt buckle. Turning back into Phillip hurt like a puppy.

You know what a puppy is the son of, don’t you?

Even with the recuperative effects my change seemed to bring, pretty much everything hurt. You know that ache you get when you’re trying to do something while holding your hands over your head? It was like that, but in both my arms and legs, and ten times worse.

I wanted to massage some life back into my limbs, but my forearms and calves were raw and glistening, and overly sensitive to the the least movement. The best I could do was get on with the job as quickly as I could.

The cover on the junction box proved to be a non-issue. I removed a collection of circuitry and wires from my utility belt and plugged the relevant plugs into their matching sockets.

“Good, good,” the doctor said through my bones. “I have access to the surveillance system. There is only one camera in this room and it faces the door. You are hidden, as are the individuals you have incapacitated. As long as you remain closer than two metres from the back wall, you should remain outside the camera’s view.”

I stayed as Phillip for long enough to drag the two technicians behind a stack of boxes.

“I could use a bunch of cable ties right now,” I murmured.

“Shoot them once more with the needle gun. This should ensure they remain unconscious for an hour or so.”

I did as suggested. I almost certainly wouldn’t have a whole hour before the techies were missed, but at least they wouldn’t wake up in the meantime.

“Okay doc, over to you.”

-oOo-

Ordinarily at this point in a mission or training scenario, I’d have been looking for a ventilation shaft or false ceiling to use as a way of getting about unseen, but here I had neither option. There were no false ceilings or other small crawl spaces in this facility, and the vents would have been too tight for me to move about in silently even without the added challenge of avoiding the flame blasts.

Now that I was here, I could see the advantages of the flames. The pipes muffled the noise enough to reduce the roar to a gentle rumble, making the sound only a minor inconvenience. On the credit side of the balance sheet, the heat from the flames went a long way towards dispelling the chill that came from the rocks this far underground, as well as preventing any airborne pathogen from escaping the facility.

From my point of view it was a hassle though. My training combined Phillip’s speed, strength and stamina with Philippa’s small size and suppleness, but in this place, both my forms were more liability than advantage. I stood out like a sore thumb in a snowstorm in either of my physical forms. Phillip would ordinarily be a little faster getting about, but it wasn’t enough of an advantage for me to want to spend any more time than I had to coping with the burns.

Being the middle of the night, the lab was operating with reduced personnel. Most of the scientists who worked here were civilians, even if they were engaged in military projects, so they’d be home tucked up in bed. All I had to do was avoid any security patrols and technicians and other workmen wandering about. This was where the doctor came in.

I’d given him full access to the cameras meaning he could do the same with them as the security guard watching them. Doing anything overt with them like point them in the wrong direction or shut them down would be noticed immediately, and we were still trying to keep a low profile. What he could do was scout out my route ahead of me, and run short repeat loops on individual cameras while I was moving past them. An astute security guard might spot a camera jumping from live to looped and back, but the chances were slim to zero.

“Okay the room camera is looping and the corridor will be clear in twenty seconds. Stand ready by the door… and go. Turn right…”

In keeping with my training, I had the blueprints pictured in my mind with all my potential bolt holes highlighted. There was no guarantee that Dr Wiesner would be able to maintain contact, and I had to be ready to act autonomously if I had to. As it was I didn’t need to fall back on my memory. The doctor’s voice kept me company through the short but nerve wracking trip through to my destination.

We nearly made it all the way. I was in sight of the lab when the alarm finally sounded.

“Intruder alert, intruder alert.” A voice sounded over a klaxon, repeating itself over and over, and I could hear footfalls in every direction.

My last checkpoint was a utility closet just a few yards ahead. This time of night it would be unlocked as the cleaning staff were out and about. I ran for it, ducking into the welcoming darkness and pulling the door closed behind me just as the corridors outside filled.

“What’s happening?”

“How should I know?”

“Shut-up and get to your stations.”

There were other similar exchanges, most of them less polite. SOP in a place like this would be to round up all non-military personnel as soon as something untoward came along. If my experience with military imprisonment was anything to go by, they’d all be kept in one place under guard until the powers that be were satisfied than none of them were responsible for the disruption.

Pluses and minuses. It meant there wouldn’t be anyone in the lab and I wouldn’t be dodging cleaners and techies on my way out of here. On the other hand, there would be more patrols and guards around the place, and they’d most likely shut off power to the lift. Not that that should bother me much.

Most of that was part three and I still had part two to sort out. Concentrate on current problems now and deal with future ones when the time comes. Keep an eye out for opportunities, but otherwise…

The corridor outside had fallen silent. I took a risk and eased the door open a crack. There was the door to the main lab, and there were a couple of armed guard standing either side. They were all about twenty feet away on the opposite side of the corridor.

I eased the door closed before one of the guards looked my way and spotted me. The corridor was well enough lit that it wouldn’t take much.

“Dr Wiesner,” I mumbled into my tooth, “you said the wand’s range is about ten to fifteen feet.”

“Three to four metres, yes.”

“How about is about? Might it stretch a little further?”

“Unlikely. When I was testing it, the range dropped off rapidly after about three and one half metres.”

“No way of boosting it?”

“With more power the signal becomes distorted. This is how I discovered the means of causing the small seizures.”

I’d had some vague idea of zapping one guy blasts of euphoria and the other blasts of rage until something kicked off between them. Giving them both a seizure would be so much better.

“Would I get more range though?”

“Perhaps, but it is possible you will also burn out the transmitter. And you would use up the battery very rapidly.”

“How rapidly?”

“You have used the wand already?”

“Twice.”

“Then you would have perhaps two more uses, if you do not fuse the circuitry with the first.”

“Tell me how to make the adjustments.”

It was fiddly. First the bottom of the wand had to be twisted off, requiring Phil’s strength. Still no change in the uncomfortable tightness in my skin. Then Pippa’s small fingers were needed to ease out the electronics and battery holder. Lastly, with the battery safely removed, I located a small potentiometer and twisted it all the way to the left as instructed. Minimum resistance, maximum current, maximum signal.

I reassembled my weapon and eased the door open a crack. On the doctor’s advice, I chose the rage setting as it brought about the best results. I aimed at the nearest guard and triggered the device.

He convulsed in a satisfying manner and fell to the floor. His companion ran to him as I’d hoped and I fired the wand a second time.

The smell of burning circuitry filled my nostrils and I muttered a curse — silently of course — before switching to plan B. With guard down and the second with his back to me, I had the element of surprise. I grabbed my needle gun and ran from my hiding place, jumping onto my victim’s back and firing a needle at point blank into his neck.

It took him a second to collapse and I fired another needle beside the first to keep him down.

“I have one guard having a fit here,” I mumbled to Dr Wiesner. “Is it safe to give him a needle or two.”

“Ja, it is safe,” came the impatient response.

So I put a couple into the first guard and watched him slump. It occurred to me then that Wiesner would probably have told me anything to get me to act. I hoped I hadn’t caused the guy any permanent harm.

I spent a decidedly painful minute in Phil’s body, introducing the two unconscious guards to the game of sardines. They had name tags on their uniforms and I made a mental note of the one I’d hit with both the wand and needle gun, and promised myself I’d look into his condition later.

A few excruciatingly long seconds with my key card decoder bypassed the lab digital lock and I was able to slip in, closing the door behind me. Not the greatest of hiding places since any patrols passing this way would want to know what had happened to the guard that had been posted, and would almost certainly check in here first. Now that the place was on lock down I had no idea how long it would be before the next patrol came my way, so I had to hurry.

“I’m in the lab,” I said, “but I hope you have a warranty for that wand.”

“It is easily replaced, but do not leave it there. Even burnt out it, may be possible for them to reconstruct it.”

“Understood.” I’d dropped it in the storage closet when it had gone up in smoke. I made a mental note to pick it up when I left, and set about searching the laboratory.

It was different from the rest of the base. Instead of the utilitarian grey paint on concrete bricks, it was all pristine whiteness. It was also different from what had been shown on the blueprints.

“Were there a few things you didn’t think I needed to know, doctor?”

“Such as what?”

“The animal cages? It looks like they’ve been doing genetic experiments here.”

“This is a laboratory for genetic research. It should not be surprising then that they are conducting genetic research.”

“Not like this.”

When we’d studied genetics at school, our teacher had started us off by showing a picture of a mouse with a human ear growing on its back, then set us a homework putting forward ethical arguments for or against genetic modification. Predictably the responses had been highly polarised with most of the boys caught up with how cool it would be to have genetic enhancements allowing us to become real life superheroes, while most of the girls argued about how cruel it was that we should do such horrible things to animals.

I’d always had a natural tendency to side with the girls in ethical debates, and this was no exception. As it happened, there were more lads than usual arguing against the practice, which pleased Mr Harris all the more, because once he’d given us back our homework, he went on to explain to us that the Vacanti ear mouse had nothing to do with gene manipulation, that it had been grown using cow cartilage in a biodegradable mould.

He told us that we should take time to find out what we were arguing against before we allowed ourselves to become so passionate about it, that most genetic manipulation, in both plants and animals, was designed to make them more resistant to disease, and wasn’t that a good thing?

Most of the girls relented at that stage, but I stood my ground, arguing that we still couldn’t know what affects those genetic alterations might have on us as the consumers. Wasn’t it possible that the altered organisms could develop defencive toxins which might trigger allergic reactions?

Like I said, genetics was one topic that clicked with me. Mr Harris conceded that I’d made a good point and gave me a merit. He still assured us that the sort of B movie horror show hybridisation we’d all been imagining did not happen. He’d have been a lot less smug if he’d seen what was in this lab.

There were half a dozen cages lined up in a separate room behind a large observation window. Five contained what I could only guess had once been German Shepherds or Rottweilers, but now looked like the punchlines from five highly deranged ‘what do you get when you cross a fierce dog with…’ jokes. The dogs, or whatever they were now, paced back and forth restlessly with their teeth bared in a permanent snarl. The sixth cage I couldn’t see clearly. The occupant kept to the shadowy part at the back. I thought I saw a vaguely simian shape, but that was about as far as it went.

I described what I saw as well as I could to Dr Wiesner. It shut him up for a while.

The wall opposite the animal enclosure was given over to a large array of shelves lined with vials of mainly clear liquid. Again the whole lot was behind a glass wall with a robotic arm retrieval system and three remote handling booths. A computer at one end appeared to control it all. The rest of the lab was filled with equipment and materials the function of which I couldn’t begin to guess. A least for the most part. I did recognise a centrifuge and one or two other things.

There were bio-hazard warnings everywhere.

I climbed onto the chair in front of the computer and tapped the keyboard to bring it to life. Unsurprisingly, it asked for a username and password. A quick rummage in my utility belt rewarded me with a small grey USB drive, which I inserted into the port on the side of the keyboard. Nothing seemed to happen for a while, then the login screen cleared and I was looking at what I guessed was the inventory of the stuff stored on the shelves beside me. I started scrolling through it.

Ebola, Rabies, Smallpox, Influenza, Dengue — those I recognised, but there were dozens, possibly hundreds. I didn’t know if they were all lethal, though I suspected not as what I was looking for wasn’t, even though it did still have the potential to decimate the human race.

“Do you know what they have in here?” I asked.

“No, but I can imagine. Remain focused on what you are here for.”

“Why would they need Smallpox? I thought it was supposed to be extinct.”

“As far as we know, it is, but perhaps it is lying dormant somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered, or perhaps there is a lab somewhere else in the world where it is being turned into a weapon. It is essential that we have a sample of it somewhere so we can engineer a defence if it breaks out again.”

“What if it’s these guys turning it into a weapon?”

“This is unlikely. Research centres such as this one are subject to control over such matters.”

“There was a documentary we watched at school which said viruses could be stored safely at low temperatures in the absence of water.”

“So?”

“Everything here is in a little test tube of water.”

There was a pause. “Perhaps you cannot see everything. Perhaps there is cryogenic storage elsewhere and those vials are simply that which is being worked on now.”

“You’re not convincing me doctor. This computer controls the retrieval system, so why are things like Smallpox and Ebola in it?”

“I cannot say for certain without seeing the screen at which you are looking. They would not want to make a new entry every time they placed a live virus in storage, so perhaps there is a code that indicates where the virus would be held.

“Philippa, we cannot concern ourselves with such matters. We are here for one purpose, and we must focus on that.”

I’d just found what I was looking for. Human fertility inhibition activator, and deactivator. I selected the first and opened a screen with a selection of files relating to it. There were options to retrieve the material and send it to one of the remote handling booths, and to copy the files to another location. I chose the copy and was challenged for an authorisation code. It didn’t stay on the screen long as the clever bit of programming in the USB key found its way through.

The gizmo did more than passwords. Somehow it hijacked the copy process so that whatever it transferred to the USB, it then randomly altered any numbers, equations, chemical formulae and substance names in the copy on the computer. At a casual glance the files would seem to make sense, and hopefully the changed wouldn’t be noticed until they had overwritten any backups the lab had.

It was kind of cool watching the robot arm whizz across the shelves, retrieve the vial and bring it back, but this was not a game, and it wasn’t that cool.

My utility belt furnished me with an aluminium tube similar to the one I’d used in the Wexler institute. This went into the remote handling booth via a clever sort of drawer with a lid that would only open when it was fully one side or the other. It meant I could potentially have retrieved one of the more dangerous samples without any safety precautions, but then I supposed the people who worked here were responsible enough not to do anything that stupid.

I put the first vial into the tube with a piece of padding over it and put it to one side. Next I filled an empty vial with water, added a bung and tape and put it into the rack where the computer had deposited the original. A few taps on the keyboard and the water returned to its the shelf the sample had come from. Another weak point to the whole system, but then again with decent vetting and overkill surveillance — which the doctor was currently overriding in the lab, I hoped — theft of a sample like this shouldn’t be possible. I mean they had really good security here, and who could blame them if they hadn’t factored in a thief who could change into someone small enough to fit through the ventilation shafts?

I repeated the process for the second vial, closed and sealed the protective tube with bio-hazard tape — which they had in abundance — and retrieved it back through the nifty draw/airlock thingy.

“Report!” Wiesner’s voice sounded in my bones. Evidently I’d been silent for too long.

“I have the vials and the computer’s about finished transferring the files.”

“Tell me when you are ready to leave, but be swift. I have noticed a slight anomaly in the looped video of the lab, so the guard watching the feed may spot it also.”

I took one last look about me. None of this should be allowed to exist, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Quite apart from the risk of releasing some of the most dangerous viruses in existence, it was imperative that no-one realised what we’d done.

“Doctor, when they find the two guards, they’re going to know we were in the lab.”

“Yes, so?”

“They’re going to be looking for what I did in here. What are the chances they’ll find it?”

“Unknown, but we have no time to do anything else. You must leave.”

“What if we let the animals loose? They’ll tear the lab up and there’s a chance these guys’ll think it was an animal activist attack.”

“From your description, these dogs are highly dangerous. Releasing them would be a reckless action.”

“Not if they were contained in the lab. The virus storage cabinet looks like it’s made out of the same material as the observation window into the animal enclosure, so they’re not going to be able to do any serious damage, and it looks like the cage doors all have magnetic locks, so I should be able to open everything and get out of the lab before they discover their freedom. If you reinstate the video feed Once I‘ve left, it’ll keep the guards distracted enough I should find it easier for me to escape.”

“I do not like these improvisations, Philippa.”

“And yet sticking to the plan isn’t always the best option, is it? Remember last mission?”

The doctor’s long drawn out sigh buzzed on my molar. “So long as you are certain you can do this safely, I will allow it.”

It took a few seconds to identify the controls for the cage doors then I opened the door into the animal enclosure a small amount. The animals inside were very still, watching my every move. It was unnerving, but I was still confident I could get away from them safely.

“Ready when you are doc.”

“The corridor outside remains clear. Inform me when you are ready to exit the laboratory.”

Now’s good.” I flipped a half dozen switches and ran for the door. I heard the dogs start clamouring the moment I opened their doors. Don’t look back, I told myself, although the rising terror inside me increased the compulsion to do so. The volume of their barking increased just as I reached the door. I hauled it open, spinning around as I did so. I caught a glimpse of something nightmarish — still looking a lot like a large dog, but bulkier and seemingly made of living stone with a ridge of spines down its back — bearing down on me with alarming speed, and I only just managed to slip through the door and slam it closed before it crashed into the other side.

I crossed to the supply closet and insinuated myself between the two unconscious guards. My heart was beating like a rabbit’s and I sat down to let the adrenaline rush subside. My hand landed on the defunct wand and, remembering the doctor’s instructions, I slipped it up my sleeve.

“You must go, Leibchen,” the doctor said with some urgency. “I must reinstate the video feed and this will bring the guards.”

I didn’t want to move. The dark felt safe, and I needed safe after what I’d just seen. From somewhere I found the courage, climbed to my feet and reached for the door handle.

“I’m ready. Which way and how far?”

“Turn to the left. There is an empty storage room after thirty metres. You are clear to proceed.”

As usual, I translated Wiesner’s metric into imperial. I understood metres, but for some reason I found it easier to visualise feet. Probably my dad’s influence. I opened the door and peaked out. The entrance twenty feet to the lab was to the left. Even as I watched, the door eased open and I found myself staring into a pair of the deepest, saddest brown eyes I have ever seen. Behind the orange furred face I could hear a medley of deep-throated growls. Almost apologetically, the creature pushed the door all the way open.

“Oh sh…”

“Gotta go right, doctor. Kill the cameras,” I yelled. I didn’t wait for an acknowledgement, but ran from my hiding place, heading away from the lab as fast as I could.

I needed speed. Regardless of how much it was going to hurt, I’d never stay ahead of those brutes as Philippa. I wasn’t sure of my chances as Philip, but knew they were better. I touched the belt buckle and dug deep.

It hurt, but then I’d known it was going to, and the pain probably saved my life. Transforming into Phillip meant I had to manufacture a whole new load of adrenaline, and the searing agony that lanced through my limbs as half formed scabs stretched and tore gave my adrenal gland a much needed kick up the jacksie.

I could hear claws scrabbling for purchase on the smooth stone floor. My own bare feet did better and a sprang away down the corridor like a bullet out of a gun. This was the way I’d come, so I had a fair idea on where my bolt holes were. The first was a store cupboard similar to the one from which I’d just emerged. That meant the door opened out into the corridor and would take longer for me to get in. My next option, just a few yards further on, was a storage room, which was large enough for the door to open inward. With all non-military personnel under guard somewhere, chances of it being occupied were close to zero.

I could hear claws clattering away on the floor behind me, and they were getting closer. If the door was locked, I was in trouble. I reached for that extra few percent of reserve and charged.

My luck held. The door flew open as I jammed down on the handle. Bolting through the gap, I grabbed the edge of the door and spun around, slamming it in the face of a different monster dog. This one seemed to have a light and dark mottling of scales instead of fur over its muzzle and much of its body. In my brief glimpse, it was in mid pounce, jaws agape and teeth dripping with a viscous, discoloured saliva. The entire door frame shook as the creature collided with it, but the door remained shut, in part because I had my back hard against it.

I slid down until I was sitting on the floor. It hurt to breathe, almost as much it hurt to be in this body. I wanted to escape back into Philippa, but I knew I couldn’t afford to. Whatever had been chasing me was now yammering on the other side of the door and clawing at it. I raised a hand and braced the handle just as it found it on the other side. I managed to keep everything secure, but the dog kept trying. This wasn’t good.

“What’s happening?” Wiesner asked. “I have done as you ask. The cameras are disabled, but this means I cannot see what is happening.”

“The dogs,” I panted. “They got out.”

“Who let the dogs out?”

With the growling and barking on the other side of the door, it wasn’t hard to insert the syncopated barking. I laughed quietly, more from nervous exhaustion than anything.

“Phillip, this is serious.”

“I know doctor.” My breath was slowly coming back to me. “It was the occupant of the sixth cage. Looked like an orangutan.”

“Where are you know?”

“I turned right out of my hiding place. About fifty yards — forty five metres — Storage room just after the supply closet on the left.”

“I have it. Can you move to the back of the room so you are outside the camera’s view. I will need a few seconds after the surveillance system comes back up to loop the camera in that room.”

“Not possible, doc. I have at least one of those hell hounds outside in the corridor trying to get in. If I let go of the handle, it’ll most likely manage it.”

“This is not good Phillip.”

“Tell me about it.”

There was no other way out of the storage room, not even a ventilation shaft, and nowhere to hide. My only exceedingly slim hope was that the animals on the other side of the door would lose interest before the guards came along to subdue them, and from the sound of it, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

“Sorry, doc, it turns out you were right about improvisation being a bad idea.”

“This is not the time for ‘I told you so’, Phillip. We need to be thinking of options.”

The noise outside the door dropped to a quiet growling, and the dog’s efforts clawing at the handle stopped. It seemed like I’d run out of them. Options that is. Time for a bit of silent prayer.

The silence — relatively speaking — dragged. I could still hear the dogs growling, and there was more than one now. I held my breath and continued to brace against the door handle.

“Phillip?” The voice was loud inside my head, but shouldn’t have been audible elsewhere. The dogs growling grew briefly then subsided.

“Phillip?” Again the louder growling. I risked a very brief, quiet “shush” and the dogs fell silent. This was unnerving.

I felt the weight of a hand on the other side of the door handle and locked my arm. The force built slowly, and the handle started to turn despite my best efforts. The door pushed against my back, opened, pushing me along with it.

No escape. I climbed to my feet and moved to the back of the room. I didn’t have a chance against even one of those creatures, but you never knew, maybe I could take them by surprise and run past.

No such luck. The five dogs formed a tight semi-circle about the door, all glowering at me and baring their teeth. In the doorway itself stood the orange furred ape I’d seen earlier, one hand casually resting on the door handle. This close, I could see that most of the back of its skull was shaved and the bald patch covered in scars and embedded electrodes. It stared at me for a long second, then bared its teeth.

“Oh fff…lip.”

I did. There was no helping it. Terror had started building in me the moment the door opened to reveal those five monsters, but somehow it was the ape that pushed me over the edge, specifically when it drew its lips back to reveal a pair of canines long enough to make any vampire proud. I imploded into my smaller self and ended up looking into its eyes from about the same level.

It put its teeth away and stared at me. If there was an expression there, I couldn’t read it. The eyes still looked sad, but for the rest, if there was shock, surprise, amusement, I couldn’t tell. It held my gaze for the same long second then, seeming to make up its mind, it reached out a hand to me.

Soft and leathery, like expensive gloves. I swallowed, hoping it couldn’t read my thoughts. Its eyebrows twitched up and down just once, and it gave me a brief rictus grin. Not at all encouraging. It pulled gently on my hand and I had no option but to allow myself to be led. The creatures strength lay hidden underneath a seemingly ungainly body, but I doubt the entire school rugby team could have resisted if it put its mind to it. The dogs growls grew slightly as I stepped out of the room. I tried to shrink back, but the ape’s grip tightened and held me in place. A long, furry arms swung out lazily, catching the dog with the most intense snarl across the snout. It yelped and closed its mouth, covering its teeth. A long, forked tongue emerged and licked at where it had been struck.

So, the beginning of understanding on how the orangutan hadn’t been torn to shreds by these things. Bravado combined with a little but of strength. Show no fear, chastise when necessary, look down on them. Dog instinct respects that sort of thing. My panicked running away had told them I was something they could attack, the ape was telling them something different, and I had to do my part.

“What’s happening?” the doctor asked. More teeth revealed, louder growling. I showed my own tiny baby teeth and growled back. It shouldn’t have worked, but the ape by my side showed its teeth as well, and the matter was settled.

“I appear to have made a friend or two, doctor,” I murmured. “I’m out in the corridor. It seems the dogs have accepted the ape as their alpha, and he — I think its a he — has adopted me into the pack.”

The dogs chose that moment to prick up their ears, looking back the way we’d come.

“I think we’re about to have company, doc.” Even as I spoke, I heard the faint and growing sounds of booted feet running.

I touched my new friend on the shoulder and pointed down the corridor in the opposite direction to the sounds. He seemed to agree. He made a single woofing sound and started to knuckle his way down the corridor in the direction I’d indicated. He continued to hold my hand, which meant I didn’t have any choice but to follow. The dogs came along too, showing an unlikely loyalty.

“Doc, I need a place big enough to hide us all and preferably with more than one entrance.” I’d started counting doors as we moved in anticipation of a response.

“Seventh right.”

We’d passed four. I picked up the pace and was almost pulling the ape with me when we came to the seventh. I pointed at it and headed for it. My simian friend didn’t seem so keen, but I insisted and he relented.

The door had a digital lock, but opened immediately to my key card decoder, apparently responding to the same code as had opened the lab. I pulled the orangutan inside. Well, I say pulled, he could have resisted easily, but he allowed me to lead him. Another short bark had the five dog hybrids in with us. I pushed the door closed and looked around.

“Move to the corner to your left,” the doctor said.

I did so and indicated that the ape dogs should join us.

“We’re there doctor.”

“Good. So the cameras are back on line, and… I have a loop running on your current location. Please move back into the centre of the room. Hmm, this is most interesting.”

“What?”

“Your canine companions. They are just as you described them. I would not have believed it possible.”

“Why not? Do you think I would lie to you?”

“Exaggerate perhaps, or misunderstand what you were looking at. It is a simple thing to introduce the genes of one creature and put them in another. To make straightforward changes this works well. Resistance to disease, fluorescence, even such unlikely things as the production of spider silk in goat’s milk, all these we can do. More complex physical characteristics are the result of many genes working together though. To identify them all, to transfer them successfully, to activate them, to do it in a way that does not interfere with the natural processes of the host organism. All this is highly advanced, more so than I thought possible with our current understanding. Do you recognise what creatures have been introduced here?”

“I’m not sure…”

“The one to your immediate left. The colouring is black and either pink or orange, yes? Security cameras, they have no colour, you understand?”

The one he’d indicated was the monster that had chased me down the corridor.

“Black and sort of yellowish,” I said.

“Close enough. It has blue inside its mouth perhaps?”

The dog in question chose that moment to yawn.

“Yeah, it’s blue.”

“This I think is melded with a gila monster of Arizona. The next one, describe it.”

“Er, sort of greyish. It has scales, but they’re largely hidden under its fur. It has a really long forked tongue.” This was the one King Louie had belted on the snout. Yeah, I know it’s not a great name, but I needed to call him something other than my simian friend (or MSF) and Jungle Book was the only reference I had with naming orangutans.

“This one I am not so sure about, but I would suspect a komodo dragon. The next one has black and red bands separated by thin yellow ones?”

“Yes.”

“Coral snake. The other two. One has a small row of spines down its back and appears to look like a stone.” This was the one that had leapt at me in the lab. “And the other with the longer spines has thin brown and yellow cream stripes.”

“Correct on both counts.”

“Stone fish and scorpion fish would be my guess. All are highly poisonous. This, I think, must be an attempt to turn these animals into weapons. Dogs can be trained not to bite unless instructed. If the strength of the poison in these creatures is scaled up with their size, they would be formidable weapons. May I suggest you act with extreme caution around them?”

“Noted. Can we work on getting out of here now?”

“The dogs cannot come. They would be too dangerous and unpredictable in the outside world.”

“Yeah, I get that. Can we worry about it when we’re closer to the way out?”

“Of course. You must move now in any case, the base guards are very near to you.”

Again I didn’t need telling. Even a deaf person could have heard the boots running past the door behind us.

“So where to?”

“There should be two doors opposite you. Take the one to the left.”

“Where does it go?” I asked tugging on Louie’s arm. He seemed happy enough to follow me.

“This takes you through the control centre for the base.”

“I thought it was me coming up with the crazy ideas.”

“Perhaps it is crazy, or perhaps it is very clever. Remember, all of the civilian staff are detained in a single large room, which I can guide you around. Now that the camera feeds are restored, they can see that the animals have escaped, so they will confine their search to the unrestricted areas. They will not expect these creatures to bypass a security door, so they will not look where you are unless you give them reason.

“For the rest. It is inevitable you will meet some military personnel on your way, but they should be few and not well armed, and they will not expect you. If you allow the dogs to precede you into a room, there will be less chance that you will be seen. This is important since, if you are recognised, the authorities will increase their efforts to recapture you.

“But if the dogs go in first, they will kill whoever they encounter.”

“This cannot be helped. It is in the nature of the military that life is put at risk and sometimes lost. You did not create these creatures.”

“But I did release them. I’ll be responsible for any life lost.”

“Very indirectly. Besides, what else can you do?”

I had an idea. I made sure I was far enough away from the dogs not to be threatening and changed into Phil. The growls were back, but Louie looked at me oddly for a moment then quieted them with a woof.

I found an inactive computer screen that gave me a halfway usable reflection. I barely recognised the face looking back at me.

“I don’t think there’s much risk of them recognising me, doctor.”

“I cannot see clearly. Move closer to the camera in the middle of the room.”

I’d spotted the inverted glass dome when we’d come into the room. I moved as close to it as I could and looked up at it.

“Mein Gott! Was habe ich gemacht?”

I’d already noticed the doctor’s tendency to become more German whenever he was stressed. This wasn’t a great sign.

“Phillip, I am so sorry. I will make this right, I promise.”

“Save it for later. Right now you need to help me find a way out of this mess, preferably without anyone dying.”

“Of course. What had you in mind?”

“My needle gun. I have twelve needles per barrel and enough propellant in the base to fire off two barrels’ worth, right?”

“You should know this, but yes.”

“Give me a break; I’m having a bad day. So I’ve four shots left in this one and a full twelve in my spare. If I’m careful, that means I can put down a maximum of sixteen soldiers before having to resort to the dogs.”

“Remember, the range of the needle gun is very short, and the needles are not likely to pass through the soldier’s uniforms. You might also consider keeping the needles for your animal friends.”

“I doubt the needles would go through the dogs’ hides.”

“I was thinking this also. A shot into the mouth should work well enough. Although, with their altered physiology, you may need two needles for each.”

“So ten needles for the dogs and maybe two for the ape, that doesn’t leave me many for guards. Doctor, that part of the plan needs a bit of work.

“Right now, I need you to guide me through the route that has fewest people in it, and to let me know how many and where as we get to each room.”

“I can do this. As I said before, take the door to the left. The room on the other side is a conference room of sorts, and it is empty.”

We worked our way through four rooms. I was getting used to the pain from my burns, and Louie seemed to have accepted me in my new form, even if he seemed more reluctant to take my hand. Overall, my not having run off as soon as he let me go seemed to have increased his trust in me. He followed close behind, but gave me freedom to move by myself. The dogs followed him, each snarling and dripping its own form of toxic death onto the stone floor.

The fifth room wasn’t empty.

“Two guards,” Wiesner told me. “One immediately inside the door to your left, the other sitting at a console perhaps five metres from the door.”

I indicated to Louie to stay put and to keep the dogs with him. It may have been daft miming instructions to an animal, but Louie gave the impression of being smarter than your average orangutan, so I hoped he would understand and comply.

Needler at the ready, I eased down on the door handle and pushed it open. The guard by the door turned on me, reaching for the gun at his hip. I raised my own weapon and fired pointblank into his face. Without stopping to see what effect I’d had, I ran towards the centre of the room. The other guy was less grunt and more tech. He held up both his hands defensively as I approached and I shot him in one of his palms.

He slumped in his chair and I turned to see scorpion fish dog growling and salivating over the other recumbent form. Its spines flared out and its jaws opened.

“No!” I shouted in my best command voice. All the dogs flinched back and looked my way. Scorpion fish dog snarled at me and might have gone back to its original intent had Louie not barked at it.

“How much further, doc?”

“The next room is the last. It is also empty. Afterwards is a short length of corridor leading to the lift area, and Phillip, this is not something you will be able to deal with on your own. There are a dozen guards in this place, and they are all armed with automatic rifles.”

“There has to be a way past them.”

“Were you on your own, I would have you turn into Philippa and take to the ventilation shafts. There is one with an access in this room that emerges in the lift shaft ten metres away. You would be able to crawl this distance quietly enough in the time between flames, I think.

“It is unlikely that your animal companions will permit you to enter the pipe though. The ape might be able to follow you, but would not be easily persuaded into such a confined space. The dogs would struggle to fit. I do not think they would permit you to go somewhere they could not follow.”

“You’re not giving me any options, doc.”

“There is one, but I need to persuade you it is the only one, because I know you will not like it.”

“You’re talking about letting the dogs loose, aren’t you?”

“I am, Liebchen. I understand that you do not want anyone to die, and it is possible no-one will. An automatic rifle in the hands of a trained soldier is a formidable weapon. It is unlikely the dogs will reach the line of guards before they are all killed.”

“Then what’s the point of sending them?”

“As a distraction, Liebling. Also it is a means of making sure the dogs do not escape from the facility.”

“You have a ruthless streak in you doctor.”

“This is true. But what would you have done with animals such as these? They cannot be allowed free to live because they are too dangerous. You do not wish them to remain here because you fear they will be mistreated in the lab. It is in their blood to fight, so would it not be an end that would satisfy them to be killed in a fight such as this?”

“What do Louie and I do in the meantime?”

“Louie? This is the ape, yes? It will depend on how the fight progresses. If, in the confusion, you can slip past to the lift or the stairs, you will be able to escape this way. If this is not a possibility, you still have the ventilation shaft.”

“You said Louie wouldn’t go into the vent.”

“I would expect this of a normal orangutan, but perhaps this one you can persuade.

“Liebchen, this is the only option I have for you. If you can think of an alternative, please, I would be glad to hear it.”

My mind was a blank, and I didn’t have time to pummel it into coming up with something. When you’re in the thick of it, a bad plan is almost always better than no plan.

“Okay doc. Can I bring up the security feed on any of these monitors?”

“The room where you are at present, the station in the middle of the room where the soldier was working, it is still logged in?”

I checked. It was. I moved the mouse to stop it timing out.

“It is.”

“Do the following…”

All those hours spent familiarising myself with different operating systems paid off. I mean I didn’t have much clue what the doctor was asking me to do, but I could at least follow his instructions. After he’d taken me through a few back doors, it became apparent he had me setting up a new account with superuser privileges.

“How’s this getting me the video feed doctor?”

“This is not. It is giving me additional control which will permit me to show you the feed wherever you are. It will also enable me to offer you some extra help. Good, this is done. Go through to the next room.”

We did. With a large display and multiple consoles, it looked like the base’s main control room.

“Er, doc. Why isn’t there anyone in here?”

“Because this is a secondary control room. The main one is several rooms away, and there are a great many people there. What did you want to see from the video feed?”

I changed back into Philippa. For one, Louie and his dogs found me less threatening like this. For another, it didn’t hurt. For a third, I needed to show Louie the pipe, and this way I could at least climb in and show him it wasn’t so bad. Since I wasn’t going to be involved in any combat, I had no need of Phil’s skill set.

“I know you’re sending a loop of this room empty to the rest of the base, but could you show us live?”

“Look at the large screen.”

I put a small hand on Louie’s shoulder and guided him with pointing to the main view screen. It flicked on and there we were. The dogs were freaked out by it and might have barked had Louie not used his one-command-fits-all woof to quiet them. He took in the view with equanimity.

I pointed to the door out into the corridor. “Show us the way out, doc.”

The screen flickered and showed the dozen soldiers crouched behind every piece of furniture available, their weapons aimed down the corridor towards the camera. I took out my needle gun, then pointed at the rifles, miming something that I hope conveyed that they were much bigger, much worse. I didn’t much like Wiesner’s plan, but in the absence of anything better… I pointed at the dogs and then at the soldiers.

Louie looked deep into my eyes for some seconds, then shrugging in an all too human manner, he started ambling across to the door out to the corridor.

“Wait,” I said. He paused and looked back at me. “Doctor, you mentioned additional help. What did you mean by that?”

“Place your night vision goggles on your head and turn them on.”

I did so, and a moment later the room went dark, both the lights and the screen cutting out.

Predictably, the dogs growled until Louie barked them into silence. I could see them clearly enough through my goggles, either looking around at each other or, like Louie, staring at me. Animals, it seemed, could adapt to the dark far quicker than humans. Either that or they could see the infra-red torches either side of my goggles.

“Ready when you are doctor.”

I nodded to Louie, who opened the door just as the lights outside went out.

“What the f…” The voice sounded clearly down the length of the corridor until the last word drowned in the baying of the hounds. The five of them leapt almost as one through the door and charged into the black.

The darkness was filled with a cacophony of bullets and barking, of yelps and yelping. Through the doorway I could see bullets sparking off the walls – enough reason to stay where I was. Again, little girl hormones flooded through me, rooting me to the spot and filling me with a need to scream. I jammed my fist into my mouth and fought for control.

The storm of noise ended as abruptly as it had begun. In the sudden silence I could hear the last of the shell casings rattling on the floor. A dog whimpered quietly. There was a strange muffled, gagging sound, which stopped after a few seconds. It left me feeling both relieved and somewhat ashamed.

A soft, leathery hand took hold of mine and tugged me gently towards the door. The corridor was eerily quiet. There was no way that much noise hadn’t alerted someone, but so far there seemed to be no signs of anyone coming to investigate.

My night vision equipment didn't provide me with a lot detail, for which small mercy I was exceptionally grateful. Three of the dogs lay still, as did every one of the dozen soldiers, sightless eyes staring in all directions. Many of them were foaming from the mouth, most had a rictus of terror etched into their features. All were immobile.

I found the fourth dog – the one banded with coral snake stripes. It was lying in a slick of its own blood and didn't look as if it had long to live. It turned it’s head my way, tongue lolling in the most dog like manner I’d seen from any of the. I fired a needle into its mouth and it slumped to the ground and lay still. At least it wouldn’t suffer in its last moments.

I spun around as a growl sounded from altogether too close. Spines rising with its hackles, the one remaining hound stood from where it had been crouched behind a nearby body. It was close enough for me to touch and it had its teeth bared at me.

It’s called fight or flight, but there’s a third option. My body took it, freezing me to the spot with terror. It’s unclear whether it felt threatened by my immobility or could simply sense my fear, but it didn’t take kindly to me. Lifting its head as high as it could — still an inch or so short of my reduced size — it moved closer to me.

I felt a familiar leathery hand on my arm, and Louie eased me firmly backwards, insinuating himself between me and the monster dog, all the while woofing gently.

Again the creature didn’t respond well. Perhaps it was being the last survivor with the rest of its pack laying dead or dying around us, but something emboldening it to make a bid for leadership. Whatever the reason, it directed its attention away from me and towards the ape now standing between us.

A flood of relief returned control of my limbs to me. Louie was still pushing at me gently whilst keeping his eyes firmly on those of the dog. Spike had crouched a little in involuntary submission, but continued its advance, prowling back and forth a little as it closed the gap.

Without warning, it sprang, but somehow Louie was ready and caught the creature in the side of the head with a solid haymaker. Spike flew through the air, twisting and spinning before landing awkwardly. Louie glanced at me and gave me an urgent bark before turning his attention back to his adversary. Only just in time; Spike was blindingly fast.

The bark had been enough to galvanise me into running. I’d already spotted the doorway into the stairwell and headed there as fast as my little legs could manage. It was locked of course.

Picking it in the dark would have used time I seriously didn’t have. I glanced at the still bodies around me and found one with a set of keys hanging from his belt. I unclipped them and set about trying one after another in the lock. The fight behind me carried on in full swing, producing a mix of snarling, yelping and crashing, with Louie’s quiet woofing noise adding an incongruous counterpoint. I didn’t dare look for fear of letting the terror take over again, but kept fumbling from one key to the next.

Capricious fortune decided to favour me for a change. The third key I tried turned in the lock. I pushed the door open and risked a glance behind. Spike stood over Louie’s still form, head snapping up at my sudden movement.

I panicked. I may have screamed, I don’t remember. I tried to slam the door closed, but Spike had already charged and was halfway through the doorway when it closed on him. I ran for the stairs, retaining just enough presence of mind to activate the control on my belt buckle. Even with the assist, it took several seconds for me to overcome the fear enough to allow my larger form to establish itself.

I charged up the stairs with reckless abandon, taking three or four at a time, grabbing the banister to swing myself around at the top of each short flight. I heard rather than saw the door crash open and my pursuer scrambling for purchase on the metal steps. I wasn’t sure I had the speed and stamina to stay ahead up four hundred feet of staircase, but I had to try.

Somewhere through the haze I heard voices ahead. Exactly what they were didn’t register with me until I rounded a turn to find myself facing a half dozen barrels. One of the soldiers barked out an order, but I was in full flight mode, aware that the monster hound on my tail was gaining ground.

Sometimes there are no good options. If I kept running, I’d end up with a chest full of lead, if I stopped I’d have Spikes toxic jaws clamped on my shoulder. Instinct took over and I dived to the side, launching myself over the banister.

It couldn’t have worked better. Spike was just rounding the corner behind me and faltered as he saw me jumping. I caught the beginnings of a few shocked expletives from the guards before the stairwell filled with the deafening noise and pungent smell of gunfire.

Time slowed. The cacophony behind me dropped to a base roar and my jump turned into a graceless flailing. I was going to make to the opposite stair, but I still had a fifteen foot drop onto the opposite staircase to survive. Again instinct directed me, deciding that Philippa had a better chance of making it through this, my fear was enough to initiate the change, then somehow my sixteen year old mind coordinated the ballet training my six year old body had received. The twisting pirouette that followed was more athletics than dance, but it worked. I landed on the third step up from the next landing down. I offered some resistance, but allowed my knees to collapse under the impact, tucking into a roll which bled off some of my speed. I was still going too fast as I rose out of the roll, and roared my way back into Phil mode just before I collided with the banister.

I don’t know what prompted me to make that last change. Maybe I figured the Phillip me was already bust up badly enough, and a little more wouldn’t do much harm. It turned out to be a good call again as I was able to absorb quite a lot of my excess momentum in my longer, stronger arms. I still hit hard, and it hurt like a puppy of questionable parentage. I’m pretty sure I felt a rib or two crack and the impact knocked the wind out of me.

The world spun back up to normal speed. I could hear soldiers yelling and running down the stairs. I picked myself up, changed into mini-me and disappeared downstairs as fast as I could go. Spike was still in his death throws though — I could hear his snarling and snapping — and I was most of the way back to the bottom of the stairwell before they could get past.

Back at the bottom, I pulled the stairwell door closed and locked it, leaving the key half turned in the lock. Odd to have such an old fashioned style of lock in an advanced facility like this, but the whole stairwell had felt like something from the past, most likely from when the bunker had been built originally. It would give me a few minutes head start. I doubted they’d want to risk shooting at a steel door in the confines of the stairwell.

I ran over to Louie’s still body. Miraculously, he was still breathing. He had a few claw marks on him, though his fur had provided some protection, and a deep bite in his shoulder. He woofed at me gently and looked up from those incredibly sad eyes of his. He looked at peace, but I don’t know how much that was wishful thinking on my part.

“Oh, Louie!” I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, dripping off my chin. I buried my face in his fur and let the dam burst.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I was roused by the sound of the soldiers on the other side of the door. One of them was applying brute force and ignorance to a problem that none of them had been able to solve in a more creative way. It would take them a while to get through the door, but I couldn’t afford to be anywhere near here when they managed it.

Louie’s body was still and cooling. There was no doubting that he’d gone. I let go of him and stood up.

“Doctor?” He’d been quiet for a while.

“Liebchen.” Well at least he was still there.

“All the guards are dead here, and you don’t have to worry about the dogs. Or Louie for that matter.”

He had the good grace to pause. “I’m sorry, liebchen.”

“I have a bunch more guards trying to get in through the stairwell. Any thoughts?”

“Open the lift. As Phillip, you should have strength enough to prize the doors apart. There will be an access hatch in the top.”

“And what do I do when I get there?”

“The back pocket of your utility belt.”

It was one of the new additions and quite bulky. I reached into it and retrieved a bracket with several pulley wheels attached to it.

“Is this…?”

“It is strong enough only to lift you as Philippa, and has sufficient stored energy to raise you perhaps one hundred and fifty metres. You still have your harness?”

I’d wanted to leave the cursed thing behind in the first room, but it was little girl sized and would have raised questions we didn’t want asked in the aftermath.

“What do I do when I get to the top of the lift shaft?”

“Remain where you are for now. I am on my way to the main entrance as we speak. When I have secured it, I will call you.”

“Please be quick. I’ve had enough of this place.”

“Five minutes, no more. You have my word.”

Opening the lift door with cracked ribs was painful but doable. I managed to persuade them to close behind me so hopefully no-one would look for me in here for a while. The hatch was another problem that didn’t need me to do much more than grit my teeth. One jump knocked it open, the next had me hanging onto the edge of the opening, from which point it was simple enough to change into Philippa’s smaller, lighter form and clamber up into the space. I closed the hatch after me and set about attaching my new toy to the lift cable.

I didn’t put the harness on immediately. What it would feel like turning into Phil with that on and the damage I’d taken to my chest I did not want to find out. Instead, I let my mind free for the first time since I’d dived down that ventilation shaft. It had thoughts it wanted to bring to my attention, and I had time to allow it.

For all his friendly nature, I had to wonder about Wiesner. Yes, he had seemed genuinely contrite when he’d caught a glimpse of my burns, but then he hadn’t had many qualms about sending a sixteen year old boy into a place like this. The end justifying the means didn’t ring true, even considering that the material I’d stolen didn’t exist anywhere else in the world, and I was the only person with the special skill set necessary to enable me to access this place.

The doctor’s idea about reducing world population had me worried too. I mean, yes I could see it was necessary, but there still seemed something wrong with just doing it to the human race without giving people a say. Both Dr Wiesner and Dr Sellers had been extremely persuasive about that, but in the end, neither of them had given me even proof other than their words that Deus ex Machina actually existed. Which meant that I could well be the most gullible fool going for letting them persuade me do what I was doing.

Okay, I understood what Wiesner meant when he said gullibility and innocence aren’t the same as foolishness, but fool me once and all that.

I pulled the USB stick and the tube with the vials out of my utility belt. Could I afford to let Wiesner have this stuff? I couldn’t leave it here. For one thing, they’d most likely do a sweep of the base covering every place they thought I’d been, meaning they’d most likely find it and I certainly didn’t want them to have it. For another, even if I did manage to find an decent hiding place, there was no way Wiesner or any of his friends — me included — would have an opportunity to come back in and recover it. The problem was, if I still had it with me when I left here, there was little or no chance of preventing Wiesner from taking it if he chose to. Neither six year old Philippa nor injured Phillip would be able to offer any appreciable resistance.

I did have one option. It was something I’d been squeamish about doing when I’d been captured at Wexler, but it had been in my bag of tricks since the early days of my training. The whole shifting bodies thing had been an area of considerable interest to Wiesner. He was primarily a biologist and didn’t have much idea about what happened when I phased from one form to the other, so we’d experimented a bit. We already knew from my early experiences that nothing outside my skin shifted with my body. That was what had necessitated the development of my singlet as a base garment. He wanted to know where the shifting ended though. In one of our early sessions, he’d asked me to turn into Philippa mode immediately after lunch, then he’d wanted to know if I felt bloated at all. If anything, I felt hungry, which suggested that the contents of my stomach and digestive system shifted with me.

That gave him an idea which I really didn’t care for. He told me about how prisoners often hide contraband by inserting it where the sun don’t shine — those weren’t the words he used. He presented me with something that looked considerably like a tampon dispenser and asked me to shove it up my bum. It took a lot of persuasion, but I eventually relented just the once. When I shifted, the capsule did not exist in my new form, but reappeared when I shifted back. It raised a lot of exciting scientific questions apparently, but also gave me a hiding place that could defeat any cavity search. I’d had the small escape kit on me when I was caught in Wexler, but it had felt like the last indignity to make use of it, so I hadn’t.

This was different though. My dad had a phrase he used in such situations. Needs must when the devil drives. It didn’t make any sense to me, but essentially it seemed to mean you do what you have to when you have to. I pulled out the little plastic capsule. If I emptied it of all the escape aids, it should be big enough for the thumb drive. It was watertight too, so there would be little or no risk of damaging our only source of data.

The vials were different though. They were too delicate to risk putting in a place like that, not to mention that I didn’t want any of that stuff floating around in my system should it leak out. I removed the bio-hazard tape off the top and unscrewed the lid. The vials were identical except for the labels, and those differed only in the last digit of the number printed on them. With a little picking, I managed to get one label to start peeling. I made sure I knew which number was which and tore most of the number off the label. I did the same with the second, making sure the tears were a different shape. The bits I’d removed I then stuck onto the USB drive. Now the only way of telling which of the vials activated or deactivated the gene was to retrieve the label fragments. I returned the vials carefully to the safety of their container and put it back in my belt.

Now for the unsavoury bit. As predicted, the thumb drive fit snuggly but comfortably into the capsule once I’d emptied it. I screwed it down and sealed it, then shifted into Phil mode for a very brief and uncomfortable interlude.

I’d done what I could. I climbed into the harness and attached it to the little cable climber. It occurred to me that the banging had stopped in the hallway below. Either they’d found a way in or they’d given up, I wasn’t sure which. I kept as still and quiet as I could waiting for whatever came next.

Which was Wiesner’s voice buzzing through my tooth.

“All is clear. You may come up.”

I suppose James Bond would have had some clever pun or sarcastic quip ready for that moment. All I wanted was to get out of there. The gizmo had just the one trigger, which I squeezed.

The harness bit into me as the little motor accelerated me upwards. I’ll say this for Wiesner, he made decent gadgets. After a few seconds, I could see the top of the lift shaft approaching and eased off on the trigger.

The lift door opened jerkily above me. With normal night vision gear I’d have been blinded, but there wasn’t enough added infra red to overload the goggles. From my perspective it was no worse than stepping out of a dark room into sunlight.

As I say, decent gadgets.

Wiesner’s familiar face leaned into the shaft. I eased further on the trigger and drifted to a halt opposite the door. It was a stretch, but he leaned in and scooped me to him, unclipping my harness once I was safely out of the shaft.

I wasn’t all that sure how I felt about the good doctor right then, but I desperately needed a hug, and any port in a storm. I clung to him limpet like and let him carry me out of the place. Soldiers lay everywhere, both inside and out. Every now and then one would twitch indicating that they were still alive, but there were a lot of them.

“What happened here?” I asked. I could feel the last of my strength ebbing, and I really didn’t want to talk much, but this was hard to ignore. Outside there were dozens of them stretched across the entire base.

“The device in the car, I built into it a pulse mode. Much more powerful, but a recharge is required after. It is why I instructed you to remain at the bottom of the lift shaft. Your buckle would not have protected you from this.”

“They’re going to be alright though?” I asked.

“There is no reason to believe otherwise.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him.

He opened the passenger door and settled me into the front seat before climbing behind the wheel. We drove in silence for half an hour, seemingly taking turns at random. It was still dark out, but there were hints of sunlight approaching from behind part of the horizon.

Eventually, one of the turns put us on a major road, and several miles more brought us to a lay-by. Wiesner pulled in and turned off the engine.

“You are safe now, little one. This is over.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak. I’m not sure I had words in me anyway. I desperately wanted to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t let me rest. The memory of sightless eyes and foaming mouths pushed at me. I dreaded to think what my nightmares would be like. I stared out the window at the growing light.

“Would you show me?”

I didn’t want to. Being Philippa was safe, comfortable. I didn’t want the pain in my ribs or the feeling of that thing up my back passage. Most of all I was afraid. I didn’t want Wiesner to look at my injuries and tell me they wouldn’t heal. Being Philippa I could pretend a little longer; hide from my future.

“Please, Mausebär. I must see this.”

“What does that mean, that mouse bear thing?”

“It is what it sounds like. It is a little nothing, a term of affection. Please, little one, show me Phillip.”

He’d probably just keep pestering. I undid my seatbelt — that was the last thing I needed pressing on my ribs — and reached for Phillip.

“Gott in Himmel! This is my doing, Phillip. My hubris and carelessness did this to you, my blind desire to obtain this last component. I should not have pushed you to do this. I should have tested the equipment more.”

“The sheet did protect me against the lasers though. Weren’t they hotter than the flames?”

“A higher temperature, yes, but with the flames there was more energy. There is a difference. I am not naturally a physicist, you understand, and did not think of this until after the damage was done.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The laser was very high temperature, but only lasted a brief moment, so not much energy was passed. The flames were lower temperature, but because they lasted so much longer, more energy was transferred, and so this damage was done.

“Phillip, I will not ask you to undertake another mission such as this again, and I will make this right.”

“I take it I’m going to be stuck like this then?”

“The burns will heal in time, but I fear there will be extensive scarring. I should not have made you do this Phillip. I am so sorry.”

I changed back into Philippa and turned to look out the window, at the crepuscular sky. Nothing would be the same after tonight. I didn’t want to think about it. The dawn colours were soothing, distracting.

“Will you come with me to my laboratory so I can conduct some tests?”

“I’d really rather just go home.”

“Er…”

“To my uncle and aunt. I know I can’t go back to my parents, not while I’m a wanted criminal.”

“Of course.” He started the car and pulled out onto the empty road. “It will take us perhaps an hour from here.”

Wiesner kept looking across at me, concern etched on his face. It felt like a minor victory to have him unsettled and wanting to speak while I didn’t. It wasn’t enough, not by a long way. I could feel despair squatting at the edge of my consciousness. It took all I had to keep it there, to hide in my numbness. I’d have to deal with it all in time — the horror, the deaths the pain and scars — but not right now.

Eventually, I started to recognise some of the scenery around me. I guessed we were about ten minutes away and sat up. Wiesner took it as permission to open his mouth.

“You should go to bed in one of your singlets,” he said. “If I am correct, your other body will take time while you are sleeping to repair itself in the same way that Phillipa emerged during the night while you were growing up. It will take longer for the healing to occur, since it will only happen for a short while each night, but you will be spared the pain. In perhaps a month you will be as well as you will ever be.”

I didn’t respond immediately. It was good advice. If I was going to turn into Phillip every night, I couldn’t afford to keep ripping my way out of my nightdresses. A question nagged.

“My burns are still kind of sticky. Won’t I end up messing up the sheets?”

“Remain as Phillip for a few hours. The scabs will form again. They will feel tight, but they will be dry, and you will not be aware of them since you will be asleep.”

We pulled up outside Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally’s house. It was still early enough that not even the joggers were out. Wiesner came round and opened my door for me.

“You will leave the belt, yes? It has what you went to retrieve?”

I undid the utility belt and left it on the seat. He removed the belt buckle and passed it to me before collecting a bag from the back seat. He took hold of my hand and walked me across the road, into the house where my uncle and aunt were still sleeping soundly. It hardly seemed possible that I’d only been away for one night, and that they’d slept through it all, while I… well, I hadn’t.

The bag inevitably contained enough singlets to sort me out for the foreseeable future. The one I was wearing was in pretty bad shape so the doctor handed me a fresh one before putting the rest into one of my drawers.

“I meant what I said, Philippa. I will make this right.”

“How, doctor? How will you do that?”

“I do not know yet, but you have my word, it will be done.”

He let himself out. I watched from the window until he climbed into his car and drove away.

I was tired, but there were a few things I needed to do before I let myself sleep. High up on the priority list was retrieving the capsule, but then so was getting clean. I stripped off my singlet and gave it a short once over. Grubby in the extreme, part melted in places, it went in the bin without a second thought.

I slipped into my dressing gown and took the clean garment the doctor had handed me over to the bathroom. My aunt and uncle had a big mirror on the wall above the bath. They thought it made the room look larger, but it also gave you a good opportunity to look yourself over, at least before condensation obscured the view. I stripped bare and changed into Phillip.

I’d never watched myself change before. It looked like some cheap bit of CGI, the way things seemed to blur while I expanded and changed shape. What emerged from the change also looked like something from a cheap horror movie.

My face was a mess of blisters and deeper burns. Not quite Freddy Krueger, but it certainly had some elements of the look. Both my forearms and my calves were worse, mainly raw and glistening and embedded with grime. The rest of my body was mottled with areas that were inflamed, red and tender. I could understand the doctor’s reaction, and why he hadn’t given me much hope of a scar free recovery.

I set the bath running, as much to steam up the mirror as anything. While it filled, I settled onto the pot and waited. The thought drifted across my mind that I was sitting around with a thumb drive up my rear. It made me smile despite myself. I might have laughed but for the ache in my ribs and the tightness in my face. It took longer than I would have liked, but my body finally figured out that it had something to shift and an opportunity to do so.

I gave the capsule a thorough wash in the sink and cracked it open for long enough to assure myself the contents weren’t damaged. Back in Philippa mode with my dressing gown back on, padded across to my room. My phone was on the bedside cabinet where I’d left it at the beginning of the night’s activities. I used it to photograph the two pieces of label, then looked around the room for a convenient place to hide my contraband.

My eyes fell on Threads. He was an old style teddy bear I’d been given as a christening present. Inevitably he’d been named Ted to start with, but as the years of aggressive loving had taken their toll, the name transformed into Thread — as in Thread Bear — and eventually into Threads. He was missing an eye and his fur was worn away in places. Several of his seams had loosened and he had stuffing showing through the gaps, but I’d resisted any attempt to take him away and mend him. At first I’d simply refused to be parted from him, then as the years passed, I simply preferred the worn look. It reminded me of adventures we’d shared, and hinted at the memory of my life before Wiesner.

I picked him up and smiled. I seemed I did remember life before the doctor had changed me. Only snippets, but they were there. I remembered the vacant feeling in my mind, like it was out of gear and I was freewheeling. They were memories of a six year old, so how much that same feeling would have inhabited me today had I remained unaltered I didn’t know. I thought of Jamie’s description of how she’d changed and decided that maybe I was better off, even now. Phil may have been on the run from the authorities and looking forward to being unpleasantly scarred for life, but I could still be perfectly ordinary as Philippa for a whole lifetime, and who knew what advances might be made in cosmetic surgery by the time I was ready to try being the old me again? The worst of it would be how this would affect the relationship between Stacey and me.

I was beginning to see her as something special in my life, and I was pretty sure she was going the same way. She didn’t need another six year old girl in her life full time, and neither did she need a boyfriend with his face melted off. After tonight, I didn’t have a lot to offer her, and that was what hurt more than anything.

“You and me, we have a lot more in common now,” I told the bear. “Would you mind if I asked you to carry on where I started and look after this?” I held the capsule up in front of his one remaining eye, then carefully eased it into his body through a gap in one of his seams — incidentally, one that happened to be quite close to his bum.

A little squeezing and squishing, and he looked normal. I put him back on the bed and went to rescue the bath from overflowing.

The thought of exposing Phillip’s burns to the hot water didn’t appeal, but I did need to get the grit out. Thinking Wiesner might appreciate the data, I used my phone to photograph my bare arms and legs in both of my bodies, then bathed thoroughly as Philipa, scrubbing my skin till it glowed. I rubbed myself dry and repeated the photo shoot. It didn’t quite work. The amount of embedded grime had reduced considerably, but there was still some. I ran a fresh bath — I’d already turned the bathwater black from my first scrubbing — climbed in as Philippa then, gritting my teeth, reached for Phillip.

Hot water on fresh injuries is painful, but eases after a while. Encouraging the deep seated grime out of the wounds hurt like a puppy of questionable parentage engaging in the process of making more puppies. I persisted though, and managed to turn my second load of bathwater red before I was satisfied.

I didn’t want to risk a towel on my raw flesh, so changed into Philippa for most of the drying, then back into Phillip to allow whatever remained to air dry, and for the scabs to reform. I put the time to good use, giving the bath a good clean. I was probably still a little damp when I returned to Philippa mode, but I could only endure so much.

On with a fresh singlet and into bed. My head had barely touched the pillow and I was asleep.

-oOo-

A gentle shaking brought me reluctantly back to wakefulness. I stared blearily at my alarm clock which informed me that I’d enjoyed all of thirty minutes in the Land of Nod.

“Wake up sleepyhead,” my aunt crooned. “Your uncle and I overslept this morning as well. Must be something in the air. Whatever happened to your nightdress?” She pointed at the forgotten remains of what I’d worn to bed the previous night.

“Er, I kind of changed in my sleep,” I admitted.

“Oh. I thought you said you didn’t have any of those singlet things.” She indicated what I was wearing.

“I found one at the bottom of my bag of toys yesterday.” A barefaced lie which would come back to bite me when she went hunting through my drawers or emptied my bin, but there had been too much drama in my life in the previous twenty-four hours, and I didn’t want to start this day with hysterics over Wiesner’s visit, especially not on half an hour’s sleep.

“Well, that was fortunate. So what do you fancy wearing today?”

That was nearly too much for me. After everything that had happened the previous night, I could not conceive of anything more inconsequential than what I should wear. I fought for control and won a temporary reprieve from the hysteria trying to bubble up inside me. I tried telling myself how much of a relief it would be to have nothing more challenging to think about for a while and attempted to focus on what my aunt was saying.

Fortunately she made it easy for me. She rummaged through my overstuffed wardrobe, apparently with a plan already in mind, and pulled out to two dresses. I liked them both — I mean I had chosen them after all — and after a moment’s consideration, chose a powder blue one with puff sleeves and white piping. My aunt seemed to approve and headed for the chest of drawers where I kept my underwear, and where Wienser had put the singlets. It seemed hysterics might be forthcoming after all, unless…

“I know it’s kind of hard to remember sometimes, but I am sixteen,” I said.

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” She looked a little disappointed. “I’ll, er, I’ll leave you to get dressed then.”

She walked to the door. It seemed like such a little thing, but apparently it mattered to her. I opened the drawer just enough to grab a pair of pants, a camisole and a pair of socks, and managed to slip out of the singlet and into the pants before she had a chance to leave.

“Actually, would you mind helping?” I asked. “I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

She gave me an indulgent smile, perhaps a little relieved as well. It put the morning back on track and set us up for a pleasant, relaxed day filled with nothing of consequence. Threads went with me everywhere. If I squeezed him, I could feel the capsule inside, and that was a reassurance I found I needed. It did illicit a bemused comment from my aunt about how I didn’t act like a sixteen year old. She also offered to wash my bear.

“Please don’t,” I said. “I’ve had him a long time, and I don’t know if he’d survive a wash.”

“I could mend him.”

“Mum offered too. I like him like he is. Please don’t change him.”

I flaked out in the afternoon and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke Threads was still in my arms and in the same grubby state of disrepair. Reason had won so far, but for safety’s sake I’d either have to reconsider my hiding place or do something to keep it safe.

The weather had turned for the worse while I dozed, so instead of the planned walk we played a board game. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it felt just to be doing simple, inconsequential things, but perhaps you might get the gist when I say I even found a game of Monopoly enjoyable. When we were done, and both Aunt Sally and I had lost to Uncle Mike’s ruthlessness, my aunt headed for the kitchen to prepare dinner.

“Can I do anything to help?” I asked, revelling in the role of little girl.

“Thank you for asking, but you’re a little, er, little. I’m worried you might get hurt.”

She disappeared leaving me and Uncle Mike to clear away the game.

“Your making the rest of us look bad,” he said to me with a twinkle in his eye.

“What do you mean?”

“Offering to help like that. It makes the rest of us guys look bad.”

I shrugged and smiled. “Right now I’m not a guy.”

“You know, I believe you. I haven’t seen the first indication that your a boy underneath all that. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were all girl.”

“It’s like I said Uncle Mike, I’m not a guy right now. I am all girl.”

“So how does that work?”

“I don’t really know. It’s all physics bordering on magic. I’m still the same me inside, but I kind of switch between one body and the next, and then I’m influenced by the physiology of the body I inhabit at the time. It’s partly the hormones, but I think there has to be something about brain structure or brain chemistry in there as well. I’m going to have to work harder at my biology if I ever want to understand half of what’s going on with me.”

“You’re saying that you asked if you could help because you are currently a girl?”

“Well not exactly. I mean if I’d been Phillip, I could have offered to help just as easily as you. It’s just that it felt more natural to do so like this.”

“This is going to take some getting used to.” He put the game back where it had come from. “What would you like to do now? Read or watch telly?”

Sunday afternoon TV has never been all that inspiring. It’s when I, as Phil, used to get most of my homework done. Two days of primary school hadn’t provided much of a challenge, either in the classroom or when I got home. I’d decided to do my best to keep ahead, and managed to complete all homework I’d been given within ten minutes of getting home.

“Do you have any biology textbooks?” I asked.

Uncle Mike laughed. “No, I’m sorry, but I’ll let you use my laptop if you like.”

“That’s okay. I’m not sure I’d know what to look for. What books do you have?”

“Well, your aunt studied English literature at university, so we have a lot of the classics.”

“Do you have any Shakespeare?”

I ended up spending the afternoon reading through Romeo and Juliette. We’d studied it at school before Philippa came into my life, and I’d loved it then. The re-read was even better. I could hear the music of the Bards words singing in my head, and seeing things from the female side brought a whole new dimension to the story.

Aunt Sally came through to lay the table and recognised the book. She didn’t say anything but I could just about hear the cogs in her head starting to whirr.

Dinner was spag bog, Sunday’s in my aunt and uncle’s house being ones dedicated to repose, so no stress of washing up etc. It met with the approval of my little girl taste buds too. I mean, I love a good roast as much as the next person, but nothing much beats a plate of worms and dirt.

It’s what we’ve always called it in our house. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

“So, Shakespeare?” my aunt asked.

“Mm hm.” Most of my concentration was going into transferring my meal into my mouth without messing my clothes.

A glance at my aunt indicated that my response wasn’t adequate, so I put my knife and fork down. Uncle Mike rolled his eyes at me over a mouth overflowing with spaghetti streamers. Yeah, only a woman would interrupt a decent meal to engage in conversation.

“My English teacher’s a fan. We put on Romeo and Juliet last year, and I could see why she liked it so much. I wanted to be part of the play, but it was before all this happened — I indicated my small body — and I kept getting distracted. I’m enjoying it more this time.”

I picked up knife and fork and went back to the careful dissection of my dinner.

“I could suggest a few more books I think you might like. Not just Shakespeare.”

“I’d like that, thank you.”

“Not to take to school though,” Mike said, placing his cutlery on an already empty plate. “You’re supposed to be lying low. The last thing we need is a child prodigy getting everyone excited. If they start digging into your background, it won’t be long before they start asking questions I’ll find very hard to answer.”

It had been in my mind to ask about school. It felt like such a waste spending all that time doing all the banal nonsense that goes on in primary schools.

“I wish there was a way round that.”

My aunt twitched her eyebrows at my uncle and he sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t do anything until I say though.”

“Thanks Uncle Mike.”

“Just Mike, or if you feel you can manage it, Dad. Remember, you’re not related to us.”

“Sure.” I tucked into my meal with a little more enthusiasm after that, somewhat to Uncle Mike’s relief. It meant he didn’t have to wait so long for dessert, and we were done in time for the Grand Prix.

Aunt Sally let me help put some of the things away. Pots and pans mostly which were stored beneath the counter, but also cutlery since I could reach the drawer with only a little awkwardness. My last chore consisted of taking a cup of coffee through to where Mike was sitting watching the cars line up.

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in this?” he asked.

“Not really, but thanks for asking.” I gave him a peck on the cheek and went back to find Sally, who was busily perusing a bookcase and already had an armful of books.

“That’s a lot of books,” I said.

“You don’t have to read them all at once,” she replied. “It’ll give you a bit of choice. Ask me before you start one, and I’ll let you know what it’s like. I won’t tell you what happens of course, but generally.”

The pile grew a little larger, then I helped her carry them with me to my room.

“Oh,” she exclaimed putting down the books and picking up my singlet. “I was going to wash this thing.”

“It’s alright. I er, I actually didn’t wear it for very long last night. It’ll be alright for one more time.”

She was giving out a suspicious vibe. I was either going to have to come clean or come up with something more convincing.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll run you a bath and we can wash that gorgeous hair of yours. It is looking a bit grubby.”

A bath wasn’t particularly high on my priority list, but I’d avoided washing my hair when I’d bathed in the morning, unwilling to go to bed with it wet, and uncertain when the rest of the household would rouse. I put a hand up to it and recoiled at the feel of it.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling.

“Get undressed and into your dressing gown. You can put this thing on after you’re clean.” She dropped the singlet back on the bed and headed for the bathroom.

My phone buzzed and I picked it up. Thirty-seven texts and thirteen missed calls, unsurprisingly all from Stacey. Undressing would have to wait.

“Hi Stace. I’m sorry, I kind of left my phone in my room. It’s been a bit of a spacey day; I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

I got the scolding anyway. Probably a toned down version after my apology and brief explanations, but I’d earned it and she evidently wasn’t in a mood to let me off the hook completely.

Aunt Sally popped her head back in to the room. I mouthed “Stacey” to her, so she showed me five fingers and tapped her watch. I let Stacey have three of them, just enough time for the tirade to start easing, and interrupted. “I have to go, Stace. My bath is ready. I’ll call as soon as I’m out.”

I owed her a complete explanation after what had happened the previous night. At least the bath would give me some time to come up with one. I’d thought it would in any case. Sally kept up a running banter all the way through , asking what books I had read — pretty much only Shakespeare — and what had I thought of the different bits of his work that we’d covered. She even kept it going over the drone of the hair dryer afterwards, talking about different books in the pile she’d given me, saying which ones she thought I’d like given my response to the different bits of the Bard’s work I’d studied. It was seven by the time she was done.

“Half an hour to read, then lights out.”

“What?”

“You’re a six year old child in body if not in mind, and from the way you zonked out this afternoon, you still need a lot of sleep. So, you’ll go to bed at a reasonable time. If you wake early then you can use that time as you want. Half an hour.”

I called Stacey back and told her about my curfew. She laughed in a sort of serves you right way, which wasn’t entirely fair, but I had to accept that she was still a little annoyed with me.

“So what did happen last night?”

Short version then, and no sparing the truth.

Except, maybe not the short version. If I took my time over the conversations I’d had with Wiesner and Sellers, there was every chance we’d run out of time before I had to start talking about what had happened on the mission.

I didn’t have to procrastinate. Stacey had so many questions, wanted so much detail, that I’d only just reached the point when Dr Sellers had called her daughter when Aunt Sally’s head appeared round the door.

“I thought I said half an hour to read.” Emphasis on the last word.

“But it’s Stacey. She wanted to know what’s been happening.”

“And how long does it take to tell her about everything you did today? You were asleep for half of it.”

“I was telling her about the books.” I wasn’t particularly convincing.

“She doesn’t know?” Stacey’s voice sounded in my ear. “How can they not know?”

Aunt Sally held her hand out for the phone.

“Stacey, I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“As soon as you wake up.”

“That may be kind of early.”

“I don’t care. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight anyway.”

We exchanged a little of the saccharine that passes between teenage couples and I hung up. I dug the charger out of my bedside cabinet and handed it over along with the phone.

“Will you leave it in the living room where I can find it tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tonight I will, but if I find out you’ve been sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night, I will keep in in our bedroom overnight. Do you understand?”

I nodded and settled back onto the bed.

Sally knelt beside me and kissed me on the forehead.

“Hey, we all have a fair bit of adjusting to do. Mike and I have to get used to having a little girl around the place, and you have to get used to being her. I doubt you’ve spent much time as Philippa since this all started, have you?”

“I guess half a day here and there.”

“Now you’RE having to be her full time, you will tire more easily. You’ll thank me for putting you to bed this early.”

“And the phone?”

“Well, I remember what it felt like to be in love, so I’m not angry that you were talking to your girlfriend. I am going to take this out of temptation’s reach though. In the future, try and get your calls in earlier. Reading is more restful than using one of these gadgets. You’ll fall asleep easier.

“We’ll make a deal. You try to remember you have a little girl’s body and accept that its needs are different from your older male self, and Mike and I will try to remember that you are older than you look. Okay?”

“Okay.” I reached up and gave my aunt a surprise hug. “Thank you.”

She hugged me back and kissed me again. “You’re welcome sweetie. Sleep now. See you in the morning.”

I didn’t last long after the lights went out. I snuggled down with Threads in my arms, squeezing him hard enough to reassure myself that the capsule was still in there, then turned my mind to thinking about how I was going to break the news of my injuries to Stacey the following morning. I hadn’t made any headway before the lights went out in my head as well.

-oOo-

I’d more than half expected a visit from Wiesner in the night. I tried to imagine his reaction when he discovered the absence of the USB drive and the messed up labels, but then the angriest I’d seen him had been with the drill sergeant on that first boot camp. He always seemed to be in control with a head full of contingencies and consequences for every decision or action I made.

Actually, that wasn’t quite true. He had seemed genuinely shocked and uncertain when I’d shown him the extent of my injuries. Maybe he felt I was owed something, that my withholding his precious gene triggers was a justified consequence of his putting me in harm’s way.

You could waste a lot of time on maybes. Right now I had no idea what was going on in his head.

I’d also half expected to be troubled by nightmares, but Sally had been right. Despite the afternoon nap, I was tired enough that I slept too deep for dreams.

I woke at just past three o’clock in the morning in quite a lot of pain. The bedclothes were rough against my burnt skin, and my ribs hurt. I was also ravenous.

Despite the extreme discomfort, I felt a need to stay as Phillip. I threw back the sheets and lifted my arms and legs off the bed. The cool night air was better than the scratching of cotton against my injuries. I settled my feet onto the sheets, and put my hands behind the back of my head. It was comfortable enough, except for the ache in my ribs. After a few moments I tried sitting up, and that seemed to work best of all.

There wasn’t much I could do about my hunger. I had no idea how lightly my uncle and aunt slept — when they weren’t drugged at least — and I didn’t want to risk them seeing me with my burns before I found a way to tell them. It would be worse tomorrow though, so I put my mind to finding a solution.

The answer was simple enough and would probably have come to me sooner had I not been distracted by the various pains that kept twinging at me. All I needed to do was tell Aunt Sally that if I spent to long in one body, I tended to switch in the middle of the night, and that each body needed feeding separately. If I could have a stash of energy bars in my room, it would keep me from disturbing anyone.

The next pressing problem was what to tell Stacey. I wanted to be honest, but I knew it would hurt her. I picked up a hand mirror from my chest of drawers and looked at myself. There wasn’t much light in the room, but the shadows and silhouettes only served to make my appearance more grotesque. This was something I had done to myself without consulting her. It would hurt all the more for coming out of the blue.

It felt a bit underhand, but I had to see if she would reach the same conclusions about Dr Wiesner, Dr Sellers and Deus ex as I had. If she sided with me, then she would find it easier to accept the decision I had made to be a part of the mission. From there it wouldn’t be such a giant leap to accept the consequences when things had gone wrong.

It felt like I would be tricking her, and maybe I was, but to do anything else would be to present her with my ravage face as a fait accompli and that would invite a wholly justified outrage, or just plain rage. It would likely achieve what I’d attempted the last time we’d been alone, but I no longer wanted to end our relationship. In the long run things would be easier, but easier isn’t better, and what we had was worth fighting for.

So, I had the vaguest of plans in mind. I wouldn’t force the issue, but I would give her all the same information as I had and let her make up her own mind. If it sided with mine, then I had a way ahead that might keep us together. If it didn’t then nothing was likely to.

It was enough. I felt the need to be Phil subsiding. I held on a while longer until it was all but gone, then reached for the girl inside me. She was still tired, so it didn’t take long to fall back into a deep sleep.

-oOo-

I woke at six-thirty. No alarm, no noise disturbing me, just a natural waking to a feeling of freshness. First business inevitably involved the toilet, girl plumbing being very much less well thought out than the setup I had as a guy. Next was to go find my phone. Stacey might not appreciate being woken up this early, but she had insisted. Aunt Sally had left it in an obvious place on the dining room table, and it was fully charged. I retrieved it, helped myself to a glass of orange juice and a couple of slices of bread, which I turned into a quickly cobbled together chicken sandwich with other things I could reach in the fridge, and retreated to my room.

With my back to the door, I changed into Phillip and gobbled down the sandwich and glass of OJ. It quietened the wolf in there even if it didn’t satisfy him. Back as Philippa, I settled onto my bed and hunted for Stacey in my contacts.

“Murgh?”

“Stacey? I guess you did get to sleep after all. Sorry I woke you.”

“No, it’s okay.” I could almost here the cobwebs being cleaned away. “Where did we leave off?”

“I was telling you about Jamie.”

The story continued with my account of that phone conversation, and what I’d talked to Dr Sellers about afterwards. Part way through, Sally popped her head in, collected the empty glass from my chest of drawers and withdrew mouthing something that I couldn’t quite make out. I nodded anyway.

I finished my description of the encounter with Wiesner’s challenge.

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think I should have done?”

“You could have asked me what I thought?”

“Yeah, I wish I had. It was nearly two in the morning by then. I know that’s not much of an excuse. I guess I was too focused on the issues. I’m asking now though.”

“That’s not fair. It makes no difference to what you actually did.”

“I know, but I’d still like to know, before I tell what what I did. It kind of lets me know how much I screwed up.”

She laughed. It was musical, delightful, painful. “Well, I told you last night I had a feeling Wiesner was on the level. This kind of confirms it.”

“I thought so too. I mean all that stuff he said about the woman and the man with the gun, he was trying to get me to see that real life is never as easy as black and white, and it seemed he’d gone a long way to trying to regain my trust. Letting you go was kind of an essential part of it, and talking to Jamie meant a lot too.”

“You did the mission, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay. I’d have agreed with you.”

Suddenly I couldn’t speak. The next words I had to say were just too hard.

“Pip?”

I liked the diminutive. I wondered just how many times I’d hear it from her lips now.

“Stacey, it’s not okay. Things didn’t go as planned.”

Now it was her turn to stay silent.

“There was a fire, Stace. I had protection, but it wasn’t enough.”

“How bad?” I could hear the fear in her voice.

“My arms, legs and face were all burnt. Dr Wiesner thinks there’s likely to be permanent scarring. He kept saying he’d put it right, but I don’t know how.”

“I want to see. Send me a photo.”

“No. I mean, I’ll show you, but not like this. In person. I get that this is important. I’ll talk to Mum and Dad or Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike. I’ll fix it so either you come here we come to you.”

“You’d better, ‘cos if you don’t, I’m jumping on a train and coming to you today.”

“You can’t. There aren’t any direct connections. It’ll take you forever.”

“You watch me Phillip Merrick. One way or the other, I will see you tonight.”

“I’ll text you when I get something arranged. I’d better go though, I need to tell Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally.”

“You still haven’t told them?!” Her voice was loud and high pitched enough to melt the wax in my ears.

“Stacey, please,” I wailed. “Wiesner managed to knock them unconscious without them knowing last night, and they were still out of it when he brought me back here. I desperately needed some normal after what happened, and the only way I was going to get it was if they didn’t know anything was wrong.”

“I guess I can understand that, but no more messing around. Fix this Phil, I’ll be waiting for your text.”

She hung up. I guess it would have been a bit much to hope for a ‘love you’, or even the opportunity to offer one back.

“Is everything alright?” Aunt Sally stood in the doorway. “I didn’t hear any of what you said, but it didn’t sound great.”

I shook my head. Enough to encourage her to come the rest of the way into the room. “Is Uncle Mike up?” I asked. “There’s something I need to tell you both.”

-oOo-

There followed another painfully awkward conversation. Hardly surprising given what I was telling them. First, the man who put their nephew on MI5’s most wanted list had come into their home last night, rendered them unconscious and induced me to go with him by showing me photographic evidence of the kidnapping of my girlfriend’s family. Second, he had further persuaded me to take part in a highly dangerous and equally illegal theft from a military research base. Third, that during the course of the raid, I had been severely injured. Fourth, and perhaps my worst crime of all, I hadn’t said anything to them for an entire day after coming back.

Sympathy trumped outrage when I transformed into Phil and showed them the extent of my injuries. Aunt Sally started crying and made a move to hug me until I put up my hands.

“Still kind of painful,” I said and changed back. As Philippa, I was more than ready for a cuddle though.

“I’ll call your parents,” Uncle Mike said. “They should come as soon as they can.”

“They have to bring Stacey.”

“She’ll be at school.”

“Dad will be at work. If he can take a day off, so can she.”

“That’s not our call.”

“I know, but if Mum and Dad don’t bring her, she’s threatened to take a train as soon as she gets out of school.”

“But there are about three changes. She won’t get here till midnight.”

“I know, but she’s made up her mind. Look, nothing has happened that’s so urgent Mum and Dad have to drop everything and come now. If they wait till the end of the day, it’ll look less suspicious to any goons who are still watching, Dad doesn’t have to miss a day’s work and Stacey gets to come too.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Sally asked giving me a gentle squeeze.

“Business as usual. I go to school and get bored out of my mind, and you two do whatever you do during the day. This evening we sort out enough food for everyone, and when Mum, Dad and Stacey arrive, I do my little show piece.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be so blasé about it.”

“How do you suggest I act? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I’ve had longer to come to terms with this than you have. I’m probably still in denial about the whole thing, but right now I’m coping as best I can. If I let myself think about it, I’d realise how much I’ve let everyone down, I’d realise that the girl who loves me is going to have a hard time looking me in the eye, I’d realise I’d made a humongous mess of at least one of my lives…”

Like I said, it was a mistake thinking about it. I buried my face in Sally’s bosom and let loose a flood to rival Noah’s.

Sally rocked me and made soothing noises while Mike called through to my parents. I only caught one side of the conversation, but it was enough to satisfy me. “Something’s happened with Philippa, you need to come this evening. No, she’s fine, but it is important. No this evening’s soon enough. Philippa’s asked if you could bring Stacey with you. Yes, can you check with her mother and pick her up from school. Okay, that sounds good. See you around six then.”

My tears were the first things to dry up. “Tissue, tissue,” I said urgently with snot dripping from my nose and nothing suitable to wipe it with.

My aunt grabbed one from a box on a nearby table and pinched my nose with it. “Blow,” she said after she’d given it a good mashing. I obliged, but I wasn’t at all grateful for the intervention. “All better?” Sally asked, I suspect meaning after the cry rather than after the nasal brutalising she’d given me.

I nodded.

“Are you sure you’re okay to go to school today? I’m sure we could come up with an excuse to keep you home if you like. It’s not as if you’d be missing out on anything important.”

I shrugged. “Don’t you have to work?”

“I could take a day off.”

“What would we do?”

“Anything you like.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think what I’d really like right now is another ordinary day, even if it means spending a day pretending to be ten years younger than I really am. Having a teacher telling me what to do for a few hours will stop me from worrying about this evening.”

“Well, if that’s the case, we’d better get you dressed and ready to go.” She stood up, easing me off her lap, and guided me to my room and the boring uniform with its hideous pullover.

There were still quite enough opportunities for distraction during the day. None of the tasks kept me occupied for more than a tenth of the time my teacher alloted to them, which meant I spent a lot of my day looking around me listening to the thoughts in the back of my mind.

I drank in the sounds of the kids around me, sharing my classroom, my school. There was an innocence to the noise, an abandonment to the joys of the moment. In a few years, they’d be growing into adulthood and making plans for their lives, most likely including plans to have a family. If I gave Wiesner what he’d sent me to retrieve, most of them would never know what it meant to be a parent. When it came down to it, Stacey and I were among them. I didn’t really know what all the deal was — I guess I was still too young — but I’d seen something of it in Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike’s eyes.

It hadn’t really registered before, but in so many of my memories of them there had always been a hint of sadness about them, a hint of longing whenever I caught them looking at me in an unguarded moment. Then there had been that suppressed eagerness when Mum and Dad had suggested they look after me as Philippa for however long it took to sort out the mess I was currently in with the authorities.

It was part of being alive, part of being human, to want children and grandchildren. All those stories about the elves and their sadness over the lack of children, their rejoicing whenever one was born, their looking forward at a doomed future where their race would dwindle. That’s what I would be inflicting on my generation and the one to follow it. Perhaps not the same doom that hung over the elves, but still the same deep despondency over the rarity of their children.

“Philippa? Perhaps you’d like to come up and show how this is done?”

The generic teacher’s method of punishing dreamers. Invite them to explain something when they evidently haven’t been paying attention. It doesn’t always work though. The generic teacher ought to take a leaf out of the generic lawyer’s playbook and never ask a question in public when they’re unsure of the response.

I hadn’t been listening, but I hadn’t needed to. What was new to my classmates I’d done so often over the previous ten years that it had become pretty much second nature. I took the pen from Miss Dempster and gave her an obliging smile in return before providing as comprehensive an answer as I could to the problem on the board.

Miss Dempster made a halfway decent effort to hide her frustration. She gave me a commendation for a job well done and let me go back to my seat.

This wasn’t a problem I could solve on my own. For one, I didn’t want the weight of all that responsibility. For another, I wasn’t qualified to make the choice. Which meant I couldn’t choose to do nothing either. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. But I couldn’t just give the stuff to Wiesner either. That would be another choice I wasn’t qualified to make.

“Philippa!”

I started and looked at Miss Dempster.

“What did I just say?”

One of the things about being a long term space cadet, you can sometimes access the temporary automatic recording your subconscious makes.

“You asked if I would choose a book for story time, miss.”

“Well?”

“Oh! Sorry.”

I was surrounded by mutterings of “The Hungry Caterpillar.” More choices. Give in to peer pressure and add to the teachers stress, or give her a treat and the rest of my class a chance to learn something, if only they could overcome their disappointment that it wasn’t going to involve a gluttonous insect larva. At least this wasn’t so hard a choice. I’d loved A A Milne growing up — still loved it. I found Now We Are Six and passed it to the teacher. “Forgiven?” I suggested.

It was a delight to see the emotions playing across her face. Confusion, surprise, amusement, several more I couldn’t quite interpret. She flipped through the book.

“I found a little beetle; so that Beetle was his name,” she began. “And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same…”

No caterpillars, but perhaps I’d be let off with a beetle. I thought about what Wiesner had said how people don’t really think, but always choosing the familiar. It had just happened here with everyone wanting that same story. It was the same story chosen on the two days I’d spent in school thus far. People tend to hide behind the familiar, to settle into a habit and remain there forever. That was why the doctor — and Deus ex, if they existed — figured we needed something other than democracy. In times past a sort of democracy had existed when not everyone had the right to vote. It had worked in that decisions were made by people who understood the problems more deeply, but it had failed because the decision makers hadn’t made right decisions on behalf of the non-voting majority, partly because they didn’t understand their lives and partly because they didn’t care.

I’d just bucked the system by choosing a story no-one wanted — except the teacher and me. Tomorrow we’d almost certainly be back to the Hungry Caterpillar, so had I actually achieved anything? Was I right to try and introduce something new when no-one wanted it? Were they right to insist on the same old thing because it was what most people wanted?

“…because its difficult to catch an excited Alexander you’ve mistaken for a match.”

I looked around at a class filled with disappointed faces. I couldn’t even make a right decision about something this small.

The rest of the day went much the same. Me chasing will o’ wisps through my thoughts, never getting any closer to an answer. Miss Dempster snapping at me whenever I drifted away and inviting me up to the front to demonstrate how little I’d been listening. Me answering the questions anyway. The rest of the class acting in banal and predictable ways throughout. It came as a relief when the bell rang at the end of the day.

“So, how was your day?” Sally asked.

“Don’t ask,” I replied, despite her having done just that.

“What should we have for dinner?” She changed the subject. She has a wise head, my aunt.

“Toad in the hole.”

“Really?”

“Dad’s favourite.”

“Mike’s too. Alright, we’ll need some sausages then.”

Shopping provided the distraction school hadn’t. Perhaps my aunt had been right. Perhaps I should have taken a day off school.

Sally relented and let me help prepare the meal, but once the potatoes had been peeled and the Yorkshire mix had been put together, there wasn’t a lot left I could do. I entered into full fidget mode.

“You know for someone who’s been a boy for nearly all his life, I’m surprised at how well you’ve adapted to being a girl,” Sally offered by way of distraction.

“Yeah, Uncle Mike asked me about that yesterday.”

“I heard, but being a girl isn’t just about how your body reacts. There are things you learn too, and you seem to do them naturally.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tucking your skirt under you when you sit…”

“I don’t always do that.”

“No, but you do it quite a bit. Then there’s taking small bites when you eat.”

“I only have a small mouth. Besides, I don’t want to get my clothes dirty.”

“I don’t remember my nephew matching the size of his forkfuls to the size of his mouth when he was your age, or caring how much of his dinner he ended up wearing for that matter. Quite apart from all that, most young lads your age are decidedly averse to anything girly. I thought you saw it as a sort of challenge to your manhood.”

That set me thinking — and stopped me fidgeting, but then my aunt has a wise head.

I may have mentioned that.

“I suppose Philippa’s been with me all my life. I mean even in the early days when she only came along for a couple of hours a night while I was sleeping. I guess she’s influenced me through all my life in some subconscious way. You know, when I think about it, I’m not much like any of my mates. We get on and stuff, but there’s always been something. I’ve never laughed at most of the things they find funny…”

“You are different from most boys.” Sally said. “Quite apart from your ability to turn into a little girl, I mean. You’re more mature. I think what you have is balance.”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem to understand things from a girl’s point of view as much as from a boy’s. I had a quiet chat with Stacey when she was here on Saturday and she told me what you did for her.”

“What did I do for her?”

“When you told her the truth, but did so in a kind way. I can’t think any lads your age who would have done that, or many girls for that matter. We’re all too preoccupied trying to be that stereotypical man or woman in order to fit in. Your uniqueness means that you’re not trying to fit either mould, so you’ve become uniquely you — a bit of both worlds, probably the best of both worlds. I rather envy you.”

The doorbell rang, saving me from having to find a response. I ran to answer it, beating Uncle Mike by a couple of yards. It was Mum with Stacey standing just behind her. By dint of being closest, Mum got the first hug.

Dad appeared while Mum was still trying to peel me off. He got the second.

“Will you let them in before the neighbours wonder what’s happening?” Mike laughed.

I stood back and allowed them all to pass. Mum and Dad followed Mike back into the living room, leaving me with…

“Got one for me?”

Of course I did. It lasted long enough that Stacey eventually picked me up and carried me through.

“Dinner will be on the table in ten minutes, so get washed up,” Aunt Sally announced from the kitchen.

Enough reason to let go of Stacey. She needed the loo, and I needed to change. I chose a dress that didn’t look out of place with one of my singlets under it.

-oOo-

“I didn’t think we’d brought any of those,” Mum said when I appeared. I could always trust her to notice things.

“Eat first. Explanations after.”

So we ate. Dad and Mike dug in with considerable gusto, Mum, Sally and Stacey with more decorum. Me, I kind of shuffled my food about my plate a little. One or two forkfuls did make their way into my mouth, but the general turmoil in my stomach left no space for more.

Eventually all plates were emptied — well okay, five out of six — and Dad decided he’d been patient enough.

“So what’s this all about?” he asked.

Sally nodded at me and I stood. I’d been rehearsing this moment through most of the meal, except that the script had changed with each reading. I still wasn’t sure how it was meant to go.

“Er. Something happened on Saturday night after you left. Er, Dr Wiesner came back…”

“He what!” Dad interrupted.

“Let her speak dear.” Mum put a restraining hand on his arm.

“That man has a gall.”

“Yes he does, but just listen. Go on sweetheart.”

“Erm, okay. He, er, he had this kind of spray thing he used to knock Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally out, then he sort of persuaded me to go with him.” There didn’t seem much point in telling them how. The people who needed to know about the abduction of Stacey and her family already knew.

“And just how did he do that?” Dad wanted to know.

“He can be very persuasive when he tries. He asked me to do another mission for him.”

“I hope you told him where he could shove his mission.” Mum squeezed his arm again and he waved her away.

“Actually, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Why would you…?”

“Dad, I did okay. We can talk about why later. What’s important now is to say that it didn’t go quite as planned. There was a fire and I was burned.”

“Oh no!” Mum’s hands were at her mouth.

I slipped the dress off. Another reason for choosing it. It didn’t have any fiddly clasps or out of reach zippers.

“It’s not very pretty,” I said. “There was a little healing from the first time I change to Philippa and back, but other than that any additional recovery only happens when I’m in Phil mode. I haven’t been him much since this happened, so I still look rather raw.”

Sally had moved to put her arm around Mum, for which I was really grateful. Have I mentioned how wise my aunt is?

“Well, here goes nothing,” I said and changed.

Mum’s reaction was predictable — she clung to Aunt Sally and cried noisily into her shoulder. Dad sat stupefied for several seconds before muttering something along the lines of, “I’ll kill him.” I left them to deal in their own way. My eyes were locked on Stacey’s.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” I admitted.

She took a breath and forced a brave smile. “Hey! After a brief adjustment period and a bunch of drinks, it’s a face I’d be happy to sit on.”

The room fell silent. I looked around at a roomful of shocked expressions before turning back to Stacey. I quirked a half smile of my own. It pulled at the scabs on my face. “Have you been practising that?”

“Kind of.”

“Probably not the best quote to use in front of my parents, or my sort of adopted parents.”

She blushed to her roots, leaving me to explain about one of my all time favourite Stan Lee creations.

The sound of the front door closing turned all our heads in confusion.

“Ah, you are all are here,” Dr Wiesner said. “This is good. Saves time.”

Dad launched himself across the room with a roar, arms outstretched, murder in his eyes.

“Dad, no!” I tried to get in the way, but I could never have moved fast enough.

Wiesner held up a small spray bottle and gave Dad a face-full, catching him as he collapsed and settling him gently to the ground.

“It is a much more dilute form than I used two nights ago. I estimate he will be unconscious for perhaps five minutes. Please I mean no harm.

“Phillip, I have found a way of keeping my promise. It is not a perfect solution and a little unconventional, but it is not so strange as that which I have already done to you. Will you hear me out?”

“You can fix his face?” Stacey asked.

“In a manner of speaking, yes. As I say, there will be an adjustment, but not so great a one as living with this.” He indicated my scars. “A cup of tea is calming to the nerves, and I think we could all use this. It will give your father time to recover, Phillip, and he should hear this too. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind?” This last he directed to Aunt Sally. Mum followed her through to the kitchen. There ensued a degree of clattering and the sound of a kettle approaching the boil.

“You have a lot of nerve,” Mike growled, still in his seat but looking for any opportunity the doctor might give him.

“You are correct. Please excuse my intrusion. I find that at times it is necessary to overlook the protocol of good manners you English seem to value so highly in order to do what is necessary. Please, I mean you no harm and I have no wish to use this,” he held up the spray, “on any one else. It would mean a delay, or that you would not be conscious for the explanation. Perhaps you would help me lift Phillip’s father into a chair. It is unpleasant regaining consciousness on the floor.”

“It’s alright, Uncle Mike,” I said when he showed signs of reluctance. “I think we can trust him, at least over this matter.”

“Ah, yes. You still have misgivings about my wider plans, do you not? It was very clever what you did with the two vials. I am correct that you are able to differentiate between them, and that you have the data drive?”

“The thumb drive is safe, and I have the parts of the labels I tore off.”

“So you can match the shapes and read off the numbers. Yes, very clever. This is another matter though. We will address it in time, but first I have a promise to keep to you. I will make things right for you first, so that what you decide over the other matter is not dependent on what we do now.”

“What’s he talking about Phillip?”

“The thing I stole for him the other night. I didn’t exactly give it to him.”

“Good for you.”

Dad started moving and groaning. Mike decided to accept my vouching for the doctor and helped him shift Dad into a chair. He was beginning to attempt words when Mum and Sally reappeared with the tea. Stacey had been standing back from the action with an unreadable expression on her face. I took hold of her hand and she turned hopeful eyes my way.

Teas distributed. Added sugar in Dad’s to help him recover. Wiesner invited us all to sit.

“Phillip,” he started, “do you understand what is meant by the term chimerism?”

“Er, no,” I said.

“Ah.”

“Does it have anything to do with the Chimera from Greek mythology?” Sally asked.

“Just so. The name is derived from this creature. Will you tell us more about it?”

“Er, it was formed of a lion a goat and a snake. Killed by Bellerophon.”

“Oh yes,” Stacey touched me on the tender part of my arm causing me to wince. “Sorry,” she said, “but you remember Mission Impossible Two? They called the virus Chimera and the antidote Bellerophon.”

“I guess.”

“It is of little consequence. The Chimera was a mythical creature made from parts of many animals, and chimerism in biology describes an organism formed of more than one genotype. This occurs when dizygotic twins merge in the womb to form one organism.”

“This is all very fascinating,” Dad interrupted, “but what has any of it to do with our son?”

“Do you not see? A chimera is a single organism made up of two sets of different DNA. Your son, who is also your daughter, has chimeric elements in his make up.”

“No I don’t see, and I’m getting pretty sick of you talking down at us.” Dad had a tendency to interrupt when he was feeling bolshie, and he definitely was no happy bunny.

“An organism that grows with two different types of DNA adapts so that both types can coexist in the one form. This also is true of your child. Cells from Philippa’s body will not be rejected by Phillip’s.”

“So, what? Are you proposing to graft Philippa’s skin on Phillip’s burns?” Mum asked. “What would happen to Philippa if you did that?”

“Nein, nein, nichts dergleichen. Nothing so crude. A skin graft is not a good solution. It improves the appearance of course, but the results are much less than perfect. With no other option, I would consider it though, with skin from Phillip’s body rather than Philippa’s. What I wish to propose is so much better though, so much more effective.

“You are aware there is a small amount of healing whenever Phillip transforms? I have pondered on this, and it seems to me that the only way in which this can occur s if there is some transfer of cells between bodies at the moment of change.”

“But wouldn’t the transfer go both ways? If I pass healthy cells changing in one direction, wouldn’t I pass injured ones switching back?” I asked.

“It is a good question, and there is much we don’t know about this process. We do not know, for instance, where the boundary of transference exists.”

“I may have some information on that doctor. I had grit in my wounds after the last adventure, which I tried to clean off as Phillipa. I didn’t quite get it all. I took photographs.”

“These I would very much like to see, and perhaps they will offer evidence to support my current theory. It seems to me that you have only experienced injury as Phillip, and it is only your larger form that has been healed. I believe that, perhaps because of the change in your size, when you change into Phillipa, some of the cells are lost, and when you change back new ones are created.”

“I thought my bodies sort of phased in and out to a different dimension or something.”

“I thought so too for a while, but I believe it is more complex than this…”

“How much longer are we going to listen to this rubbish?” Dad was in bull mode again.

“Doctor, could you sum up please?”

“The short version is that I have discovered a way to alter my machine very slightly. It will permit one time only for all of Phillip’s skin to be replaced with cells created from Philippa’s DNA. You will have the unusual genetic makeup of XX chromosomes in your dermis, but XY elsewhere.

“Because Phillip and Philippa grew together for the first six years of their combined lives, there will be no issue with tissue rejection. This I have tested and it is certain. Your injured skin will be gone, and because you have not yet begun to form scar tissue, the skin that replaces it will be whole and healthy.”

“And it will be a girl’s skin,” I finished for him.

“How would that fit?” Mum asked. “I mean, the size and shape are so different.”

“The shape would be the same, Mum. I wouldn’t be getting a copy of Philippa’s actual skin, but a copy of her cells replacing my own. Doctor, you did say this would be a little unusual. What would you expect to be different?”

“It is difficult to anticipate the degree of change. For certain you would have the texture of a girl’s skin. There would be very little hair, it would be smoother, softer, perhaps not so thick. It is likely there would be some cosmetic changes to your face also.”

“What sort of cosmetic changes?”

“These I cannot predict. Bone structure gives much to the shape of the face, but the dermis affects it too.”

“You’re avoiding the question doctor.”

“Not so. Simply attempting to explain. There is a good chance your face will resemble an adult Philippa more than Phillip.”

“You’re talking about making my son look like a woman!” Dad wasn’t impressed, but then I think he’d long since decided not to be. “Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve messed about with him so that he turns into a girl now? You want to do more?”

“I only seek a way of giving Phillip back a body without scars. This would achieve it.”

“By making him look like a girl.”

“Again, I cannot say at this stage how much his appearance would be changed. The texture would be smoother, this is for definite, and he would have no facial hair. The rest, I have no way of predicting.”

“And if he comes out looking more girl than boy?”

“Then hormone therapy might help, Dad. I’ve seen female to male transexuals who look remarkably masculine after taking testosterone. That would work, wouldn’t it doctor.”

“Perhaps not. It would be dangerous to have too great an amount of testosterone in your system, and your body already produces enough.”

“Which means that the problem might correct itself.”

“Might is a good word. You must remember, this is not a matter of simply being a man or a woman who takes hormones. Your body will be genetically male, and your skin genetically female. This has not occurred before now, and your body has already adapted so that your female cells and male cells can coexist.”

“You are not going to do this.” Dad had risen back onto his feet, his fists clenched. “I am not letting you at my son again.”

“It’s not your call, Dad. I’m sixteen, which means I’m old enough to consent to my own treatment. Stacey, what do you think?”

“Now you ask me?”

“It was a mistake not to the other night. I can’t change that, but I don’t want to mess up again.”

“Don’t worry, I expect you will eventually. As for this, I’m not deciding for you.”

“No. I’ll decide, but I want your input. I mean, I don’t know how long things will last between us. I’m hoping a long time, maybe a lifetime. On the off-chance that we do work out, would you prefer to spend most of your life waking up to this,” Phil face, “or this?” I changed into Philippa.

“What will you do if you end up looking more like a girl than a boy?”

“Wearing a dress is no big deal. This is the twenty-first century after all. How do you feel about dating someone who looks more like a girl than a boy?”

“Like you said, this is the twenty-first century. I could get used to having a girlfriend, as long as she kept a certain souvenir from her previous life.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to this,” Dad had a few prominent veins showing. He turned to Mum. “Are you going to let him do this?”

“It’s as he said, he’s old enough to make his own mind up now. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having another woman around the house.”

“What about your rugby?” he asked.

“Not a game I’ve ever enjoyed that much, Dad. Besides, as long as Phil is on MI5’s most wanted list, he’s not going to be able to play in any case. If I end up looking enough like a girl, I might give cheer leading a try.” The last was an intentional dig because he was being such a pain, but it backfired and I ended up feeling more guilt than pleasure at the way he winced.

“Yes, this also is true. To make this change would help with the trouble Phillip has with the authorities.” Wiesner attempted to regain control of the conversation. “It is very likely that the the change to his appearance will be sufficient that he will not look a great deal like his old self.”

“What’s the time constraint on this, doctor?” Sally asked. “How long does Phillip have to decide?”

“I feel the decision must be now. While Phillip is present in this world, his body will begin growing scar tissue. Because you have spent much of the previous two days as Philippa, this has not yet progressed far, but you will from necessity turn to Phillip for some hours every night. The longer you wait, the less effective the treatment will be. If you are agreeable, little one, I would take you to my lab straight away.”

I raised my eyebrows in Stacey’s direction.

“I’m sticking with you either way,” she said. There was something in the back of her eyes though, something more obvious to me now I was in Philippa mode.

“Okay doc, let’s do it.”

-oOo-

It felt odd being back in Dr Wiesner’s lab, surrounded by all the tubes and wires, with his enormous machine humming against the back wall. A ghost of my previous fears drifted through me and I gave Threads a reassuring hug.

“Do not worry, Liebchen. I have been very thorough with my preparations. Dr Sellers has checked my calculations and confirmed they are correct. Nothing will go wrong today.”

“I’m not sure that’s what I’m worried about doctor. I’m a little scared of what happens if everything goes right. This is my best option, isn’t it?”

“I believe so, little one. Whatever else happens, you will have a normal life as Philippa to look forward to, but you do not wish to start this yet, hein? You wish to be Phillip for your Freundin, your girlfriend?

“So, for her you have only a few choices. You can allow your body to recover as far as it is able. It will look better than it does now, but there will be a great deal of scarring and once it is formed, there will be little anyone can do to change it. You can have a skin graft with healthy skin from elsewhere on your body. You have seen how this looks, and it is also better than now, but not good. Lastly, Your third option is available to you only because of your unique condition. It will give you a normal face, but how much it will resemble a girl’s cannot be predicted.”

“You’re not going to try and influence things one way or the other, are you?”

“You still find it hard to trust. Perhaps this is a good thing, little one. Distrust permits you to question that which others take for granted, and in this lies a great deal of wisdom and new understanding. To answer your question, I have no way of influencing this process. It will be as much a surprise to me how you appear after.

“There, we are ready. Permit me to take from you your Teddybär. The treatment will not take long.”

I passed Threads over, complete with his hidden secrets.

“You remember that this is best done without clothes?”

I’d already changed into one of those ridiculous backless hospital gowns, so there wasn’t a lot of dignity to lose.

“And I will need you to begin as Phillip.”

I stripped off the gown, transforming as I did so, and climbed up onto the treatment couch.

“If you recall from your previous visits, there will be some flashing lights and noise, then you will lose sensation in your body. This is normal. It will last only a few seconds, but because you have not sensation, it may seem longer. In the past, I recommended you count backwards from ten, but this is a more extensive treatment which will take longer, so start at one hundred and we shall see if you can reach zero before the procedure is concluded.”

I lay back and waited. The promised flashes and bangs came and went and very abruptly I was floating in darkness and silence. I couldn’t feel anything except a kernel of panic growing deep inside me.

“One-hundred,” I started. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight. Come on Phil, you wouldn’t be able to feel panic without an adrenal gland, would you? Ninety-seven…”

It occurred to me that if the good doctor had been sufficiently angry with the stunt I’d pulled during our previous outing, this would be an easy way to get his revenge. If my vague understanding of how the machine worked was even half right, I didn’t have a body in the real world right now, and there was nothing to say Wiesner had to make one reappear…

“Sixty-three, sixty-two…”

Why was it my paranoia about the guy only surfaced when I was no longer in a position to do anything about it? Top of the Wexler building, bottom of a ventilation shaft in some secret military research bunker, now in limbo in the middle of nowhere.

“Forty-eight, forty-seven…”

I’d wanted Stacey here with me, but Dad had promised her mum she’d be home that evening at a reasonable time. Mum could have come, but Dad insisted she go home with them. No sensible reason just an ultimatum. Dad can be quite the Neanderthal sometimes, and Mum’s not modern enough to stand up to him, at least not when he’s in a proper strop.

“Thirty-six, thirty-five…”

Uncle Mike and Aunt Sally had appointments they couldn’t break for the following day, which meant I was on my own. With the decision made and not much else to discuss, Mum, Dad and Stacey soon took their leave and headed for home. Wiesner was eager to be on the road too, so Sally had packed me an overnight bag and she and Mike had waved me off. What had possessed me to bring Threads, I cannot fathom. He was a source of much needed company and comfort, but all Doc Wiesner needed to was give him an accidental prod in the wrong place and he’d have all he needed. Perhaps he already had, in which case, why bother bringing me back from wherever I was?

“”Twenty-three, Twenty-two…”

A light flickered into existence in front of my eyes. The machine gave out a disconcertingly loud bang which sent a scattering of terrified memories through my mind even as the return of my senses flooded me with relief. I could feel the hardness of the treatment couch under my back and let out a long breath. It turns out sometimes paranoia is just paranoia.

The tightness had gone from my skin. I lifted my arms so I could see them. Smooth as alabaster and pale as a ghost, slightly slimmer than they had been with long slender fingers. It was like looking at someone else’s hands, except they responded to my commands. I lifted them up to my face — also unsurprisingly smooth. My nose felt smaller and my lips bigger, fatter. I needed a mirror.

I sat up wincing at the ache in my chest. Something felt off. I looked down. Oookaay. That was new.

“Doctor, why do I have boobs?”

“What was that?” The doctor’s head appeared around the door. “Mein Gott!”

I slid off the couch moving slowly, careful not to aggravate the pain in my ribs. I didn’t feel any weaker, which I guess made sense. It was my skin that had been replaced after all, not my muscles. I did feel a little lighter, and oddly off balance courtesy of the jigglies on my chest.

The doctor’s point of focus was lower than I would have anticipated. I self consciously moved a hand in front of my groin and his eyes rose a couple of feet.

“A little further, doc.”

He lifted his gaze upwards another foot, meeting my eyes at last. To be fair to him, I couldn’t see any more in his expression than surprise and curiosity.

“I wouldn’t mind something to wear, doctor, and a mirror would be good.”

“Of course.” He disappeared for a second, returning with a thin, cotton dressing gown in his hands, which he thrust in my general direction, keeping his eyes averted. It didn’t help much against the cold, but I felt better with my modesty covered.

“Mirror?” I prompted.

“Er, yes. This way.” He indicated I should follow and led me across the lab to an appropriately marked door.

The smell of soap and aftershave triggered memories from my youth. The place appeared larger in my mind, but it was still a fair size. More a shower room of the sort you’d find in any modern home than a public convenience, it contained all the pieces of porcelain you’d expect and still had enough room for both of us to enter without feeling cramped.

A fair sized mirror hung over the sink, large enough for me to see my entire upper body. I could understand why the doctor had been so shocked; I did not look like Phil anymore.

My new breasts dominated, drawing the eye. I pulled my dressing gown tighter and concentrated on my face. I’d been wrong about the nose. It looked about the same size, if perhaps a little slimmer. My lips had a natural pout to them, presenting a distinct Cupid’s bow, and my skin was smooth and unblemished, like a baby’s. Hints of Phil showed, but only enough to suggest we were related, never that we were the same person. Even with my short and distinctly masculine haircut, there was no way I could have passed for a boy.

It was surreal watching this attractive girl matching my movements in the mirror. I felt detached and light headed and oddly excited. You’d have thought I’d be used to this sort of thing by now with changing into Philippa, but this was different. Before now I’d always had the option to change back, but this was who I was now. I thought about my mates in the rugby team, how differently they’d react around me now, how freaked out they’d be if a change like this happened to them. Okay, from my point of view there was considerable relief that I no longer had the burns, but there was so much more. There was a very real sense here of coming home, of things having been not quite right for a very long time, before Philippa even. Philippa had been an improvement, but this was like the last piece of a jigsaw fitting into place.

“So, how do you think I ended up with these, doc?” I cupped my two newest acquisitions. I didn’t know how to gauge sizes of such things, but they definitely more than filled my new slender hands.

“I have no clue, Phillip. I will have to investigate. I must say, you are handling this very well.”

“It’s kind of what we expected, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but not to this extent. I had thought the results would be more androgynous. This is quite a surprise.”

“A good one though,” I said. “I mean there’s no way the authorities will recognise me now.”

“This is for certain.”

“It feels right, doctor. Decidedly odd, but right. What you gave me in the first place, with the Phillip/Philippa thing, was the ability to be either one thing or the other, either male or female, but inside I’ve realised I’m not either one, I’m both. This way I get to be both at the same time without anyone being freaked out about it.

“Except maybe my parents, and I have no idea how Stacey will react to this.”

“You will find, I think, that your girlfriend is in love with the part of you that resides here,” he prodded my head, “and here,” he pointed cautiously between my breasts. “What is on the outside is sometimes a challenge, but you already have seen how she rose to the news of your disfigurement. She is aware that further changes are to be expected, that in place of your scars will be a different appearance. In this you were wise to include her in your decision to undergo the treatment. She may be shocked by the extent of your transformation, but I believe she will stand by you. Strong relationships are formed in adversity, and you two have already experienced enough for your roots to reach deep.

“Your mother said she has always wanted a daughter. She will need a little time to adjust, but she will be content, I think. Perhaps your greatest challenge will be in telling your father.”

“You’re not wrong there. It’s his birthday next weekend too. Happy birthday Daddy.”

“If I might offer a suggestion, perhaps this would not be a good thing to tell him on his birthday.”

“I wasn’t planning to, but I’m not sure when I’m going to have an opportunity beforehand. This is hardly something you announce over the phone.”

“We will have time tomorrow. It is a long way, but I can take you to your parents’ house before returning you to your aunt and uncle.”

“What if you-know-who is still watching? They’re after you as well you know?”

“I am aware. However I do not need to approach the house. You could do so in your new form.”

“Yeah! Wouldn’t that be a great way to tell them? Besides, I have nothing to wear.”

Wiesner bit down on an amused smile. “As I say, we have much time tomorrow. We can purchase for you some clothes, find a hairdresser to see what may be done with this,” he indicated my short back and sides. “We do not have to do any of these things. Perhaps you have another thing in mind.”

“I’m not sure I’d be confident shopping on my own. Besides, what would I wear going into the shops?”

“If you wish, we could prevail upon the good nature of Dr Sellers. I imagine there will be some of Jamie’s clothes at her home, and I feel that, at the very least, I owe you a new wardrobe.”

“I guess it’s a plan. I’d like to talk to you more about Deus ex before we go anywhere.”

“Then it is settled. Tonight we will travel to Miriam’s house, tomorrow morning you may talk to us both as much as you wish about the foundation, and afterwards Miriam will take you to the shops before I drive you to your home to speak to your parents, and perhaps your girlfriend. This is a plan?”

“How far away does Dr Sellers live? It’s getting kind of late.”

“She is waiting for a call from me to learn how tonight’s venture progressed. I think she will be pleased to see first hand. She does not live so far away. Perhaps a little more than thirty minutes.”

“Alright. Where are my clothes?”

He fetched them for me and left me to get changed. With only the singlet on, I tried changing into my new other self and didn’t care much for the result. The material stretched to accommodate my new anatomy, but what showed through the thin material could not be described as suitable for public viewing, especially the bulge between my legs. I switched back to Philippa and slipped the dress over my head.

“I think the singlet’s going to need a little work doctor. My nipples show through the material, and it doesn’t hide anything down here.” I pointed at my groin.

“I will give it some thought. Miriam has said we are welcome. There will be food when we arrive, I hope this will be suitable.”

“I think I can survive for half an hour. Can I have Threads please?”

“Threads?”

“My bear?” I pointed to the high shelf where he’d put it out of the way. I could have transformed and reached it, but not without taking off my dress and giving Wiesner an eyeful of what I’d just described.

He lifted it down and gave it to me. A quick hug reassured me that the capsule was still there and, as far as I could tell, in the same place. If he’d found it and removed the drive, he’d been thorough about putting things back exactly the way they were.

Once we were in the car and underway, Wiesner glanced over at me. “We have some things to discuss. Perhaps you would be willing to do so as we drive?”

“Sure. What did you have in mind?” I thought I knew. I was at least partly wrong.

“You will wish to return to your proper family now, I think. As matters stand, the authorities are searching for Phillip without making his escape public, your father has been convincing in his assertion that he believes you still to be incarcerated. Before this matter is resolved, there needs to be evidence either of Phillip’s death or his escape from the country.”

“Perhaps we should have done something about that before fixing me up.”

“It was imperative that your transformation be done at the earliest time, before your body was able to develop even a little scar tissue. No, there are ways to manufacture the evidence we need, but I must ask your preference in this matter.”

“Phillip’s never coming back after this makeover. If the powers that be think I escaped, they’ll keep an eye on my parents, and that wouldn’t be great.”

“I agree. So Phillip sadly will die. The authorities will have to admit this has happened, and manufacture whatever fiction they think will bring them the least aggravation from your family. It will require your parents and your girlfriend to perform a little theatre. Mourning, sadness, a funeral.”

“I get that. I’ll talk to them about it all tomorrow.”

“It will seem unusual if your parents were to change the habits of their lives very soon after the death of their son, so there will have to be a delay before you are able to return. Perhaps six moths or a year. You will have to remain as Philippa for this period under the care of your aunt and uncle.”

“That’s a long time.”

“It cannot be helped. However, I will attempt to make this period easier to endure.”

“How?”

“There are ways. Your girlfriend is too young to drive still, but perhaps she can be offered a weekend job with a live in position. This will explain to her parents and anyone watching why she is away from her home at weekends. If the job is a fiction and instead she is brought to a flat near to your uncle and aunt’s home, which I will provide, then you will be able to spend weekends together. Long distance relationships are a good test of the strength of commitment, so it will work out for you or not.”

“That’s a generous offer.”

“I feel I owe you a great deal, Phillip.”

“You still don’t have everything you need to complete your plan.”

“No, but I believe you would not have withheld this without reason. You are, in some ways, a moral compass to me.

“When the time of mourning is over, we will manufacture a pretext for you to return home.”

“I’ll be seventeen this year, and looking at sixth form in September. There’s a decent college near home, so maybe if Mum and Dad let out my old room, I could live there as their lodger.”

“This had not occurred to me, and could work very well. It would reduce the delay before you return to your home.

“You will need a life history. This is something we can provide for you. Once you have decided on a name, we will create the documents for you.”

“Slight problem. If I’m going to go to college, I’m going to need GCSEs. I’m not going to be able to study for them at primary school.”

“Allow me to think on this. We provided you with tutors before now, perhaps we can do so again. If Philippa is a little precocious, perhaps there will be reason to have you withdrawn from at least some of your lessons at school. Depending on your aunt and uncle, we may be able to arrange for you to be home schooled.”

“Both Mike and Sally work, so that would be a bit of a hard sell.”

“There are things that can be done. So, we arrange for Phillip to meet his demise, we prepare you to take your GCSEs this year, we give your new persona an identity, we arrange for your girlfriend to come to you at weekends until you are ready to return to your parents as a lodger. I believe this is enough for now, unless you can think of anything else?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Well, you know how to contact me so, as and when you think of something, you will let me know, yes?”

“Sure.” I’d had the doctor’s number in my phone under an alias since the first boot camp.

Conversation lapsed and we drove in silence for ten minutes before I cracked.

“What about the vials and the data I stole?”

“The vials I have, and they are stored safely until you are ready. The data is still in your possession and will remain with you also until you are ready.”

“How long will the contents of those vials remain viable, doctor?”

“They are like viruses, so not living. They can survive in the vials for some months or perhaps years. I took samples from each of the two vials and have dessicated and frozen them. There is a small possibility that this process may have caused damage, but if not, they will last for decades.”

“Well, assuming you’d rather not take any unnecessary risks, that realistically means you’ll want this resolved by the end of the summer.”

“Yes, but this should be time enough. As for deliberations over such important matters, they are best left for a time when your head is clearer. I imagine you are tired. Try to sleep. I have matters of my own to consider. I will wake you when we arrive.”

-oOo-

“Here we are.”

I fought blearily for consciousness. It didn’t feel like more than a few seconds had passed since I’d snuggled into the seat and closed my eyes, but the scenery was quite different, and we were slowing, pulling up into a driveway. I still held Threads in my arms; I gave him a quick reassuring squeeze.

My door opened and Miriam smiled down at me. “Come on in. Henning, you’ll bring the bags. I’ve some food in the dining room. It’s only sandwiches and biscuits I’m afraid, but you didn’t give me much warning.”

I followed her blearily into a beautifully appointed hallway, and from there to a dinning room set with the promised goodies.

“Don’t be shy. I know you’re hungry. Tuck in. Would you like some fruit juice? I have apple or orange.”

“Apple please,” I said piling my plate high.

Miriam poured a glass of clear amber liquid and handed it to me. “You always were hungry after the treatments. I imagine they take quite a lot out of you.”

“I didn’t eat much of my dinner yesterday either.”

Wiesner joined us and we ate in silence. I was the last to finish, having eaten twice as much as either of them.

“Your other self will be hungry also,”Wiesner said, “and I know Miriam will be interested to see what our activities tonight have achieved. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind?”

I was suddenly self-conscious. “I’m not sure…”

“It’s alright, dear. We’ve both seen you naked before now.”

I’m not sure how that was supposed to make things alright, but since they were asking for it, I stripped off my dress and…

“Oh my word! Oh good God!!”

Miriam’s first exclamation had been a first impression, her second a response to what was shoeing through the singlet. Wiesner had spun around to face the wall, but I could still see hints of beetroot between his collar and his hair. Miriam dashed out of the room, returning a moment later with a lightweight floral robe, which she helped me put on. By then I was halfway through my third sandwich, having discovered that the new me was indeed ravenously hungry.

“We are going to have to do something about that, dear.”

“I know. I tried to tell you.”

“Easily fixed. Henning, do you have any more of these singlets with you? I’ll need at least two”

Dr Wiesner opened my overnight bag and found a couple inside, which he handed over wordlessly. His colour had improved, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I managed to limit myself to the three sandwiches and one biscuit. Hunger still gnawed away at my innards, but it was bearable, and I’d eaten as much as I needed if not wanted. A yawn took me by surprise.

“Bed then, both of you. Henning, you’re in the guest room. You know where that is, don’t you? Philippa, I’ve put you in Jamie’s room. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where everything is. When you wake up, have a look through her wardrobe and see if there’s anything in there you like. Breakfast will be when everyone’s awake. My word but you turned out well. You don’t mind looking like this, do you?”

I shook my head, but I was out of words for the day. I managed to stay upright for long enough to brush my teeth and empty my bladders — both Phil’s and Philippa’s. I stayed as my little self and climbed into bed with Threads still clutched tightly in my hands. I don’t remember my head touching the pillow.

-oOo-

I woke with Philippa’s plumbing sounding off its early morning alarm. In the time it took me to ablute and make my way back to the bedroom, Miriam had found time to go in ahead of me and dig out a few things.

She held up a navy blue dress made of some stretchy fabric for my inspection. “What do you think? Jamie never much cared for it, and I think it’s more your colour. I did what I could with the singlet,” she indicated a significantly altered piece of clothing on the chair by the bed. “It’s a long way from perfect and no substitute for a decent bra, but you’re quite a bit bigger than Jamie, so I don’t think we’d be able to squeeze you into one of her old ones. I’ll just go downstairs and get breakfast started. Give us a yell if you get into any difficulty.”

She was gone before I could say anything. Somewhat bemused, I set about looking through the stuff she’d left me. It seemed sensible to dress as my big self to make sure everything fit properly, so I slipped out of the singlet I’d worn through the night and changed.

I found an unopened packet of tights under the altered singlet. I’d wasn’t used to tights as Philippa, having worn socks for the most part. These looked about half the size they needed to be, but they were good and stretchy, so I shrugged and got on with it.

Television doesn’t leave you having to imagine much these days, and such mundane things as how women get dressed did make up part of my extracurricular education, so the whole process of bunch them up slide them on didn’t phase me. What did take me by surprise was the delicious cool sensation of wearing a second skin brought me. I arranged my meat and two veg as best I could, then stepped into the singlet. The legs were gone, cut off and hemmed, so the bottom half fit more like underwear than anything. The arms were the same length, so just over the elbow in my larger form. A second band of material had been sewn into the top part, providing extra thickness and extra support. It was tight, but not uncomfortable. Lastly, the Miriam had converted the remaining material from the other garment into a full skirt sewn on just above the hips and falling in generous folds down to about mid thigh.

I had a look in the wardrobe mirror and couldn’t help smiling. It wasn’t exactly conventional for outside wear, but it could do at a pinch. The hair was wrong still, but there was not a sign of masculinity there. I twisted about, examining myself from every angle, then had a quick rummage through the contents of the wardrobe before accepting that the blue dress was the best of Jamie’s cast offs. It slid over everything else I was wearing, and after a twitch or two, looked just right.

All I needed now was shoes and a purse.

Downstairs, Wiesner was working his way through a pile of the best grease and cholesterol a British kitchen can produce. Miriam was busy plunging a cafetiere. She paused when she caught sight of me.

“Oh yes. We’re going to have to do something with your hair as a matter of urgency, but you look lovely.”

Philippa was the one who always got those compliments. Somehow it was different as Phil. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had said something nice to me in Phil mode, and this felt like something I’d been missing. I felt a blush climb up my face.

“Thank you.”

“Hungry?”

“A little.”

“Coffee? Or fruit juice. Same choice as yesterday.”

“Orange would be good, thanks.” I still wasn’t too keen on the smell of coffee, so hadn’t tried it yet.

I sat as a large fried breakfast landed on the table in front of me.

“Is this to share?” I asked.

Miriam laughed. “I may have been a little overzealous. Leave what you don’t want.” The orange juice appeared next to the plate. I tucked in.

It turned out I was hungrier than I’d thought. I emptied two thirds of the plate before putting down my knife and fork. I’d always enjoyed a fast metabolism and hoped that things hadn’t changed in that regard. I sipped at what remained of my orange juice, clearing my palate.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Miriam said as she removed my plate from in front of me, “but I took the liberty of making an appointment at my local hairdresser. I told her it was an emergency for a friend, and she’s agreed to work through her morning coffee break. She’s expecting us at about ten-thirty, so we have an hour or so before we have to leave. I think it would be best to do the clothes shopping once she’s done what she can for you. So that gives us an hour to answer your questions. I think we’d be more comfortable in the lounge, so…” She indicated the door and I preceded her and Wiesner out of the kitchen and into a comfortable little room overflowing with shabby chic furniture. I settled onto one of the overstuffed armchairs and let them arrange themselves where the wanted.

“I don’t actually have any questions for you. What I would like is to meet more people from Deus ex Machina. I hope you’ll excuse my paranoia, but so far the only evidence I have that Deus ex even exists is conversations I’ve had with the two of you. You could have made the whole thing up to convince me to help you.”

Wiesner and Dr Sellers exchanged looks. Wiesner answered.

“I am proud of you. You are thinking more and accepting less, which is the beginning of awakening. However, there is a flaw in your thinking. If we were to arrange for you to meet with a number of people, how would you know they were members of a secret organisation and not actors paid by us to convince you?”

“I probably wouldn’t, not if they were decent actors. That goes for pretty much anything that’ll take time to set up. I need you to show me evidence without having time to arrange it first.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“Deus ex is a global organisation, which means there’s always going to be someone on-line, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“You have that communications app on your phone, I imagine you both do.”

“I think I understand what you wish. Will you sit here on the sofa with Miriam and I on either side? Miriam, you will need your phone.”

She retrieved it from her handbag while I changed seats. They sat either side of me and tapped in a complex sequence of codes on their respective devices. Both of them opened up a plain chat window. White text on black background with a grey-green border. No logo, standard looking keyboard at the bottom. I looked at Wiesner expectantly.

“This may not appear all that impressive on the surface, but underneath it is a masterpiece of engineering. This application is built into the hardware of the phone. If you were to search for it, you would not find it, and it can only be activated by the complex sequences you saw Miriam and myself entering.

“Deus ex has a team of technicians who’s primary role within the organisation is maintenance of the infrastructure. There is a part of the team responsible for constructing and distributing the modified phones to all members.

“Each phone is authorised for only one user. Anyone can use it as an ordinary phone, but when this application is running, it regularly checks the fingerprints of whoever is typing and if does not recognise them, it unloads from memory. If there is no typing for a short period of time, a pixel will light up. You see there?” A single pixel had indeed just lit up. “If the authorised user does not touch the screen within five seconds, the application unloads from memory.” He touched the screen and the pixel went dark. “The application learns the the typing style of the authorised user over time, and if there is too abrupt a change, it unloads from memory.”

“There was me thinking I was the one with paranoia,” I said.

“There is more. Whatever is typed in here, the application first encrypts then hides using steganography — you understand, to hide data inside another file? It then connects to one of a number of legitimate chat servers that have been hacked by programmers from Deus Ex. The servers continue to operate as intended, but they also check incoming messages with attached files for hidden data. When they find it, they divert the messages to a program running on the dark web.

“Deus ex has a number of dark web servers, which permit us to monitor and interfere with certain illegal activities. The communications program this connects with is diffused over the cloud between them all. This means that if one or two of the servers cease operating for any reason, the rest are able to continue without interruption until new servers can be set up.”

“Wow.” I said.

“Now, if you look here,” he clicked the single three bar icon at the top of the screen and chose a menu option, “you will see all the topics currently under discussion, listed by priority.”

World population increase was about fourth down underneath Foreign government interference through social media, Resurgence of fascism in Europe and Industrial pollution from China and Korea. Because of the long topic names, there wasn’t room for much else but scroll bar suggested there were quite a few.

The pixel appeared again and Wiesner touched the screen. He then tapped on the World population topic and a familiar chat window appeared. No names, only numbers. Wiesner typed in ‘#priority conference’ and pressed enter. It was prefixed with the number 73791.

“Over seventy thousand members?”

“Perhaps, but it is not so simple. Numbers are not reused and there are a many members who are no longer with us. Also easily recognised numbers with multiple repeated digits are reserved for administrative users and have not all been assigned. I estimate there were about fifty or sixty thousand active members when Miriam arranged for me to be invited twenty three years ago, and there have been perhaps another twenty to twenty-five thousand added since then, so there are between seventy and eighty-five thousand today.”

“That’s a lot.”

I glanced over at Dr Sellers’ screen which matched Wiesner’s. The number of people in the chat had been steadily increasing while we talked. There were about seventy in the session but the rate at which they were joining had started to slow. Wiesner started typing.

‘Miriam and I have previously suggested a future member for DeM.’

The message appeared in the main window, substituting the number 70229 for Dr Sellers’ name.

“The app will not permit names, but you can preset some aliases,” Wiesner chipped in.

‘43166: The sixteen year old with special abilities? It was decided he was too young.’

Weisner responded. It was hard to see past his fingers as he typed so I looked to Dr Sellers’ screen.

‘73791: His training and use in missions was approved, as was informing him of the existence of DeM if necessary. It has become necessary, and now he requires proof beyond my words. He is with me now.’

Several web addresses appeared on the screens, which split into two halves, the lower half opening the phone’s browser and loading each link into a separate tab. The one I could see seemed to be a conspiracy theory website.

‘52199: Not possible to hide completely, so we leak some data to sites where poor reputation means the information will not be taken seriously by anyone who might threaten us. These are some DeM activities from the past two decades. If you look, you will see a pattern.’

“That’s not proof,” I said. Wiesner typed in my words verbatim.

‘88211: Can’t give you proof. If you had it, you could pass it on to anyone, including those who wouldn’t be happy to know we existed.’

‘95941: What do u know about 73791. What resources does he have? How do you think he’s funded?’

It still wasn’t proof, but it was compelling evidence.

“I want to see what you’ve discussed about the world population problem.”

Again Wiesner typed it in, substituting ‘Agent wants’ at the beginning.

‘20012: Not happy with this. Too much exposure.’

‘73791: Agent requires compelling evidence before continuing assistance. I need this. Request limited time access to transcripts from my phone only.’

‘20012: #vote50: Y-approved, N-not approved.’

Brackets appeared next to each option and steadily climbing numbers in each. The number after Y-approved climbed faster than the other until it reached thirty-nine and the other eleven. The final result flashed a couple of times and was still. Underneath a new line formed. ‘78% approved from 50 votes. Action approved.’

‘55555: Standby.’

‘20012: Anything further?’

“Can you give me the names of any former members of Deus ex?”

Wiesner passed on my request.

‘21952: You would be unable to verify the information. We could tell you what we thought you wanted to hear in order to impress you, but this would be dishonest.’

‘98225: You won’t have heard of most of us anyway.’

Fair enough. Probably as good an answer as I could have hoped for. Wiesner looked at me.

“I think I’m good.”

‘73791: Propose multiple face to face encounter in three months.’

Miriam tapped away briefly.

‘70229: Seconded.’

‘20012: #bgdvote5000: Y-approved, N-not approved.’

‘73791: Nothing further.’

The number of people in the chat dwindled rapidly until just three remained. I assumed Wiesner and Sellers were two of them. The other…

The five fives appeared again with an obscure link starting with an ip address. The web browser on Wiesner’s phone opened a new tab.

‘55555: Link active for thirty minutes.’

The number in the chat dropped to two then one as Wiesner double tapped his screen and the Deus ex chat application closed leaving only the web browser. He handed me the phone.

“Read the transcript first. Thirty minutes is not long, and you will have no longer. At the end of the alloted time, the link to the web page will be broken and the cache wiped on this phone.”

“We’ll leave you to it,” Miriam said, standing. “I’m going to put the kettle on. I don’t know if you’d like a cup of tea? I have some ginger and lemon if you don’t like the normal brew.”

Not something I’d ever tried before. I decided to give it a go.

For half an hour I read through an in depth discussion on the problems of world population. Hundreds of different members had contributed, covering ideas I’d never have considered. There was a lot of it and I’d managed to skim read my way through maybe ninety percent of it when the page turned blank. I looked up.

“Thirty minutes precisely,” Wiesner said from the doorway. “It was enough?”

The promised cup of tea sat on a coaster in front of me, untouched and now cold. I hadn’t even noticed when it arrived.

“Yeah. I mean I didn’t finish it, but I managed to read enough to be convinced.”

“We have perhaps twenty minutes before you must leave for the hairdresser. This should be enough time to read through the other websites.”

It was. On the surface it seemed like the usual paranoid rubbish you’d expect from that sort of organisation, but there was an underlying sameness to the different reports. The sort of thing that had been done in each case, the way it had been done, the resources used, the lack of evidence. I was done reading by the time Miriam appeared carrying a bundle of assorted stuff.

“We should go, dear. I don’t want to end up in Marjorie’s bad books.”

“Marjorie?”

“My hairdresser. I didn’t think to ask what your shoe size was. You look a little larger than me, but I think these might fit at a pinch.”

She dug a pair of flats out of the bundle and passed them to me. They were more pinch than fit, but would do until I could find something better. The rest of the bundle consisted of a coat and handbag, both, like the shoes, in shades of blue that complemented the dress. I accepted them and followed her out to her car.

-oOo-

Marjorie was amazing. She wanted to know what had happened, of course. I told her I was done with the whole tomboy thing. She arched her eyebrows at which point I shrugged and mumbled something about she’d never believe me if I told her. Which, fortunately, was enough for her. She indicated the seat and after thirty minutes of fussing and snipping, including some weird thing she did with foil and something that smelled awful, I was the proud owner of a short pixie cut which made me look like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. It was a highly sculpted and stunningly flattering dragged-through-the-hedge-backwards look though, which somehow made the figure she rang up on the register seem justified.

Next visit was a nearby shoe shop where my feet were transferred into a pair of cheap flats that fit. At size eight, my feet were just inside the large end of the normal scale for women’s shoes, which restricted my choice a little, but not much.

The rest of the morning slid into the afternoon by the time we were done. I hated to think how much everything had cost, I mean the hair appointment had been eye-opening enough, and as for the cost of bras!!! It was incentive to make sure I worked hard at school though, because I was going to need a serious income if I hoped to maintain a lifestyle like this.

Back at Miriam’s we packed my booty into a couple of suitcases she assured us she didn’t need anymore. I changed out of the blue dress and into a burgundy skater dress which worked better with my new hair. Pretty much everything we’d bought had been dresses skirts and blouses. In part so that the modified singlet would go under them, and in part to give me a better chance of hiding my little guy. Most of the skirts were short, about mid thigh, which meant if I changed into Philippa I wouldn’t end up tripping over them. Miriam added the blue dress to the packing, explaining that Jamie would never wear it. Threads was the last thing to go in, once I’d reassured myself that he was still holding onto our secret.

“Why don’t I take her to see her parents?” Miriam suggested over lunch. “There’s no sense in you risking exposure, Henning.”

He conceded the point. “I will go to your aunt and uncle’s house then,” he said. “We have a few matters to discuss, and I will be able to reassure them that all is well and you will be a little later than first anticipated. I will also take your new acquisitions. You should keep with your Philippa’s overnight bag for when she returns.”

Dr Sellers was considerably more vivacious a travelling companion. We kept a lively conversation going the whole way to my home. She talked quite freely about Jamie and the work she had done with Wiesner. She was a little more guarded when speaking of Deus ex, but spoke openly enough to convince me further of the existence and good intentions of the foundation. Certainly if she was making it up, she was a consummate actress and had an amazing imagination. She talked of Wiesner, too, with considerable affection, though she didn’t think they would ever have more than a professional relationship. I asked about Jamie’s dad, but she didn’t want to talk about him. The sour expression mentioning him brought to her face was enough to persuade me not to ask further. Apparently, he left shortly after Jamie was diagnosed.

We arrived in my old neighbourhood shortly after four-thirty. Dad wouldn’t be home yet, but I expected I’d find Mum there. It would be easier if I talked to her first. Miriam straightened my clothes and gave me a quick hug.

“Good luck,” she said. “I’ll wait in the car. Call me when you’re ready to go home.”

I added her number to my speed dials and turned towards my parents’ house. Feeling more nervous than I had in a long time, I walked up to the door and rang the bell. I had my opening lines all rehearsed and ready.

The door opened and my mind went blank. What on Earth was Agent Keen doing here?

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Erm, Ph…” I stopped myself before autopilot pushed me into using either of my names and confused matters. There was another name I’d always liked. It belonged to a girl I’d met on holiday last year before Philippa emerged. “Faith,” I said. “Who are you? Where’s Mrs Merrick?”

“Come inside,” he said, grabbing my shoulder.

I pulled back out of his reach. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” I had my voice slightly raised, threatening a scene.

He reached into his jacket and showed me the wallet I’d seen once before. “Agent Keen, MI5. Now come inside.” He had the sense not to reach for me again, but he pointed emphatically. This was an instruction, not a request.

I took another step back. “I need to call my aunt,” I said, pulling my phone out of my purse and pressing the speed dial before he could stop me.

“That was quick.”

To right! I’d need some quick thinking to make this work out.

“Aunt Miriam, it’s Faith. I don’t know why, but I think I’m in trouble. I came to Mr and Mrs Merrick’s house like you suggested, but there’s this scary man here. He has a badge…”

I didn’t get any further. Keen stepped out of the house far enough to grab the phone out of my hands. He took hold of my upper arm with his other hand to stop me running away.”

“Who is this?” he demanded into the phone. After a short pause, “This is agent Martin Keen of MI5, now… Badge number 2029332, now… Alright.” He hung up the phone and stood still, fuming.

I suppressed a smile. It wasn’t a side of Dr Sellers I’d seen, but I imagined she could be quite intimidating. My phone rang and Keen answered.

“Yes, now… Will you tell me who you are? Thank you Dr Sellers. Your niece has come to the house of a family who are assisting us in a case. I’m afraid she will have to… No, out of the question… You can do what you like, but this is happening. Alright, but very briefly.” He handed me back my phone.

“So, Faith then. You’d better go into the house with him. Don’t hang up the phone, just make it seem like you’re doing so. Don’t put it back in your bag if you can help it. I’m guessing you’re making this up on the fly, so try and give me as much information as you can without saying more than you have to.”

“Yes Aunt Miriam.”

“I told your Agent Keen that I’m calling a solicitor, and I will. We’ll help as much as we can.”

“Alright Auntie, bye.” I stabbed at the phone, but deliberately missed the end call icon. I squeezed the lock screen button on the side, making the screen go blank, and held the phone to my chest, allowing myself to be guided into the house.

Mum, Dad and Stacey were sitting in the front room, looking grim. Stacey’s eyes went wide when she saw me. She fought for and regained control before Keen followed me into the room. There were a couple of other agents there, but they hadn’t been in a position to see anything. Dad looked at me without recognition then went back to his quiet fuming. Mum’s eye’s rose at the sight of me. She opened her mouth to speak.

“Hello Mrs Merrick,” I said, interrupting her. “I don’t know if you remember me. Phillip and I made friends while we were on holiday last year. Moorhouse Farm in Somerset. We were pitched a couple of tents down from you.”

“Oh. Oh yes. Faith, wasn’t it? Faith…”

“Warren, Mrs Merrick.” Chalk one up for keeping close to the truth. “Phil always said I should look him up if I was ever around here. Is he around?”

“I’m sorry dear, he isn’t.” She looked at Keen expectantly.

“It’s your friend Phillip we’re investigating,” he said. “Perhaps you can tell us a little about him.”

“Well, it was a whole year ago so I’m not sure. He was a bit spaced out, but he was kind. You know, most guys are just after one thing, but he was different. He wanted to be friends…”

“Have you been in touch with him recently? Has he been to visit you?”

“No. Why, has he gone missing?”

Dad looked up, glaring daggers at Keen. So they had admitted my escape from custody.

Keen ignored my question. “You’ll excuse me, Miss Warren. I’m a little suspicious of your arrival at this exact moment in time. I must warn you that Phillip is in a considerable amount of trouble, and if it turns out that you are hiding him, you’ll be in trouble too.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said. I looked for somewhere to sit. Stacey shifted a bit on the sofa, giving me space which I took, perching nervously on the edge. “It’s just… I told Phil about how little choice we had for sixth form where I live, and he suggested I should look at the college here. My aunt brought me up, and we had a bit of spare time so I just…”

“Miss Warren, if you know anything about his whereabouts, you must tell me.”

“But, it’s like I told you,” my turn for a bit of acting, raise the pitch and volume a little, “I don’t know anything.” Stacey put a hand on my arm. “Who are you?” I asked.”

“I’m a friend of Phil’s too. They think I’m involved somehow.”

“I still want to know where you went yesterday evening,” Keen said, directing his words to Mum and Dad as much as to Stacey.

“We went to visit my sister,” Mum said. “We told you that. They’ve adopted a little girl recently and she was upset about something.”

“And why did you go?” Keen glared at Stacey.

“Philippa and my younger sister were friends. She knows me; I thought I could help.”

“How does your sister know this Philippa? She doesn’t exactly live round the corner.”

Mum sighed. “We explained all this. My brother-in-law works for social services. He and my sister have been looking to adopt for a long time. When Philippa came onto the system, they put in their application, but their home wasn’t quite child friendly yet. Sally asked me to look after Philippa for a few weeks while they sorted things, and while she was here, she made friends with Stacey’s sister.

“As Stacey said, she and my son are friends. He must have mentioned Philippa, and Stacey’s sister, Emma isn’t it, invited her to her birthday party. They stayed friends after that.”

“Weren’t you at your sister’s on Saturday too?”

“Yes,” Mum said. “For the tenth time, Philippa is having difficulty settling. We decided that having a few familiar faces around might help. Stacey agreed to come with us.”

“And then again last night?”

“Because she had a really bad day yesterday. I know it’s a long way to go, but she’s a lovely little girl who’s been through a horrible experience, and I’d do a whole lot more for her than what I have.”

“So Phillip…”

“As far as we knew, Phillip was under lock and key in your custody,” Dad growled. “Now you’re telling us that he escaped over a week ago?” He made to rise from his chair, but one of the agents standing near him placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “I swear, you are not going to get away with this.”

“Your son was caught in the act trying to destroy data and equipment in a laboratory conducting military research. He admitted to sabotaging another piece of equipment being used for national security purposes, he has consorted with a person suspected of being an enemy of the state. He was legitimately being held under suspicion of terrorism…”

“He’s a sixteen year old boy!”

“Terrorists can be any age, Mr Merrick. The law treats them all the same.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “Phillip’s not like that…”

“Do I look like I’m kidding, Miss Warren? Now, unless you want to be arrested for aiding an abetting a suspected terrorist, I suggest you tell me what you know.”

Crying seemed like a good option, and the tears were there. Except they were Philippa’s tears and I couldn’t afford to transform in front of Agent Keen. Tears of rage seemed to be an option too. I let them come, stinging my eyes.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t know anything.”

“As many times as you like. I do not believe you. Firstly you three,” he indicated Mum, Dad and Stacey, “who are already involved with this boy…”

“Our son!” Dad yelled.

“…just happen to be away visiting family one day before and after yet another raid on a military installation, and then you,” he pointed at me, “turn up with this wholly unlikely story.”

“What could our visiting my sister possibly have to do with this raid you’re talking about?” Mum asked.

“Your son has already proved to be resourceful enough to get into some pretty inaccessible facilities. This raid has the same signature all over it.”

“We do not know where our son is,” Dad was struggling to throw off the hand keeping him in the chair. “He was in your care and you lost him. You didn’t even have the courtesy to tell us he’d escaped.”

“I think you do know where your son is Mr Merrick. I think your wife’s sister and her husband are involved in this, and we’ll be looking into them after today. I think Phillip uses their house as a means of keeping in contact with you, and that you were visiting him on both Saturday and yesterday. And I think you,” he rounded on me, “are harbouring him. Whether your family is involved and he is staying at your house, or whether it’s just you and you have some secret hidey hole where he’s camping out, I will investigate and find out.

“You could make this all a lot easier on everyone and come clean about your involvement, or we can play hardball and keep you all detained until this whole mess is sorted out.”

“You can’t do that,” Dad shouted.

“I can and I will, unless you start to co-operate.”

The door bell rang making us all jump. Keen went to answer it. Stacey moved her hand to my thigh and squeezed. When I turned to her, she gave me a brave smile. There wasn’t much else she could do with the other agents in the room, but it was a lot. I squeezed her hand back and smiled in return. Mum, I could see, was bursting with questions, but fortunately had the good sense to hold them in. Dad was too lost in his rage.

Keen came back into the room, bringing with him a short, balding man wearing an overcoat and trilby. He doffed them both, handing them to Keen.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Frank Cummings of Cummings, Taylor and Pratt. Now which of you is Faith Warren?”

I raised a tentative hand.

“Ah, good. Dr Miriam Sellers has engaged me to act on your behalf. She suggested that I might offer to represent you all if necessary, and from what I just heard, I think that might be a good idea.”

“How much will it cost?” Ever the appropriate question, my dad.

“This is hardly an appropriate time to speak of such things. We’ll sort something out, and I assure you, you’ll not regret accepting my help.”

“We accept,” Mum said. “For Stacey as well.”

“Good, good.” He opened his briefcase and lifted out a number of forms. One had my name on it — my borrowed name — which he handed to me along with a pen. “You need to sign it in order for me to officially become your lawyer,” he said. He asked for and added names to similar forms which he then passed to Stacey and my mum to sign.

That done and checked, Mr Cummings placed the documents in his briefcase and closed the lid. He stood and turned to Agent Keen. “So. may I see your credentials, sir?” Keen dug his wallet out again and passed it across. Cummings made a brief phone call. It seemed the MI5 switchboard was being kept busy today.

“Well that seems to be in order.” He handed the wallet back. “Now will you tell me what evidence you have that any of my clients have broken the law?”

He stood, nodding his head as Keen went through his litany.

“So you have no evidence that any of these present have been involved in terrorist activities?”

“No, but their son is.” He pointed at my parents.

Cummings nodded. “And to which terrorist organisation does their son belong, Agent Keen?”

“We don’t know, but he committed acts of sabotage.”

“Not automatically an act of terrorism, Agent Keen. What form of support have my clients offered to this alleged terrorist organisation?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure these three are in direct contact with him…”

“Pretty sure? As I understand it, no-one has seen the young man for some weeks. How can you be sure? Do you have evidence?”

“No, but I have suspicions…”

“Which may be good enough to detain a suspected terrorist, but not suspected accomplices. You need evidence, Agent Keen, or a court order. Do you have a court order?”

Agent Keen admitted he did not.

“And my other client. My primary client. What evidence,” he emphasised the word, “do you have that she is in any way involved?”

“None.” It came out through gritted teeth.

“Then I maintain that you have no legal recourse to detain these folks any further. The moment you find any, please feel free to come around again. Only be careful you have strong evidence. I will be consulting with my clients after you and your colleagues have departed, and I will suggest a complaint be made against you for your dealings with then today. If you harass them again without probable cause, you don’t need me to tell you what a second complaint from the same people would mean, do you?”

Keen fumed, but there wasn’t much he could do. He thrust Cumming’s hat and coat back into his arms and, indicating his fellow agents should follow, he left.

“Oh, Phil,” Stacey had her arms around me. Breasts squishing against breasts was an unusually pleasant feeling.

“Phil?” Dad asked, genuinely perplexed.

“If you’ll give me a moment to arrange myself,” Cummings interrupted. He was struggling to put his overcoat on. Mum stood up and helped him. “Thank you, kind lady. I’m sure I misheard now, or misunderstood. As far as I’m aware, there is no-one named Phil here. You, my dear,” he bowed to me briefly, “most assuredly cannot be him. Quite apart from your appearance, I was informed your name was Faith Warren, and that is what you signed on the document engaging my services. I will assume that you, young lady,” he offered a bow to Stacey, “are distraught at what is happening to your friend and sought comfort in this person’s arms. Would I be correct in assuming that you would like me to lodge a complaint against Agent Keen?”

“To right we would,” dad said, “but…”

“The cost of my services is being covered by another party. You will not be charged. Agent Keen did not need to hear this, so please forgive my obfuscation from earlier. I have some work to do before this day is ended, so if you will excuse me. My card if you need further assistance.” The card he dropped on the table was of expensive quality and restrained in style. He retrieved his hat from Mum and let himself out.

“Phil?” Dad repeated, staring at me — at least at a certain part of me.

“Hi Dad.”

Stacey had her arms around me again, making me feel all melty inside. A quick blur and I was a couple of feet shorter and fitting my clothes rather loosely.

“Well, I guess that settles any argument over the matter,” Mum said. “How, though? And what are you doing here?”

“Phil?” Dad repeated dumbfound.

“Yes, it’s me.” I disentangled from Stacey and focused my way back to my larger self. “Sorry love, it’s going to take me a while to get used to how that feels.”

“It’s going to take me a while to get used to it too,” she said. “Are those real? They’re bigger than mine.”

“They’re real enough. The transformation went a little further than expected. What do you think?”

“Well, if I was ever going to switch teams, it would have to be for someone as stone cold, drop dead gorgeous as you. Are you still…?”

“Still male underneath my new skin, yes. And to answer your other question, Mum, I came to introduce the new me. I didn’t expect you to have company, and Dad, I really didn’t mean to spring it on you like this. I meant to show Mum first, then be Philippa for when you came home. I was going to explain all this before showing you.”

“Phil.” It looked like I’d broken my dad.

“Faith now, I suppose. Oh flip. We have to get the warning out. I doubt Agent Keen’s going to sit around doing nothing.” I dug for my phone. The call to Miriam was still open. “Hello?”

“It’s alright, Faith,” she said from the other end of the line. “You did good. I heard everything, and we have people sorting it. Wiesner knows that Keen’s on his way to your Uncle and Aunt. He’s talked to them about what he wanted and is getting clear. Sally and Mike know they’re on MI5’s radar. They’re okay with it, but are worried about how well Philippa’s paper trail will hold up under scrutiny. I’ve assured them that Deus ex is filling in the gaps. Our document people are really good.”

“You didn’t tell them about…”

“The foundation? Good Lord no. Just that we have people sorting it. We also have people sorting out the situation with your friend Faith.”

“How?”

“Only two families named Warren stayed at Moorhouse Farm last summer. Only one had a daughter named Faith. We have agents changing the records at the campsite directing them to another of our people who’s been briefed on the back story. We also have people keeping an eye on the real Warren family to make sure MI5 doesn’t come their way. You may have to stay with the agent who’s covering for you, at least until we can close the Phillip Merrick case. She’ll most likely end up being in your cell when you’re considered old enough to join Deus ex.”

“Wow, you’ve thought of everything.”

“Not me personally. The foundation has managed to stay under the radar for a lot of years. They’re pretty good at it.”

“Well thanks, you really came through for us today.”

“Glad to help. When you’re ready to go home to your uncle and aunt, give us a call.”

“I will. How do I get home if the authorities are camping on the doorstep.”

“Henning’s sorting something out. Relax. Spend some quality time with your folks. Will you tell them about what’s going to happen to Phil?”

“I think I’ll have to.”

“Good luck. Talk soon.” She hung up.

“So then,” I smiled. “Who’d like a nice calming cup of tea?”

-oOo-

Overall it was a good visit. The tea managed to revive Dad enough that he could say more than my name. We let him have his rant about how he’d told us this would happen. He wasn’t much pleased when I said I’d been aware that it might, and that I was happy with it. He didn’t much like that he’d lost his son, and was all the less happy when I told him that he’d have to say goodbye permanently.

Even Mum cried when I told them that Phil would have to die, at least on paper. It seemed that mourning his demise wouldn’t take much acting on their part. They understood the reasons, but didn’t like the reality.

“I’ll still be here,” I said, and unfolded my plan to come live with them as a lodger.

“It won’t be the same,” Mum said. “It’ll be like you’re not part of the family anymore.”

“It certainly won’t be the same,” Dad chipped in. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from my chest for more than a few seconds all afternoon.

“On the bright side, you’ll have something to look at when there’s nothing worth watching on telly,” I said cheerfully. “And Mum, we’ll get to do mother daughter things.”

“Are you going to keep your hair like that?” she asked.

That was when I knew she’d be alright, and if she was, then she’d make sure Dad was too.

“I didn’t have a lot of option today.” Was it just today all this had changed? It had happened so fast. “I’m planning on growing it out a bit, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take.”

Stacey didn’t have much to say, but she stayed beside me all afternoon, touching me often and gazing into my face with a sort of dreamy expression on her own.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Mum suggested tea. We were all pretty hungry, and with all of us helping, it took no time to set the table and fill it with food. Even Dad helped, which came as a pleasant surprise to us all. When we’d finished eating, Stacey and I cleared away and washed up, then I told my parents I’d walk her home.

“Oh shoot!” Dad exclaimed. “We should have called your mum, Stacey. She must be going spare.”

“It’s okay, Mr Merrick. I texted her after everyone had gone. She knows I’m okay and that things are sorted.”

“Well, I’m not sure I like the idea of two girls out walking alone this time in the evening,” he said.

That was when I knew my dad would be okay. I guess he didn’t have much option but to accept me for what I’d become, but denial is still a great place to hide and a lot of people do.

“We’ll be fine, Dad. I got skillz.”

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Then just accept that I can still hold my own as well as Phil ever could. Probably better.”

“Well, come straight back.”

“I need to get back to Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike, Dad. I have a friend waiting. I was going to ask her to pick me up from Stacey’s.”

“Not Wiesner then?”

“No, but one of his friends. I’ll call you when we’re on our way back to Mike and Sally’s, and again when I get there.”

“Alright then.”

He seemed at a loss. I was going to have to jump this hurdle sooner or later. I gave him a hug.

It meant the world when he put his arms around me.

“Bye Daddy.” I gave him a peck on the cheek, which left him standing with a hand against the side of his face.

“Bye Mum.” Hugging her was easier. I wasn’t worried about her response. She hugged me back and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll see you both at the weekend.”

“”What’s happening at the weekend?” Stacey asked.

“Dad’s birthday,” I said.

“And before you ask, you’re invited,” Mum told her. “All of your family. It’ll be Philippa coming rather than, er, Faith, so we’ll need Emma to keep her amused.”

“I’ll tell Mum,” Stacey said. “What time and what should we bring.”

“Two o’clock and yourselves and an appetite.”

I grabbed my coat and Stacey’s hand before Mum could think of another reason to keep us there. We made our exit and headed back towards Stacey’s house.

She wouldn’t let go my hand once we were outside.

“Do I take it you’re okay with this?” I asked.

“It’s better than a face I’d be happy to sit on,” she said.

“Better isn’t necessarily okay.”

She stopped, spinning me round to face her.

“There are people watching,” I said.

“You wanted to know if I was okay.”

I could feel my insides melting. “Hold on a second,” I said. I dug in my bag for the belt buckle and pressed the Phil side.

The kiss was almost too much for the device. I could feel Philippa rising inside me, rejoicing with me. Soft skin against soft skin, full lips against full lips, Breasts brushing gently against each other. It was magic.

“Enough of an answer?” she asked.

I nodded, too breathless to speak.

“Good for you.” It shook us out of the moment. The comment had come from an elderly woman walking past us, a gentle smile playing on her lips.

I walked Stacey the rest of the way, telling her about the plans Wiesner had come up with for our future weekends.

“I think I can make that work,” Stacey said. “Mum and Dad will be happy for me to be doing something that’ll keep me out of mischief for a while. All the intrigue with kidnappings and MI5 has them quite stressed out.”

“I can imagine. How will they react when you tell them about me?”

“Can we hold off on that for a while? I’ve done enough to upset them recently.”

“I’m not sure you did much other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Phillip Merrick, or Faith Warren, whoever you are, beside you has never been the wrong place, and it never will be.”

Here came that melty feeling again. I grabbed for my belt buckle, and it was enough of an answer for her.

“Call me.”

“You won’t believe how soon.” I pulled my phone out of my bag.

“Wait till I’m inside,” she laughed.

“I’m calling my ride,” I smiled. “Hi, Miriam. It’s Faith. I’m at Stacey’s house.” I gave her directions to me, meanwhile Stacey had closed the door on me. I hung up and called her number. “Hi…”

-oOo-

Keen had been and gone by the time Miriam and I made it back to my uncle and aunt’s. I changed into Philippa and put on one of her dresses over the altered singlet. The tights were looser, but not too much so, so I kept them on.

Miriam called Sally and told her the party was done and could she come pick up Philippa. It had been Wiesner’s idea. Just in case anyone was still watching, it would seem more natural if Sally came to collect me rather than I turned up in the care of some unknown person.

Miriam handed me a gadget while we were waiting for Sally. “Bug sweeper,” she said. “I’m not sure if they’ll have had the time or inclination to leave any, but just in case.” She showed me how it worked and tucked it into my bag.

A quick run around the place with the gizmo assured us that the house was clean. I changed into big girl clothes, then went out to introduce them to big girl me. Things went a little easier with Mike for not having it delivered as such a shock. Sally was totally okay with it from the outset.

“I think you’re right,” she told me. “Being in the middle isn’t easy, but it’s easier if you’re a girl. I know this wasn’t entirely your plan, but I approve of the outcome. Come on let’s get you ready for bed.”

It was late for Philippa, so I didn’t complain. No bath tonight, just a quick change into one of my singlets — one of the old style ones — and into bed.

“What did Dr Wiesner want with you?” I asked “He said he had some things to discuss with you.”

“He wanted to know if we had any holiday plans for this year. To be honest, with everything that’s happened recently, we haven’t given it much thought. He told us not to book anything, but to get you put on our passports.”

“How did things go with Agent Keen?”

“Well, he wasn’t very pleasant. He made a few accusations, which we denied. He wanted to see our adoption paperwork, which we provided. I hope your friends know what they’re doing.”

“I’m gaining confidence in them.”

“Well, fingers crossed, this will all blow over soon. Right now you need to get some sleep or you won’t be awake for school tomorrow.”

“Oh joy.”

She laughed and kissed me. “Night sweetheart.”

-oOo-

The rest of the week was long and tedious. I couldn’t hide my boredom and earned myself a reprimand or two from Miss Demspter. I also won a few merits for excellent work. It wasn’t excellent, it was just too easy. I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d be able to survive months of this.

The weekend couldn’t come soon enough, and when Friday finally did arrive, I ran into Sally’s arms.

“Oh dear,” she laughed. “Was it that bad.”

“Worse,” I said, “but it’s the weekend and Daddy’s birthday.”

“Not so loud. You’re adopted, remember.”

“I can’t help it. Come on.”

We headed home and I transformed into Faith so I could help Sally pack and get ready. We were all sorted by the time Mike turned up. I’d shifted back into their adopted daughter and was fidgeting excitedly.

We’d arranged with Mum and Dad to come down the night before so we could spend as much of the weekend with them as possible. I’d agreed to be Philippa for Saturday, and play my part — not so difficult as I liked Emma and hadn’t seen her in a long while — but managed to wangle a few hours as Faith with Stacey on the Sunday.

Dad’s birthday party was a great success. He was shooed out of the house for the morning while we got everything ready. He’d arranged to play darts over a few pints with his mates down at the local. Not too many pints though, he’d been warned. He was very slightly merry when they brought him back, but still compos enough to enjoy all the attention we lavished on him. There were still the odd moments when I caught him looking my way with a pained expression. It was going to take time, but pretty much anything worth doing hurts to some extent.

Halfway through the afternoon, the doorbell rang.

“Who could that be?” Mum mused, and went to find out. She was back seconds later, her face ashen and Agent Keen following in her wake. The room fell silent, the laughter of a moment before flash frozen.

“What do you want?” Dad could switch moods faster than anyone I knew. He’d just gathered storm clouds so quick it was a wonder there wasn’t a tornado.

“I, er.” This was a significantly different Agent Keen. The swagger and arrogance was gone from him, and in its place an uncertainty. “I have some terrible news, Mr Merrick. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were celebrating. I’m not sure how to say this.”

“Just say it and get the…” Dad caught sight of Emma and me sitting in the corner and managed to control himself. “Just say what you have to say and go,” he finished more calmly. The storm clouds were still boiling inside him though.

“We’ve, er, we’ve found a body. I’m sorry to say, Mr Merrick, it’s been identified as your son’s.”

Strange to hear the announcement of your own death. Stranger still to see your own father’s reaction to the news. He knew I was in the room, but still it hit him like a blow to the stomach. He lowered himself slowly into his chair.

Stacey was making her bid for an Oscar too. She had her hands over her mouth, and was making small distressed noises. Her mother went over to her and put her arms around her.

“There are more details, but they can wait. The police will be in touch in a day or so to ask you to identify the body. I know it won’t mean a thing, Mr and Mrs Merrick, but I’m really sorry. Sorry for your loss, and for the trouble I’ve caused you.”

“Trouble?” Dad’s default setting was anger; so much easier to live with than vulnerability. “You did this!” he stood and turned towards Keen who was wincing, almost cowering. “I’d like you to leave now.”

“Yes of course. Rest assured, we won’t…”

“Get out!” Dad roared.

Keen left. I almost felt sorry for him, but then I remembered the way he’d treated me on both occasions I’d met him.

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs Owen said. “What a dreadful thing to happen. We should leave.”

“Thank you,” Mum said. “Would you mind looking after Philippa for the rest of the afternoon. I think we could do with some time to deal with this.”

“Of course. I’ll bring her back about six, would that be alright?”

“Thank you, that would be very kind.”

So I found myself bundled out of the house along with Emma, who was too stunned to react, and Stacey. The three of us shared the back seat while Mrs Owen drove us back to their house. Stacey went to her room, leaving me to keep Emma company. She finally found her tears without knowing the reason for them. Her mum picked her up and carried her into the kitchen leaving me alone.

I went in search of my girlfriend and found her sobbing into her pillow.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m still here.”

She picked me up and squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe.

“Too tight,” I managed, and she relaxed a little.

“Oh Phil, that felt so real. I don’t ever want to get that news for real.”

“Not going to happen. I’m done with the whole secret agent stuff.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Could you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“I want to see you.”

“You’ll have to help me unbutton this dress then. It’s not one I can get in and out of on my own.”

She did as I asked. Under the dress I was wearing one of my newly redesigned singlets, now more of a leotard with added skirt, delivered via courier on Thursday. I focused and grew.

“Ta da.” I gave a curtsy.

She smiled through her tears. “No, I mean I want to see all of you.”

I felt suddenly self conscious. I was okay having this body with all its added extras, but I knew it wouldn’t meet with acceptance from everyone.

“Please Phil.”

Anything, I’d said. I slid the arms off and exposed my breasts.

“Come on Phil, all the way.”

I took a breath and slid the garment all the way down to my ankles. I kept my eyes averted, too afraid of her reaction.

“Phil?”

“Yes?” I reached for my courage and looked at her.

“Thank you.” She was smiling. “You can put it away now, if you can get it to fit.”

Embarrassed, I pulled my leotard up and slid my arms back in. The bulge was visible under the skirt thanks to a reaction I couldn’t control. I reached for Philippa and shrunk back down into myself.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“I needed to see it was still you. I know that was difficult, so really, thank you.”

She helped me get dressed back into my party dress, and after she’d managed to compose herself a little, we went and joined Emma and her mum.

The afternoon passed in subdued silence. Emma and I watched one of her Disney films — Frozen I think, though I wasn’t paying much attention. I could hear Stacey talking with her mum.

Her father came home about five-thirty wanting to know who’d died. Never a more poorly chosen word. He apologised and gave his daughter a long teary hug when he was appraised of his mistake.

Mrs Owen took me back to Mum and Dad’s fed and sleepy. I never found out what they did with the afternoon, but everyone was kind of relaxed and okay by the time I rejoined them.

“So,” Dad asked, “how did I do?”

“You convinced me, Dad,” I said to him. “Even I thought I was dead.”

He gave me a half-hearted laugh. “Is this finally over?”

“Nearly,” Mum said resting a hand on his shoulder. “We still get to identify the body and put it in the ground.”

“I meant you and Wiesner.” Dad wasn’t going to be diverted.

“No more missions for certain. No more trouble with the authorities. I still have a few things I need to sort out with him though.”

“I don’t like him.”

“I know. He’s caused a lot of trouble for you and Mum…”

“He took my son from me.”

I bit down on my first response. This was something he needed to work through from a feeling point of view rather than a logical one.

“He gave you a couple of daughters instead,” Sally said. “Surely that counts for something.”

That hadn’t been quite what I’d intended to say, but it’d do. I walked over and climbed into his lap. “It’s still me, Daddy. Same inside, just different outside.”

He sighed.

“Are we staying tonight?” Mike asked. “It’s not too late for us to head home if you want to be on your own.”

“God no, that’s the last thing I want. Could I make a request though? I’d like to spend time with the other you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Can I ask why?”

“I’m not sure I ever really knew my son. I don’t want to make the same mistake with my daughter.”

So Sally helped me out of my party dress and left me to change into Faith, then into something of Faiths.

It was a good evening. Quiet, but different. Dad asked a whole bunch of questions and actually listened for a change. One in particular sticks in my mind.

“Did I make such a mess in the way I raised you?”

I spent a long time thinking about that before answering.

“No, I don’t think so. I mean you always did what you thought was best for me.”

“But that’s the point. I did what I thought was best, from my point of view. I never tried to see it from yours. It doesn’t factor in my thinking that you’d be alright with this, but somehow you’re more at peace than I’ve ever seen you.”

“The important thing is that you did what was best for me. I don’t think there’s a person alive who thinks their parents did everything right. I mean do you?”

He laughed. “Not a chance.”

“The most important thing that I had from you is that you tried. You cared for me — still do. I can cope with you getting it wrong, as long as I know your heart was in the right place. I do know that, Dad.”

“Thanks, son.” He brought himself up short. “That’s not going to work anymore is it?”

“It’ll do.” I gave him a hug.

We all had an early night. Next morning I was up with the early birds. Dressed and breakfasted and texting Stacey to find out what she wanted to do. Mike had set our departure time at four o’clock, so we had to start early if we wanted to get as much out of the day as we could.

We spent it walking together in the park. We got a few funny looks, but this was the twenty-first century. If we had to endure a few funny looks from the occasional dinosaur, that was okay.

It was a good day. Clear of old emotions, like after a rainstorm washes the world clean, we had time to enjoy each other’s closeness and be aware of each other.

The worst thing about it was that four o’clock came too quickly.

-oOo-

Life settled into a routine after that. I didn’t end up having to spend any time with the person who adopted the role of Mrs Warren. Following Mum and Dad’s ‘identification’ of ‘my body’, the investigation into Phillip Merrick was closed.

Wiesner was as good as his word and rented a flat near Mike and Sally’s house for Stacey to use over the weekends, and we spent most of our time studying together. We had mainly common interests and slightly different strengths, so we were able to help each other quite a bit.

Miss Dempster finally came to the conclusion that I was brighter than the average six year old and agreed that I should have at least some lesson time with tutors. It was enough to make the days at school bearable, and enough to get me back on track with my studies. On occasions, Wiesner would invite Stacey and me to a retreat where he worked us hard, making sure that we were doing well enough. When it finally came round to exam time, Faith Warren walked into an exam hall as an independent learner and walked all over the exams. Results day wasn’t until mid August, but I wasn’t at all worried.

The tickets arrived that day after my last exam. All expenses paid trip to Mauritius For Mike, Sally and myself as Philippa. I texted Stacey to let her know that I’d be spending a couple of weeks of my summer in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and she texted me back to say she’d be coming too. Wiesner swung it by saying that she’d been awarded the trip for working so well at her weekend job, which was kind of true. Her job had been to keep me company and help me prepare for my exams, and she’d done amazingly at that.

Choosing appropriate clothing for the trip was another matter. Id be spending a lot of it as Philippa, for sure, but I wanted some Faith time as well. Anticipating this, Miriam had done a little research for me and sent me through a sort of false piece of female anatomy that hid my male gear. It took a while to get used to it, but once I had it sorted, I went shopping for bathing suits with Stacey, eventually finding a couple I could wear without worrying what was showing.

Wiesner arranged for her to be picked up from her home and to join us at the airport, where her reason for being there was as a live in baby sitter for me. We all sat together, which was just as well. It was a long haul and having someone to share it with made the twelve hours pass just a little quicker. I had Threads with me as usual, but aware of what the airport scanners might pick up, I’d retrieved the thumb drive and hidden it the same way I had in the lift shaft. He could have it back after we arrived.

Our first week there was just the best. We had a chalet on the west coast of the island, and a hire car to get anywhere we wanted to. The beach was pretty much deserted, which meant I could be Philippa or Faith whenever I wanted. Faith won most of the time, and Stacey and I enjoyed some of the most romantic walks along the beach. The sunsets were spectacular, but short lived.

In the middle of our second week, an envelope was posted under the door of our chalet. It contained a card inviting Faith and Stacey to come to a bar at seven o’clock, a couple of miles down the coast from us, and to bring the invitation. No-one knew about Faith here, which meant this had to be something Wiesner had set up.

I made sure Sally and Mike knew, just in case things weren’t as they seemed. It would be after dark, which meant less than baking hot weather. Light cotton skirts and tops over our swimsuits. We set off about sunset and watched the sun boil its way into the ocean as we walked barefoot down the beach. There was enough of a moon to see by once the last of the daylight had faded, and half an hour later we arrived at the bar. We were early, but that didn’t matter much. We ordered a couple of fruit cups — non-alcoholic of course — and found somewhere to sit.

A few minutes later a face I didn’t recognise sat opposite me. Perhaps sixty or so, male, balding.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

He pointed at the card. “I’m the first of a number of people who’ve agreed to meet with you tonight. Your friend, 73791 requested it when you were online with us a few months back. A meet and greet is something we rarely do, which is why I requested a background vote from five thousand of our members to see whether we should. Your friend provided some compelling reasons and the vote went through, so here we are.”

“You’re 20012?” I asked.

“Well, I suppose I left myself open for that. Yes, I am. We’re discouraged from saying anything that’ll link us to our assigned numbers. Anonymity is at the heart of security in our organisation. I doubt it’ll make much difference though, I’m not very active any more and am seriously considering retiring. I do, however, share the same concerns as your friend.

“So convince me.”

He made a pretty good job of it. As did the succession of people who took his place. Most only spoke for a minute or two, some took us through detailed studies and spent ten or twenty minutes at a time. I don’t know how many people sat down with us, but it was past ten o’clock when the last of them left.

“Wow! That was intense,” Stacey said. “Does it have anything to do with what you were reluctant to share that night Wiesner kidnapped me?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“For what?”

“For not talking about it. I doubt I’d have been in much of a state after hearing all that.”

“Wiesner only told me the basics of it.”

“Still, that’s a heavy load to bear.

“They gave me the impression they were trying to convince you to keep helping. I thought you said you were done with it all.”

“I promised no more missions, and I intend to keep to that.”

“Then what were they on about?”

“It’ll take a while to explain. We could take a taxi back to the chalet and I could tell you when we get there, or we could walk and I’ll tell you on the way, in which case I’d better call Mike and Sally to let them know.”

“I get the impression this is going to take a while.”

“I should say.”

“Okay, let’s walk then.”

I asked the bartender if I could use his phone and placed a quick call through to the chalet. Mike sounded worried, but I managed to reassure him. Not drunk. Planning on walking home. Would be there in half an hour.

“You have till eleven,” he said.

Easily enough. I offered to pay the barkeeper, but he waved me away. I put a few coins in the charity jar instead.

I’d never seen a clearer sky. The moon was still up and washed out a lot of the stars, but what we could see shone sharp and bright. The beach was deserted apart from us, the only footprints being the ones we’d made on our way down. The waves grumbled to us as we walked, as I collected my thoughts.

“They invited us both tonight, so I’m taking it as read they’re okay with me sharing this with you.”

“Who? What?”

“Wiesner is part of a secret organisation that calls itself Deus ex Machina…”

“…and that just about brings us up to date.” We were within sight of the chalet, perhaps another couple of minutes walk.

“So, the things you stole give Wiesner the ability to stop people from having children?”

“And start it again. There’s a gene that controls it. I stole two vials, one to turn the gene on and the other to turn it off. It won’t do it to everyone either. He estimates that about one in a hundred wouldn’t be affected.”

But you didn’t give him everything he needs?”

“He has the vials, but he doesn’t know which is which. I have all the computer data on a thumb drive and the bits of label which would allow him to identify the vials. Unless I give him what I have he can’t complete his work.”

“His work being to decimate the human race.”

“His work being to bring our numbers back down to a manageable level in the most humane way possible. You were there tonight, you heard the arguments.”

“Yeah, but it feels wrong.”

“Lots of things feel wrong that aren’t.”

“Where’s the thumb drive now?”

“Safe.”

“You’re right. Don’t tell me”

“Why? What would you do with it if I gave it to you right now?”

“I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t trust myself to do the right thing. I’m not sure I ever would.”

I stared out at the ocean. The Moon, now low in the sky, traced a silver path to the horizon. “I guess that’s it then,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve told you everything. I’m not sure I would have tonight if that meet and greet hadn’t forced my hand. I’m not asking you to make the decision, or even share in making it, but I’m glad you know. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time.”

I turned to her, reached out to her, but she resisted, keeping her head down. After a moment, I kissed her on the forehead and headed into the chalet.

“Ten minutes to spare,” Mike said looking at his watch.

I told you. Easy enough. I felt Stacey come through the door behind me.

“Uncle Mike?” I asked.

“Yes, Phil.”

“Can I ask you a really hard question?”

“Sure, but if it’s that hard, I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer it.”

“No, I mean hard as in it might be painful to answer.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“How has not being able to have kids affected you?”

“Wow. Well I guess I did say go on.”

“It’s probably the worst thing that’s happened to us,” Sally said from their bedroom door, “and maybe the best. It hurts like you can’t imagine, not being able to have a family, and it put an incredible strain on us as a couple, but it made us stronger. We’re better able to see other people’s pain, which is one of the reasons why Mike’s so good at his job.”

“So if you had a way to reduce the world’s population so that it doesn’t keep going up until everyone’s starving, but it would mean that maybe only one in every hundred couples could have a child for the next two generations, what would you do?”

“Where is this coming from, Phil? These aren’t questions a kid like you should be asking.”

“If not me, then who? Someone has to.”

“We’d need a way of doing what you said first,” Mike said. “Oh. Oh God Phil, no.”

Sally walked into the room and rested her hands on Mike’s shoulders. “I’m not sure we’re the best people to ask,” Sally said. “We have a biased view.”

“You do have a perspective most other people don’t though. You know what it feels like not be able to have children.”

“We don’t know what it’s like to starve though,” Sally replied. “We survived finding out we couldn’t have kids and maybe we grew because of it. Ask us whether we should inflict it on the world, there’s an obvious response. Ask us if it’s better or worse than the alternative, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Thanks, I suppose. Sorry if my asking was painful.”

“Phil…” Mike said.

“I’m going to bed,” I said and walked past into my room.

I changed into a cotton nightdress — short fit on Faith, loose and long on Philippa — and climbed into bed. I’d probably regret it later when I woke up with a furry mouth and a bursting bladder, but I had a sudden need to be on my own.

I listened to everyone else bustle about making ready for bed. It was kind of restful. I let my mind drift and found it taking me to our arrival here. As a country, Mauritius wasn’t considered to be either poor or developing, but on the trip out here to the chalet, we’d passed a fair number of hovels, and there had been a couple of beggars on the street. Probably not as many as in places like London these days, but even that was a sign of things changing.

Those people didn’t have representation in the debate going on in my mind even though they were probably the most affected. Among the people we’d spoken to this evening had been quite a few from poorer countries in Africa and India, and they’d all but pleaded for something to be done to help them. They’d been well dressed and well fed though, so they only knew the issues from their ivory towers.

If you choose not to decide. It was still a choice, because I would be allowing the wealthy of our world to make the decision for me, and they would almost certainly choose for their own selfish needs.

The chalet had quietened. Aunt Sally had a characteristic pattern to her breathing that told me she was asleep. Mike’s gentle snoring started up. I listened for Stacey, but couldn’t hear her. A silhouette appeared in my doorway, approached my bed, lifted the mosquito net and settled down next to me, snuggling close.

I opened my mouth to speak and felt a finger across it. We lay there in silence for a long while. I felt a damp patch forming on my shoulder.

“It has to be you,” she whispered. “I can’t help you make up your mind. I’ve tried and my feelings keep getting in the way. You know what it feels like from a male and female perspective though. You’ve gone through all the arguments — more than we heard tonight — you know more about these Deus ex people than anyone who isn’t a member.

“Phil, Faith, I love you, and I trust you. It’s a horrible decision to have to make. One way billions of people have to come to terms with not having children, the other way billions of people die of starvation. I can’t help you make up your mind, but I promise I’ll be right here whatever you decide. If it means we don’t have kids, then that’s the way things have to be.”

There was no answer I could give. I squeezed her and kissed her forehead, reached for her hand and lifted it to my cheeks, now damp with my own tears. I was alone in this, but at least I wasn’t alone overall. I let go her hand and it settled on my breast. In time her breathing steadied, leaving me to ponder deep into the night.

She was still there in the morning when I woke. The quality of the light suggested it was early, but there were noises out in the kitchen area. Sally stuck her head through the door, arched an eyebrow at me, then whispered. “Mike and I are going for a walk. We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

Stacey showed no signs of stirring, and I had the anticipated furry mouth and bursting bladder, and my arm felt numb. I shifted into Philippa mode, which dealt temporarily with the bladder problem. It also gave me space enough to slip out from under my girlfriend. I ran to the bathroom and took care of business, freshening my mouth while I was there.

Stacey still hadn’t stirred. I picked out a light cotton dress and slipped it on. Threads sat where he’d been all week on the table next to my bed. I picked him up and walked outside. The chalet came with an old wooden swing seat. I settled onto it and looked out to sea, holding Threads tight.

“So, you have decided?”

It was no surprise to find Wiesner here. I looked a Threads.

“How long have you known it was there?”

“The day you came for the last treatment. It seemed inside the bear would be a good hiding place, so I felt for it.”

“You could have taken it then.”

“Yes, but it is like I said, I consider you to be my moral compass.”

“I thought that’s what Deus ex was supposed to be. Lot’s of like minded people discussing difficult matters and acting as a check for one another.”

“This is so, and in matters of logic and the mind I would look to them. Here is a question that is not just of the mind, but also of the heart, and you have a great one, Leibchen. In this matter I would trust your heart more than their mind.”

“It’s not fair. You’re putting the fate of the world on my shoulders.”

“Not so. You know as well as I that the decision of the mind has been made. Deus ex has many members, and information has been provided by them to consider carefully both sides of the matter. Much has been said of the likely future of the world if nothing is done, and much has been said of the consequences if we complete this plan of mine. To them, it is a solution that saves not just the human race, but the world as well, and to them the cost is acceptable.

“What I ask of you is to consider what you know of the foundation itself. You have read and heard their arguments, you have met many of the people — I think enough to understand their motives. Answer for me these two questions about Deus ex Machina. Do you trust them, and do you believe in this instance that they are right? You have struggled with this matter in your mind, I know this, and you have found no solution. Now I ask you to consider the matter with your heart. Your good, strong heart.

It was still such a lot of responsibility. I reached inside Threads and removed the capsule, stood and walked towards the sea. Wiesner, the man of logic and science, had surprised me once again. What did I feel about this?

I shifted into Philippa, my dress ballooning about me in empty folds. I reached for my female intuition, the feelings of my young heart. It would be my world to live in after all, mine and everyone else my age. I flipped back into Faith and allowed the pragmatism of my masculine side study what I had just experienced. I shifted back and forth, not trying to think, not trying to find the impossible answer to that impossible question, but trying to feel it.

It seemed to work. Inside me a decision began to crystallise, to grow. On the one side Wiesner, on the other the impenetrable depths of the Indian Ocean. Wiesner trusted my heart, and so did Stacey. That was reason enough for me to do so. The decision grew inside me, and it felt right.

I took the thumb drive and…

-The end-

This was one of those organic stories. The seeds of it came to me some time ago as the result of a comment exchange from a BCTS member who told me she has Klinefelter syndrome. I did some research into it and started wondering what might happen if it might be possible to separate the male and female aspects and copy the rest. From this Phil/Philippa sprung into existence.

After that, the story took on a life of its own. It seemed natural that Wiesner would have ideas on how to use Phil’s special abilities, and that he would be a good guy. The first mission came out of the blue, as so many things did in this story. With the Wexler raid, I still didn’t have much of an idea what he was after, so the concept of a fairly generic multi-use invention filled the gap. I didn’t know Phillip was going to get caught there until it happened.

After that the confusion over who was the good guy just rose out of the mess. The authorities who arrested Phil were going to put themselves over as the good guys and cast Wiesner into the role of villain, and that’s where things get messy.

I’m often reminded of a conversation between Granny Weatherwax and The Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats in Carpe Jugulm:

Oats: “It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey.”

Granny: “Nope.”

Oats: “Pardon?”

Granny:“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby.

I love the quote, and in context (talking about sin) I find I agree with it, I believe there is an absolute expression of good and evil. The problem is, when dealing with people, we are all some shade of ‘white that’s got grubby’ and deciding who to side with becomes difficult when you allow yourself to think about it — the reason in my mind why most people choose not to.

Deus ex Machina wasn’t even a glimmer of a thought when I started the story. I hate the use of Deus ex Machina in stories — just lazy writing in my mind — but I liked the idea of a real life Deus ex working to make things right in the world, and it seemed likely that Wiesner would not be working alone. Besides, in order to be truly one of the good guys, he’d have to accept the limitations of the human condition and accept the need for accountability in his actions. I see Wiesner as someone who tends to view the world in black and white. People like this have a tendency, once they have seen something they regard as white, to be unable to consider anything that challenges it, hence the need for others to balance him out. I think that’s what Phil saw and liked in him: the capacity to acknowledge his own flaws and deal with them.

The issue of world population entering into the story was news to me as much it was to Phillip when Wiesner explained it to him in the car. Once that was in place, the nature of what Phil had to steal on his third mission became clear. I didn’t expect him to get burned on the way in, and when it happened, I didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. I didn’t expect there to be monster hybrid dogs in the lab, although once they were there, Louie was a must. I did write in a bit where Phil asks Wiesner about the possibility of the fertility virus crossing into other species, and worrying about the affect this would have on endangered primates like orangutans, but there were a number of times when the writing lost direction and I had to go back to a couple of forks and pick up again. In the rewrite, there was never an option to put the question back in without it seeming forced.

I had no solution for Phil’s burns when it turned out that they weren’t going to heal completely. I’m grateful that Wiesner did, and I guess the outcome was somewhat inevitable once it was put on the table.

The whole world population problem thing ran away with me a bit. It was never intended to be such a big part of the story, but the more I found myself wrestling with it, the more Phil struggled too. Personally, if I had the same choice to make, I’m not sure how well I’d do. The logical side of me knows that something has to be done if my grandchildren (one so far, but I’m hoping for more) are going to grow up in a world worth living in. The emotional side feels that allowing even a well intentioned group of individuals — especially a specific demographic that doesn’t represent the whole world population — to make decisions like this isn’t right. My muse wouldn’t tell me what he chose, and even now I don’t know. That being said, I don’t feel that outcome is important to the story. What is is that Phillip/Philippa/Faith managed to use his/her unique blend of male and female to reach a conclusion that felt right to him. Like Wiesner and Stacey, I trust his instincts more than my own, so I imagine the future will turn out alright.

On the subject of the blend, it seems evident to me that we all have elements of female and male inside of us. Perhaps the blend is a little more even within the LGBT community, but society pushes us into moulds which means we don’t have much of a chance to express the full spectrum. Phil/Philippa did have it, so was able to apply both the intuitive female side — capable of taking a large number of complex factors and combining them into a group of feelings — and the pragmatic male side — able to focus on individual aspects and reflect on them logically without allowing personal feelings to influence the outcome — to work his way to a solution that neither side could reach on its own. I hope you are able to trust Phil as much as I and accept that he made the best decision.

I wrote a short story a while ago entitled Scout that alludes to a similar idea of mixed male and female in a personality allowing for a more rounded approach to solving problems. It’s a lot short and differs quite a bit from this effort. Up to you if give it a try.

As to what happens next, my Muse isn’t saying much. A story is only ever a segment of a person’s life, and this is where this one ends. The lovely thing about stories, though, is that you can continue them in your own imagination. Me, I imagine Faith and Stacey will marry (matching wedding dresses, but then that’s just me) and settle into what appears on the outside to be a same sex marriage; this is the twenty-first century after all. I imagine both of them will eventually be invited to join Deus ex, and that Faith at least will apply herself to her studies and become a leading biologist or geneticist. In the future I imagine she may even work alongside Dr Wiesner on some other project (without putting himself or anyone else in danger). I don’t know if Stacey will have any children, or if this will become common around the world, but I imagine she and Faith will be happy. I imagine Philippa will remain under the surface most of the time and only makes occasional appearances other than her nightly visits. Faith may continue to use her to make decisions that his male side can’t sort on its own, but overall I imagine he’s choosing to grow old with his wife, and that Philippa will only start to emerge later. What she will experience or achieve in the life she has I cannot imagine. A young and vivacious woman with an old man’s experience and knowledge strikes me as an exciting adventure, albeit one that will inevitably start with a painful loss. I hope she will be okay.