This story started out based on a lucid dream, but quickly grew away from that, into wherever it's at now.
Some say the muse is a spirit all of her own, others say she is just your imagination.
One way or another...
I have a very strange imagination.

Chapter 1.1

N21 was a space station that had been orbiting Earth for many years, but it’s original purpose had been made obsolete by a modern, more efficient version. It was a weapons platform, housing missiles that had aimed at every military base on the planet below, as well as the largest cities. Had they been launched, the once beautiful planet would have been turned into a mostly barren wasteland.

Now, there was a newer, more efficient and deadlier version circling the world, just a few kilometers away.

What a wonderful thing accomplished by our governments.

There were several of us that wanted nothing more to do with Earth’s warlike culture. Most from our group were scientists, wanting to explore “the wonders of the universe.” Many were artists of one form or another. I was one of the latter. A musician by trade, with a minor in gastronomy.

Those who were scientists had lived in constant fear of being “appropriated” by their respective governments, and made to lend their talents to the betterment of society. In other words, to help maintain the delicate balance that prohibited the MAD (mutually assured destruction) that kept our governments from destroying the world -- or rather the people populating it.

Then there were people like me, who were completely useless as far as the general populace was concerned. It wasn’t that our fields were not wanted, or needed. Rather, we were backwards, as far as they were concerned. We didn’t stand with the general opinion that “Big Brother” was benevolent, and much of our art reflected our beliefs. It wasn’t my gastronomic creations that were looked down on, but rather my music.

Once, I had owned a very successful restaurant, but as society went downhill, I converted the establishment into a street kitchen. I would spend the day coming up with a new, wonderful edible creation, and feed it to those who had no place in society, and therefore, no place to call home. It was my way of thumbing my nose at the people who controlled the world.

At one time, I had watched many of the ancient television shows. One was called Star Trek, and I had read about one episode in particular, that had been about time travel. In it, a social worker from the 1920s had a kitchen similar to mine, and the “payment” was to have the people listen to her preaching about a new and better place. Rather than preach, I played my music. Listening to my lyrics was the payment.

Then, one night, I was rousted from my bed. The group that I had secretly been a part of, was taken to some place in Europe. We were placed in a theater, and made to listen to “Caesar”. It wasn’t his real name, but that’s what we called him.

He preached for quite some time, then he gave us an ultimatum.

“Because we are benevolent, we are giving you a choice. You may serve the greater good of the people of our world,

or you may choose to be exiled to the N21 station.”

There were several thousand of us in the assembly. We knew that the station had been stripped of its armaments, otherwise we would not be sent there. Even with guards, there would be too much chance of us using them.

Some of us were frightened by exile, and agreed to be assimilated into society. Personally, I doubted that they would ever be trusted. I was enough of a conspiracy theorist that I was certain they would not live another day. The rest of us were forced into shuttles. As we stepped aboard, we were each given some type of shot in our shoulder.

Each one was designed to hold twelve people, not including the pilots. That was with comfortable seats. We didn’t have that luxury. One hundred of us were standing, packed together like sardines, when we took off. There were no windows that we could see the station as we approached. The only way we knew we were there was when we felt the ship slow, then what seemed to be half an hour later, we heard sounds through the hull. A moment later, there was a slight depressurisation, and the hatch opened. We were forced out of the shuttle, into a long, dark corridor.

We were herded into what had once been part of the primary purpose of the station. I spotted someone I knew, standing near the back wall of the “room”. I wondered if I would be allowed to approach him, or if the guards would stop me. To my surprise, there was no attempt.

“Hello, John,” I said to him, very quietly, when I stopped and leaned against the wall beside him.

Rather than speak, he glanced at me and nodded. In our group, he was the leader of the scientific part, where I was his counterpart for those who were artists.

“Any idea what’s going on?” I asked.

He shook his head and looked around. “This was a missile bay. All the launch machinery has been removed. Maybe taken to N22. It would be a waste to scrap it all.” Several years ago, John Carlson had been one of the scientists who worked on the superstructure of the station. That was, before he realized what it was actually for. He had not had any reason to dislike the establishment before he started the project. When he politely stepped aside, he loathed it. Suddenly, he stopped his survey. He was gazing towards the single doorway into the bay.

There was his brother, Roger, a medical researcher, standing with several members of the medical field. They were being grouped by a few of the senior guards, while some of their minions were standing around the perimeter of the group, weapons facing outwards.

“That’s all,” said a Lieutenant. I could read lips, and I translated for John.

“Are you sure? We don’t want to leave any,” replied his Colonel.

“Positive, Sir.”

“Very well. Carry on.”

About half of the armed guards made the medicos follow the Lieutenant out of the bay. A few minutes later, we felt a vibration in the floor. John looked at me, tears forming in his eyes.

I had a sneaking suspicion of what had just happened, but I looked at my friend for verification.

“They ejected them,” he said quietly.

I nodded solemnly, and said, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was a reverse ejection. The air burst will give us a bit of speed, but it will slow them down. Any nanites in their bodies will not be able to protect them from burning up in the atmosphere.”

He shook his head. “Nanites might have kept their cells from bursting while they froze, but there won’t be a chance.” He looked at me gravely. “You’re right.”

A moment later, the Colonel sneered and turned on his heel. His guards followed out the hatch backwards, keeping their weapons trained on us the entire time. Not that we could do anything. I was still wearing my pajamas. I had nothing, not even my watch or slippers.

The door was sealed shut behind the last guard.

A moment later, we felt the final shuttle undock. We were alone.

---

For the first time, I took in who was present. I saw several people that I knew, and even more that I didn’t. There were several people who were personal friends of mine, and then others that I had simply seen in our meetings.

We had never been secret about our leanings. There was absolutely no reason to, as we had held them long before they became “wrong”.

I walked over to where some of my friends and acquaintances were talking, while John and several of his part of the group looked at the hatch.

A moment later, we heard and felt a shuddering of the station. It continued to gain in intensity, and several people fell. The station had artificial gravity, but as on Earth, rapid movement can change the apparent direction. The station was obviously accelerating, I hurried over to where John was unlocking the door. T he wheel that opened it could now be turned, but he glanced over at the people crowded into the bay.

“Can I have your attention please!” he shouted.

The general confusion that had begun as we started to move did not abate in the slightest. I put two fingers in my mouth, pursed my lips and blew. The whistle was shrill, and those nearest us glanced in our direction. They saw John trying to get people’s attention, and word quickly spread.

“We’ve got this hatch ready to open, but we have no idea what’s on the other side. Was the dock sealed before the military left or not?”

I could see his point, however, we were in a bay with no food, water, clothes, or even toilet facilities. What did we have to lose? I said as much in a voice loud enough to carry. A couple of my friends had followed me to the hatch, and one, by the name of Carter shouted, “He’s right! If we open the hatch, we could die. Being afraid of opening the hatch is certain death.”

My other friend, Reese, spoke up. “Why would they go to the trouble of bringing us up here? I don’t think they plan on killing us.”

“We’ve always expected that they would kill us,” I said. “We just expected it to be sudden. Not this.”

“Exactly,” Reese said. “There’s no reason for them to do this if we are just expected to die.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with Reese. Carter, on the other hand. Again, my conspiracy theory side came through, at least in my unsaid thoughts. If they killed us outright, there would be fallout for them. However, if they tell people it was our own idea to leave because we were all nutcases… Well, they could direct the station into the sun, or something else. Of course that begs the question, why kill our doctors?

The general consensus was to open the door. John nodded and turned. Slowly, he turned the wheel. A small hiss was heard, and he stopped turning it, even backing up a bit. He stopped, and I slowly exhaled. I willed my heart to slow down, but it was quite content to continue racing.

“Using the airlock vents a bit of air,” John said. I could see sweat forming on his brow.

“That makes sense,” I agreed, hoping that I sounded sure. My trembling voice betrayed my feelings though.

John looked around at those closest to him. “Well?”

What a question. Do we open it or not? We had thought we were prepared, but were we? We didn’t want to die. We truly had nothing to lose, but life itself. To hold on for more, or not?

Very quietly, and with more calm that I found somewhere, I said “Open it.”

Chapter 1.2

John glanced around, as if wanting another, possibly different, opinion.  Sadly, there was none.  Had anyone put forth a differing viewpoint, I would have lost my resolve as well.

The wheel was turned, and I heard a the air pressure adjust a bit more, then silence. John let out a loud sigh of relief, then spun the wheel quickly. He stopped it just before the dogs released, then made the final turn slowly. I couldn't blame him.  Apparently there was air on the other side, but what else?

The group around us drew close, as if to guard anyone, or anything from getting through to the rest of our people, but after the last few days, I didn't see that much could be done in that regard.  We had never been fighters.

The door finally swung open to reveal only darkness beyond. I'm not sure how he found the fortitude, but John stepped into the corridor and a little way to the right. We could hear him fumbling for a control in the dark, then dim lighting came on.

"Looks like they turned off our main power as well," he told me as I stepped out of the bay as well.  "Can you see if Marc Dodson is with us?  He helped design the electrical system in this station."

I stepped back over the lip of the hatch and held up my hands to signal the need for quiet.  "Is Marc Dodson here?" I called out.

A man who appeared to be anywhere between twenty-five and…  Well…  Who knows?  Each of us carried a complement of nanites in our bodies which were constantly making repairs from the inside out. We rarely thought of them, but we didn't age.  I suppose the term immortal would be used by some, but in reality we weren't.  There were injuries that could, and eventually would kill us.  Take the doctors who had been ejected out of the station, for example.

The man stepped up to me and introduced himself.  I gestured to the hatch, and he stepped through, looking for all the world like a man who expected some wild creature to grab him as food for its young.  I followed a bit more sure of myself.  

What they were doing made little sense to me, so I went back into the bay to see if I could help the men and women who were there.

Strangely, I realized there were no children present, but I realized Caesar probably figured he could remove the “faulty ideas” we had instilled in our children.

I began to circulate to see if anyone was injured.  Not that my help would be required, but it gave me something to do.  Not surprisingly there were no physical injuries.  Mental was another matter.  I gave what help I could, but I felt useless.  Anyone who had anything to do with the field of medicine had been jettisoned.

I’m not sure how long I worked my way through the people, but I began realizing the size of the bay, and the number of people here.  I had, at first, thought there were about four thousand. I now revised my estimate to twice that.  Perhaps three times.  We would have to make a count.

Partway through my circulation, John and Marc returned and gained everyone’s attention. I returned to the hatch, which was a considerable walk.  

“We have some news,” John said, “but I would like to establish a few things first.” Everyone waited expectantly.  He cleared his throat.  This wasn’t easy for him.  He indicated himself and me.  “We have been the leaders of our people for several years.  I see no reason to change that,” he stated.

I looked out at the sea of people.  Several nodded.  No one argued.

“I think we should make it a triumvirate now.”  He indicated Marc Dodson.  “Dr. Dodson understand’s this, I guess ship is the best term now, better than anyone else.  That will give us the care and maintenance of our home in him.”  He indicated himself, “Research,” then he pointed at me, “and the arts.”

Again, there was no argument.

“Our news, is strange.  The other bays are not empty.  They have been turned into what appears to be quarters for all of us and other necessities.  Twenty-nine bays.”  He shook his head, then continued. “I’m not sure why, but it appears that we weren’t meant to die out here.  This station is huge, and we have several farming facilities in hydroponic setups.  Another couple of bays appear to be stacked to the ceiling with crates of some of our belongings.”

“Caesar must have been planning this for awhile,” I commented.

“Yes, he was.”

Our populace spread out through the ship, each finding an apartment.  There were some married couples who took some of the larger ones, but most of us were single.  After we moved in, which was simply to claim an apartment, we started distributing our belongings.  I had several crates that contained instruments, and my cooking utensils, and another containing my clothing.  That was the extent.

Almost everything had been damaged, apparently quite deliberately.  I had a drum set that I unpacked, with every head destroyed.  My piano had several broken keys.  I had no strings on my guitars, and my brass instruments were dented to where they were unplayable.  I had learned bagpipes in my younger days, but I couldn’t find them initially.  At the bottom of one of my clothing box, under a kilt, I found them.  The bags blended perfectly with the tartan of the kilt, but they were destroyed.  The chanter was actually broken into three pieces and there was no reed in sight.  

Everyone found their clothing in shreds, and my cooking utensils, while usable, were all damaged.

Those were put to use first.  It would take awhile to get food from the hydroponic bays.  Thankfully some of our people were specialists in the field, so they were happy to get the massive project going.

My job was to take several of the ground level apartments and refurbish them into a cafe.  My normal gourmet restaurant was not to be.  At least not immediately.  At the bottom of each storage bay was crate after crate of cans of food.  Nothing special, but at least they were there.

And then one day, a week after we had set out on our voyage, I received a call to the control room.

I entered and looked around.  It wasn’t what I expected.  I suppose that from what I had seen of ancient television, I expected a circular room with stations all around the perimeter and a center seat where the commander sat.  There wasn’t even a navigation station that I could see, but then, this wasn’t a ship, but a station.  It was supposed to sit in orbit of our planet and not navigate anywhere.

“Ah, good.  You’re here,” John commented as I looked around, taking in what I could understand.

He grinned as I said, “Well, this isn’t what I expected.”

There was the sound of a throat being cleared, and John gestured to Marc Dodson.  “He has something to show us.”

We stepped up behind Mr. Dodson and he turned to the console in front of him.  He flipped a switch and one of the screens in front of him lit up.  It showed little except a red dot in the center.

“What am I looking at?” I asked.

“That’s the sun,” Dodson said.  Both John and I looked at him, incredulously.

“I’m not one for the sciences, but every painting or picture I’ve ever seen has the sun as yellow, or white.”

Dodson nodded, but before he could say anything, John asked, “Why is it so small?”

“Thankfully, both your questions can be answered at once.  Our speed.”

“To go this far in a week, we’d have to be travelling faster than light.” John shook his head.  “That’s impossible.”

Something was tickling at the back of my mind.  Something from my boyhood.  Suddenly I had it.  “Red shift!  We ARE going faster than light!” I exclaimed.

Marc  shook his head.  “John’s right.  That’s impossible.  What is actually happening, however, is even more confusing.”  He stood and stretched.  He’d been sitting there for quite some time, apparently.  “We are going incredibly fast, but not in excess of ‘C’.  What is happening is, in fact, red shift, but in theory, it can’t happen if you’re going faster than light.”

“Why?” I asked.  These guys were scientists.  I knew very little about astronomy.  My specialty was gastronomy.

“Well, if we were moving faster than light, how would lt be able to catch up to us?  Relativity says that since it started from our sun, it’s travelling at ‘C’ relative to there.  That’s why it’s shifted red to us.  The waves are coming slower.  By the same token, any light produced in N21 is travelling at ‘C’ relative to the station.  That’s why colors are normal here.”

I tried to wrap my head around it.  “Okay, but you haven’t answered John’s question.  How are we this far away from the sun in a week?”

Dodson looked first me, then John in the eye, and very deliberately said, “We’re not.”

“Huh?” I said, feeling like an idiot.

Marc sat down again and turned to another screen.  “Let me show you something else.” He punched a few buttons and the screen suddenly showed what appeared to be stars, moving stars.

“Those can’t be stars,” John seemed confused. “Asteroids? But so many visible doesn’t seem right.”

“As I said, John, we haven’t arrived here in a week.”

I had glanced back to the first screen, and the red dot seemed to be somewhat dimmer than it had been just a few moments before. “Uh, sorry to interrupt, gentlemen, but, uhm, where’s the sun going?”

Marc sighed.  “To get where we are, even at the speed of light, would take several hundred years.  In fact, it has taken several hundred years.”  He paused a moment and I saw John swallow hard.  Then he slowly nodded.  Dodson continued.  “Time slows down for you as you approach the speed of light.”

Again I remembered something I hadn’t thought of for a few hundred years, and I understood what was happening..  “Okay.  Correct me if I’m wrong.  We are moving so fast, and at such a slow apparent time, that in just a few minutes, we’ve seen our ship move several years.”

“Relative to Earth,” John stated.

Marc nodded, and I looked at the other screen.  “This screen showing what is on our side, is showing stars, not asteroids, but again, we are in a few minutes, seeing what would in actuality be several years… If we were still observing time normally.”

“Uhhhh….” Marc started.

“Yes,” John interrupted. “Let’s keep this simple,” he told Marc.  “No offense,” he added to me, almost as an afterthought.

“None taken,” I said as I stared back at the screen showing our home.  “Well, that pretty well decides turning around and going back,” i said quietly, “Even if we had the fuel to do it.”

Even as I spoke, one of those coincidences that will freak out even the most logical mind happened.  The constant low level vibration of our new home ceased.  We felt some machinery work from both sides of the station, and then everything was still.  A moment later, we saw a long tube accelerating away from the side of the station.  There appeared to be a thruster on the front and back of it, pushing it out into the void between stars.  It was moving at the same velocity that we were, but it was picking up speed.  Without even looking, we knew the same thing was happening on the other side.

“This sets our predicament in stone,” John’s voice was a monotone. “We now have no engines.”

“We will drift at this speed,” Marc said.  He pushed a button and the screen showing our sun changed again.  Now it showed lots of stars coming towards us.  As we watched I expected to see new ones appearing.  They didn’t.  They were thinning out.

“We’re going to leave the galaxy,” John observed.  “He turned to me.  I’m curious what you meant when you said we couldn’t turn back.”

“Simple,” I replied.  “The planet no longer exists as we knew it.  We have only aged a week, and our technology hasn’t grown.  Theirs has.  By over a thousand years.”

“More,” Marc said.  “We were accelerating until we lost the engines.”

None of us felt like speaking.  We just looked at the screen that held our future.

Chapter 1.3

Our life on the station… well… ship, settled into a routine. Marc adjusted the lighting to dim at night, so our circadian rhythms would be normal.  We opened the bay cargo doors, so more than one person could enter a bay at once.  These were motorized doors that slid open and closed like a pocket door.  They were airtight so the exterior bay doors could be opened.

So it was day after day of trying to survive, but things were getting better.  As things grew, we were able to replace our tattered clothing from plants. As well, as natural, some of our scientists, of which we had an abundance, were able to produce synthetic fibers.

Strangely, some junk had been placed in one of the storage bays. We had enough raw materials to make to make most of what we needed.  We had to determine that we would recycle everything. Not that we had any choice.  We had some reserve air, but we would not waste it by ejecting anything. Nor would we waste anything else.  We needed everything.

When we found the junk, it was as if the fittings of the station had been thrown in there after they had been removed from their original location.  The foremost thing on everyone’s mind was, why?  Why had Caesar not killed us outright?  Why did he give us what was needed to survive?  We had enough water to live indefinitely, as long as we recycled everything.  The same with food supplies.  Well, not indefinitely, but as long as we had power.

Why did he take our medical researchers?  Granted, the nanites did most of the work, but someone had to be able to service them.  

It was about a year into our voyage to nowhere that it happened.  We had started to feel that we were beyond Caesar’s reach.  We shouldn’t have been so stupid.

HELLO CHILDREN.  I’M BORED.  LET’S PLAY!

The voice that echoed through every inch of the station was recognizable. It was Caesar’s and it came from every speaker at decibel levels that deafened us... literally.  It took several hours for our nanites to make repairs, so for the next day, we did very little.  Several of our computer engineers started a review of the station’s systems, although the only way they could communicate was through paper, pen, and computer screens. The last was used sparingly, however; who knew what bots the systems contained that were intelligent and could read their messages?

When our hearing had fully returned, we were all on edge.  What would happen next?  Was the voice just some programming left by Caesar, or had one of our people put it there?  Had one of our people got bored and decided to have some… fun?

SO COMPLACENT!

The voice wasn’t as loud this time, which was just as well.  We needed as little damage as possible for what happened next.  Not that it was terrible in itself, but nerve-racking for us.

The lighting started to strobe, so fast that we appeared to be moving in stop motion.  It was eerie.

Dodson and his team tried to help the computer engineers from the mechanical side.  One of his men pulled a wall panel off and reached into the space to trace the wiring.  He was the first and last man to do that.

Somewhere, a bolt of energy found his body, and left him a smoking pile of charred flesh on the corridor floor.  Next, the flashing stopped. There was silence for a moment, but then the voice:

THAT IS NOT ALLOWED.

The cargo doors all slammed shut, leaving everyone inside the bays sealed away.  I wasn’t far from where the scientist had been killed, and I heard a scream, followed by another, then another.

The station was built like a two level pinwheel.  Tipped on its side.  It’s artificial gravity was set up so to get from one level to the other, you walked through a one hundred and eighty degree downhill slope.  There were twelve of these spaced around the center hub.

I was across the main corridor from one of these passageways and heard a scream filter from ‘downstairs’.  Several people were running to see what had happened on our level, and I headed to the other.  When I got there, I saw why the screams.  

A woman had been passing through the door when it slammed shut.  Normally, there were sensors that would not allow the doors to close when someone was in the way.  For some reason, this hadn’t happened this time.  Her body had been bisected, and the part that was on this side of the door was lying in a bloody mess on the corridor floor.  I knelt down and brushed a bit of blood off her face.  I had known her.  She was an artist and had helped several people make their apartments more homey.

I was fighting back the urge to vomit when we heard the external doors of one of the bays opening.  I was shaken, but I still had the presence of mind to jump up and run to where the sound seemed to be coming from.  It was hard to locate, because with the circular corridors around the hub, the sound came from both directions, and with nothing to muffle the sound, it echoed.

I found the correct bay, not so much by determining the direction, but by the crowd of people outside the door.  There, someone had been going through the door, or perhaps trying to hold the door open for someone.  The bisecting here was almost perfectly in the middle of the person’s body.  It was a man this time, and while I didn’t know him, a woman was weeping, being held by a friend.  I figured she had probably known the man, intimately.

While I had passed several doors, I had heard muffled hits from the other side.  This one was completely silent. I glanced over at the monitor that showed the pressurization of the bay.  It had been depressurized before it had been opened.  Now, it was pressurizing.  I wondered why the bay had been opened at all.  The complete depressurization of the bay would be enough to kill people.

A red light on the panel turned green, and all the locked doors opened. What we saw was horrifying.  Most people had hurried down to the locked door, and many had hammered on it with their fists.  There was a chill in the air, and not just from the cold of space.  I saw several people I recognized, and I looked at the bay number, in complete shock.  My own home was in this bay!  Had I been there, I would now be dead!

I stumbled into the bay, seeing friends whom I had worked with to make a halfway comfortable home over the last year.  At first, I didn’t know what to feel.  I was completely devastated, and furious all at once.  I realized there was nothing I could do, but I still felt guilty that I wasn’t home to face death with my friends. Slowly, I made my way to my restaurant.  I pushed open the doors, and quietly walked inside.  No one was there, that I could see, but there were meals on tables.  I went to the kitchen, and there were people there.  Or rather.  You understand, I’m sure.  There was no life anywhere. I was reminded of an ancient song from a stage production.

There's a grief that can't be spoken,
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
Now my friends are dead and gone.

My apartment was the same.  I didn’t share the space with anyone, but all was still.  I pressed a few keys on my piano, and heard that the extreme cold and then moisture of returning warm air had flexed the soundboard.  My refurbished brass instruments were all cloudy with frost, and as I touched my bagpipes, they were hard with the cold.  I sat down in a chair and let out the grief.  I didn’t know what to do.

I’m really not sure how long I remained sitting there. I’m sure they could have used my help around the ship, but I was being selfish. Or was I?  I needed to get myself under some sort of mental control if I was going to lead others.  I wasn’t a military man.  I was a musician.  A cook, for crying out loud!  What could I do to help these people.  How could I have ended up a supposed leader when I didn’t know what to do now?  I knew how to conduct an orchestra.  Get the strings going on their part, then while keeping the beat going, start the flutes and clarinets.  Bring in the trumpets, then the lower brass, the tell the soloist it is her time to shine.  But how did that translate….

I suddenly realized that I could use the same form of delegation in this situation. Slowly I stood and went to find someone to help me orchestrate our recovery from this fiasco.

---

We had been working on cleanup for three days, when I entered the control room.  John and I had been delegating authority to the general population and we were exhausted.  He was already there, and was slumped in a chair, with his eyes closed.  Marc was scanning through computer code, trying to figure out what was going on.  I slumped into another chair.  Strangely, the control room was the only real place we had to sit down, where we could keep in contact with the rest of the people.  My eyes were getting very heavy when something got through to my fuzzy brain.  Beside me was a flashing light.

“Hey, Marc,” I said, still somewhat drowsy, “What’s this light mean?”

“What light?” he asked, seemingly preoccupied.

“There’s a flashing light over here.”

He stood up, and saw where I was sitting.  It was kinda around the corner from his bank of computer screens, in an alcove.

“What the…” He glanced around me and saw what light I was referring to.  I stood and let him into the console.  “This means we have an incoming message.”

“Incoming message?”  By now, John had come fully awake, as had I.  We were both shocked.  What did this mean?

Marc reached for a switch but hesitated.  “What do you guys think?” he asked.

“Could receiving a message start something else happening?” I asked.

“In theory, sure,” Marc said.  “But then again, anything that’s going to happen could have been programmed into the computers, so why wait for us to flip a switch?”

“So what do we do?  Do we wait for the next… whatever that Caesar has planned, or possibly set it off ourselves?” John asked us.

“We might as well hear it.  Maybe it’s aliens,” I said in a futile attempt at humor.

Marc glanced at John, who nodded. He reached over and touched a control.  A screen came alive and we saw a man.  A human, but not someone we knew.”

“Hello, people of N21,” he said.” I am President Freeman of Earth.  I know when you were sent away, Willem Wallace, or ‘Caesar’ as you referred to him, was the ‘Chancellor’.

“Approximately three hundred years after you left, Wallace had shown enough of his character to make those of us still on Earth recognize what you had long ago seen.  There was an uprising, and we were able to remove him from power.  He was in prison until we received a signal from you.

“Every computer around the world came on at the same time, and showed Wallace seated at his desk. He told us that we were all going to join him in a celebration of your exile.  We saw what your camera’s recorded, Wallace telling you he wanted to ‘play’; the death of your maintenance worker.  Then we saw a bay of the station open, and the people dying on the floor.”  

For a moment, Freeman stopped.  He looked somber, then rubbed his face with his hands.

“Wallace was questioned at length.  That was an experience I never want to have again.  He was, quite simply, insane.  He wanted to toy with you as a cat toys with it’s prey.  Revelling in your suffering was what he wanted most of all.

“He tried to bargain with us with his knowledge.  He wanted freedom, but we refused.  It took several months to obtain what we wanted.  He spent that entire time in and out of consciousness.  It wasn’t pretty.  What we got from him, we want to pass on to you.

“There are several… surprises, in the computers of the station.  They have been left there.  There seems to be no way to remove them from the memory.  Even a complete shutdown will reload the same information when you start them again.

“Much of what is programmed will be worse that what has already happened.  Some not as bad.  We will append a file to this message that will tell you what we have found.  I hope you can find something on board that we didn’t think of here.”

---

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc
        Songwriters: Alain Albert Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg / Herbert Kretzmer

Chapter 1.4

The message ended, and Marc turned to get busy with going through the file that was sent.  Almost immediately, however, we received another call from Earth.  Again, it was President Freeman.

Hello again, N21.  This is Freeman.  We have found something very disturbing.  For the last fifty years, our people have been sifting through the damaged palace of Wallace.  250 years after the the broadcast from your ship, the decaying structure collapsed.  Our people had to pull the remaining shell down.

Apparently, there is a ‘special surprise’ for you.  According to records, it is supposed to make any and all other pale in comparison.  The others, we were able to dig to find out what was supposed to happen, but this one is only referred to as the ‘Total Fun’. Fun for Wallace. I doubt anyone else will see it that way. What it is, we cannot tell, nor do we know how it is started.

I’m sorry we don’t know.  We are going to continue to search.

The message ended, and Marc began his reading.  Halfway through, he put his fist through the monitor in front of him.  Rather than give voice to his feelings, he simply stood and walked out of the command center.

John watched him go, then moved the destroyed monitor away and put another in it’s place.  I stood beside him as he read the report.  Some of the plans included deactivation of nanites in everyone with a certain trait.  There were several that were designed to happen at the same time.  Eye color, hair color, blood type.  It would keep us guessing what the cause was.  It’s no wonder our doctors weren’t with us.

Another was to make every electrify every wall, so that if you touched the walls and floor simultaneously, you’d die. All we could say was, thank God they had sent us the information.  We had some knowledge, but how to get into the programming.  It was buried in the memory and protected by several algorithms to protect them.  We had NO idea where to look.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” Marc said from behind us.  I turned and just nodded.  He walked to the comm station we had watched the message from President Freeman on.  He keyed the mic and said.  “This is Marc Dodson on board N21.  What are the chances you could send us the original computer OS from the station.  Before it was turned into Caesar’s playground?”  

While the mic was keyed, John asked, “Will that be able to control the entire station?”

“I’ve no idea, but it’s got to be better than unleashing all of these things.”  He pushed the send button and we prepared to wait.

Less than a minute later, however, a transmission came in.  President Freeman was once more on the screen. He looked very different now.  He was wearing a completely different style of dress, and had a different, longer hairstyle.  “That was a good idea, Marc.  It took us several years to find them.  They were archived in a scientific museum, and we had to negotiate to be able to copy them.  It took awhile, but we believe we got them intact. They’re appended to this message, obviously.

“Oh, I’m no longer the president.  I retired from that job about a hundred years ago.  I’ll be your liason for as long as we can maintain communication, however.

“I’ve arranged for news and library files to be sent to you as well.  Also, if anyone wants to take courses in medicine, we’ve sent an entire course, complete with access to whoever the best doctor is on Earth at the time anyone has questions.

“Later, I’ll arrange for collaboration with your scientists and artists with ours.  We are aware that time is moving much slower for you, but we would love to collaborate.  As Marc demonstrated, your insights are valuable.  We never thought of finding the original operating system for your computers.

I’m going to sign off now.  I’m looking forward to your next communication.

As soon as the message was done, I ran to the intercom.  “Gerry Carter, Winston Reese, and Perl Grey, to the command center, Now!”

“What are you doing?” John asked.

Rather than explain to John, I flipped the comm on.  “This is N21 to Earth.  I am going to have three people rotate in 8 hour increments.  Their only job for now will be to converse with you.  We don’t desire any lag in the communication on our end.  Eventually we will lose contact with you, but until then, we will have someone in constant contact.  Is this acceptable?”

“Very much so, N21.  That’s an excellent idea.”

“Can we piggyback two messages together?” I asked Marc.

“Sure.  We should be able to do more than that.  Something I would like to do as well.  Ask them for information on how to build better memory storage systems.  We’re going to need it if every moment we’re getting centuries worth of information.

“At least I’ll have things to read from here to eternity.”

“No doubt,” I said with a chuckle.  It felt good to laugh even if only a small amount.  I hadn’t laughed in several days.

I relayed the request to Freeman, and he called back that it would work fine.  He also sent the information to us regarding computer storage.  Marc glanced through it, and a huge grin appeared on his face.  “This is ingenious,” he said as he left the room, presumably to talk to some of his people.

At that moment, Gerry Carter entered the command center at a dead run.  He skidded to a stop and breathless asked, “Yeah?” before I could answer the other two entered.  Perl ran headlong into Gerry, who was barely able to reach out in time to hold her upright.  Winston was moving a bit slower, so was able to stop before adding to the bruises collected by the first two.

Laughing, I told them about the contact with Earth and asked if they were interested in 8 hour shifts talking to Earth.

“Hell yeah!” Perl said.  Before either of the others could react, she sat down at the comm station.  “How do I key this thing?” she asked, then apparently saw the control. “N21 calling Earth,” she stated into the microphone.

“Okay,” I said to the guys.  “I guess this is Perl’s shift.  Who wants to do the next one?”

It was determined that Carter would do the next, and Reese would take the last one.  Technically, Freeman was immortal, but a long time would pass for him for the guys.  I wondered if the job would be handed off to someone else by the end of Perl’s shift.

---

It didn’t take long for the operating system to be loaded onto the permanent memory for the computers.  Dodson had them loaded and ready to go in a couple of hours.  Caesar had apparently not protected it, so there was no problem.  I suppose he figured if we decided to clear the memory, so be it.  

When alarms went off, however, we were concerned.  

OH, KIDS. YOU’VE BEEN BAD. I SUPPOSE I’M GOING TO HAVE TO PUNISH YOU NOW.  IT WILL BE FUN FOR ME.  TOTALLY FUN.

It was Caesar’s voice.  He was long dead, but we had awakened his ghost.  Apparently, we had triggered ‘total fun’.

“Computers are out of control!” Marc’s voice came over the intercom.  We can trigger the intercom, but that’s about it.  Everything else has us locked out.  I didn’t even get a chance to shut them down.  The moment I finished loading them, the computer added a few subroutines.  I’m not sure what they do, but…”

His voice went dead at the exact moment the lights went out.  Ventilation stopped as well.  For several minutes, the only sound was of other people.  Then, all at once the machinery started running again.

Cautiously, we touched the controls.  Nothing seemed to be broken or unresponsive.  Perl contacted Freeman, and he responded immediately.  She explained what happened, and that we had apparently triggered ‘total fun’.  “Have you got any idea what it is?” she asked.

“I’m sorry.  Any reference seems to have been lost when Caesar died.  Something we did turn up, however, was how he came to power.  If only we had known then.  He was a genius programmer and  had his hands in both computers and genetics.  It seemed as though he wrote a computer virus that was incredibly complex.  It gave him political power throughout the world.  He also had a hand in the production of the nanites used to repair our bodies.  That was long before he showed any interest in computers however.

“I’m very sorry I can’t tell you any more, Perl,” Freeman said.  

“You’ve given us an idea where the problems may lie, Sir,” she responded. “Give me a few minutes.  I’ll be right back.”

“How do you figure?” Marc asked.  He had entered while she was talking to Earth.

“Remember that injection each of us received when were exiled?”

I watched as Marc’s face went white.  “Dear God!” he exclaimed.

I turned to John.  “We’d better tell everyone.”

“It could start a panic,” he replied.

“Yes, it could, but they have a right to be warned.”

Apparently, John agreed, because he went to the intercom and flipped it to station wide. He explained what we knew very quickly.  We didn’t know how long we had before Caesar’s ghost started playing with our minds -- or bodies -- or both.

---

I wasn’t able to sleep well that night.  I tossed and turned for several hours, and finally I got out of bed, and angrily changed back into clothes. The elevator was something that was added long after the original OS had been made, so it didn’t work right now, and I now lived on the top, or fifth floor in a different bay.  I stomped down the stairs to ground level and found hundreds of people milling around in the street.

“What do you think will happen?” It was the main question I was asked, and of course, I had no idea.  

“You know as much as I do,” I told them.

To their credit, there was no panicking.  I guess we had been through so much that we couldn’t conceive of anything worse.

We had morals.  Caesar had none.

I arrived at the command center and saw that I wasn’t the only one who had been unable to sleep.  I checked the time and saw that Reese was halfway through his shift with Freeman.  It was still Freeman he was talking to.

Perl was still present, as was Carter.  I don’t think Marc had ever left his position at the computers.  There were three more IT people working on other computers, and John was sitting in a chair in the corner.  It didn’t look like he’d left either.  I felt guilty, as I was apparently the only one who had tried to sleep.

No, I wasn’t.  John was gently snoring.

“He hasn’t left, but he’s been like that for a couple hours now,” Perl told me when she saw me looking at him. “I think he’s waiting for some news.”

“I think I’ve got something!” It was from an IT guy.

Instantly, John was awake.  “What?” He was on his feet, but he stopped for a moment.  He swayed for a moment.  “Stood up too fast,” he said.  I had reached out to stabilize him.

We finished moving to the IT’s location.  Everyone else was there.

The man pointed to his screen.  There was a jumble of code that I couldn’t make heads or tails of but Marc exclaimed, “Oh, shit!“

I looked at him expectantly, as did John.  “What are you seeing?” I asked.  

“This code is designed specifically to modify the basic programming of our nanites.  What’s strange is that it’s just one bit.  It’s like a switch that it will turn on.”

I felt like melting into the floor.  Suddenly everything made sense.  The injection we’d all received.  The disappearance of our doctors.  Everything made a warped, perfect sense.

“But you have no way of knowing what that switch will do,” said Marc.

“Not any way.”

For a moment, my vision blurred then it seemed as though I pushed my fists into my eyes, as all I could see was multiple colors swirling around.  There was a disconnect between before the blurring and after.  It took a moment for me to realize I could see fine again, but then I noticed Perl standing right beside me.  I jumped away from her, terrified, and she looked at me wide eyed.  

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed.  There was no need to scream at us, because every one of us seemed scared spitless of her.  We were all as far away as we could get.  

She kept her gaze jumping from one of us to another.  Anytime any of us moved, she flinched. She kept bringing her gaze back to me.  No, not me.  The open door behind me.  I started to inch to the right, where Carter stood.  Interestingly none of the others bothered me in the least.  Just her.

As soon as I was far enough away, she bolted.  Each of us seemed to lose our tension.  Whatever it was, it seemed to make us scared of certain others.  ‘Total Fun’ was upon us.  

Like it or not, Caesar’s Ghost had raised his ugly head again.

Chapter 1.5

As soon as my heart slowed down, I jumped to the comm panel and contacted Earth.

“This is N21.  We have ‘Total Fun’ happening here.”

“Freeman here!” He was staring at the screen, seemingly terrified.   “We have it too!  Sending you the OS seems to have triggered it!”  We heard a door open in the room he was calling us from. He bolted out of his seat, and without his face centered on the screen, the camera widened to show the whole room. It was the first time we saw anything other than him, and the room seemed to be a personal office.  A woman entered.  She seemed scared of him, but she resolutely stepped toward him. He screamed at the woman! “DON’T TOUCH ME!” She was moving slow, as if she was terrified, but she kept advancing on him.  She was close enough now, and Freeman was cowering on the floor.  She bent down and tentatively reached out her hand.   “NO!!!” She touched his face.

It was as if his body was made out of wax.  It seemed to melt and then reform.  The next thing we knew, Freeman was a woman, or seemed  to be from all appearances.  The tension in the room evaporated and he, or rather she hugged the woman..   “It’s okay,” the woman told her as she returned the hug.   “You’re my daughter now.”

Freeman let go of the woman and smiled at her, then she stood up and walked back to her desk.  Her clothes had not changed in the slightest, but they no longer fit his… rather her form.  She reached out and severed the connection.

Before we could react, the connection came back on.  The female Freeman was sitting there.  Her face was immaculately made up.  She stood up, and twirled.  Her dress swirled around her.  She sat back down, and told us, “This is me now.  I’m still Freeman, and have the same memories, but I am quite content with being a woman.  The fear has transferred from being caused by women to men.”  Obviously, she wasn’t seeing us, but there seemed to be a bit of revulsion as she spoke.  I felt the same thing looking at her, so I suppose she was affected by who she knew would be watching her. “These are the effects of ‘Total Fun’,” she said. Her voice much higher than it had been. “Whenever you see someone of a different gender, you are terrified.  Now that I am Female, I no longer have a fear of my mother.” She paused as she considered what to say next. “When you are touched by a different gender, you are changed to that gender.  The person’s sex makes a difference as well.  If they are biologically male, that is what you will be.  If they are biologically female, you will be as well.  If they are intersex, so will you be.  We have been working on this for more than a thousand year naw  Wallace’s code is incredible.  We haven’t been able to break it.  I’m not sure if we ever will.” Again she paused. “It’s hard to speak to you.  I can’t see you, but I know who is watching, or rather I suspect who is.  Not much time has passed for you, so it is probably the same men who were in the room at my last communique when my mother changed me.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts.   “We were inoculated for a supposed virus shortly after you left.  We had no reason to suspect it to be anything other than what we were told.  We believe this was when our nanites received their new programming.

“Because of the nanites, Wallace convinced us to do away with the medical profession.  Those same people are back, working on the problem, as are our computer specialists.  Every one of them.  They are collaborating, but nothing has been found yet.  We have no idea how nanites can make these changes so quickly, but we suspect that the ‘innoculations’ had a new strain of nanites with stronger abilities.  Or perhaps they have always had this ability locked away.  We don’t know, but are trying to learn.  There seems to be nothing inhibiting us from working towards that goal, except Wallace’s safeguards.  Again, If we find anything, we will let you know.  Freeman out.”  She reached to the computer, and seemed relieved to switch off the communication.

“This is insane,” one of the IT people exclaimed.

“Remember who started it,” John said.  He sounded disgusted.

“For some, this would be heaven,” I remarked.  “Except for the built in fear of other genders.  And for the prospect of turning back.”

Marc gave me a strange look, then seemed to realize that what I was saying made sense.  Slowly, he nodded in agreement.  “Aye. I wouldna ‘gree, but...” He swallowed hard, and seemed to make an effort to speak Standard again.  Different languages or dialects were rarely used anymore except in the home.  Tradition had held on as pride in one’s heritage.  Marc tended to revert to a Scottish dialect, which was from his mother, when he was upset.  He had never shied away from it before but perhaps thinking about his mother affected him.

I tried thinking of my mother for a moment, and I felt a rush of revulsion, something I had never felt. I loved my mother very much.  It appeared that my supposition was correct, although if that is what happened to Marc, I had no idea.  

A moment later, I heard a noise at the door, and I turned.  Perl and three more women were there.  
“Have you contacted Earth?” she asked.  It seemed to take every ounce of courage she had to stand there.  I nodded because my mouth was completely dry.  I felt the blood rush from my face, standing even this close to a woman.  I felt trapped in a room with only one exit, and a woman standing in it.  I felt faint and started to sway, putting my right leg forward to stope me from falling.  “DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!” Perl screamed.

I backed up to where a chair was, and sat down.  I didn’t like vulnerability of being seated rather than on my feet, ready for flight at a moment’s notice, but  supposed  if I fell, I would be even more at risk.   “Yes,” John told her, his voice trembling.  It took effort, but he told her what we had seen happen to Freeman.

“You’re shittin’ me,” Perl responded.

“No,” I said.  I wasn’t dizzy anymore, but I wasn’t going to stand.  I didn’t need to be again.  “We can all confirm what John just told you.”

“So if I could walk up to you and touch your face, you’d become a woman?” she asked me.

“Apparently yes,” I replied.  “Please don’t.”

“Not likely I’d do that right now.  I know this is all in the nanites and what they did to us, but touching you terrifies me.” She thought for a moment.  “How come his mother didn’t change?”

I thought for a bit, then said, “He… She told us that if we were touched by another gender… That implies that they were the one initiating contact.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Perl scoffed.

“Maybe,” Marc said, “ but do you have a better idea?  I don’t .”

“Neither do I,” she admitted.  “So what do we do?”

“I doubt we have to do much to keep all genders separated,” John took the lead.  “Maybe it would be best to separate them by bays.”

She nodded slowly.  Suddenly one of the three women with her announced, “I’ve got to get out of here.” She turned and ran.  

Another took it as an invitation to follow suit, and Perl grabbed the arm of the other before she could.“  Please, don’t go Kari.  We need to complete this conversation and I need your support.”

Kari looked absolutely terrified but nodded.  She looked like she was going to fall, so I reached for another chair.  Any other time, I would have walked over and helped her sit.  I couldn’t stomach that right now, however, so I kicked the chair towards the women.  It made it to within Perl’s reach, and she gingerly reached out to grab it with her thumb and index finger.  She moved it to beside her.

Kari looked at the thing like it had just been excreted by me.  “He just touched it.  How do I know there aren’t his nanites on it?”

With my love of ancient TV, I had come across the idea of ‘cooties’, and I let out a peal of laughter.  Perl looked at me like I had gone completely insane, and I explained.  “Just something I ran across years ago.  An idea among children that boys and girls both had their own special germs that could be transmitted to each other.  What they did, was never stated.  I doubt it was anything like this, however.”

One of the IT guys piped up.  “Our nanites are mostly biological, except for their memory that controls them.  They can’t survive without a person’s body heat for more than a couple of seconds.”

Kari nodded and sat down heavily.  It looked like she wanted to do it more gracefully, but being dizzy…

With her sitting down, Perl started to pull her hand away from Kari’s arm.  This was unacceptable, and the seated woman shouted, “No!” and reached up, grabbing Perl’s arm with both hands.

I felt the same way.  If the two hadn’t been standing in the doorway, I would have bolted.  I think all of us would have, judging from the looks on the others faces.

“I think the idea of bay segregation is a good one,” Perl said, her voice trembling.

Something inside me, from before the fear, made me speak up. “Marc, can your people be trusted to disable the motor controls on the exterior doors?”

“Hell, man!  Now you mention it, I don’t know if I can!”

“We’ve replaced the OS.  Didn’t you say it wrote exactly what we uploaded but added one bit?” John was thinking about the possibilities.

“Aye.”

“Okay, then there shouldn’t be anything to hurt anyone if they try.  Disable the motors permanently.”

Marc sighed.  “Okay.  The nice thing is I won’t trigger them while I’m working on them.  I don’t want ejected myself.”  He thought about it, then turned to Perl.  “Don’t move the women until I tell you to.  We don’t want you transferred before those motors are ruined.  That should keep any of the men from trying anything.  They won’t want to eject themselves.”

She nodded.  “Is that it?”

“Use the bays on the lower side,” I said.

“What about other genders?” She asked.  

We discussed them for a few more moments, then she made a quick exit.

---

The door to the command center opened into a short hallway which led to a smaller circular corridor in the center of the station.  There were several rooms on the inside of the corridor.  And on the outside were several ‘j’ shaped halls.  You walked about 10 meters, and then the floor curved up to ninety degrees from the floor of the walkway. From there, you turned right and you were in the middle of the hall which led from one level of pinwheel to the other.  The whole station was a maze of strange gravitational fields.  

I was heading home a short time after Marc left to work on the exterior bay door motors.  I was contemplating our situation.  It was frightening, the terror I felt when face to face with a woman.  Just the thought of one scared me.  I hadn’t met up with any other genders yet, so I didn’t know how much they would bother me.  The thought of caused fear in  an inverse funnel between me and a woman.  A bisexual man bothered me a little bit.  Then a gay man, followed by a genetically male gender fluid, to intersex, with all the layers in between.  The pattern reversed through the genetically female genders as the funnel got wider and wider, until it reached a completely heterosexual female

When I reached the ‘u’ shaped corridor running between levels, I turned to go to my apartment.  Now that we knew what was going on, I was a little more at ease.  I came face to face with fright again, however as I turned left into the corridor.  I was standing almost nose to nose with two women.  All three of us screamed and the women spun on their heels and started running downhill to the upper level.  

I stared at my hand, unbelieving.  When they turned, one of the women’s hands brushed mine.  A moment later, my vision began to blur and it felt as if my body was being taken apart and put back together.

Chapter 1.6

When my vision cleared, I looked down at myself.  My clothes were hanging loosely of my new frame, although a certain area of my shirt was rather tight.  My pants had split at the seam running up my backside, I found when I reached around to get an idea what my general shape was.  Yet, as I slowly started walking, I found that my boots were loose.

I knew I needed to call John and tell him what had happened, but the thought terrified me.  I didn't want to face him.  I started to think that maybe I’d run into a guy the same way I had the women, and be changed back, but I found I didn’t want to do that.  I was not scared of women now, but of men.  The funnel went the other way.

I pulled my shirt out of my pants, and let it hang down. It made an almost respectable minidress.   The waistband of my pants was holding tight on my hips, so as long as I didn’t perform any serious exercise I figured I could make it to my room.  But what then?  I didn’t have anything that would fit me there.  Then I remembered.  Across the hall from my apartment was a woman who was probably about my size now.  I might be able to borrow something from her.  

I was deliberately avoiding the thought of talking to either John or Marc.  I knew they would be as terrified of me as I was of them now.  I began to wonder if I touched a man, if they would become a woman.  Was my transformation so complete?  I had no way of knowing unless I touched a man.  I certainly didn’t want to do that.  Coming so close to one scared the living daylights out of me.

I got to the corridor above or below, however you looked at it, and looked to the right.  The bay door was there that would take me to my home.  Unfortunately, there were about a dozen men standing between me and the door.  They were in groups of two or three talking, presumably about the screwed up mess we were now in.  

I shrank back into the hallway to downstairs, my heart pounding in my chest.  What was I going to do?  The thought of passing all those men was horrifying!  I felt like I had to pass within striking distance of a viper.  My problem was solved, however, when a man suddenly turned into the corridor I was in to head downstairs.  He jumped back as if bitten by a similar snake.  “Woman!” he shouted.  He spun on his heel and ran away.  I heard what sounded like a stampede, and cautiously peeked out of my hiding place.  I was tensed to turn and flee as fast as I possibly could, but I needn’t have worried.  Apparently the thought of a woman… of me… being near them made them run.  I stepped into the corridor and started toward the bay doors and home.

Before I turned into my bay, however, I stopped.  How many of those men had walked into here? I wondered.  Again, I apprehensively peeked around the corner.  The ‘street’ in between the buildings on either side was empty.  My home was about three quarters of the way down the street, on the right, and on the top floor.  I was scared to walk down that street.  I would be in the open, where anything could happen.  Slowly, I began to walk.  I felt like everyone’s eyes were upon me.  Indeed, I saw several curtains flutter in the apartments that started on the second floor.  One or two of the ‘stores’ (we didn’t have any money)  on the bottom level closed their blinds and turned the signs to closed.  

Oh yeah!  There was a boutique just up the street a bit.  Just passed the stairwell leading to my apartment.  I started to hurry a bit faster.  I wanted out of the street.  I passed the stairs, and a couple of stores down the street I stared in horror.  The boutique’s windows had been broken out.  There were some heavy chairs thrown through.  Much of the inventory had been destroyed, and there was no sign of life inside.

I decided I didn’t want to be on the street anymore if this was what we were coming to, turned and ran to the stairs.  Just before I reached them, I saw a man open the door of a liquor store that was adjacent to the stairs.  He lifted up a bottle and threw it at me.  I ducked and I felt it brush my hair.  A moment later, I was sprinting as fast as my ill fitting boots could carry me.

---

I reached the top, and turned left.  My apartment was approximately 30 meters down the hall.  I started running again, but instead of turning into my rooms, I knocked on the door across from mine.  The door opened and I jumped backwards hitting my own door.  I forgot that it was a married couple that lived across from me.

“Go away!” the man shouted as he slammed his door.

Now, I had no idea what to do.  I needed some clothes, or the men would be staring at me.  They would be anyway, but it would only get worse.

I was scared spitless, but I crossed the hall and knocked again.  I’m not sure if I knocked hard enough to get his attention, but he must have been near the door.

“Go away, I said!” came the muffled yell from inside.

He said???  I was almost deaf from his yell!  “Please Mr. Finch.  Is your wife here?”

His voice was a bit softer now.  “No.  With this new affliction, we were terrified of each other.  We couldn’t stand to be in the same room.  Her sister lives in another bay, so she left to stay with her.”

“Did she leave any clothes?” I asked.  “I’m your neighbor from across the hall.  We get along fine in reality, without this newest situation. I was touched when I came upon some women in one of the downstairs passages.”

There was a long pause then finally,  “Go into your apartment and shut the door.  I will set something outside your door and then knock.  Don’t open your door until you hear mine shut.”

“Thank you, Mr. Finch,” I said as I opened my door.  I shut it hard enough for him to hear, then waited.  It was about ten minutes when I heard a soft tap on my door, then his door slammed. I opened my door and found a small pile of folded clothes.  I took them into my bedroom and unfolded them onto my bed.  There were a couple of pairs of panties, two bras,  a couple of dresses and two pairs of shoes.  At least he figured in that I was going to need more than one of everything.  Well, I figured, These will work.

I changed into one change of clothes, and went to my personal comm system.  It was strange that I had changed without a thought about it.  I sat down and my hand froze as I considered what I must now do. I couldn’t make it go to the switch to call John.  Slowly, I put my head down on the table onto the desk in front of me and started to cry.

I’m not sure how long it took, but I went into the bathroom before I made the fateful call.  There was a wallsize screen on one side.  Normally it showed a peaceful scene.  I had always liked scenes of whitecapped peaks.  I grew up in Alaska and I could always see Denali on a clear day. So that’s what it showed.  I told the screen to become a mirror, and froze.  The image I was now seeing took me by surprise.  My face was a mess.  Apparently, the nanites had put makeup on my face, as well as lengthened my hair and changed the color.  I turned on the water and washed off my face, then I looked again.  My eyes were red from crying, but I could see that my genes were the same.  My face looked very much like my mother’s.  Her hair color was the same as mine had been, but she had lightened it a couple of times to the honey blonde I now had.    

Actually, as I looked, I now saw how much my mom and I looked alike, because my face also looked like it had before I changed.  The features were softer and quite nice, but I still liked like me.

Thinking about how much I still looked the same, I could feel revulsion rising in my head.  I stopped thinking about it.  I resolved that when I looked in the mirror, I would not see my male self.  I would see me now, with a resemblance to my mother.  Nothing more.

 All this looking in the mirror was getting me nowhere.  I still needed to call John.  I started out of the bathroom and realized I needed to use it for another purpose.  Grateful that I didn’t have to use the comm yet, I went back.

When I came out, I still wanted to put things off.  I decided I hadn’t eaten yet, so I went into the kitchen alcove and made a burger and fries.  We had not meat on board, but I knew how to make a veggie burger that tasted just like the real thing.  

I got it ready and sat down at my table.  Then I realized I wasn’t hungry.  At all.  I stood up and put the plate into my refrigeration unit.  

This is just putting off the inevitable, I told myself.  I walked over to the computer and before I sat down, I made the call.

It was answered almost immediately, and John shrank back from the camera as soon as he saw it was a woman calling him.

“What do you want?” he asked, keeping his voice under control, but I could see his eyes were filled with fear.

“I need to talk to you,” I answered.

“I’ve never seen you before,” he said.  “I thought I knew everyone….” His voice trailed off and I could see that he had recognized me.

“I ran into a couple of women when I was walking home,” I explained.  “One of them accidently touched me as she turned to run away.”

“Do you want me to come over there and touch you?” he asked.

I was still terrified, but something in my heart stirred as he offered that.  I could see that he didn’t want to, but I knew if I said yes, he would do it.  “No, John.  I don’t.  I doubt either of us could handle that.  I can’t see myself voluntarily letting a man touch me now.”

He slowly nodded.  “What do we do about this?” he asked.

I thought for a moment, then realized something. “In a way, this is a good thing.”  He looked at me like I was crazy, or maybe it was just fear.  “We don’t need three male leaders right now and none female.  Be honest.  The women would get the short end of the stick, wouldn’t they?”

He sat still for a bit, the only thing moving was his face as it displayed a wide variety of emotions, with terror underneath it all.  Finally, he answered.  “I would try my best to not allow that to happen, but yes, I’m afraid you’re right.”

“I can’t see myself coming to the command center anymore.  Again, I doubt any of us could handle that.  I will remain in contact with you on the screen.  I will also contact Perl and let her use my comlink to be patched through to Freeman, so she doesn’t shirk her responsibilities, but doesn’t have to associate with you or the others.

“Also, I think it would be a good idea to have another woman appointed as my equal.  I think we need to maintain an equilibrium so the women do not feel overlooked.”

“They probably will anyway,” he said with a sigh.  It took a moment, then he looked back up at me, obviously afraid he just made me mad.  I have to admit, I felt a bit of anger, but in my heart, I knew he hadn’t meant anything derogatory by it.

“John,” I said, my voice trembling.  “We need to bury the hatchet between us right now.  We are doing exactly what Caesar wanted.”

“I know it,” he said. “I don’t know what I can do about the fear, but I will try to not let it rule me.  Deal?”

I almost laughed.  “Deal, but it’s a good thing we’re not in the same room,” I commented.  “This is where we’d be tempted to shake hands.”

He stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.  “Yes, We would.”  A moment later, the smile left his face and he turned to where I knew Marc would be seated.  “How many reports of changes?”  

“Fifty-seven so far, and they keep coming in.”

John’s face went white.  “I need to get off here now.” He looked back at me.  “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Chapter 1.7

The next week was filled with fear for everyone on the station.  It was taking a considerable amount of time for Marc to disable all of the exterior doors.

In the interim we got several things accomplished.   A woman with chocolate brown skin was appointed the joint leader for the ladies.  When I saw her, I smiled.  “Hello again,” I said to her.  She looked at me disbelieving.  “You’re really him?” she asked.

“No, I’m really her.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I was him.” I laughed.  “I really slid the chair over to you, Kari.”

Perl had come in with her, and sat down at my comm station.  She turned to stare at me for a few moments.  “I find it hard to believe, but I can’t deny it.  You look the same, only different.”

“That’s quite a paradox,” I said.  “Now that we’ve got the disbelief out of the way, can we please not bring up who I used to be?  I get scared thinking about once being male.”

They both agreed, as thinking about it for them was frightening as well.  Perl turned to the computer and in a few moments Freeman’s visage filled the screen.  “Thank goodness it’s you Perl,” she said, obviously relieved.  “I wasn’t sure how many more times I’d have to speak to either Carter or Reese.”

She smiled at him.  “Well it’s me for awhile now.”  She introduced Freeman to Kari and explained her function.  

It looked like they were settling into a good conversation, so Kari and I made our exit.  It was not easy to walk out to the circular corridor, but we made it.  All the way, we could see curtains and blinds fluttering as men looked out to see who was walking down the street.  When we got to the circle, Marc and John were standing quite some distance away.  

“We’ve already inspected your bay’s motors,” John yelled to us. “They look fine to us.  We are going to the next one.  As you can see, we have removed the door to the stairs.  When you come back down, Marc will weld it in place.”

“Why?” Kari asked.

“The only reason for going up there is the motors,” Marc explained. “They no longer work.  I’ve also welded beams in place on both sides and in the middle of the doors.  The scaffolding is still there so you can inspect my welds.  John wants to see them as well.”

We watched as Marc removed the door from the next set of stairs.  Satisfied with what we were seeing, we went up the stairs to the overhead doors in the bay we had just been in.  We came to the motor and could hardly believe our eyes.  It was about the size of a refrigeration unit, and the outer casing had been melted into the armature  There was no way this motor would ever function again.  It was a heap of scrap.  “I definitely approve,” I told Kari.

“I’d hate to be on the receiving end of Marc’s torch,” Kari said, her voice trembling.

I just looked at her, but at the thought, I could feel my heart beating wildly.  I hoped it would slow down before I tried to go down the stairs.  We stared at the remains of the motor for a minute or two, then I said, “Let’s see the welds.”

We started moving to the center of the doors.  About six meters from the center, we came to an I beam that had been welded to the bottom of the door.  It was about half a meter tall, and there was a continuous weld along the part of the I that was touching the door.  It went all the way along to the same position on the other side.  We went back to the center and moved through a hole that had been cut, big enough for us to crouch and step through to the catwalk.  Both Kari and I had prepared for this.  We were both wearing peach colored jumpsuits, rather than anything that would expose us to the underside.  We hadn’t known about the beams welded in place, but John had told us that Mark welded the two sides of the doors together.  It was why the work had taken a week to do.  By the time we had finished inspecting this one bay’s doors, I was determined to find out who had helped Marc.  I had understood that he was going to do the work himself, but it was apparent he couldn't have done this himself in the amount of time allotted.  Not on forty bays.

Eventually, we went down the stairs.  We found John and Marc waiting for us, again a considerable distance away.  Marc took the door that had been set against the bulkhead and began welding it in place.  It took some time, as he was a meticulous welder.  When he finished, we moved to the next one.  I turned to speak to them men before we entered the stairwell.  “Can we get someone else to follow with the welder?  No offense intended, Marc.  You’re a very careful welder, but it’s going to take awhile to inspect every bay, and waiting for you to weld the doors in place will take even more time.  If they’re welded in place after we come down, we can make another circuit of the corridor when we’re done and then go downstairs.”

“Who do we trust to not weld the door on while we’re up there?” Kari asked.

“How about Colleen Grimes,” I suggested.  She was an artist, and her medium was metals that she welded into sculptures.

John and Marc conferred for a moment, then Marc yelled to us, “That sounds good.  Can you call her?”

I did just that, and a few minutes later, Colleen and her daughter came from downstairs.  “I figured if there were going to be two men here, I’d want to have someone else I can trust with me.”

“I can’t blame you at all,” I told her, then Kari and I went up the stairs.  

As we ascended them, I could hear Marc yelling to her, “Don’t worry about making them pretty.  Just make them secure.”

It took us all day, and most of the next to do all forty bays.  By the time we were done, All four of us were shaken up by such a frequent contact with men.  Not that there was ever the opportunity to touch each other.  They wanted to keep their distance from us, just as badly as we wanted to from them.

Both Kari and I were exhausted from the constant stair climbing.  Five flights up, five flights down.  I had never made an up and down circuit of five flights, twenty five times in one day, then fifteen the next.  Once we were done, I crashed in my bed and slept for a day.  It wasn’t just the stairs, but keeping vigilant while looking at welds without going cross eyed was mental stress.  When I woke up, it was time to move all my stuff to an apartment ‘downstairs’.  We had an electric tractor with a six meter trailer that could be used to carry stuff downstairs, but it meant my piano would have to go down five flights now.  

When I got down to street level, I was surprised to find John, Marc, and three other men there. There wasn’t supposed to be any men out on the street while the women were moving to downstairs.

“What’s going on?” I asked.  I was mad.  I didn’t need to be scared today.  I had a lot of fragile things to move.

“We would like to help,” John yelled across the ten meters between us.

“I have a lot to do,” I yelled back.  “Why would you want to help me?”

“You told me we needed to bury the hatchet.  Well, you have a piano up there.  It’s got to come down five flights without being dropped.  Do you want to do that?”

“How do I know you won’t drop it just for spite?”

“If I do, you can deck me,” he returned.

“And turn you into a woman?” I laughed in spite of my fear. “Not likely!”

He looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up at me.  “In spite of my fear, I care about you.  I know those instruments are special to you.  I saw how broken you were when you saw the damage as you unpacked them.”  He paused again, then with a trembling voice he called to me, “Please let me help you.”

“Let you personally, or all of you?” I asked.  I was curious about what he said.  Was it a Freudian slip?  We had always been best friends, but did it now extend farther than that?  It seemed unlikely with all the fear involved.  A Freudian slip, however, is regarded as revealing the subconscious.

He didn’t say anything for a moment.  He looked scared.  Scared of me, and perhaps scared of what he had said.  He looked at the men around him.  Marc raised an eyebrow at him, and looked like he may laugh.  He might have, had he not been so scared by my presence.

“Please let us help you,” he finally said.

I looked up at the window of my soon to be former rooms, then back at the men.  “I have your word.  Not a scratch on anything?”

“You have my word,” John said.  “Not a scratch.”

“Yours personally, or the entire groups?”

His voice was firm and decisive.  “Mine.”

I gazed at him for a minute, then said simply, “Fair enough,” and I walked down to the former boutique.  I went inside and pulled out one of the chairs.  The upholstery on it had certainly seen better days, but I wanted to watch them.

I carried it out, my arm muscles straining at the size of the thing, and set it down in the middle of the street.  I sat down, crossed my legs, and folded my arms.

John watched with an almost amused expression.  When he saw me in my supervisor position, he told the others, “Come on guys.  She can’t help us, and we don’t want her to.”

His words filled me with relief, but also something else.  Disappointment?  Why would I be disappointed about that?  Was I so concerned about my things?  

I watched as they took several cases upstairs and then started bringing them back down a little while later.  John didn’t come down, however.  He must have taken up the position of supervisor in my apartment.  

I was wondering if the cases held my instruments.  I supposed that they probably did.  Maybe my cooking utensils also, or rather those that weren’t in the restaurant.  What surprised me was when two of the men went into the restaurant and brought out four cases.  My restaurant equipment had been moved from the old bay and placed into what I was going to make my new location.  With everything that had happened, I hadn’t had a chance to do what I wanted.  While they were doing that, Marc pulled the trailer over to the other side of the street and put a net over everything, pulling it tight.  Nothing would fall off now. I was surprised.  I had seen several tractors and trailers heading both ways before I climbed into bed.  None of them had things tied down on them.

While all of this was being done, John started carrying my instruments down in their small cases.  So what were in the huge cases?  The four cases of equipment from the restaurant were loaded onto the trailer, then the five men went upstairs.  They were gone quite awhile, but eventually I could hear one of them urging the others to be careful, move right or left.  Telling John where the next step was.  Eventually, I saw, first the man who was giving directions, then John and another come out of the stairwell holding one end of my old upright Yamaha.  I wasn’t sure how old it was, but I knew it was many centuries.  I had paid an incredible amount for it, but it was worth it.  

Very carefully, the four men set it down on the street and I saw them massaging their muscles.  I remembered taking that thing up the stairs when I moved in.  It was heavy.  John and Marc helped then too.  I was ashamed of my fear, but there was no way to turn it off.  When they picked it up and lifted it onto the trailer, I held my breath, waiting for them to drop it.  They didn’t.  Instead, they took some heavy blankets and used them to protect the finish from scratches from the hemp rope they used to tie the piano in place.  The rest was tied down with nets, although a heavy blanket was placed over my instrument cases to protect them.

John took a few determined steps toward me, then stopped.  He looked ashamed that he was stopped by fear, but he told me that everything was out.

“Everything?” I asked.  Surely, they hadn’t got my clothes.  I doubt they could have stomached that.

“Everything,” John said again, firmly.  He paused for a moment, then as if he’d read my mind, told me, “You sure got a lot of clothes in a short amount of time.”

I stared at him, then ran toward the stairs, shouting, “Move!”  They all did, and I went up the stairs two at a time.  I entered my apartment and just stared.  Everything was gone!  I went into my bedroom and bathroom.  That must have been what John was doing while the others brought stuff down.  He was packing everything.  Why would he do that for me?  I had thought they’d just get the heavy stuff, but no.

I went downstairs, and saw Marc and the three guys pulling the first trailer away.  John sat on the tractor ready to pull my piano downstairs.  “I’m sure you don’t want to ride on the tractor with me here, but there’s room at the back of the trailer.”  He was right.  There was a mesh tailgate that lowered into a ramp, allowing people to load stuff with a hand truck.  The piano had been loaded to one side, leaving a space I could ride, approximately a meter square.  That would put me about eight meters from John.  I could probably handle that, but I shook my head.

“No thanks, I’ll walk.”  He looked both disappointed and relieved as he shrugged.  “No problem,” he said.

“I also want to tell you of a development from yesterday.  Marc and I didn’t want to mention it in front of the other men without your approval.”

“And what is that?” I asked.  “Was this whole helping me move just to give me some news?”

“That’s ridiculous, and you know it,” He answered.  He stared at me until I nodded, signifying he was right.  He started the tractor moving, and said, “I’ll tell you when we get into the passageway.”  A moment later, I thought to myself, to hell with it and I ran up to the trailer, grabbed the tailgate and jumped on.  He stopped the tractor and looked back at me, smiling.  I stared defiantly at him.  A few minutes later, we entered the corridor to take us downstairs.

It’s always strange when your muse takes off in a different direction than what you had intended. This chapter is NOT what I envisioned, but hey. It works, so who am I to complain? I only hope I did it justice. Otherwise, the muse may give me the silent treatment for awhile. She’s finicky like that.

Chapter 1.8

I walked into my apartment, and couldn’t believe my eyes. While I had almost expected it, seeing what they had done packing, I was surprised. I had placed holders for all of my small instruments on the wall in the old place. While this was a mirror image of the old rooms, everything had been put away the same way.

My piano was sitting across the room from the display of instruments, in exactly the same position it had been in. Only everything was reversed.

I checked out my kitchen alcove, and things were where I had them in the old place as well. My bathroom and bedroom were the same. I wondered how much fear John had faced while touching my clothes. Just the thought of him touching them horrified me, but on a lower level, I appreciated what he had done. It was kind and thoughtful, something I had doubted a man could be.

I debated washing all of my clothes because I knew he had touched them. Instead, I went to my computer and typed a message, just two words long, and then sent it to John. “Thank You.” I didn’t want to face him and cause as much fear as that would bring to both of us. Sending a text would be much less of a trigger.

I sat down in my recliner and pressed the button that raised my feet. I had planned on this once I got done unpacking, and now found it really wasn’t necessary. I reached for my books that were usually on a table on my right, then realized they were on my left. These were reprints that a friend had made for me, I had rewritten them from memory, thanks to my nanites, and they had been printed as soon as we had paper to use. I hadn’t asked for them. They had been a gift. I picked up one that was a music text, then thought better of it. I wasn’t tired. In fact I had sat watching the men working, so my backside really didn’t want to be used for sitting for awhile.

I went outside, and it was much easier. There was not a man in sight, but quite a few women were working on storefronts. I looked to the right, and there was a large space being unused. I was disappointed as I would love something this size for another restaurant. For a moment I wondered if any shop I set up should be temporary. What if I was touched by a man?

During our trip downstairs, John had told me that we had finally lost contact with Earth. The signal started degrading during our reception, and it disappeared a moment later. Our people were checking everything on our end, but in reality we just felt we were too far away to receive anymore. Thus, we didn’t have Earth’s vastly more experience with this situation.

I got to thinking about it, and realized I wouldn’t be leaving this bay, very much anyway. I had told John and Marc that Kari and I would communicate through communications. If I set up my restaurant, I would be able to do my commander stuff from home, and my music and cooking in the restaurant. I shouldn’t have to leave at all.

We built a room behind my kitchen to contact the command center from. It was a perfect location where I could keep an eye on things during the day although I had a wonderful assistant chef who could cook rings around most people.

I had split my cooking to six hours before my command time and four after. While that only left six hours to sleep, I had always done fine with that before. I also allowed my assistant to cook the ‘weekend’ meals, so I got some time off for relaxing.

Once again, our lives became a routine, day in and day out, until one morning, Kari and I both got a call early from John and Marc.

“We need you to meet us in the small circle,” John said.

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. He wanted us to go out of our bay. Out where the men were! I didn’t know if I could handle it. I hadn’t seen a man in five months.

“There’s been an… incident there,” Marc said.

“You’re gonna have to give me more than that,” Kari told him. “I’m not coming there for an ‘incident’.”

“Uh… You might want to for this one,” John told us.

“What’s going on, John?” I asked.

“Someone was attacked outside the control room.” John hesitated, then his face went whiter than it had been before. “She was killed.”

I was on my feet in a second, and out the door, hurrying down the street. It took me a moment to realize Kari was right beside me.

“Stupid men!” She was very hot. I grabbed her arms and turned her toward me. “We can be angry, yes. But we have to maintain clear heads. We have no idea who killed her. For that matter, we have no idea yet who was killed. She may not even be a heterosexual woman.” I paused for a second, then added, “Not that it matters. Whoever it is, we have to deal with it as professionals.”

“I know, but I need to get rid of the anger before we get there.” I thought for a moment and realized she was right.

“Stupid men!” I said, then we both smiled. We couldn’t laugh, under the circumstances. Possibly one of our own had been killed, and we were going into the arena where it had probably been done.

---

When we arrived, we approached slowly. We saw John and Marc standing off to the side, and a medic was crouched looking at something beside a body. We stopped before we could identify the woman. We really didn’t want to get any closer. It looked to me like she had been beaten terribly.

John was positively green, and he stepped around the carnage and walked to within just a couple of meters of us. We were both so infuriated by the death, we stood our ground. Not that I didn’t feel like turning and running back to our sanctuary.

John looked positively green. His eyes seemed to be flashing in anger. For a moment I thought we were going to have to defend ourselves, but when he stopped, we could see he had been crying too.

I couldn’t figure out why he would be crying over the death of a woman… unless…

“Who was it, John?” I asked.

“It was Perl,” he said, his voice flat.

We had both known her for a long time, even before we were forced into the station. Both of us had gone out with her many times. Not a romantic thing; just as friends.

“Who did this?” I looked to my side. Kari and I had been holding hands for support, and she was squeezing mine hard. She was more pissed than I had ever seen her.

“We don’t know,” Marc had joined us, and he looked about as sick as John did.

At that moment, Kari gave a stifled cry, and her knees buckled. Marc looked torn. He wanted to help her, but the fear kept him back. I ended up supporting her weight and lowering her to the ground.

I looked beyond the two men facing us, and I saw why Kari had fainted. I heavily fell to the ground, managing to land on my butt. The Medic had moved to the body and the item he had been examining was left in gruesome display. It was Perl’s head, her platinum blonde hair covered with red.

I put my head down and started bawling. I heard a shuffling and looked up. John was kneeling in front of me; out of arm's reach but close enough that I could make out every detail of his face. Strangely, I wasn’t feeling any fear for a change. I almost wanted to bury my face in his chest and cry, and I would have, but a different fear stopped me. I didn’t want to change John to a woman, accidently.

The medic walked toward us, and stopped about five meters away. “Can I talk to you, gentlemen?”

John turned and looked at the man. I couldn’t see his face from my anger, but I heard his voice. “Anything you have to say needs to be told to these ladies as well. We are EQUAL in our rank. Is that clear?”

I couldn’t see John’s face, but I could see the medic’s. He looked at John with more fear than he did me or Kari. He gulped, and I imagined I could hear it even where I was. “Yes, Sir,” he said very slowly.

Then, something very strange happened. John reached out toward me. I started to shy away, but held his hand up. He was wearing gloves. “Are you afraid of me right now?”

I thought about it, and realized I wasn’t. I shook my head. I knew my eyes had widened in surprise. He took both my wrists and told me, “Whatever you do, make sure our faces don’t touch.” Then he pulled me to my feet. For a moment, he steadied me, then we walked towards Perl’s body. It was so strange. There was no fear of him at all; just gratitude… and something else. I didn’t have time to examine that, however as we were not standing by the remains of our friend.

Marc and Kari were suddenly standing to my right, Marc in between me and Kari. Again the fear was not there. I knew the lack was from what had happened to Perl, and hoped that her death might give us some insight into what was going on.

“We need to have a female medic here too.” My voice was wracked with sobs as I tried to speak.

“I’m not good enough?” the medic sneered from somewhere behind me.

John whirled around, almost pulling my arm out of its socket. His voice was full of fury now, and as I was right beside him, I could see his face. It was as if all of the terror he had felt over the past six months was coming out in the form of anger. “If you speak to her that way one more time, I will make sure you are working in the recycling plants for the next millenia.”

“John, it’s okay. We’re all upset here,” I said, patting his hand in… I don’t know. The only emotion I could think of I shouldn’t be feeling for him.

He turned to face me. The anger seemed to melt off his face and was replaced by tenderness. “No,” he said. “No it’s not okay. I’ve missed you, and for the first time since this mess began, I’m not afraid of you.” He looked at Marc and Kari who both wore astonished expressions. He seemed to dare them to stop him from saying what he wanted, no matter the circumstances. “I’m standing here, holding you. I’m feeling terrible about Perl, but at the same time, I’m able to acknowledge my feelings for you. I’m having a hard time understanding this.”

I backed away from him and he lowered his eyes to the space between us. He looked back at me and I could see the hurt in his eyes. It must have been hard for him to say those things. I know I was feeling hurt as well, and I know he saw it in me.

“I guess the feelings aren’t reciprocated.” he said sadly.

He was turning back when he stopped. He heard me say, “They are.” He turned back, confusion on his face. “I backed away, because I didn’t want to turn you into a woman, John.”

He stared at me, then seemed to realize what I meant. I stepped back to his side, and stared at our friend. The Medic walked around us and gave us his report. He was still clearly disturbed by us. I wasn’t sure if he was afraid or angry.

I was having feelings for the man standing to my left, I had no fear of the man on my right, and I was pissed beyond measure at whoever had done this to my friend.

May God help the person when I found out who it was,.

One of the strange things about dealing with a character like ‘Caesar’ in this story, and what he might consider to be total fun, is it allows my imagination to go to some very strange places, indeed.

So far, my muse isn’t giving me the silent treatment. I’m hoping that continues.

Chapter 1.9

Kari and I went with John and Marc to the command center. Carter was there, replacing some burnt out equipment. He stared at me and Kari like we were vampires, or something.

“Carter,” I asked, “Would you excuse us for a few minutes?”

We cleared the way to the door, and Carter bolted. I sat down in the chair I had once used all the time. It was strange. I could think about having once been male, but it didn’t scare me anymore. Not at all.

It was so strange. My emotions were swinging up and down. For a moment, I would be furious and despondent about Perl’s death… I suppose murder was the undeniable conclusion. The next, I was giddy and frustrated about John’s feelings for me. Giddy because of someone to spend my time with on this voyage of forever to nowhere, and frustrated, because anything physical was a virtual impossibility.

Was it my rollercoaster of emotions that was masking the fear, or was something else happening that we had no idea about?

Another idea came to my head, and as I looked at John, I became a hundred times more fearful than I had before. It had nothing to do with Caesar or his tricks. But what if this was a different swing to his play? What if the fear was disappearing, and in its place was coming attraction? If my attraction for John grew, would I be able to resist? Would we end up in bed together and hang the consequences? What if this happened to everyone? I could see a station where everyone changed sex every day, even multiple times. Was that what Caesar had in mind? Complete chaos because we wanted physical fulfilment so bad, we didn’t care what happened afterwards?

My mind was running away from me, but I had no idea what was going on, or what was likely to.

I looked at him, and he had the sweetest smile. I could feel his arms around me, our lips touching….

Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped up and ran from the room. John followed, and I could hear him shouting my name as I ran to the ‘U’ corridors. I lost my footing in the shifting gravity, and tripped, falling onto the carpet. I felt the blood start to flow from one knee. “Damn,” I thought. “That’s gonna ruin these jeans.” I rolled over and looked at the hole that had been made. Already, the blood had stopped, and a layer of nanites was weaving itself across the injury.

I heard John’s footsteps as he came running into the ‘J’ walkway I was in. From my perspective, I had to look up to meet his eyes. He came partway up the curved floor and stopped.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m not him anymore,” I said. For some reason, it had never dawned on me to change my name. I had just left it. Everyone on the station knew me, and it just seemed too much trouble to get them used to a new name. There was already enough that they needed to get used to.

He knelt down, presumably so I wouldn’t get a crick in my neck looking up at him. “I’m very much aware that you aren’t ‘him’ anymore.”

"Why did you run?" he asked.

"We're in there to figure out what happened to Perl, and I can't keep my mind on that. It keeps wandering to other things… to you." I was crying again. "You really want to know, my emotions are in turmoil!"

"Is it…" he paused, clearly trying to be diplomatic.

I glanced up and realized what he was trying to say. "Not that time of month!"

"Can you come back so we can discuss the investigation?"

I shook my head. "No. I can't focus."

"Because of me?"

I gave a half smile. "Yes. Because of you."

“So what do you want to do?”

I sat up and pushed myself against the wall behind me. It wasn’t fear now. I was trying to protect myself from my own feelings. I drew my knees up and hugged them instead of him.

I shook my head. He knew how I felt, so there really wasn’t any need for me to not meet his eyes. When I did, however, I had to look away. “I’m not sure if I’m feeling the way I do because of Caesar or something else. When I became a woman, were my hormones pushed through the roof? John, I think I’m in love with you. I have been for quite some time, but I’ll be honest. If this is something from Caesar, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

I watched as he seemed to crumble. I wanted to reach out and touch him. If I’d had gloves, I would have. Again, I felt myself becoming more under some spell. I hugged my legs so tight I thought I might shatter them. I wanted to heal the hurt I saw in his face, but I wasn’t sure if I dared. Would I fall to the spell completely if I tried? I squeezed my eyes shut, and I felt tears leak out.

“John,” I finally said, “I promise you. When we get this figured out, if I still feel this way, you had better watch out. There won’t be anything that will keep me away from you.”

He managed a smile, and told me, “I will definitely hold you to that.”

---

We went back to the site of the murder. It seemed so strange to me that I would have no fear of, and such compelling feelings for, John. As I slipped some gloves onto my hands, I knelt down to look at my friend one last time. I would have preferred not to remember her like this, but we really didn’t have anyone who knew anything about solving crimes. It was up to the four of us to figure out what had happened.

“Do we know when it happened?” I asked.

“I wish I could give you an exact time, Ma’am,” the medic said, “but I’m not advanced enough in my courses. I’m really sorry.”

I looked at him, surprised. He was kneeling on the other side of the body with absolutely no appearance of fear or revulsion. I held my gloved hand out over Perl, and said to him, “Touch my hand. I’m wearing a glove, you’re in no danger.”

He did. No problem.

I held my hand up to Marc. “Marc?”

“Touch your hand?”

“Please.”

He did as well.

“Kari?”

“There’s no reason I wouldn’t touch your hand,” she said.

“No, but will you touch Marc’s?”

There was no problem there either.

“What is going on here?” the medic asked. “I shouldn’t be willing to be anywhere near you, and I’m less than a meter from you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I should be running from here, screaming. Instead, I…. Well…” I blushed.

The medic glanced between me and John, then gave a small smile. “Got it.”

Then he did something strange. He took a small knife out of a wrapper, made a tiny puncture in a finger, then put some of the blood on a microscope slide. Next, he took out another slide and did the same with some of Perl’s. He took out a portable microscope and looked his blood.

“My nanites are still active. They shouldn’t be, though. They should have died by now.”

He switched out the slides and looked at the other. “Perl’s nanites are definitely active, but it seems as though they are slowing down.”

“Give me one of your knives,” I told him.

He handed one to me. “This is a scalpel,” he corrected me.

“Whatever,” I said as I got a bit of blood on it. “Check this against yours.”

He raised an eyebrow, then nodded as he put some of my blood on the slide with his. “They’re not interacting.”

He thought about it for a moment, then removed a glove. He held out his hand to me. “Take out your glove and touch my hand.”

“What?!!?”

He sighed. “Ma’am, this is not something I really want, but we have to know if there’s a reaction or not. This is the only way we can be sure. Besides, if there is one, I’ll just have John or Marc touch me.”

“Uh huh,” I said doubtfully. I thought about it for a few minutes. It was logical, but I still didn’t like it. I had never even accidentally changed a man to a woman, and here he was, asking me to do it deliberately. I thought about it, and realized we were right. We needed to find out, because something seemed to have removed all of our fear. He was voluntarily asking to be touched by a woman. That would NEVER have happened yesterday. I looked at him to make sure he was serious, then peeled of my glove. I grabbed a new one to use after this experiment. I was not happy.

“What’s your name?” I asked the medic.

“Randolph.”

“So Randy?” I asked.

“My family usually calls me that,” He answered.

“You realize in just a few moments it might be Brandy, right?”

He laughed, but there was a touch of nervousness in it.

John moved to behind Randy and said, “I’m going to hold your arm so you don’t put the activity into this. I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to change her into a man.”

The medic nodded. “I guessed that, Sir.”

John grabbed his upper arm, and in his eyes, I could see apprehension. As far as we knew, this had never been done before. He was going to be touching the arm of someone who may be changing.

“You don’t have to do this, John. I’ll take my chances,” I gently told him.

He shook his head.

Could I do this, not having any idea of the risks for either Randy or John? What if there was some change we hadn’t seen yet? God only knew what Caesar had arranged. I gave voice to these fears, and it didn’t change Randy’s resolve at all.

“I’m aware of the risks,” he said, "but we have to know what will happen now.”

John nodded as well. I knew there was no way I was going to dissuade him. I had seen this determination too much over the years but what if he changed too? I took a deep breath and touched Randy’s hand.

I watched, fascinated as Randy seemed to melt and reform. I knew it must have been similar with me, all those months ago. When it was done, I looked at John. I had been so interested in what was happening with Randy, that I hadn’t even glanced at this man for whom I was obviously developing feelings.

Chapter 10

John was still sitting with his hand holding back Randy’s… or should I say Brandy’s? I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that it was still his hand. He seemed rather pleased as well. I turned back to Randy, or rather Brandy. “Well?”

“Apparently, there is still the same effects as there has always been,” she said.

Kari knelt down. “What about fear? Everyone I’ve talked to who has been transformed has reported that their fear has completely reversed. Instead of being scared of women, they were now scared of men.”

Randy nodded. “I’ve talked to men who had been women as well. They reported a mirror effect. As far as me, I had no fear anymore.” She turned her attention to me. “I am so sorry. My attitude this morning was not based on fear, but rather the memory of it. I expected to be afraid, so I built a wall to protect myself.”

“I understand,” I said as I rose to my feet. I turned to John, who had also stood.

“There is one more thing I’ve noticed with those who have been transformed. They always exhibit no desire to return to their former sex or gender.”

Randy seemed to think about it for awhile. “I see no reason to return to being a male. I suppose, I should get used to being called Brandy now.”

“What did you feel like before the transformation, as far as gender identity is concerned?” Kari asked.

“I wanted to be a male. I really didn’t want to transform, but I was willing to because we needed to know.”

“Don’t you think you should transform back? You said before that you would if there was a transformation,” I told her gently. “This is not who you are. Being forced to be something you are not is not right.”

I could feel John’s eyes on me as I said this. I wondered how he was going to take what I was saying. I’m sure he was not liking what he was hearing. I wasn’t liking saying it either, but I didn’t like Randy being brainwashed into being Brandy.

“I understand,” the medic said. “I know what you are saying, but it is as if I have always been a woman now. I can’t even imagine going back. I know what I used to be, but I am comfortable in this skin. The desire to return is simply not there.”

“We can’t force a return on you,” John told her. “If you want to stay as you are, I will respect that.” I knew he was saying that for other reasons as well. The fact was, I didn’t want to return either. I was very happy as I now was, so I wasn’t about to argue the point. I could see Marc wanting to say something, but Kari got his attention and shook her head. I think he almost said something anyway, but he seemed to think better of it. He nodded to her. Instead, he told us, “This is all very interesting, but I would like to know who killed Perl.”

Brandy arranged for Perl’s body to be transferred to the hospital, such as it was. Since the nanites handled most things, it was actually more of a research clinic. Brandy had started out as an agricultural researcher. I guess that was not considered to be detrimental to Caesar’s plans because she, or rather he at the time, was allowed to remain alive.

I was a little apprehensive as to how the men that worked with Randy would respond to this new female version. She warned them that she was now female and would be making her appearance. From what she told me later, it had not gone well. The fear was still there.

“So what freed us from the fear?” I asked when she and I met a few days later.

“Is the fear still gone?” she countered?

“Were you afraid of the men in your clinic?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not the way you’re thinking. I was afraid because they were afraid of me, however. I wasn’t sure how they would react when I walked in.

“What about Perl’s nanites?”

“They would have to be airborne,” she explained. "That doesn’t seem to be the case. They don’t….” She hesitated, then shook her head. “Of course! I have no idea how he programmed this, but remember, to transform someone, there had to be the conscience, or unconscious act of ‘touching. When I put her blood and mine on the same slide, there was no reaction, but who touched who?”

“I would say whoever’s blood went on the second time,” I responded.

“But there was no physical contact between bodies. Perhaps the ‘strong feelings’ between you and John are part of the ‘Total Fun’ as well.”

“Where’d that thought come from?” I asked.

She laughed. "Just thinking out loud.”

“Okay. In that case, why would Kari and Marc not be subject to that?”

“You’ve told me that you and John have been very good friends for a long time. Didn’t your mother once joke that you were such close friends, if one of you were female, you’d get married?”

“Yes, she did, but that negates your argument.”

“Kari and Marc, are an item. You’ve been so enamored with John you haven’t noticed. Besides, it took a bit longer, I’m guessing because they didn’t have an established relationship like you two do.”

I know my face went red with her use of the term ‘enamored.’ “You’re quite an observer.”

“Just part of a researcher’s job.”

I decided to change the subject. “Perl’s blood?”

“If the nanites were ‘aware’ of her death, they might have a trigger to change their function.”

I thought about that one. “That’s a possibility, but if they were dying, how will we test that?”

“The only way I can see is with another dead body.”

Yes, that made sense. “Problem with that,” I said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“You’re the only one who has volunteered their body for science, probably because you are no longer subject to the fear.”

The other three walked into the lounge while we were mulling things over.

We apprised them of what we had been discussing. I mentioned the problem with the fact that we needed another dead body to make more observations. “You’re not thinking of…” John asked, going white.

I smiled and shook my head. “While I have lived a relatively long time,” I said, “I have no real desire to end it now.”

He seemed relieved.

“I think we all agree that we aren’t going to make another body.” Kari seemed very adamant about it, and I couldn’t say I blamed her.

“So what do we do?” Marc asked no one in particular.

---

Later that day, we each asked for 2 volunteers from each gender to meet together. We explained that we thought the fear might be abating, but we were unsure. It took awhile to find people with enough courage, but we finally did. Except for intersex. We only had one one board. She was very lonely, afraid of everyone else on board.

It didn’t take long to find out that these people did NOT share our lack of fear now, which left us wondering if Perl’s nanites had changed with her death? It seemed that was a logical conclusion, but how could we be sure? Again, it seemed that making a new body was the only way to know for certain, but how could we do that? And what about the need to have a relationship? Also, what was keeping Brandy from having one?

It was hard to figure. Obviously, this was something that Caesar had decided on for a new twist, but why? What would happen if we had sex in this. We were soon to find out.

---

The next morning, in the command center, Marc and Kari showed up, hand in gloved hand, but obviously, it HADN’T been that way the entire night. Somewhere, they had switched places.

In retrospect, that made no sense, unless…

The short, partially Scottish lass told us they had been unable to resist the pull of their ‘urges’ and had engaged in intercourse three times last night, changing sex each time.

“Well, that answers two questions,” I commented. “We know what happens when you copulate, and we also know that you can switch back and forth.”

“It answers another question as well,” Kari told us. “Somehow, things are based on intent, at least some of the time. Nothing happened until we were…” He paused as if searching for the right words. “In the midst of things.”

“So you’re telling me that… uh…” John didn’t seem to be able to finish his sentence.

“It was a unique experience,” Marc told us.

“So are you going to….” I really didn’t want to pry, and I felt the blood rushing to my face, but for the sake of observation, I needed to know. Perhaps under the circumstances, observation wasn’t the right word.

“Do it again?” Kari asked. “I think that’s a fair bet.”

A few minutes later, Brandi entered the command center. She was somewhat excited. There had been another murder. This time, it was our intersexed woman. The man who had found her seemed to have no fear any more.

We rushed to the ‘J’ walkway where Carla’s body was. She was killed in exactly the same way Perl was. A big man was there. I recognized him as one of my movers. His name was Ralf, and as he was explaining how he had found the body, I saw that his eyes kept straying to Brandy -- even when he was answering a question from one of the rest of us. I also noticed that Brandy could not seem to take her eyes off of him.

John put what I was thinking into words. “I believe another twist has been verified.”

“What’s that?” Brandy asked in a rather dreamy voice.

“You haven’t been able to take your eyes off of Ralf since we got here. Not to mention he is looking at you in the same way.”

Both of them looked away, blushing, but it wasn’t long before they were back to gazing.

“One thing you should know,” said Marc. “We both hate the way we are right now. Another part of the twist is that once you give into the urges, it seems you have to continue as much as possible, however, when you are in the opposite body, you cannot wait until you are switched back.”

Kari continued. “The length of time between the switches seems to lengthen each time. Right now, we could go back to our room and have sex, but we wouldn’t change.”

“What if I were to touch you?” Brandy asked her.

“That’s an idea,” Kari told her. “We could try it.”

Brandy and Kari both removed their gloves, and Brandy reached out to touch Kari. While it was plain to see, Kari did not move her hand toward the other woman, it was not her that changed. Instead, Brandy changed back into her old self.

As soon as the change had completed, both Brandy and Ralf started to convulse, as if they were in pain. Quickly, I reached out to touch Brandy’s hand. Once more, she started to reform. She became a woman very quickly. Once it was done, however, she seemed extremely weak. I suppose I would be as well, had I changed twice like that. I watched as she took one last breath, and that was it. She died.

We had no time for grief, however, because there was obviously a bond between Brandy and Ralf. His convulsions started in earnest. He let out a scream, whether of grief or pain, I wasn’t sure, then he collapsed. He too was dead.

Chapter 1.11

I was devastated. It was terrible investigating a headless corpse, but to watch someone who had become a friend die right in front of you was somehow even worse.

I had to pull myself back to the murders, however. I had a theory about them, but I had no way of testing it. It seemed too convenient that the murders were happening and leading to another twist. Was this programmed into the nanites? Were they making someone do it? We had never had a murder before now. Arguments, certainly, but murder? Hardly. The four of us met in the medical clinic the next morning. People were not happy to see me or Kari, now a woman again, come into the clinic.

“We need to test everyone for lying,” I stated.

“Why lying?” Marc wondered.

“You don’t think they’re going to tell the truth about murdering someone, do you?” John agreed with me, but that wasn't a surprise.

“I suppose not.”

Something had been bothering me, but I hadn’t been able to place it. Now, I did. “Look at this cut,” I said, pointing to the obvious one on Carla’s body. “Can anyone tell me which way whatever made it went through?”

Nobody said anything. Finally, I said, “Exactly. It doesn’t look like any tool was used. Perl’s was the same way.”

“What are you saying?” Kari asked.

“We’ve been travelling in groups, or at least pairs for protection. I seriously doubt that would help. If nanites can reform the entire body, what’s to stop them from amputating any part of the body at any time?”

“That’s crazy!” exclaimed Marc.

“So was Caesar,” I returned calmly.

“Well isn’t that just lovely,” John muttered.

---

We returned to the room off the command center and John pointed something else out.

“Marc and Kari; you have found that touching each other does not change your sex. The act of sex is what does it. What if one of us touched our opposite in you?”

“We have no idea,” Kari pointed out. “I would hesitate on touching each other, though. Our physical relationship didn’t start until we accidently touched. That seemed to intensify our feelings until we couldn’t fight it anymore.”

Inside, I felt deflated. I wanted so badly to feel his arms around me, especially with all that had been happening. I also knew that I could never go back to being a man. If I did, even accidently, we would convulse until I became a woman again, or possibly, until John did. I wondered if we would hate being the opposite sex. I suspected that since we had a bond, we would. I really wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

We had no recourse but to wait.

---

It was about two weeks later that another person was killed. This time, a man. We were constantly afraid that one of us would be killed, causing our mate to be killed as well. We had seen it happen, and the convulsions appeared to be a horrible way to die.

I missed Brandy very much. She had seemed to have a head for the investigation. We had recruited another man to help us investigate, several days before, as we knew we would have another death. His name was Roman.

The problem was, Roman had been there when the man died. It turned out he had been in a homosexual relationship with Louis, the dead man. They had continued with their physical relationship, as they were not afraid of each other, and no sex change was going to happen for them. They had been living together throughout 'Total Fun'.

Roman was training as a medic, and had been second only to Brandy. Louis had worked in hydroponics.

Louis had died in the main circle on the upper side, and about twenty men had been nearby. All of them had lost their fear afterwards, and were standing not far away as we knelt by the body. The cause of death was the same. We had been starting to wonder if the deaths would happen only in seclusion. Now we knew; they would not.

I hated to ask Roman what happened, so I turned to the group. “Are any of you medics? This will be very hard on Roman, so I think we need to question somebody else.”

No one volunteered and I wasn’t surprised. I had smelled vomit when I entered the circle.

I turned to Roman, and realized some of it was on his shoes, and even more, not far from the body of his lover. I couldn’t ask him. I stood and walked over to the men. “I need to know what happened,” I said. “Who saw it happen?”

One man slowly raised his hand. “Come with me, please.”

We stepped about ten meters away, and I asked.

His color suddenly went white as he told me. “I was heading in the same direction as them, but slightly behind. They were holding hands, and stopped. They turned to each other and kissed, then his face froze. He was still smiling at Roman, but his body just gave a tremble, and his head fell onto the floor. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and I could see him move his eyes to look at his body as it fell. His body twitched a few times, then stopped moving. It seemed like his head lived for about thirty seconds, then it stopped moving. I lost my lunch over there.” He pointed off to the side of where the body lay. “So did the Roman.” I could see tears forming in his eyes. They were forming in mine as well, and I knew I had gone white.

John had walked over before the man had started. I was glad Kari hadn’t. I was thinking about Perl dying in the ‘J’ walkway like that, all alone. Kari and Perl had been friends, so I knew she would have hated to hear it. I had thought Ralf’s death had been terrible. That last thirty seconds for Louis was worse than anything I can imagine, seeing what had happened to you and knowing what was coming. I realized that somewhere in the conversation, John had gripped my hand. I was squeezing his very hard. Suddenly, I remembered. I wasn’t wearing gloves yet! I looked down, and breathed a sigh of relief. John was.

“Do you always have guys walking around out here in the circle?” John asked.

“A lot of us are homosexual. There’s a couple of bis as well, but I don’t associate with them. They scare me. Is Roman going to be okay?”

“It will probably take awhile for him to recover from Louis’ death, but he should be,” I told him.

“I’m glad to hear it. He called for help, and I ran over. Obviously there wasn’t much I could do for Louis, but I held Roman for a little while.”

I stared at him for a moment. I had a feeling what would come. There would probably be a bond between them, but what would happen if they had sex? I guessed we’d see eventually.

---

Ten days after Louis died, a straight woman died. This was the start of a run of people dying. I can definitely say that it left us reeling. The next day, we received three different reports of people dying.

With so much happening, I began to wonder if John and I should just give in and begin a physical relationship. We arranged for a place to speak with privacy, and talked about it. I was rather surprised when he made the decision that we wouldn’t.

“I want it to be something special that we decide on our own. Not something decided for us by Caesar.”

“Do you think we will ever defeat this?” I asked him.

“I certainly hope so.”

I thought for a moment, and asked a question I really didn’t want to. “I know you felt that Brandy should go back to being Randy. What about me?”

“I’ve thought about that. You can’t go back. Not without us both dying. I would gladly trade my life for you to go back, if I could. However if I were to, you would die also. That is unacceptable to me.”

“Yes, but that isn’t logical,” I argued. “You said you want our relationship to not be forced on us by Caesar. If we ever get to that point, I will be able to go back.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to stop him. “I have been a woman for several months. I seriously doubt that I would ever be comfortable going back.”

“Now who’s being illogical?” He asked. “If you were to be touched by a man…” he stopped, remembering the outcome of that. “Okay, point taken,” he conceded.

We were both seated on a couch that was L shaped. We were on either side of the ninety degrees. I got up and sat down on the other side of him. We had gotten into the habit of wearing gloves around each other. I got as close to him as I could and put my head on his shoulder. I would have much rather sit on his lap and cuddle, but I was afraid that might lead to something much more. What I was doing was dangerous enough. I was very careful that my face did not touch any of his skin, but I knew an accident could happen.

“I love you,” I finally said, my voice breaking as I started to sob.

He sat there, unmoving for a long time, then finally; “I love you too.”

---

The next day, two people died. Again, we were feeling the punch from Caesar’s tricks. The only good thing was that we were getting an ever larger number of people who had no fear of any other gender. We decided to call a meeting of those people.

Marc and Kari led the meeting, while John and I sat in the front row. They spoke for quite some time, telling of their experiences. We weren’t sure what any audience participation would bring, but it was revealing. One man stood up and told us that he and his partner had a physical relationship, and during a conversation with a husband and wife, there was an accidental skin to skin touch between his partner, another man, and the wife. Nothing had happened.

With a bit of questioning, it turned out that the man and wife had a physical relationship as well.

So the benefits of a bond with physical relationship was you could no longer be transformed by any other touch except while in sex with your mate. As well, there was no fear.

The cons were that you died when your mate did, period. Or so we gathered. It was very hard to tell, because there were changes with the sex act.

Another thing that was discovered, was that the sex always came in groups of three. However each time between a group got longer. I looked at our two friends, and Kari seemed to be thinking. Finally, she said, “I had never really noticed before, but you’re right. It’s not by much, but if the trend continues eventually it will be a long time that you have to spend as your opposite sex. That will be completely miserable.”

“So,” John said, “The tradeoff for a physical relationship with your mate is that you have to spend a longer and longer time miserable afterward.”

“It seems so,” Marc agreed.

“Is there any way to avoid sex?” I asked bluntly?

“Only the way you and John are doing it,” Kari answered. “Don’t touch each other.”

“But if I accidently am touched by someone else, I will probably kill us both,” I responded.

---

A few weeks later, John and I met again where I first told him that I loved him. We were not sure what to do now. Do we give in, risking an eventual long term being miserable, or do we remain as we were, risking life and limb?

I know what I wanted to do, and I’m sure John did as well. The bond was getting deeper and deeper. So much so, that I sometimes thought I could feel his emotions when we were in our own rooms.

I was having a hard time sleeping too. He had told me of the same problems. It was such that when I fell asleep, I was jerked back awake almost immediately. I was now getting very little sleep at all, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep going like this. I don’t know how, but I knew if we had sex, I would no longer have this problem.

I told John of it, and waited. I had no idea what he would do, but I didn’t expect his response. He leaned over and kissed me.

---

I know the nanites beheading their host is strange, but then again, my muse appears to have an much odder imagination than I have.

Chapter 12

That night, we made love. As we expected, we switched sex, and during the day, we both had to endure being something we were not. Granted, I had been a male for many years -- over two hundred, but I was completely acclimated to being female now. John and I had grown up together, and he was just as comfortable being a male as I was female. I have to say, he made an attractive woman, but he was positively grim all day. We were both thrilled the next day to become ourselves again.

Three times a night was what seemed mandatory. I suppose that it was the most our bodies could endure. There was a two hour break in between each time, then after the third time we fell deep asleep. I had vivid nightmares each time, and John confided in me that he did as well.

We seemed to be in a hiatus in the murders. There had been none for quite some time, and we were hoping there would not be any more.

Marc and Kari told us one day that their time as the opposite sex had levelled off at forty-eight hours. While I found the thought of remaining male for two days horrible to contemplate, I seriously doubted that Caesar had left things there. I was certain that we were in for another twist.

“I am sorry to say it, but I’m sure that we have something new in store,” I told them.

They both nodded, solemnly. “We figured,” Marc told us. “ I’m just hoping that it’s not something we can’t handle.”

It was horrible when it arrived. They had been at forty-eight hours for about thirty days, when things changed for them. Kari told me that she had been terrified of Marc that night. She was afraid that Marc was going to force himself on her, and she couldn’t bear the thought. She complied simply to protect herself. They didn’t change until the end of the third time. For awhile that day, she had been afraid of him still, but it slowly faded, and she was happy with him again. Of course, they were the opposite sex now, and she noticed as she lost her fear of Marc, he seemed to be growing fearful of her. They were still on speaking terms, but Marc constantly seemed to be on edge.

"Wouldn't it be terrible if Caesar made everyone go through a period when they were scared?" John half joked. He stopped and thought about what he had said.

"Oh dear God, no," I said. Kari and I were the only ones who had dealt with a period before. Marc and John, even though they had spent a considerable amount of time as women now, had never experienced that particular pleasure.

---

Later that day we were in the command center when a light started blinking. It was the incoming communication light. What is going on? I wondered. I walked over and accepted the communication. It was from Earth!

It was Freeman, once again as a man!

To the people on N21. This is Freeman.

I’m not sure how long we have for this communication, so I hope you’re recording. I fully expect this to burn out our comm system.

The picture was grainy, and there was a lot of static in it, but we were receiving, and it was intelligible.

I want to tell you what we have tried to defeat the ‘Total Fun’ problems. We have still not been able to do it, but I want you to know. Maybe you’ll get some ideas from our failures.

The first thing we tried was looking for more documentation on the nanites. We could find none. Well, we found some, but it did not include any programming. The nanites are designed to be impermeable, as I’m sure you know. They are designed to withstand almost anything. We were not sure how much, but we found that the only way they die, is if the host dies. Obviously, that is not a desirable outcome.

We tried to set up an EMP, but when our scientists did, they were promptly killed by the nanites.

We tried an acid only known to affect metal, but the things are encased in an organic shell, so there was no effect. The acid could not get through.

Another attempt was to set up a local EMP, only affecting one person at a time. Again, there was no effect.

We heard a knocking on Freeman’s door, and he glanced that way, but then ignored it.

I have to hurry. We tried… He broke off when the knocking turned to pounding. We heard wood splintering. Shit! I’m sending you a file which contains everything our scientists attempted. BANG! BANG! This will be the last message from me. He reached out and touched a button. Goodbye N21! Freeman out!

He stood and turned to face the door but he left the comm going. There was an explosion of the door and whatever they used turned it into shrapnel. Several pieces directly hit Freeman. He was flung backwards by the explosion, his arms and legs stretched out in front of him. He hit the wall with incredible force, and I was afraid his back would be broken.

He slid down the wall, and then slumped over where we couldn’t see his face, but while he was sliding, we saw that he was hardly recognizable. His face had been demolished, and his chest was covered with blood. Apparently, a piece of the door had cut through an artery in his neck, and it had left a considerable spray across the room as he flew. Now, it was sprayed out and then slowed to a trickle.

There was another explosion, this one seeming to burst from inside the room, and the screen pixelated, then went dark.

None of us could believe what had just happened. Marc grabbed a hard data repository for the information to go onto, then started it saving.

It took a considerable amount of time to save, but considering how long Earth had been able to work on things, It was no wonder.

I wondered what they had tried. It was a frightening prospect that over thousands of years, they hadn’t found anything that worked.

John and I left the command center and hand in hand, we walked around the upper, then lower circles. It was heartening to see that many couples were out for a stroll as well. It was also disheartening. How many people had to deal with the disgust of being the opposite sex for however long?

We finally went to my apartment, and I rummaged around in my recipes. I finally made a facsimile of chicken with peanut sauce and asparagus tips.

When John had finished his dinner, he sat back, gratified. “I have the best meals on this station,” he said. “The senior chef of the best restaurant, cooking a meal for just us.”

“That’s not all you get,” I told him as I grabbed his hand. He let me pull him up, then we made our way to my bedroom.

Four hours later, we fell asleep, and stayed that way for several hours.

---

It had been three weeks since we received the data from Earth. I was constantly wondering what had happened on our planet. We had lost our friend and source of information, but we wondered who had killed him. We had no doubt that he was dead. We showed the recorded video to Roman, and he told us there was no way a person could survive the carotid artery being severed. Even the nanites couldn’t help there.

Marc and Kari had extended their cycle time to a week now. John and I were at the forty-eight hour point, and I found that I was fearful of him now. True to form, the ghost of Caesar had given us another twist. Every time Marc and Kari swapped, the woman had a period. Thankfully, she was not afraid of him, but the periods were exceptionally terrible. Kari told me that she had never had one even half as bad. The cramps were extraordinary, and her emotions were such that nobody wanted to cross her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell John what we had to look forward to. It sounded bad enough to me. What would it do to him?

I saw the effect on Marc, and he told Kari and me that if this was what we had to deal with every month, he took back every joke he ever said about a woman during her time. Kari answered that this was way worse than any she had ever experienced, but she accepted the apology.

John heard and I saw him go white. He was not looking forward to this for himself.

Not much research in the Earth files got accomplished that week. Marc could not concentrate through the pain. All he wanted to do was sleep, but that was effectively stopped as well. I sat up with him for several hours each night I was a woman, and John did when he was.

We were grateful when the time came for him to change back.

---

When we reached the time that they were at, I was shocked. Nothing that Kari had said prepared me for how miserable it actually was.

What we had to look forward to was much worse, however.

Marc and Kari’s sex life had gone to one time every month, with a period for the woman lasting the entire time. For the men, it had become bad too. Marc explained it as a constant throbbing in his testicles as if he had been kicked there, and the pain simply would not diminish for the entire month. There seemed to be no way to simply block it out either. There was no getting used to it. It was constantly demanding that you felt it at its original intensity.

I had almost forgotten what being kicked there felt like. The times as a man hadn’t included that feeling. I remembered that it hurt like hell, but the feelings of being a woman had eclipsed that for me.

When John and I arrived at that point and I felt a month long, super intense period, I found myself looking forward to switching. That wasn’t such a good thing, however. When it was my turn to be male, I couldn’t do anything. I had needed support from John during my period, but now I found I couldn’t stand upright. I didn’t remember anything hurting so much from my time as a man. John told me he didn’t either. I wished that I could put my hands around Caesar’s throat and squeeze the life out of him, but I doubted I would be able to squeeze hard enough. The pain was simply too intense.

Somewhere, Marc had been able to find the time to finish going through the work that had been done on Earth. We met in the room by the command center again. It wasn’t good.

“They tried some very good ideas, and some that made almost no sense at all. I suppose when their good ideas ran out, they figured anything was worth a try.”

“Is anything worth revisiting?” John wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” Marc answered, his feminine voice sounding thoughtful. “I've got a few ideas. There are a few of their ideas that make me think they might work, if we could find a way of pulling it off.”

“Why?” I asked. John was in severe pain, and I’m not sure he or Kari were following the conversation very well.

“The scientists who were working on an EMP were killed. They were beheaded in the same way our murdered people were.”

“How do you propose we get around that little obstacle?” I asked. My emotions were high, and I was finding it hard to control my temper.

Marc was pretty pissed about everything in general too. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “The fact that they were killed, however, leads me to believe that they may have been onto something.” He sounded very mad as he told me his opinion.

“I’m sorry, Marc. I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

“You really didn’t,” he told me. “I think we’re both on edge. Let me do some more research and I’ll let you all know what I’ve found.”

“Okay,” I told him. I turned to John. “Let’s go back to your apartment. I’ll make some dinner for us.”

“I sincerely hope I can keep it down my dear,” he said as we stood. Well, him sort of.

Chapter 1.13

---

A few weeks later, we had some strange news. Marc and Kari had become their normal sex, and everything seemed to stop for them. They had a completely normal relationship; they weren’t switching every time they were physical, and could do it anytime they wanted. The big question was, why?

John and I arrived at that point six weeks later. It was incredible to no longer have such a strange situation everytime we had sex. Marc and Kari were still in the same stage. We knew that whatever happened to them, we had six more weeks before it happened to us.

They had become John and my best friends, but I was grateful every day that their situation remained stable, knowing we had at least six weeks of as well.

We were in the command center for another discussion. I’m not sure what we expected out of them. Knowing that Earth had ended up having thousands of times our experience, and still had not succeeded in defeating ‘Total Fun’, what could we hope to accomplish?

“Why were people killed for the EMP and not other things?” John began when we sat down.

“Well, first off, there were other things that ended up getting them killed,” Marc corrected.

“What?” I asked.

“It seemed like whenever someone seemed to be elated about something, they would lose their head.”

“Uh, that leaves a very wide range of things that can cause your death,” I said. “Feeling elated? What if John and I have a very special evening?”

“We never heard anything about that in their reports,” Kari explained. She smiled at her man. “Also, I can say from personal experience that being elated doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be killed.”

I smiled at John. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Okay, do we know the stages that are coming up for us?” John asked. He wasn’t ignoring me. He had one hand stroking my leg in response to what I had said.

Kari took over now. “We know about the first several stages, but I’ll go through the whole things now. They sent us an outline. It’s not pleasant to read. Especially what we have coming up next.” She passed out a paper to each of us, which had what we had been through and what we had coming literally for years to come.

1. The first person of a compatible gender that you come in contact with after you lose your fear obtains an emotional bond with you.

   1. You are under a compulsion to make love to this person constantly.

   2. Once you touch the person, the compulsion becomes irresistible.

   3. If one of you changed without the other one, convulsions occur in both.

   4. If one of you dies, the other does as well.

2. Changes occuring daily after three times of sex.

   1. Remaining the opposite sex gets increasingly longer.

   2. Being the opposite sex is abhorrent to the victim.

   3. Takes about three weeks, getting to forty eight hours.

      1. Forty eight hours lasts for thirty days

      2. Goes to a week.

3. The week adds a terrible period for the woman.

   1. Sex life descends to once a month.

   2. Adds in pain for the man that cannot diminish.

4. Go back to normal for twelve months.

5. Both bondmates spend one month of being opposite sex

   1. Wake up and eat.

   2. After sex, they arrange seating where they can see each other.

   3. Sit unmoving at all all day, until they get up sixteen hours later, use the facilities, and sleep for eight hours.

   4. Any deviation from this routine results in death.

   5. Victims are aware of everything happening around them.

   6. Any intellectual stimulation results in death.

   7. Lasts for twenty four months.

6. The periods and pain come back, both lasting for two months.

   1. One time sex every two months.

   2. This takes eighteen months.

7. Periods and pain last three months.

   1. Everyone must watch who they touch again.

      1. Bondmate will convulse if one switches.

      2. Bondmate will die if one dies.

   2. Bondmates have intense hatred for each other.

   3. Do not want to have sex but at three months, they must or will die.

   4. Lasts thirty six months

8. Same as five, but lasts sixty months with period and pain.

9. Woman gets pregnant.

   1. Is unable to move from her bed for entire time, except as in five and eight.

   2. Man as in five and eight.

   3. Cycles three times for each.

10. Same as five and eight.

    1. Bondmates have extreme hatred for each other.

    2. Lasts seventy two months.

11. Same as nine.

    1. Bondmates have extreme hatred for each other.

    2. Cycles five times for each.

“Wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “This is crazy!”

“So was Caesar,” John said gently, as he put his arm around my shoulders.

“I can’t even comprehend having extreme hatred for you,” I was sobbing now.

“I can’t either. Hopefully it won’t reach that point,” John’s voice was loving as he held me.

I was near panicking. “What causes death with the EMP?”

“Honey, we’re going to find out,” John said. He moved his chair to right beside mine, and gently pulled my head onto his shoulder. I was normally pretty strong, but what was coming terrified me. Marc and Kari only had about nine months until they entered the fifth stage. John and I had only ten and a half months.

The meeting broke up, and John and I returned to my rooms. We had taken residence there so that I could run my restaurant. I had no wish to cook at that moment. What I wanted to do, more than anything was to make music.

---

I sat down at my piano and started playing. I was so scared that what I played was mournful. When I stopped for a moment, John commented, “I’ve never heard that before.”

“I haven’t either,” I responded. “I was just playing.”

“It was beautiful,” he told me.

“Thank you.”

I started playing again, trying to make it more upbeat, but I couldn’t. I started thinking about John, and how he had supported me throughout this terrible time we had been through, and how he was now. I realized that the music I was playing mirrored my feelings. It was very romantic.

When I was done with it, John came over and slid me over on the piano bench and sat down beside me. He started reached for my shoulders and started rubbing them. It felt wonderful. There was so much tension in them, I was shocked that I had been able to play anything.

I leaned my head against him again, and when he started to work lower and lower down my back, I felt like purring.

Eventually, he whispered in my ear, “I can’t do anymore here.”

I nodded to him, and he stood up, took my hand, and pulled me up. We went into the bedroom and, well; I’ll let you imagine from there.

---

The next morning, we went to the command center. I was glad I was feeling the way I was because of John’s and my relationship.

When we sat down, Marc surprised us. “I think I have an idea.”

“Okay?”

“When the scientists on Earth tried an EMP, the people that tried to do it were in a normal point. Stage twelve is normality, exactly like what we’re in now. I think we need to have people who are afraid of each other working in tandem. Anything that keeps them from feeling that elation.”

“That’s a great idea, but who do we have feeling that?”

“We have several people who are in stage three.”

Kari and I shook our heads. “We weren’t afraid of each other then. You can continue to feel elation, knowing that pain will end, and that your period will end. I don’t think that will work.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “If anyone volunteers, we can try it, but I’m afraid stage seven may be our only hope.” I sighed deeply. “I hate to think we will have to go through stage five. That scares me the most. Two years of nothing. Staring at John is okay, but not being able to talk or really think sounds like a living death.”

“Stage eight would be worse,” Kari said, “and ten and eleven are even worse. Getting pregnant and hating Marc, while he’s staring at me, hating me.”

I could feel tears as I thought of that. “What would we do with all those babies?”

“I don’t know,” John answered.

---

Marc took a big chance. He designed the system to set off the EMP, but I think he was so scared of what might happen, and he had no idea if it would work.

We then had some people build the system before they entered stage four. The were able to do the work, surprisingly. We all crowded into the original bay we had been locked into. A cage had been set up to keep the EMP from affecting the stations computers. The system fired.

We went back into the rest of the station, and Roman checked the blood of several of us. He was concerned.

“It sort of worked, but didn’t.

“What do you mean?” Marc asked him.

“Remember that the nanites are partially organic. Well, I wasn’t sure what the mechanical part did. I’ve observed them now, and I think what it does is simply give them power. It’s like a little battery. It seems to store power. They can still operate, but there is nothing to store the power now. I doubt they could be even slightly airborne now. However, they still function.

“So where do they get their power?” I asked.

“Brownian motion.”

“Huh?”

“Brownian motion was discovered by Robert Brown in the ancient date of 1827.”

I held up a hand to John. “John. I love you. Please spare me the history lesson and just tell me what Brownian motion does.”

“It is the motion of microscopic matter in a fluid as it is hit by different particles of the fluid. If the fluid is viscous…”

“Oh yeah!” I said. “They mentioned it in an ancient science fiction book. Uh, what was the name of that… Oh yeah. Fantastic Voyage! They made a submarine microscopic as well as the crew, and injected ...”

This time, it was John’s turn. “I love you,” he said as he raised his hand. “I’ve read the book too.”

“Touche,” I said, smiling at him, in spite of the failure of the EMP.

“Wait a minute,” Kari said. “I thought they got their power from body heat.”

“That, I’m afraid, was a misconception.”

“How?” Marc asked.

“Think about it. Brownian motion needs fluid to work. When you take blood out of a person, that blood cools, so the brownian motion slows. This is just enough to where there is not enough power to recharge the batteries in a nanite. In a body, the nanites don’t stop as fast, as it takes time for a body to cool, but we’ve always looked at the nanites in the absence of body heat. We thought they needed the heat to work. In a way, they do, but that’s only because of the viscosity of the blood.”

I was starting to get it. “What if we cooled a body?”

“Even freezing a body would probably not work. As soon as we revived the person, the motion would start again. Just as we started working again, so would they.”

“Well, it was a thought,” I said.

Chapter 1.14

“Do they have a hive mind?”

I had never considered such a thing, but John had a good question.

“They don’t as far as I can tell, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking for,” Roman told us. “There are certainly some that are sacrificed when they are working.”

“Maybe they consider that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” I quipped, quoting from another of my favorite ancient movies.

“Perhaps the individuals just feel that resistance is futile.” I should have known that John would get the joke and build on it. With very little else to do recently, we had been watching as many of the old films as we could get our hands on. He raised his eyebrow at me, and I started to laugh, the others looking at me like I was mad. It occured to me that I may very well be. Living in this crazy world created by Caesar was enough to drive anyone mad.

“I would think they have to have something like a hive mind,” Kari said. She glanced at Marc. “Look at the complexity of your body. Every time we make love, the nanites rebuild you into the opposite sex. How?”

“Genetically…” Marc began.

“Not enough. Let’s say they receive a signal that it’s time, what do they do? Change what needs to be changed wherever they are? How do they know where they are?”

“They hold a piece of your DNA inside them. It’s like a blueprint, I guess,” Roman offered.

“Is there a little arrow that says ‘you are here’ on that DNA blueprint? How does a nanite know where the hell it is inside you? DNA isn’t enough. Every cell has DNA in it.”

“You’ve made your point, Kari,” John told her. “There’s got to be something controlling them. The question is, what?”

“If these things are organic,” I asked, “why don’t antibodies or white blood cells take them out?”

“As far as I can tell, they seem to be tuned to your body,” Roman explained. “When a child is injected with the first set of nanites, there is a period of NNS, or ‘neo-nanite symptoms.’ This is the stage where the body tries to get rid of the ‘invading’ nanites.” We had all heard of, and seen a baby with NNS. It was something that all babies got, but we had no idea it had anything to do with nanites. “I said that the nanites were tuned to your body. Actually, your body is tuned to them. Something -- I don’t know what -- is done that makes your body refuse to reject them. They become part of your body’s local inhabitants. As far as your body is concerned, the nanites are native.”

“So they can do anything they want, and nothing will argue with them,” Marc sounded disgusted.

“Pretty much,” Roman said, nodding.

“So how do they communicate?” I asked. “Obviously, they have a way. They’ve got to know where they are, what needs done there. Probably the wanted outcome.”

“They don’t necessarily need to know the desired outcome,” Kari argued. “If they know what needs to be done at their location….”

I cut her off. “No. That doesn’t work.” Everyone was looking at me, obviously, wondering what I meant. “If I hear a piece of music, and want to write it out, I can know everything about music, what each instrument sound like, their range. Hell, I can know what a V64 is, or a Perfect 5th -- Even an N6. That’s not going to help me write the music if I don’t know what it is supposed to sound like.”

“There have been robots that simply make the same moves with pieces of metal for millennia,” John began.

“John,” I patiently explained, “Music is fluid. So is the human body. It is the imperfections in how a human played instrument sounds that makes it beautiful. So it is with the human body. It’s the imperfections that make us unique.”

I could see that he was thinking of protesting, so I persisted. “You’ve known me for almost two hundred years. Even after the changes that have happened in me, am I a different person?”

“Aside from the obvious?”

I gave him a dirty look. “Yes, Dear. Aside from the obvious.”

Marc nudged John. “Couch tonight,” he stage whispered.

I turned a glare on Marc, and he wisely shut up.

Perhaps to keep the creature comforts in the upcoming sleep period, John said, “Well aside from your vastly improved appearance… among other things… your personality is essentially unchanged.”

“Essentially?”

“From what I can tell, it’s not exceptionally different. There are some changes, yes, but I think those can be explained by a different cocktail of hormones in your body.”

I put away the evil glare I had been giving him, and grudgingly responded, “Okay. That makes sense.”

“I think I know what you’re saying, however. A human body can change over time. It grows, things wear out. For the nanites to do the job that they do, they have to know what the finished product is going to be.”

“But how can it know?” Kari seemed frustrated now.

“Read the DNA.” Marc said.

We all thought about that for some time. Finally, “So do we change?” I asked no one in particular.

“What do you mean?” Roman wondered.

“Obviously not the way I have, but I am wondering about that too. Marc suggested that the nanites may know what the finished product is by reading our DNA. Personally, I think that’s a fair assessment. Perhaps they don’t know what we look like in the physical sense, but they know how the inside is supposed to be built.”

“Go on,” John said, intrigued.

“If they read the blueprints and build from that…”

“You said they couldn’t build a human that way,” Kari was confused.

“I don’t think you could, normally. But what if we are an exactly what our DNA says we should be?”

“It could be,” John said thoughtfully. “Remember that movie we watched where the guy cut off his son’s hand with that weird glowing sword thing? His son had a mechanical hand after that. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“I’ve read medical texts,” Roman said, “Where people would have to get an artificial limb made. Legs and arms didn’t grow back. Nothing did except hair and nails.”

Marc looked skeptical. “Do you think that is because they didn’t have nanites?”

Roman was beginning to realize some things. “Think about it, Sir. In our example here,” he indicated me, “they have a set of blueprints. They change one thing. They change that Y chromosome to a second X. That changes everything. Now, they look at things and realize it all has to be remade. It’s not like the blueprints say it should be. She’s the same person, but structurally, she’s not. she has to be remade as a woman.”

“Granted, that makes sense, but what about anger and aggression?”

“Well thankfully, no one’s been aggressive, but we know where the brain needs stimulated to make anger. We also know what genes to change to make a person more susceptible to anger and rage.” Roman glanced at the rest of us. “I know there’s more we’re not explaining with all of this, but I think we’re beginning to see how some of these things work.”

“Please, Roman,” I implored. “We need to know the rest, and you’re the only one who can figure it out.”

---

A few weeks later, Roman called everyone together and told them what he’d learned.

“Apparently Caesar was very sure of himself. I have not appeared to have a problem with looking at anything. The nanites are leaving me alone. I think the only real problem is if you start to feel elated, it assumes that you’re getting close, or you think you are.”

“So it reads our minds?” Kari asked.

“I doubt it,” Roman said. I think it just knows when you’re feeling happy about something. Perhaps it can generally read emotions, but not exactly what you’re thinking.”

“If you’re not having any problems, why were our doctors spaced?” aked Marc.

“Honestly, I think he was playing with us even then. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for it. I’ve passed my medical exams with flying colors now, and I’m still fine.”

John nodded. “That could well be, Roman, but we need to be certain that anything you do is safe.”

“Yes. We don’t want to lose you,” I agreed.

---

Marc and Kari still had six months before they entered stage five. It was late at night, and the four of us were off shift for awhile.

I went to see Kari, hoping that I could cheer her up. She had been really depressed for awhile, and I wasn’t sure what was causing it.

We had taken the time to beautify some of the bays of the station, and had even turned one into what seemed to be an outside park. Some of our artists had done a wonderful job working in holograms, making the ceiling look like a beautiful sky. Much of the flaura here was growing in a hydroponic culture, but it had been carefully arranged to not appear to be. The walls were hidden by both flora and holograms. Obviously, the holograms were just tricks of the light, but as long as you didn’t try to touch them, you didn’t notice.

Kari and I met and sat down on a bench. It was overlooking a fountain in the center of the park. We didn’t have the water to spare on a fountain, but the was real. There were speakers in the middle which provided the sound of water, so it was quite pleasant.

“So what’s going on, Kari?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?” she countered.

“Oh come on. You’ve seemed really down lately. Can’t you tell me?”

She sat, unmoving for awhile. “I wish that was real,” she finally said.

I looked at her closely. “I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you,” I told her.

She sighed, then without moving her eyes from the fountain, told me, “We only have six months.”

Very quietly, I said, “I know.”

“I’m scared,” she told me. “I love Marc, but to just sit, day after day, month after month, watching him, unable to do anything else. It just seems to be too much.”

I didn’t say anything this time. I nodded, but she didn’t move her eyes.

“We’re supposed to be aware of everything around us, but too much mental stimulation results in death. How much is too much?”

“Marc didn’t say there seemed to be a limit to ambient stimulation.”

“I know!”

I stared at her for a bit. “What are you not telling me, Kari?”

“I spoke to Glenda earlier.” Glenda was a man who had been turned into a woman from the outset. “She tried to kill herself. She couldn’t. She and Bil have become bondmates. They decided it wasn’t worth the pain. They decided to commit suicide at the same time. She says when she tried, she couldn’t move her hand to do anything. Neither could Bil!”

She started to cry now. I pulled her into an embrace. “Marc and I had decided if the six months were gone, before we ended up in stage five, we’d rather die, but we’re stuck. We can’t even end everything.”

“Are you sure they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it?” I asked.

“They really wanted to! She could move her other hand, but when she tried to bring a knife to her neck, it stopped.”

I felt like I had been deflated, and I knew I’d have to tell John tonight. We had thought the same thing.

---

Author’s note: It’s interesting. I received a comment on this, and I had already decided to address the possibility of suicide.

Chapter 1.15

John and I talked to Marc regarding the idea of suicide. Of course, Marc knew before we did, but it was another piece of grim news to discuss with the rest of the station.

We had discovered another fact about Caesar’s ‘Total Fun’, probably related to our limited population. If someone didn’t get a bondmate within a certain time period, they died. This left us with everyone who was still alive in stage two or higher.

I began to wonder what would happen with a homosexual couple in nine and eleven. I spoke to Kari about it, and she explained what they had found while going through the data from Earth. Apparently, the one doing the penetrating was considered the man, and the one being penetrated was considered the woman. As soon as that was determined by the nanites, the necessary transformation would proceed, then the pregnancy would continue as in any heterosexual couple.

Later that night, I took a blanket with me, and went to the park. I got off the main path, and spread my blanket out on some grass, hidden from view of passersby. I sat down and idly began pulling pieces of grass and tossing them away. This was strictly against the rules, nor was it as fulfilling as it had been when I was a child. The patch of grass was actually an old idea for allowing cars to drive across grass without destroying things from ancient times. There were steel grates, supported from below, with grass growing from hydroponic pots below, hence my blanket. It looked real because of holographic projections, even down to bugs in the dirt, but when you touched it, you felt the steel grating.

I considered all that we had learned about Caesar. His psychopathic play certainly dug new pits for hell. He made one of the most beautiful things for us and made it horrendous. While we would normally enjoy it, that was blackened by what we knew was going to happen. I knew I entered into bliss whenever John and I had sex, but what would happen if we ever defeated the nanites? Would I ever be able to have a physical relationship with him again? I remember reading about PTSD in ancient books, then thought about what had happened when I saw the woman bifurcated by a bay door. Later that night, visions of that dead body would not leave me alone. I tried to sleep, and couldn’t. Visions of my friends bodies that were frozen on the ground came back too.

I started crying as I thought of all of them, and what was going to happen when and if we stopped the ‘Total Fun’. Right now, sex was wonderful and beautiful between us, but I didn’t know if I would be able to have a relationship with any man afterwards. Or woman, for that matter.

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and found that I needed to blow my nose. I didn’t have anything, so I stood to head to a restroom. Standing by a tree, watching me was John.

I wasn’t sure what would happen later, but right now, our relationship was beautiful. I fell into his arms, and wept. He didn’t ask me why I was crying. He just held me.

---

I awoke the next morning, wondering once more what would happen. The last night had been wonderful, as it always was, but I began to wonder if John was really as skillful as he seemed to be. Was my view skewed because I had never had sex with any other man? Was it because my hormones were sky high because of the nanites? How did he think I was? It seemed that he loved what I did, but was that a result of the nanites? I began to worry, not that we would have PTSD if we ever removed the nanites, but that I might not be able to please him, because alone, I wasn’t enough.

My thoughts drifted a bit. Did others feel this way? Was John as unsure of what might happen as I was? Did he feel he’d be enough for me? I was certain he couldn’t fail there, but was that just my nanites thinking for me?

Was this a horrible aspect of stage four that Earth didn’t recognize? Was this worry part of Caesar’s plan? I couldn’t see how, as there were no visible aspects that Caesar could view. Well, there was, but who wants to see a woman crying constantly? Okay, Caesar did. The first question there was why, but as in all things with Willem Wallace, nothing was explainable.

I rolled over and found that John wasn’t beside me. Immediately, I began wondering if he had given up on me; this poor, pathetic woman who would never be able to satisfy him without the help of Caesar.

I was preparing to descend into more despair, when I heard a sound from outside the bedroom. I got up, grabbed a robe, and looked out.

John was busy in the kitchen alcove. I smelled something wonderful coming from the pans he was busy with. “What is that?” I asked.

He turned and smiled at me. “Something I rarely do anymore, my dear. Breakfast. I know I’ve been shirking my responsibilities lately, and letting you do all the cooking. While it’s understandable why, considering the delicious foods you make, I don’t want you thinking I take advantage of you.”

For some reason, tears started again. This time, there was a lot of relief. He really did love me. He loved me! He hugged me again, apparently recognizing that I was in a turmoil of emotions. After a bit, he gently asked, “What’s the date?”

It took me a minute to realize what he was asking, and I hurried into the bedroom. Picking up what we had jokingly dubbed, my tricorder, I checked my calendar. Oh thank God! This wasn’t Caesar’s doing!

---

It was getting close to the time we were all dreading. Soon, Marc and Kari would enter stage five, and a month and a half later, John and I would.

I tried not to think about it. Everytime I did, I could feel my heart racing. It wasn’t pleasant to think about.

We were trying to set up things where when we arrived at stage twelve, which mirrored stage four, we would be able to work once again on an escape.

We had several researchers working with us while we searched for ways out of Caesar’s control, but in seven weeks, John and I would be ‘away’ for a long time. Marc and Kari had only one six days.

Before they entered stage five, John and I had them over for a meal that we both worked on. We wanted them to know how much they meant to us. We knew that even though we had six more weeks after they… well you know... they would be uncommunicative. Yes, we could see them, but we didn’t want to overstimulate them. We weren’t willing to risk their deaths.

It was a lighthearted meal, or we tried to keep it that way. There was an underlying tension that we couldn’t seem to break. Finally, after a very quiet dessert, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” I told them. “I shouldn’t have planned this.”

“We both did,” John stated. “We wanted you to know that you are our best friends, and we are going to miss you.”

“We know,” Marc assured us.

“Just come in each day until you enter five yourselves,” said Kari. “Let us know how much we are loved and missed. We’ll need that.”

“No!” I exclaimed. I told her how we were afraid to overstimulate them.

“You know what?” Marc said. “I’d rather die than be left alone for two years. If we died from you seeing us, at least we’d know that we were cared about.”

I wasn’t sure whether I could agree with this or not. I looked at John and he seemed to be as indecisive as I was. “Are you sure?” I asked.

Kari grabbed my hands with hers. “We talked about this, and were going to ask you just before, but now seems as good a time as any.”

“Besides,” Marc said with a dry chuckle,” Caesar won’t let us commit suicide, so why would he allow us to ask you if we’d die from that overstimulation?”

John joined Marc in the laugh, but I couldn’t. I looked back at Kari, who still had my hands in hers -- her grip seemed as if she never intended to let go -- and she was smiling at me. All I could get out was a broken okay, then I tried to smile. I wasn’t very successful.

---

For the time between now and at least stage six, the research was now laid out. We worked tirelessly with Marc and Kari until the end of the last day. We knew that in the morning they would not appear at the lab. Kari had become my best friend, and I almost felt like she was dying the next day. I had told her that I would appear twice each day. I was planning on stopping by in the morning, as was John, and also in the afternoon, after we were done at the lab. John and I would fill them in on what happened at the lab.

This was part of how we were planning on keeping them abreast of what was happening as far as the ‘escape research’ as we now called it.

This twice daily visitation was risky. It might very well be overstimulation, and I hated to think of what I would feel if they died in my presence. I doubted I could take that. However, the command staff, meaning the four of us and Roman and his partner, Jerold, had decided that we needed to have this kind of updating. Unless, of course, we lost Marc and Kari because of it. It might allow them to think about possible solutions while they sat and did nothing else.

We walked aimlessly through the station, none of us wanting to call an end to our time together.

So much had happened over the time since ‘Total Fun’ started. We looked at the welded shut doors behind which was the stairs that would take someone to the absolutely destroyed motors to open the overhead doors. We even had a laugh over the distance that we had kept between us as we inspected everything. Now, I was gripping John’s upper arm with both hands, like my life depended on it. Kari and Marc were holding each others hands tightly. We had come a long way since that fear to be anywhere near each other.

Our meandering finally took us to Marc’s apartement, where he and Kari would spend the next two years. I wanted to make another circle, but I saw that Kari’s eyes seemed to be getting heavy. So did Marc’s. I suppose that was part of the next stage coming on. I doubted I could ever get tired knowing what was coming.

They walked into the apartment, and as the door shut, I saw them embrace like two lovesick teenagers after a particularly hot date.

Apparently I wasn’t planning on moving, but John took my arm and steered me away, back to our own apartment. We sat in the main room for some time, with the lights off, gazing down at the nighttime sleep below. Most people knew what was happening tomorrow, so very little was going on in the street.

I imagined that our friends were having desperate…. I tried to force that from my mind. I didn’t want to cry. It dawned on me how emotional I was being about this. I know John could tell what I was thinking, just by looking at my face, while it was like he was carved out of granite. Nothing showed on his face. Well, that’s not quite true. I knew him well enough to realize that he was showing a great deal of emotion in that apparent absence of it. I could also see in the flickering lights, a bit more moisture than his eyes usually had.

Morning seemed so far away, and I wasn’t sure what it would hold. Okay, I knew, but how would we all deal with Marc and Kari not being there for two years? I just couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of it.

As I continued looking out at the night, I whispered to my best friend, Kari, "Just remember that Rose loves you." Then I started to cry again.

---

End of Part 1

Chapter 2.1

I had sat in the same chair for an untold number of days. I sat facing John, and it was as if my muscles were disconnected throughout the day. I could breath and blink, but that was it. Every joint was locked. When it was time to use the facilities, I seemed to have no control of anything. I would stand up, go into the bathroom and do whatever needed to be done, then go to bed. I would fall asleep immediately, and get up seven hours later, have a meal, have sex with John, then we would sit.

Over and over, day after day. The only break we would get was switching sex, every few weeks. I had no idea how much time I spent as each sex. I couldn’t count. My brain was apparently locked from anything but staring at John. I could see everything around me, but I really couldn’t process anything, except John sitting, facing me.

I longed to put my arms around him, but even when we had sex, there was nothing in it. Just the action, then sitting. I felt empty, emotionally.

Then, one day, after an interminable amount of time, I was able to do something else. I could now remember all that had happened to me, and it was as if I had just come off a time of unbroken sensory deprivation.

---

Now, we were we were going through times of pain and period. We were able to move around and to think, but the pain was much worse. It was almost completely debilitating. The first two month time I was female and John was a male, and I don’t think I really had any idea of what he was going through as the cramps hit with such ferocity that I felt like I was going to pass out each time. I think if I hadn’t had the nanites keeping me awake and feeling things, I would have. I can’t imagine someone being able to stand that.

When we made love, I felt I was being stretched far enough to have a baby, the moment he penetrated. It was agony! I loved the man beyond reason, but I desperately wanted him to pull out. We both climaxed at the same time, and that was the moment we switched.

I felt like my penis was on fire. I wanted to pull out, but could not. I had climaxed as a woman, and now I had to as a man, before we completed. Again, I loved John as a woman beyond reason, and knew she was in agony, but couldn’t stop. The drive of my libido was controlling me, making me continue until I was emptied.

We got very little done during this time. We visited Marc and Kari twice, but couldn’t get out of our apartment except to get some food, although much of that was lost due to the pain. Neither of us could hold anything down.

At the end of eighteen months, the pain intensified again. As I had thought there was no way to stay awake before, I now thought there was no way I could possibly survive. But we did.

Thankfully, we hardly left the apartment, so we didn’t have to worry about switching if we touched anyone else.

The problem was, I hated John. I couldn’t even stand the sight of him. I couldn’t stand the thought of making his meals, and I certainly didn’t want to sleep with him. Although touching him wouldn’t hurt me, I wanted to throw up at the mere thought of it, and I knew he felt the same. Sharing the same bathroom grossed me out too. I mean, there were times his butt had touched the same toilet mine had to! How disgusting was that! And then, at three months, I could barely stand it, but there was an urge to have sex.

That’s all it was, however. Having sex. There were no sweet nothings whispered, no enjoyment of the act.

It was pure sex. I felt degraded and used, because he had to have me, the same as I had to have him, or we would die. We knew that beyond the shadow of a doubt, so I gritted my teeth and did the act.

Most of the time, I thought of Marc, Carter; even Roman! I fantasized about having them all. I thought maybe I would be good enough in bed without John anywhere around, that I could turn Roman straight.

I knew, however, that Marc was my best friend’s man, and I couldn’t hurt her. I sure wanted him rather than John, though!

Day after day, week after week, month after month.

---

And then something completely unexpected happened. I woke up one morning, and I knew it was the day for us to have sex and I wasn’t having a period. I couldn’t bear the thought of sex, however. I started to go through my thoughts. I was afraid of John. I didn’t hate him. In fact, I knew that I loved him beyond reason, but I was afraid of him. I thought about Marc, and I was afraid of him. I wasn’t as afraid of Roman, but I couldn’t begin to fantasize about him. Not with John around.

I got up and walked into the main part of the apartment, where John was sitting on the sofa. “Don’t come any closer, Rose” he told me.

“I don’t think I can.”

He nodded. “We got a call from one of the researchers. I don’t know how, but he was working.”

“What?!!?”

“Yeah. He made had made some kind of airborne virus and found out that it… God knows how… reset the nanites. He sent it into the air circulation system, and everyone on board the station is now starting stage one. The only problem is, I can’t get ahold of him now.”

He tossed me a pair of latex gloves like we had always used, called Marc and we headed toward the lab, keeping a respectable distance between ourselves.

When we arrived at the lab, a gruesome sight awaited. For years, the station had avoided a beheading, but now, the researcher had been killed just as Perl was.

Tentatively, I pulled off a glove and very gently, touched John’s face. Sure enough, nothing happened. I grabbed him, and hugged him as tight as I could. “I’m so sorry!” I cried.

“Why?”

“All the hate. The things I said!”

“It’s not your fault, Rose,” he told me.

“I said them with the intent to hurt you even more than you already were. I knew that the emotional hurt would make you ten times more miserable than you were with the physical.”

“I did the same thing to you, but it wasn’t either of our faults. We were being controlled by the nanites. All I can figure is that the areas of our brain that linked us was somehow inverted. No one is sure how the nanites did it, but that was what happened.”

Marc and Kari entered the lab about that time. One look at John and I, and they removed their gloves. The looked at each other, and John took Kari’s hand.

I looked at them and all of the sudden I thought of something. “Oh no. John!” I exclaimed as I backed out of his embrace.

He cocked his head at me, as if asking for an explanation. “I just realized what I did! By touching you, I restarted the bonding.”

“Your point?”

“We had no time to explore how we felt about each other without the bond.”

He took my hands and asked, “How did you feel about me when you came out of the bedroom this morning?”

“I loved you more than I can ever explain.”

“Rose, I felt exactly the same about you.”

I thought about it, then told him, “We’ve been friends for so long. I never wanted our friendship to die, and then when I became a woman, you went out of your way to help me, even when you were afraid of every woman on the station.”

“Do you know why?” I shook my head as I observed Marc and Kari backing out of the lab. I guess they wanted to give us some time to ourselves.”

“As you said, we have been friends since we were kids. Remember how your mom said if one of us was a woman, we would get married?” I nodded, blushing. “I didn’t want our friendship to die either. I tried to keep it a friendship. I helped you because I didn’t want it to end by us being afraid of each other.”

“John, that doesn’t sound like a ‘bromance’ thing,” I said laughing.

“No, it doesn’t. Now that one of us was a woman, I found that what your mom said was true. We had so much in common that I couldn’t let you go. I was scared shitless of you, but I was determined that if we could beat this stuff, and you were still a woman, I was going to make sure we were together always. I wanted to marry you.”

“Wanted?” I asked.

“Okay, I want to marry you.”

“And that was all before we were bondmates?”

He pulled me close. “You damn well better believe it.”

Suddenly, Marc entered the lab. “I’ve got an idea. Hopefully, we’re not too late.”

“What,” I asked, suddenly excited.

Marc didn’t answer at first, but went to the researcher’s body. “I’m really sorry,” he said to the head, and then took a scalpel and cut a rather large section out of the man’s leg. It dripped blood as he put it on a tray. “The airborne virus gave me the idea.

He hurried to the same input the researcher had used to the air ducts, and we followed. “I found during my last pain cycle in stage five, that the nanites have an organic ‘battery’ as well. It uses the same type of energy as a sperm. The difference is, rather than spin a tail, it keeps them ‘alive’ for an extended amount of time, but it only seems to happen if the person has died in this way.”

He opened the grate and slipped the gory nanite supply inside the duct.

“So you’re going to try to cause stage two.”

“I know that is hurrying along stage three, but we’ve got to get rid of the fear.”

“We’ll have a year of normal time after stage three,” Kari pointed out.

“We need to try to stagger entering stage three so we always have someone awake to research,” I said.

“Agreed,” John said. He looked at me. “Think we can hold out a year?”

I gazed at him for a few moments. “No,” I said honestly. “I doubt I can wait a day.”

“I don’t think we should anyway,” Marc told us. “If one of us changes, we’re going to die. You know that.”

“It’s a chance we have to take,” John argued.

“It’s a chance we can’t take,” Kari said. “We’re the commanders of the station. We’re all needed.”

“I seem to remember you wishing you could commit suicide,” I told her.

“Yes, but I had time to think in the last few years. I realized that we couldn’t do that. It would be against the best interest of the population. Even if I’m not needed, Marc is.”

“John and I aren’t,” I argued, then I looked at John. “I’m sorry, Dear.”

“You’re right,” he said, smiling.

“No she isn’t. You three are needed as well. People look up to you and derive strength from your determination. I’m a glorified mechanic, but you three and Roman are all leaders. Don’t sell yourselves short.”

We were standing in the upstairs circle, and as we talked, I noticed that several people were making their way out of their homes, many holding hands.

“Looks like it’s working,” I told Marc.

John slapped Marc on the back. “Good job, my friend,” he told him.

“I’m glad. We really didn’t need the fear again.”

Authors note:
This chapter is quite short, but it had to be.

Chapter 2.2

We had one glaring problem, that those of us in a leadership position hated. When the researcher died, his bond mate had no one to bond with anymore, and he was the second death this time around.

It was wonderful to make love that was not marred by hate or pain again. Granted, we hated changing during the third act, but the first two were incredible. Even when I was a male, it was wonderful. Not quite as good as when I was myself, but still…

---

It was three weeks later that it was discovered what the researcher had done to reset the nanites. There was a compound that was, in fact, airborne. It wasn’t understood what was being done to them but it worked. We had staggered our entering stage two as long as possible. John and I had entered stage four when we were ready to start again.

Since we were dealing with people’s possible deaths, we put it to an anonymous vote whether or not we were going to reset every time we reached stage five.

Not surprisingly, no one wanted to go through the pain and periods of stage five and six ever again, so we determined that we would each be with their bond mate when we reset. Unfortunately, we knew that for someone to turn off the fear, we would have to lose someone. We hoped that we could overcome the fear of being with our bond mate before we dealt with the death nanites.

We had many thousand people on board the station, so losing one couple was tolerable, but we were each fearful that the next couple would be ours. I took solace every time we reset when it was neither John or I who died, nor Marc and Kari. After the twenty-seventh reset, Roman’s partner was the one who died. We didn’t know how to respond. He had become a good friend, and we knew he would die before stage three was done for all of us. He would never see stage four and normality again.

I wept when I got to my apartment that night. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing a friend, but the worst was to come.

Roman died approximately three weeks later. It was horrible. I was working with him as he was researching. He asked me to get him some more microscope slides. I went to a cupboard across the room. “Is this the right drawer,” I asked. There was no response. I turned to ask him again, and was horrified to see his body slump forward, and his head roll across the bench he was working at.

I screamed.

---

It was so hard to deal with. I had seen Perl’s body years ago, but I had never seen it happen.

I never thought again that losing one couple each year was acceptable. I couldn’t. Not when I had lost a friend to the situation.

No matter what I thought of it personally, however, we had to go on. I don’t know how long I mourned Roman, but when we reset again, I held onto my John almost constantly until we heard that the first death had happened. It was so hard. We couldn’t kiss, nor make love. We had to wear gloves until the death nanites were distributed. I was scared to death, but I still loved him. It was the most draining thing I have ever done, like letting spiders crawl over me. I had arachnophobia even when I was a man, but I had lived with it. What helped me with the fear was the fact that I knew someone was going to die soon, and if it was my John, I would never forgive myself for not being there when he died.

Another twenty five years went by, always safe for us and Marc and Kari. Until one day, we were working together in the command center. All of us were wearing gloves and I turned to ask Kari a question. She began to answer me, then the strangest look appeared on her face. She had stood up and was walking toward me when it happened. Her body was apparently following the last command that her brain gave it, or maybe it was her spinal cord making her walk from reflex. What happened will stay with me for the rest of my life. She tripped and started to fall toward me. He head slipped off of her shoulders and landed in my lap while her body sprawled on the floor in front of me.

“KARI!!!” I screamed. I’m not sure if I got her whole name out because somewhere in that yell, my voice broke. I sat there for several minutes, unable to move. John and Marc couldn’t either. They had both turned to face me, or rather, us.

I stared at the head of my best friend. I don’t know how long it was, but I heard a man crying. I looked toward the body, and there was Marc. He had somehow collapsed on the floor, and his head was on her back. I had not started crying yet, but that scene broke me. Those two had loved each other so much. I felt a weight move from my lap, and saw that my husband had moved Kari’s head, and respectfully placed it on the floor. He took me in his arms and kissed me ever so gently, then he moved to Kari’s body and cut the familiar piece of her leg out and left the room carrying it. A few minutes later, he was back and took me in his arms and let me weep. I wanted so much to hold Marc, but he was unbonded. To do so would kill both John and me. John did something I’d never seen him do. He gently picked up Marc and hugged him. Marc was still weeping over the loss of his wife. We started to ease him to his apartment, when the strangest thing happened. We received an incoming communication!

---

I hate my muse right now. As the words to this chapter came to me, I had to have a box of tissues beside me. Damned Muse! Don’t do this again!!!

Chapter 2.3

John and I tried to move Marc from the control room, but it was no dice. He would not leave the incoming communication. I knew that our subjective time was incredibly slow for Earth, so how many thousands of years, or perhaps millions had passed on our world since we had left? John surreptitiously removed Kari’s body from the control room, as Marc answered the call.

“N21, this is N22 requesting permission to dock.”

Dock? What the hell? Marc must have been too far into despair from Kari’s death, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him, but we were just best friends. Marc was bonded with her. I reached around him and keyed the mic. “N22, say again. You’re requesting permission to dock?”

“N21, that is correct. I am currently off your port side.”

I looked at the screens that showed what was around us. They had showed nothing for years, except the reverse one, which still showed a galaxy that stretched beyond our view. The Port side screen showed something amazing, however. There was a station that mirrored ours beside us! I knew I was getting too excited, so I thought of Kari, and the fact that she had missed this. That put me into a serious state of depression.

“You… You’re here? Wha… How...” I started bawling.

“I am the AI controlling N22. I cannot help with the ‘Total Fun’, but I am here to take you home. At least I can offer you that.”

My cries became even more serious as I thought of all the people we had lost. Roman, Kari, Perl… Those were just some, but they were the closest to me.

I wasn’t sure if the person in N22 mistook my crying for relief or not. “I understand, Ma’am. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?” he asked.

“This is Rose Carlson,” I told him.

“Ah… Congratulations on your marriage to John Carlson, Ma’am.”

“Thank you,” I told him, then I thought about things. “Wait a minute. How do you know about that?”

“Mrs. Carlson, if you will give me permission to dock, I will explain things to you.”

“Permission granted, of course,” I told him, completely confused now.

John walked in at about that moment. One look at the screen and his jaw dropped.

“It’s docking, John! It’s here to take us home!”

“Please, Mrs Carlson! Please don’t get elated. Earth is still under the control of Caesar. Remember that!”

It was then that I realized we had a serious problem. This AI was stressing the point that Earth still had our nanite problem. We absolutely could not feel joy about this rescue. In fact, it really wasn’t a rescue. What type of rescue was this? We would go back to a planet that perhaps had no people left on it. How many people had they lost? If they had learned to reset the nanites as we had, which would make sense, how many people had they lost?

We had no way of knowing.

I felt a slight vibration in the floor, that told me the other station was connected to ours.

Marc was still sitting, not moving in the chair he had been in. He had been staring straight ahead. It seemed that he was trying not to blink. Finally, he put his head down on the console, and really started to cry.

---

We discussed the situation with N22, as we were now calling him. We needed to get our people together and tell them the situation. It must be stressed that this was not a rescue. We were simply being taken to where there was more room. The population of Earth had been destroyed by ‘Total Fun’.

There was a huge debate as to why we would wish to go back to Earth. Everything we had was here. We put it to a vote, and we had a small majority in favor of leaving.

We were ready to leave N21 for what we now realized was a much more spacious, and full of more supplies than we ever had aboard our station. The airlock between the two stations was small. Only large enough for two people to traverse at the same time. It was decided that each bond mate couple would go through at the same time. John, Marc, and I would be the last to leave what had been our home.

When we were ready, Marc told us his decision. “I’m staying.”

“What?” John asked him.

“I have no reason to leave. I’m going to die anyway, John.”

“You can’t commit suicide!” I told him, almost shouting.

“I’m not. There’s no population over there. There’s no one for me to bond with. Besides, I don’t want to leave Kari.”

“What would Kari want?” I asked him, tears flowing once again. “We know you’re going to die, but let us be with you until that moment.”

“Come on, Marc, my loving husband told his best friend. Kari wouldn’t want you to make this sacrifice. Remember what you said about stage five? Let us show you that we love you until the last moment.”

Just to be sure, we waited until Marc had gone through the airlock. We didn’t want him to blow the seals from N21’s side after we left, stranding him on N21.

Finally, we stepped into the airlock, not looking behind. I had left all of my instruments behind. I took only the clothes on my back, as did everyone. As soon as the inner seals were closed, the seals were blown and we were away from N21.

---

Something felt very different as soon as we were no longer connected to N21. It was something almost indefinable, as if something had been shut off, then something very surprising happened. All of the people from N21 had been moved to one bay, but now, several doors opened and we were suddenly in the company of hundreds more people!

One man stepped forward from this new group and welcomed us aboard. His voice sounded…. It was the AI… or rather a man…

Now I was really confused. “What’s going on here, John?” I asked. Suddenly I was very worried. Was this some of Caesar’s subterfuge?

The man picked up a mic and his voice came through loudspeakers. “I am Rashda Smythe, the commander of N22. I am sorry for lying to you. Keeping our people a secret was necessary for a very important reason. We couldn’t risk you feeling… Well, elated.

“We are not controlled by nanites on this station.”

John stepped forward. “We have nanites. You do not appear to be segregated from us. In fact, several of your people have mingled with ours.”

“Oh yes,” Smythe agreed. “However, you don’t understand. We have nanites, the same as yours. Only on this station, they don’t control us.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, my confusion going deeper.

“Ah, Mrs. Carlson, I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”

“Just call me Rose, please, and would you answer my question?”

“Alright, Rose, just as we are not controlled by our nanites, you won’t be either. In fact, the control has stopped right now. The nanites only do what they were originally programmed to do now.”

The entire population of N21 erupted into talk. Marc was standing beside us and he looked stricken. “Oh God, Kari” he murmured just above a whisper. Hesitantly, I reached out and hugged him. I understood perfectly. Just a few hours before, and she would be standing here with us. I now felt such hatred of Caesar that I could almost taste it. I felt like I wanted to torture that bastard in exactly the same way he had tortured us. Only rather than the pain that the men got, I would gladly slice his penis off his body, one millimeter at a time. Using a dull blade, damn him!

---

The three of us joined Commander Smythe in the briefing room, later. It was late at night, our time, but dinner time on N22. I hadn’t eaten since that morning and I was famished. Food was brought in and we ate. It was good, I’ll say that, but….

Smythe must have noticed something in the three of us, as he said, “I’m sorry that the food isn’t up to the standards Rose could make.”

“It’s fine,” my husband said, valiantly. Or was that, in vain?

Smythe, however, wasn’t buying it. “Oh, come now, Commander Carlson. I can recognize someone trying not to insult. And from what I have heard over the link to Earth, your wife is legendary in her skill.”

“Legendary?” I asked. Say what? I knew I was good, but legendary?

Smythe laughed. “Sometimes in the midst of their chatter with Freeman, God rest his soul, Reese, Carter, and Perl would mention some food they had in your restaurant. It sounded divine!”

“You’ve been listening in on our conversations with Earth?” Marc blew up, “And you didn’t let us know?”

The anger on his face would have dropped a tyrannosaurus in it’s tracks.

Smythe looked shamefaced. “I’m so sorry, Commander Dodson, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t risk the joy of us coming to your rescue. Just as I couldn’t risk letting you know we didn’t have the control of the nanites here when we docked. We figured it best if you thought N22 was an automated situation. Even the thought of an expanded population could have caused elation in your population. We simply had no wish to cause your deaths.” He paused for a moment. “I’m truly sorry that you lost Kari, Marc. Please accept my sincerest condolences.”

Marc’s fury had abated as he had to accept the logic of Smythe’s reasons. “Thank you, Rashda,” he said, using Smythe’s given name for the first time.

The mood was very somber, and Smythe tried to make it lighter. “One thing we do well, is desserts,” and some chocolate volcano cake was brought in. John tried to appreciate it, but again Smythe caught the look. He turned to me, “Rose, I would love to taste your culinary treats.”

I laughed at the way he said it, and the mood lightened considerably. I wondered if he had meant for that to happen as the volcano cake tasted suspiciously mass produced; not fresh.

---

Rashda Smythe did get to taste my ‘culinary treats’. I was able to set up a restaurant in one of the bays, as I had done on N21. I had a special buffet in a back room for the officers of N22. I had made a simple pot roast, with carrots, potatoes, and onions in the broth. At his first taste, his eyes got wide and he went back for thirds, and then fourths! I blushed furiously at his compliments.

Most nights after that, the officers ‘rented’ the back room and had my special of the day. “I haven’t had food this delicious since we left Earth, dear Rose,” he told me on one occasion. “No… I haven’t ever had food like this.”

That night, when we went upstairs to our apartment, John turned to me and took my hands in his. “I haven’t made love with anyone that compares with you, dear Rose,” he said in a very bad British accent. “No… I haven’t ever made love with anyone who compares with you.”

I couldn’t help giggling at his bad imitation of the gallant commander. “I thank you very much, kind Sir,” I told him.

Needless to say, we went into the bedroom and verified his claim that night.

In the afterglow I asked John, “Do you think this is something left over from the nanites?”

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“The love I feel for you is so intense,” I responded. “I have observed some of the people that work in the restaurant, and those who play in my orchestra. Those that are married, love their spouse, but they are able to separate from them all day. I can’t even imagine being away from you that long.”

John thought about it for awhile. “You know, if this is an effect of the nanites, it’s the one good thing Caesar did to us. The love that we share is beyond anything we ever felt on Earth, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well,” I answered, turning to where I could gaze at is handsome face. “There’s another thing he did for me.” At John’s questioning look, I told him, “He made me a woman.”

The second time that night was even better than the first.

---

We traveled for several years. Even more than we had on the way out. It was three centuries since we had left N21 behind. I still got teary as I thought of the people we had left there. It seemed that our emotions had been intensified by the nanites. Perhaps they made our neurotransmitters more efficient. Who knows? The fact was, every time I thought of those people, my heart ached for them. I remembered all of them as if it was yesterday.

We had entered the galaxy a few years before, and we were about ready to enter our solar system.

We were called to the command center to find a very grim faced Smythe there. “I’m very sorry for this,” he told us. “I’m able to see Earth now, even to zoom in and see cities.”

We watched as the scopes were brought online. All of the cities were seen through an orange haze, that billowed like smoke. There were no people to be seen although we could see what we thought might be the remains of many. There were craft that appeared to have once been smoking ruins. Some buildings were present, in a very decayed condition, but the vast majority were piles of rubble.

It appeared that Caesar was not happy being the only one gone.

Chapter 2.4

“What happened here?” Marc asked.

“I’m not really sure. Obviously, it wasn’t like this when we left.”

“I’m sure of that,” John said. “Where can we find records?”

“The capitol was in Honolulu. Diamond Head. We’ll probably find what we need there.”

“We’ve stopped our roll. Engines are ready to fire, Sir.”

“Fire them and turn on main engines to slow.”

“Roll?” I asked.

“The station rolls. That way, if anything happened to the gravity, we’d have some form.”

“Yeah, but we’d be standing on the ceilings,” I argued, “and we’d hit those hard. It’s eighty feet up.”

“Yes, Rose. That’s true, but the station normally spins at a rate that makes gravity about twenty-five percent.”

“I see.” I didn’t, as physics was not my strong suit.

John smiled indulgently. He knew me too well.

Suddenly, we felt the station shudder, and I had a momentary flutter in my stomach. For several minutes, I felt like gravity was at an angle to the floor. I had to lean to one side. I guessed that our direction of travel was the opposite of my lean.

And then, I was scared. I looked at my husband, whose hand I was holding, and I was terrified of him. I hadn’t felt this way for over three hundred years. I let go and cowered against a wall as far away from the men as I could. The men got as far away from me and the navigator as they could as well.

Smythe had never felt anything like this, but John had. “Roll us over and get us out of here. As fast as you can, but don’t hit the sun, okay?” The navigator was paralyzed, so I jumped to her side. “Please, I know you’re scared, but I don’t know how to fly this thing. Set a course away from Earth, and get us out of here, as quick as you can. Please!”

She looked up at me and then she did what I asked.

In a few moments, the fear disappeared. “That was stage one, wasn’t it,” Smythe said. Slowly, he approached the navigation station, and looked at the screens to see where we were headed. “How much fuel do we have.”

“Not much, Sir.” she said, pointing to a gauge on the screen in front of her.

Smythe turned to John. “What do you think?”

“There’s something on the planet that’s starting the nanites. We can’t go down there.”

“Well, we could, but we couldn’t stay long.”

“How long did they have?” I asked, rhetorically.

“Quite right, Mrs. Carlson.”

“Miss Smith,” he asked the navigator, “Is it possible to pick up speed if we swing around the sun, then use the rest of out fuel to break away the direction we’ve come?”

“Yes, Sir.” I think we can do that. I’ve aimed us into orbit of Sol. I’ll have to burn our fuel anyway, because even if we were to stay in orbit, it would decay soon.”

“Okay, do it.”

“Rashda,” I said as we were preparing. Is there any way we can get close enough to the Earth to see what is causing the nanites to activate?”

“Why? We’ll be going at a speed where we can’t stay in orbit.”

Miss Smith did some figures. “I can bring us close enough to use Earth’s gravity to swing around and head out the way we came into the galaxy. The only problem is we’ll touch the outer atmosphere to do it.”

I looked at Smythe. “It’s your ship.”

“Mrs. Carlson, arrange two observation posts. One for men, and one for women. John, you and Marc, separate the men and women in the rest of the ship. Tell them what we’re going to do.”

“Thank you, Commander,” I said. “And it’s Rose!” Before he could reply, I had left the command center.

---

I hurried down to the observation posts. I told them what we were planning, and they segregated themselves. I stayed with the women. I had no idea what they were going to do, but I wanted to hear as soon as possible. I got a call from John and Marc after a few minutes. They were wondering what observation posts the different sexes were in. A couple of women came up to me. “We should leave, Rose.”

“Why?”

“I’m bisexual, and Cindy is intersex.”

Alright, Carla. Go ahead. I understand.”

They hurried out. Suddenly, I felt the room getting hotter and hotter. One of the women shouted, “We’re going around the sun!”

“Our environmental systems are having trouble keeping up,” another woman said.

We were on the side of the ship away from the sun. I hated to think what the men were feeling, as they were on the other side. I called John.

“We’re really feeling it, but the systems are favoring our side of the ship.”

I acknowledged what he told me, then said, “John, when we get close to Earth...” I stopped for a moment.

“Yes?” he said.

“Remember that I love you.”

“Keep that in mind yourself. I love you to, Rose.”

I’m not sure how long it took us to swing around the sun, but when it started cooling off, I was very happy. Not long afterwards, the revulsion returned. I had been here so many times, I was able to keep in mind John and my love, but the thought of him still made me sick to my stomach. Soon, we felt a buffeting of the ship, then it was gone. Not long after, stage one abruptly turned off. Several of the women in the room sighed in relief. They did not have the experience with stage one that I had.

A few minutes later, some of the men hesitantly walked into the post, including Marc and John. “We need to get the data to the lab,” Marc told the women. The men’s data is heading there as we speak.”

Carla pushed some buttons in front of her. “It’s on it’s way.” She turned to me. “Mrs. Carlson; Request permission to head to the lab?”

I was shocked that she asked, but then realized I was a commander. “Granted,” I told her. I think I was the only one who noticed Marc head out with her.

Three hundred years,” I murmured.

John snapped his head in my direction, then noticed that Marc was no longer beside him. He smiled at me. “I can’t even imagine what he has gone through losing his bond mate, but I don’t know if I could ever take another woman if something happened to you.”

I had to look away, because my eyes started to water.

Passing Mars,” one of the women said. “We have a fair amount of speed.”

Do you know how much fuel we have left?” John asked.

None,” the woman said after she switched her screen to mirror Miss Smith’s.

She cut it to the wire,” I commented.

So we will leave the galaxy never to come back,” John said quietly.

Unless we made some fuel,” I said to him.

We need every ounce of matter on board, Ma’am,” the same woman told me. “Food, air; it’s all necessary.”

There was a thump, then, “There go the engines.”

I guess Commander Smythe feels the same,” John said.

---

Later that night, we were in the back room of my restaurant. Carla was there with Marc, and surprisingly, Miss Smith was there with Commander Smythe.

Personally, I thought both relationships were cute.

“That was some impressive navigating, Colleen,” the commander told her.

“Thank you, Rashda.”

“We all agreed, and she blushed.”

“Well, we think we know what was causing stage one,” Carla told us.

“What?” I was very curious, even though I probably wouldn’t understand.

“There was a magnetic shift in the Earth’s core.”

“How would that affect us?” John wanted to know. “I thought the core was changing anyway.”

“I’m not sure how Caesar shifted it, but any shift from the way it was was enough to cause stage one.”

“So you’re saying it would have happened eventually anyway.”

“It appears that way,” she said.

“So did our magnetic field change on N21?”

“Perhaps,” Marc said, “But I think it’s more likely that there was a computer hidden somewhere on board that was controlling the nanites. That single bit turned it on.”

“So are you saying the computers on Earth used the same idea?” I asked. “Why would he make a trigger so hard to set off? Certainly changing the magnetic field of a planet was not easy.”

“My guess,” explained Carla, “is at some point, he wanted to know if he could do it. When he found that he could… Well, a magnetic sensor wouldn’t he hard to make. You could actually do it with a compass. In fact, by turning the compass, he could ‘Total Fun’ from happening.”

“So the compass switch would turn on the computer?”

“Well, it might have been more sophisticated than that, but essentially, yes,” Marc said.

“What destroyed the cities?” Smythe asked.

“We’re not sure of that,” Carla told him. “We’re still investigating that.”

---

Later that night, John and I were laying in bed. “I was so freaked out when I was scared of you,” I told him. “I haven’t felt that way for three hundred years.”

“I was too.”

I moved closer to him and put my head on his chest. “I never want to feel that way again.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to,” he told me.

“By the way,” I told him, “I’ve noticed that my period is two weeks late, and shows no sign of starting.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?” he asked cautiously.

“It might,” I told him, smiling.

“I thought all the women on the station were taking birth control.”

“John,” I said, “there will be mistakes. I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. I think I’ll like being a mother, and I’m sure you’ll like being a father.”

“But we’re still not sure?”

“No, my darling husband, we’re not. I’ll see if any of the labs can test me tomorrow, okay?”

He kissed me on the forehead, as I looked up at his face. “I know we’re not supposed to have a baby, but I like the possibility.”

I smiled and kissed him on the lips. Then I told him, “Me too.”

I put my head back on his chest. Soon, I felt myself drifting off.

That night, I dreamed of having not one baby, but twins. A boy and a girl. I was ecstatic, as was John. We made Marc and Carla their grandparents.

A girl can dream, right?

Chapter 2.5

The next day, I went to the lab. I met Carla there and quietly explained what I suspected. “You know, we can’t have more children, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I came to you.” Carla had become a very good friend on the way home – no, not to home, but to Earth – from N21.

We slipped out of her lab, undetected, and made our way to her apartment. Strangely, I had never been inside before, but I saw why. She had kept her sexual preferences quiet, but inside her apartment, they became quite plain. I had never seen some of the items she had, It was rather interesting

Where I had a kitchen, she had a personal laboratory. It was in stark contrast to what was displayed in her living room, but when you closed the lab door, It was just that -- a lab.

“Do you cook in here?” I asked.

“Actually, no. I usually eat at one of the restaurants downstairs.”

I nodded. I had eaten at some of them as well. I had wanted to know if any were better than the food we had that first night in the briefing room. None was. I had not wanted to ‘step on any toes,’ but I knew I would have to make my restaurant rather large. Interestingly, some of the station’s chefs had come to me for instruction. I was flattered, but I wasn’t sure I could teach what I knew instinctively.

I had tried to teach music, but I found writing was the best way for me to do that. I couldn’t get in front of a crowd and speak very well.

“I’m insulted, Carla,” I said “You’re not always in mine.”

She blushed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Rose. Your food is so extravagant. Sometimes I need something easy and quick.”

I smiled. “I’ll tell you a secret, Carla.” I looked around her lab, acting like I was checking for someone spying on us. “So do I,” I told her in a stage whisper.

We both giggled, then she had me hold out my arm to get a blood sample.

She examined it under a microscope. “This is interesting,” she said as she looked at it.

She moved out of the way so I could look. I saw blood. “What am I looking for?” I asked.

“Do you see the nanites?”

“Uh…. No?”

“Sorry, Rose. I forget sometimes that you’re not a scientist.”

“I am!” I exclaimed. “I do gastronomy!”

She rolled her eyes, then told me, “I’m really sorry, Rose. To make sure, I’ve got to take this to the biology lab. It’s gonna get to Commander Smythe.”

“It was going to eventually anyway, Carla,” I said to her, resignedly. “May as well get it over with.”

Together, we walked toward the biology lab. On the way, I asked, “Should John be here?”

“It’s up to you, Rose. It might be a good idea, as this might be something that involves all the people on N21.”

I called John and asked that he meet us there. When we arrived, Winston Reese was present as he was in charge of this particular lab. John walked in a moment later.

“What’s up?” he asked.

I motioned for both men to come out into the corridor. They followed, and Carla told them what she had found.

“I think your nanites are still doing something a bit different than what they would do in me. At least they are in Rose. We will need to check a wider range of people to make sure.”

“Any idea what they could be doing?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Carla told me.

“Do you notice anything different than before you started in ‘Total Fun’?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I was a man before ‘Total Fun’. I was changed in stage one. I guess I have no idea what a woman without having gone through any of the the stages would feel like.” The idea that I was not a normal woman hit me hard. I glanced at John, and I think he understood what I was feeling. He put his arm around me and pulled me to him. I was grateful for that, as I didn’t feel so alone.

Carla nodded. “We need to test people who were female before ‘Total Fun’ as well. I guess I could check myself, but I won’t see anything like this.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I haven’t gone through…” She paused. “I guess I have, huh?”

I nodded.

“We’ve got to contact Commander Smythe about this,” Winston said, starting to head back into the lab.

“Wait! Please,” I exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“I think I might be pregnant,” I said in a small voice.

Winston stopped and looked at me for a long minute. “I see,” he said. “Did you stop...” His voice trailed off.

“No,” I told him. “I’ve been very careful to take my birth control shot. One each year.”

“Is it not working for women from N21?”

“We haven’t heard anything from anyone else,” John replied. “But if they’re pregnant, they might be afraid to say anything.”

Reese nodded. “I understand. We can’t afford to have a bunch of kids here. If we do have, we’re going to have to come up with a solution. And fast.”

“The resources we have here are it,” Carla said, very little inflection in her voice. “Recycling everything is something that we have to do. I think we could get away with a thousand kids, but that would be stretching things.”

“Can you test that sample for pregnancy?” I asked. "I’d really like to know before we have to tell Rashda.”

“Come on into the lab,” Winston told me. We walked in and he motioned us to follow him into a private room. This was set up very similar to Carla’s kitchen, but it had a few more devices that I had absolutely no idea of their function. Winston had me make a fist, and took some blood from my arm. He put the blood into some device, and in a few minutes, he had a reading.

“Well?” I asked. I was tense, and John was rubbing my back. I suppose he could feel my tension.

“I guess we’ll have to wait to see what Rashda says before I congratulate you,” Winston told me.

I leaned into John. I was so happy, but at the same time, I wasn’t. How could I explain to Commander Smythe that I had not skipped birth control?

I really wanted to give it some time before I told the commander, but Winston took that option away from me when he called him. “What did you do that for?” I demanded.

“If this is something common to all N21 women, then we need to let Rashda know. Also, if that’s the case, it’s not your fault, Rose.”

Carla held out her arm. “Test me, Winston. This may not be a problem with just N21 women.”

“Could you be pregnant?”

“Not that I know of, but I could be if all women have changed because of that little excursion we had into ‘Total Fun’, we need to know.”

Winston nodded and took a blood sample from Carla. “We need to test everyone, he said after a bit.”

A moment later we saw that he really did mean everyone as he pulled a blood sample from his own body. “It’s a bit different from you two’s blood, but its still not normal.”

“What’s not normal,” I turned my head and saw Rashda standing in the doorway.

Rather than answer, Winston held out a syringe to Smythe. “Commander, may I have a sample of your blood?”

The commander didn’t say anything, he just held out his arm. His expression was not pleased.

“Same as mine,” Reese said. “John?”

Winston checked a sample from John with the same results. “Commander, could we please meet in the briefing room, along with Marc Dodson. I’ll explain what I’ve found there.”

---

In the briefing room, we had a couple of extra people that Winston had asked to come with us. I was not happy to be there, as I had a feeling what Smythe would say.

“I’ve done some blood samples, on John and Rose, Carla and Myself, and also Commander Smythe,” Winston told the others.

“Alright Winston,” said Smythe. “What did you find?”

“Mrs. Carlson had a bit of a problem, so she asked Carla to see what was wrong,” Reese told him.

“What did you find, Reese?”

“I’m getting there, Commander.”

Rashda looked like he was about ready to lose his patience. I understood. This affected him as well. Not that he could get pregnant. At least, I didn’t think he could. Winston hadn’t told any of us what he found.

“Okay, Reese, what did Rose find?”

“She suspected that she might be pregnant.”

The commander didn’t say a word. He just looked at me. I felt like I was shrinking into the floor.

Smythe finally asked me, “And are you?”

I couldn’t speak. I just nodded my head.

“Have you been taking...”

“She hasn’t missed one at all, Rashda,” John defended me.

Rashda nodded, then looked back at Reese. “I’m assuming that Rose being pregnant has something to do with what you found?”

“Yes, I believe it does. Carla found something...”

At this point, Smythe sighed heavily. “Winston, I assume that at some point you will tell me what you found. Is that a valid assumption?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Carry on.”

“Okay,” Winston said with a smile. He hated to miss details when he was giving a report, so he always did it his way. It always worked better for him, but he drove others crazy. “Carla found something in Rose’s blood that she couldn’t explain, so she brought it to me. I took another sample, and saw it as well. I then checked Carla and found the same thing. You, John and I have the something similar.”

I could see that Rashda wanted to hurry Winston along, and it was taking all his effort to refrain from exploding.

“It appears that we still have a different job that the nanites are doing in our bodies. As a matter of fact, now that I know the effects, I can testify to this myself.”

He took a deep breath and finally gave the facts to Smythe. “Men have testosterone in their bodies, women have estrogen. There’s some crossover there, but in general, that’s how it is. In men, I found that the nanites have receptors for carrying testosterone. I can only guess that this is heading to the brain. There, it would increase the male libido. In essence, men will want more sex. I can testify that I wanted it way more when in one of the stages. Any of them, actually. In stage one, the only thing keeping me from jumping every woman I saw….”

“Must you put it like that?” asked his wife, Ruby. She was one of the two people who came up with him to the briefing room.

“I understand what you mean, Hon, but honestly, that’s how it felt at the time.”

Marc and John both nodded their agreement.

“Yes,” John said, “but I wonder if a good or special friendship with one person focuses your attention toward her.”

Hearing him say that, I squeezed his hand.

“It could be,” Reese said. “I know the married couples generally bonded with their spouses when we reached stage two. In fact, in certain cases, they didn’t have to be anywhere near each other for the bond to take place.”

“So what happens in women?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.

“Women’s nanites seem to have specialized for them as well. They have been designed to carry estrogen in the same way men’s nanites carry testosterone.”

“Wait a minute Reese,” Vern Smith had come up from the lab as well as Ruby. He was the brother of Colleen Smith. “I thought hormones are simply secreted into the blood stream.”

“Generally they are. However, the brain has chemical receptors to bond with it. What the nanites do, is pick it up with their own receptors, but it doesn’t bond with the nanites. They don’t allow that. Instead, they carry the majority of the chemicals to the brain.”

“Where it bonds and makes the sex drive.” Vern finished.

“Right, only it creates the sex drive in spades.” Reese explained. “Now, this is just supposition from what I saw in a very limited group, so we need to scan several people and verify this. Also, I want to see inside people’s brains and make sure what’s happening there.”

“I’ll volunteer for that,” John offered.

“So will I,” I told him.

“So why the pregnancy?” Rashda wanted to know.

“That, I’m not sure of,” Winston told him. “For that, I’d rather someone who isn’t pregnant. Actually, I know that some of the medical equipment from when they needed it could effect a developing baby, so I appreciate the offer Rose, but I’d rather not take that risk.”

“Alright,” I said nodding. I agreed wholeheartedly. I was rather protective of the child that was developing inside me.

Suddenly,we received a message from Colleen. “Rashda, we have something up here that you need to see.”

Smythe looked around at us all. “John and Rose, will you come with me? Winston, figure this out please.” Then he touched a button that put his voice through every intercom on the ship. “Mr Dodson, would you please come to the command center?”

Then we were off.

---

Author's note.
This story is not over yet, but I need to focus on "After Caesar" for a bit.
My sincerest apologies, however to go on here will give away too much of the story. I am planning on eventually making a file that will put "N21" and "After Caesar" in chronological order for reading. Hopefully it will make things a bit less confusing. Then again, it may make things more confusing. Who knows?

Author's Note:
I recommend reading After Caesar through chapter twelve before reading this chapter of N21. You can read this beforehand, but it will ruin After Caesar when you do decide to read it.

N21 Chapter 2.6

I'm not sure what we expected as we entered the command center. What we found however, was shocking, to say the least.

Colleen had some scopes showing the exteriors of the bays.

There was something wrong, however. I stepped closer and peered at them. Half of them looked as though they had been rubbed by a rough grit sandpaper over their entire surface.

"What happened?" Rashda asked.

Marc hurried into the command center, and answered.

"We were doing an inspection of the exterior. As you know, we touched the atmosphere briefly. The starboard side of the ship touched the orange haze. The port didn't. At first I didn't know what the haze was. I do now.

"Apparently, missiles like the ones N21 and N22 held were fired off on Earth."

"What?!!?"

I had never seen fury like I saw on Rashda's face that day.

“I thought they were sent into the sun,” John said.

“They were,” Smythe replied.

“Weren’t they the only missiles left in orbit?” I asked.

“Yes, they were. They must have missed the sun when we fired them.”

Marc just looked at him. I could tell he wanted to ask how, but didn’t.

I figured I could ask with a bit more tolerance than Marc could, so I asked.

The fury left Rashda’s face, as even though I was born a man, he would never yell at a woman. “I’m not sure, Dear Lady. I do know that the programming for them should have taken them directly into the sun. Colleen and I collaborated on it.”

“Rashda,” Colleen addressed him. “I’m looking at the course we set. There is no way those missiles should have missed.”

He walked over and looked at the course. “I don’t see any way they could have missed, however the question now is what is happening on the ship.”

Marc walked into the center of the room. “The outer hull appears to be deteriorating.”

“What?” John was shocked. “Was it from coming in contact with our atmosphere?”

“We just skimmed the atmosphere. The other side of the ship had much less contact.”

“Is there any deterioration on it?”

“Some, but not as much. I believe whatever is causing it was considerably more concentrated on the starboard side.”

“When you say deteriorating,” I asked, scared of the answer, “do you mean that it is still occurring?”

“Yes,” Marc answered.

"Will it come through to the interior?" John wondered.

"There certainly seems to be that possibility."

I was completely sick of this entire situation. "When will this end? We have gone through hell and back for Willem, we've changed genders, I've been terrified of my husband… what more does this bastard want of us?" By the end of my tirade, I was starting to cry.

"Come on, Honey. Let's get you back to our room." John put his arm around me and began to guide me out of the command center. I was not having it! "No!" I ducked under his arm and spun to face him. On his face was a look of complete surprise. I don't think anyone else expected it either.

"I am not going to be shooed away… the poor Rose… mommy to be. Her hormones have her in a tizzy! I won't be treated that way, John. Not by you or anyone else." I know I was giving him a look that would probably have made Willem Wallace rethink his plans, but I was fed up. I just wanted to be able to live my life in peace with my husband and children. Was that too much to ask?

It suddenly dawned on me that everyone was staring. I looked around, and had my face not been flushed from my anger already, it would be now from embarrassment. I stepped over to a chair and sat down hard. I was embarrassed, but I was also pissed off. I glared at John, who seemed to think that the better part of valor was to concede.

Smythe looked from me to John, and I gave up on glaring at John. How dare he look to John for the decision. I was fully able to make my own mind up! "Don't you dare ask John if it's okay for me to stay, Rashda," I exclaimed! I wanted to cry again, but my pride wanted to scream. What the hell was wrong with me?

I think John figured that I needed calmed, but I wasn't about to leave. He did the only thing he could. He pulled a chair up next to me, sat down, and offered his hand.

I grabbed it in a vice like grip, then I put my head on his shoulder. My crying was now full force. Everyone seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at me. Carla had accompanied us from the briefing room, and now she stepped to Rashda's side. She whispered something to him, then stepped away. The commander simply went to his personal chair and sat down. Rather than brush me off, he simply went over the course figures again with Colleen. I wasn't being ignored, but I was given some space to vent. I wasn't sure if any pregnant woman had ever been treated with such respect, but I appreciated the respect that everyone gave me.

After a few minutes, I kissed John's cheek and gave him a tight hug. "Thank you," I whispered in his ear. He returned the embrace and we stood up. Rashda didn't hurry or show any frustration. Instead he finished his conversation with Colleen, then stood up.

"Have you any idea what these are, Marc?" It seemed that he was going to act like nothing had happened.

"I'm guessing," Marc said while giving me a nervous glance, that they are nanites." I smiled reassuringly, hoping that I could keep my emotions at bay. I wanted to scream again in frustration, but I was afraid if I did, I wouldn't have a choice. I would be expelled from the command center.

"I think Rose is right, Commander. This would most likely be another one of Caesar's playtimes."

"I guessed that, Marc." He sighed. "I'm tired. Do you have any idea what we can do?"

"No, Sir."

Rashda nodded. "Find out, please. I'm gonna take a nap."

I watched him leave and he looked as though he was going to cry. I realized that he probably blamed himself somehow. Those missiles were programmed by him and Colleen. The whole idea was his to launch them. I felt horrible for losing it the way I did.

Suddenly, I wanted to head to our rooms. I had just made a good friend feel responsible for the death of our planet. I couldn't speak, so I simply motioned to John that I needed some sleep. He nodded and I made my exit.

I was walking down down the street in our bay when John caught me. I realized I had been engrossed in my thoughts and had missed the doors that would take me home. I shook my head and we walked back. We didn't say anything until we got into our living area. Once again, I sat down and started crying, only this time, I poured out my thoughts to John.

I'm certain there were times he wanted to yell, "Snap out of it, woman!" Wisely, he didn't.

"You didn't need to make him feel bad, Rose. He already felt horrible."

"Right," I said to him. "I made it worse."

"No. I don't think that would be possible."

I knew he was right. For some reason, I was looking for something to fuel my depression. I wasn't sure why, but I suspected my hormones were running wild from the pregnancy. I took a shakey breath and nodded. I decided that I really did need a nap, so I went into the bedroom. John accompanied me but I turned away from him as he lay down.

I really didn't want to feel good, and I suspect that John knew that. He spooned up to me put his mouth beside my ear. I really didn't want to hear him tell me how beautiful he thought I was, or how much he loved me. He kept punctuating his statements with kisses. I didn't want this! I wanted to feel bad! I tried to get up.

I tried to scream at him. Instead, he somehow got through to my addled brain and I finally started listening. I turned my head back to look at him. He was propped up on an elbow, apparently waiting for my brain to start working sensibly. He smiled at me and kissed away some tears. I rolled over and snuggled up to him, and marvelled that I had such a man. Eventually, I fell asleep.

---

About halfway through the night I awoke with a start. Something was very wrong, but I couldn't place it. I was still curled up next to John, and his breathing was even. I carefully disentangled my body and tried to sit up without waking him. I went into the restroom, did what I needed, then threw on a robe. I stepped into our living area and looked around. I couldn't see anything wrong. I heard a sound from the bathroom and realized that, as usual, I wasn't able to get up without waking John.

I could detect absolutely nothing strange, but I knew there was something, somewhere, if I could just place a finger on it. John came out of the bathroom. He was wearing just his pajama bottoms, and I really wanted to grab him and convince him to go back to bed with me… but what the hell was wrong?

John had an odd look as well. "Do you feel it?" he asked me.

"It woke me up, but…" my voice trailed off. "What is it?" I asked him.

He shook his head, turned and went back into the room. The light came on, and I hurried to see what he was doing. He was getting dressed. I gathered that our night had ended, so I grabbed some clothes and threw them on.

I really wanted to put on makeup at this time of morning, but he pulled me out of the room. We headed to the control room and were met there by Marc and Carla, as well as Rashda and Colleen. It appeared that we all were awakened by something.

I glanced at the status screen, and everything was green all the way across. But then, one of the bay status lights went yellow.

"Rashda!"

He turned from where the men had been discussing something and hurried to Colleen's side. By the time he got there, three more had gone yellow. Then the first yellow turned red, and it was if everything moved to slow motion. The computer had already shut the doors to that bay… Our bay! Then, when the red light came on, it signified some sort of catastrophic failure.

What it would mean on a passenger ship was one thing, but on a weapons platform, it meant that you get rid of a failing missile bay as soon as possible.

I watched numbly as my home was once again lost. I wanted to lash out, but the horror escalating all around stopped me. I saw another light go red. Already, john had grabbed a mic and was ordering people to evacuate all bays to the upstairs and downstairs rings.

Through the corridors, I could hear screams and panicked voices. A light went red. Thunk! Another light went yellow, while two more went red. Thunk! Thunk! I glanced at, then couldn't look away from the screens showing the bays. The first one, our home, seemed to be crumbling away as it slowly pirouetted, the distance between us growing.

I stared, and everything seemed to be happening at the end of a dark tunnel. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor with Carla beside me, making sure I was alright.

---

Author’s note:

This is the end of N21, however the story will continue, merged in with After Caesar Part 2 Chapter 1.

Author’s note:

This story takes place in the time of the N21 station, but on Earth at the end of “Caesar’s” reign up until Freeman’s Death? I would recommend that you read N21 first.

---

Chapter 1.1

Willem Wallace sat, looking over his domain. Not that he could see much, but he ‘owned’ the earth. When he came to power, or rather arranged his own rise to power, he wasn’t sure where he wanted his base of operations to be. London, Paris, Jakarta… He didn’t know. He wanted it to be perfect. He wanted the people to be compliant; willing to be led by someone with his special qualifications. To that end, he had a palace built in Death Valley of southern California, in the United States. He had considered the Sahara Desert, but he didn’t want his domain to be full of sand. Granted, he could program some nanites to make people willing slaves who continually cleaned his palace. By the time he was done, they would love being his personal slaves, but there would still be the sand. Going outside would continually be dirty with sand everywhere.

By contrast, Death Valley had rugged beauty, which he rather fancied. Historically, it had been a national park for thousands of years, which meant it was devoid of things in his way. Certainly, he could have things removed. Cities could simply be demolished to make way for him. The population could be converted to slaves. He didn’t mind, but this way, he would have more people to adore him. He really wanted that; constant adoration.

To build his domicile, he needed slaves however. He was firmly in power now, so he could safely abduct towns and make it look as though they came willingly. He programmed his nanites in a few small towns around the world to make the entire populations ask to be made his unquestioning, completely loyal servants.

The people arrived, and he put many to work building his home. Others became his personal slaves. Many young boys… Well he fancied them, so they were made to look exactly like young women, but they still had their male equipment where it mattered to him.

Those who became workmen were made large brutes. Their intelligence was cut back; they didn’t need it. Those who were going to serve in his house were made beautiful. Many people were going to be guards. They were made powerful. And the wonderful thing was that they were all completely obedient.

Wallace was a reader of ancient books, and had, in his younger years, come across an anthology of writings by a man known as Isaac Asimov, called I, Robot. It was fascinating, and he especially loved the three laws of robotics that the writer had envisioned. He used these laws for his slaves. They were ingrained into their minds, with one small change. They would not, through action or inaction, injure Willem Wallace. They would obey Willem Wallace, as long as it wouldn’t interfere with law one. They would protect their own life, as long as it didn’t interfere with law one or law two.

They became the perfect ‘robots’. The rest of humanity was left alone. Their nanites were designed only to keep them healthy. That would allow them to give him absolute voluntary adoration.

Over the years the palace was expanded. He couldn’t have his workmen doing nothing, although there were intervals where they did just that. They ate, slept, and sat motionless for several months while his architects came up with something new for them to build.

His world, his personal Earth was perfect! He loved it, and was benevolent to his subjects. They were given everything they needed. This did not include freedom from him, however, because he was the one who knew what they needed. He was the only one smart enough to rule with such benevolence. His word was final, and everybody loved him!

As time went on, however, Wallace began to think that he probably should change the minds of the whole population. He wanted voluntary adoration, but he was having to expel people from earth, as examples to those who were more compliant. The number of those he got rid of was expanding, and he felt it needed to stop.

His reign was over ten thousand years old, when it finally fell. He was dumbfounded. How could it end? He had cared for his people for millennia! Didn’t they know that he owned them? Each person on the earth was his! They were his playthings!

The truth of the matter did not sway them. They came in droves!

Somehow, they had dug giant conduits from the Pacific Ocean, and under the Sierras where, when the final openings were made, they would flood the entire valley. Several charges were placed under the foundation of the palace and a conduit built which ended there. It had taken years to set this up. It had to be perfect.

Several people gave their lives while this was done. Wallace did not know they were planning his demise; only that these people were not adoring him properly. They weren’t killed, however. They became servants to Wallace, in his palace. They were outfitted as his personal slave girls, their bodies modified by the nanites to match the young boys he had originally ‘hired’.

There was no way to destroy the nanites Wallace had made. The people had been forced to receive many inoculations, and they were afraid that these might have put reprogrammed nanites into them.

When the explosives were set off, the ones under the palace were fired first. Five women had infiltrated appearing to be slave girls, and set charges near Wallace’ personal chambers. Each one had enough to destroy them, as they feared they might be caught. Each one was also prepared to give her life for the destruction of the madman who ruled the earth. On the day of the fall, they placed the charges; each young lady and stood, guarding them, until they went off.

Those explosives underground were detonated, then the ones on the Pacific side. They flooded the valley quickly. A testimonial to the architects of Wallace was that the vast palace did not fall. It was flooded both from the inside out and from the outside in. The waters met inside with a cataclysmic force. Most of the slaves were killed outright, while the rest drowned. Only Wallace survived as he was in the highest point of the palace, looking out on his possession.

Not long after the waves had subsided, a craft was sent to survey the new inland sea. It was amazing to see what man’s ingenuity had accomplished. The only part of the palace sitting above the water was a spire, and on a balcony sitting approximately five meters above the water was a man. Willem Wallace. He had survived.

The craft hovered beside the balcony, and picked the madman up. He had thought he was being rescued. That was not so. He was forced to sit in the back of the craft, under the watchful eyes, and weapons, of members of his own military. They had free will, however, and no longer wished this man to be in power.

There was no trial. That had been accomplished over ten thousand years. No sane person on earth wished this man his freedom. There was no way he could receive a fair trial. Certainly, there were people who were not convinced that Wallace was as bad as people made him out to be, but they were a minority, and generally considered as insane as him.

He was placed in a maximum security prison that was built explicitly for him. The doors were welded shut, so he could never escape. To prove they were more benevolent than him, he was given reading material and a multimedia system, but nothing that could possibly aid him in escape. He had a courtyard where he could exercise. It was nothing he could escape from however, as the top was made of a transparent steel. It was constantly polished as it tended to rust in bad weather, and the blowing sand of the desert the prison was in constantly wore it down. Each year, a new layer of steel was poured on top of the old, after a serious polishing, and after it cooled, it was as see through as the last layer.

Wallace was secure. He would never bother anyone again.

---

On an Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a new government was built. It had once been a volcano, but it had been extinct for many years. The particular location had been a military installation at one time.

There was a city that had been present for millenia. In fact, it had broadened to where it took up almost seventy five percent of the length of the island and the fill width.

It was well known that there had once been a monument built over a sunken ship in one of the harbors, but the ship had rotted away to nothing.

The location of the new capitol building was in a volcanic crater to the southeast of the city. The ancient name of the crater was Diamond Head. Once the military establishment was no longer needed in the crater, it was removed and the crater turned into a park. Wallace had seen it, and built a retreat there. The entire crater was extended upwards with walls which straddled them. Inside, was still much open area, but it was a two hundred acre courtyard now.

Wallace had decided that only those who were loyal to him would be allowed inside the crater, which meant that when his feelings on the population of the world was becoming suspicious, the structure was vacant.

As much for spite as anything else, Diamond Head was made the conter of government power for the new republic.

---

For ten thousand years, Wallace’ family had hidden from his view. He tried to find them initially, but he finally realized that he just didn’t care where they were.

His brother, Fredrik, had warned the people of Earth that Willem could not be trusted. Fredrik had watched his brother, who was seventy-five years younger, grow up, and he had seen the younger man’s progressing insanity. Willem, however, was able to act completely normal, and Fredrik was eventually considered simply an eccentric.

Now, however, Fredrik was respected. The people had seen that he was absolutely correct regarding his brother. When a government was formed, two people were asked to step up and run for the position of president of the world, however, something strange happened. The two men received a considerable amount of votes, to be sure. However, underneath, on many more ballots, Fredrik’s name was written in.

He was reluctant to take the power of the government into his own hands, as he wanted to distance himself from his brother. He tried to say no, but the people wouldn’t hear of it. He was their choice, and that was that. Eventually, he accepted the position. For a time. He told the people that there must be a set term. The government made that term be a millennium, followed by a possible second term, but that was the limit allowed. No way was someone going to be president for over ten thousand years!

Fredrik Wallace became the first president of the new Earth Republic. He was Willem’s brother, but they looked nothing alike. Their father had divorced and remarried in the time between their births. Also, while Willem’s mother had appeared generally Scandanavian, Fredrik’s had been African. Thus, the people did not consider the brothers to be any bit the same.

Fredrik wanted there to be even more of a separation, so before he took office, he had his name changed. He kept his first name, but his last name came to signify the people of the new republic. Freeman.

---

Author’s note:

I realize that one thousand years is quite a long time for a president to be in power. The reason I believe these people would set a term this long is because they had just deposed a leader who had been in power ten times that long. As well, they lived an exceptionally long time, and a single millennium is simply a drop in the bucket as far as they are concerned.

Also, N21 WILL be completed. I’m simply giving a bit more information about Earth with this book as well as a bit of time for the remainer of N21 to come together in my head.

Chapter 1.2

The announcer glanced behind him. He received a small smile, and a nod of the head, so he stepped to the podium.

“People of Earth. It brings me pleasure to introduce to you, the first president of the New Earth Republic, Fredrik Freeman!”

The announcer’s voice echoed across the courtyard. They were surrounded by the government buildings, and the day was magnificent. Freeman stepped up to the podium and shook the announcer’s hand. It was an ancient gesture, as old as time itself, it seemed.

The announcer stepped off the platform, and Freeman began to speak.

Elsewhere in the world, a man sat looking at a multimedia screen He made no move to turn off the screen, but his face became stone at the sight of his brother as the new ruler.

“Hello my fellow Terrans. I use that term because in ancient times, the word Terra was used as a name for our planet. I have studied our ancient times, as you all know, and have helped set up our government in a way that seemed to represent many countries in our past.”

Willem Wallace shook his head. The bastard took what was his, and now claimed to be helping it. His face twitched as the irony of his brother becoming the ruler of his; Willem’s domain was pathetic.

"Under this new form of government, you have the privilege, no, the RIGHT to be your own person. You will be able to do whatever you wish as long as you are not infringing upon the rights of others. Each of us has the duty to make sure our world never has something like Willem Wallace happen to it again. We are free of him! We will not have him infringing on our rights… Our very lives, again!”

In his cell, Willem smiled. There was a guard who had been watching, and he noted when the former ruler smiled, but there was nothing odd in that. Was there?

“Thus, I have changed my name to show who we are now! We are not slaves! We are not owned! We are free men, and women! We are free people! May name now signifies that! I am no longer Fredrik Wallace. I am Fredrik Free Man!”

---

“Nice speech, brother.”

Willem Wallace sat looking at his brother Fredrik. In his time, Fredrik had seen just as many movies from the ancient times as his brother had. He remembered so many that had a character like Willem. Well, perhaps not as bad, but still insane. Willem, however, showed no emotion on his face. He neither smiled nor frowned. He appeared… apathetic. That, however proved wrong from his words.

“You tried to pass of your taking what was mine to others. I owned the Earth, and you took it from me. I had hoped that you were gone forever. You always took what was rightfully mine when I was a child. Now you do the same thing.”

Fredrik cocked his head at his younger brother. “What do you mean?”

“Everytime I had something that I could call my own, you took it.”

It seemed ridiculous to try to argue this point with Willem. They had been over it and over it many times, and Willem had never been able to give any form of example of his accusations. Frankly, Fredrik had no idea where his brother got his ideas. They knew each other, obviously, but when Willem was born, Fredrik had just completed his apprenticeship as an archaeologist. It made no sense.

Fredrik stood and turned to leave. Now, Willem was smiling.

“You think You’re through with me, Freddie?”

The elder turned back. He hated the diminutive name, but he let that pass. “Yes, Willem. I do.”

The younger laughed. “You’ll never be through with my legacy, Brother.” The last word was spat out, like he was trying to get the last taste of vomit out of his mouth.

“That’s where you’re wrong, little brother. You can do no more damage in here. This is where you will stay for eternity. There is nothing that can hurt you in here. There is no danger from you at all, Willy.” Well… you have to get a bit of a dig in there, right? He watched Willem flinch at the name. “You don’t even have anything to relieve you of your life to get rid of your boredom.”

“Does this give you pleasure?”

“Not really. I would have much preferred that you hadn’t done what you did. I would have preferred a brother I could be proud of, rather than one I had to build a prison for.”

“Ah. So you did take what was mine, didn’t you? You took my very life.”

Fredrik shook his head. “You gave it to me.” He turned and walked out.

---

Things on Earth did get better. The next two hundred years were wonderful. Although Wallace was alive, he caused no problem to anyone. No one had any desire to see him, so he lived his own completely uneventful life. He was able to watch what was happening outside. It seemed as he watched his screen that he was waiting for something. Then one day, it happened.

He was watching something extremely boring. What it was, was not important. Instead, he saw what was on his screen flicker, then disappear.

He found himself looking at his own image from the time of the launch of the N21 space station from Earth’s orbit. “Welcome my pets,” he said. “We are going to join the passengers of N21 as they zoom away from us. We will be entertained. You will enjoy this.” It was more an order than anything else.

A picture of the inside of a space station came into being. “A fancy title flashed across the screen that said, “Live on N21!” He heard his own voice come from around those milling about on the station. “HELLO CHILDREN. I’M BORED. LET’S PLAY!” The people screamed in pain at his voice. It had been so loud they had been deafened.

The screen shifted again, and showed the same scene, and his voice sounded again. “SO COMPLACENT!” The light on the station started strobing. He watched as someone went to reach into the wall for some reason.

“Not a good idea,” he murmured. The man started to smoke as he became pile of charcoal. Wallace laughed hysterically as his voice stated, “THAT IS NOT ALLOWED.”

A moment later, the doors to the different bays slammed shut. The screen showed a woman cut completely in two.

“Wow! This is incredible television!” he exclaimed.

The view shifted to another camera aboard the station, and it zoomed into the panel showing what was happening inside that particular bay. In the center was a readout showing the air pressure. He held his breath as it reached zero, then he could hear the faint sound the the outer doors opening. The view switched to inside the bay, then back to the panel. A few moments later, the doors closed, and the pressure started to rise.

---

In the president’s office there was no noise at all. Everyone was staring at a screen, absolutely horrified. It had gone dark, but they couldn’t look away. Finally, Freeman asked, “Do we know where this came from?”

“Not yet, Sir, but we will.” A man hurried over to a comm panel and called the company that provided the regular programming. He spoke to them at length, the turned to the president. “They are going to aim their transmitters at the source. We can transmit something to them.”

“They’re still alive,” Freeman said to himself. “Incredible!”

It was some time before things were set for Earth to talk to N21. Freeman had talked with many people in the interim. He wanted to make sure what had happened there.

Astronomers talked about differences in the time frame. N21 had been gone for five hundred years, but the people would have only experienced a short time by comparison. There was no way to know exactly how long had passed for them, but it couldn’t have been long. The signal had been received by an extremely low level frequency. It had been received for almost a year before the computers were able to make sense of it.

Freeman spoke with the security department of Earth. They were what took the place of police, military… even security guards in shopping malls. They were all under the umbrella of the security department. They showed him videos taken of Wallace while he watched the broadcast from N21. It was appalling. At the end of it, he shut off the screen and sat back. He seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “Don’t get to comfortable, children.”

“Why did he say that?” Freeman wondered.

The director of the security department, Paul Robson, looked away from the screen. “I’m guessing, Sir, that there is more to happen.”

“He’s not done with them?”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Robson said, “but you know him much better than anyone else does.”

Freeman looked at him ruefully. “I suppose you're right; I know him better than anyone, but I don’t understand him.”

Robson gave a small snort. “No one does, Fred.”

Freeman nodded. Very few people called him Fred, but Robson had travelled with him as security when he disappeared from his brother. They had spent ten thousand years working together.

Finally, Freeman turned to his friend. “We need to know what Willem has planned.”

---

It was not pretty at all. Robson found some archives of recordings made in Willem’s castle. When people arrived to be slaves, they were separated into different classes. The young men were taken to a wing of the palace that looked suspiciously like a harem. As they passed through the entrance to the wing, something happened. It was hard to place, but it was definite. A few moments later, a shift in each man started to happen. Their bodies took on female characteristics. Each one shed himself of whatever clothes they arrived in, and these were gathered up and disposed of.

Then, Freeman saw something he never wished to again. It seemed as though each young man recognized what had happened to him. They all looked shocked. Many started to cry. And then, as one, they stopped. Their faces took on smile, like they were perfectly happy being where they were.

Willem stepped into view. He went up and down the rows of shemales his nanites had made, saying whether they would be his to play with, or domestic help. He picked only the most beautiful to be his personal slaves. The rest were sent somewhere else. One of the personal slaves was dressed better than all the rest, and put in a room of her own.

After Robson and Freeman had seen the recordings, they brought in a man who had been from one of the villages abducted, but had been in a neighboring city when it happened. His son had not been well that day, and had stayed home. The man watched the recording and gasped when he saw it.

“What is it?” Robson asked. He knew what the man had seen. He had seen a picture of the man’s son.

“My son,” the man almost sobbed. “He was one that was changed. He was the one who was given the special place.”

Robson nodded as the man went on. “I want that bastard. I want to kill him.”

“I’m not surprised,” Robson said. “I would too, but it needs done slowly. We need information so the people on N21 are not hurt again.”

“I don’t know how to do it slowly,” the old man said.

Robson held out some ancient books which he carefully handed to the man. “You have trained under my men for some time. This will train you to extract information from Willem Wallace. Study these, practice. Soon, you will get your opportunity.”

The old man left, and Freeman stood, walking up to his friend. “Is that really necessary?” he asked.

“Fred, you know Willem won’t give up that information easily. You told me once that one of the first uses for nanites was to stop shock in an injured person. Anything we do to get information will have to be extreme. You know this.”

“Yes, I do, but it seems that we are stooping to his level.”

“Do you want me to stop,” Paul asked.

Fredrik looked at him for a long time as he considered. Finally, he shook his head in the negative. He didn’t like it in the least, but It had to be done.

Author’s note:

This chapter is shorter than usual, but I felt that it needed to stand on its own. It is a very dark chapter, and may be disturbing to some. You have been warned.

---

Chapter 1.3

It took awhile for the father to study everything needed, but eventually, he was ready. He met with Paul Robson and Fredrik Freeman in Rome, and they took a craft into the Sahara Desert. About at the center of the expanse of sand was the ‘home’ of Willem Wallace, and they set the craft down by the only way in or out.

Even though Wallace had no way to enter or exit his cell, there was a code that allowed people in. Wallace had a life sentence, which would extend for a very long time, if no one was allowed in or out.

Freeman punched in his code, and the three entered. They met with a guard, immediately. “It’s ready, Sir.”

Freeman couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Instead, he gave a curt nod, and they went down the corridor. Nine more guards were encountered at checkpoints on the way in, until they came to the last one. Wallace was there, gloating as he eyed his brother. He started to mock, but Freeman reached over and snapped off the intercom. He was absolutely not going to enjoy what was coming, but he felt he had to be there. No matter what Wallace had done, they were still brothers. Freeman felt he owed something to him.

“Let Paul into the computer,” Freeman said quietly.

The guard moved, and Robson sat down. He entered some commands, then told the guard, “You may hear something, and it may be alarming. No matter what, you are to do nothing.”

“But what if you are hurt?” the guard asked.

“We won’t be.”

The father pulled a sword out of a pack he had carried in. It was a Katana, and had a very dull edge on it. It would cut with sufficient force, but not deeply.

He nodded at Robson, who pressed a single key. The power in the office went out. Wallace saw the sword and knew he was not likely to live long, so he lunged through the door. The man was waiting for him, and swung the sword up and into the former chancellor’s chest. The breastbone stopped it from penetrating too deeply, but some of the ribs on Wallace’ right side were broken. He tried to take a breath, but the wind was knocked out of him. Robson pushed him back into his cell.

Already the nanites in his body were starting to work. The father saw some tissue starting to granulate throughout the cut. This could take a long time, He thought. So much the better.

Wallace was wrong. He lived a considerably long time. It took forty-eight hours before the old man was satisfied.

Wallace was laying on his bed, his body a mass of bruises and cuts. Throughout the time, his nanites were moving slower and slower. They seemed to be low on power. The old man pulled a scimitar out of his pack, which had contained several instruments he had used on Wallace.

It was not that he enjoyed this, but this sick individual had turned his son into some hybrid, and then used him over and over. The recordings from the palace showed that.

Wallace had answered every question put to him. By this time, he just wanted the old man to end it. He watched as the scimitar came out of the bag. We welcomed it.

There are very few ways to kill a man who is full of nanites whose only function is to keep him alive. Even at the low level of power they were at, they would still swarm to a lethal injury to fix it as quickly as possible.

The man used a hunting knife to cut through the tendons in Wallace’ legs and arms. Then he spread the legs as far apart as he could and swung the scimitar. Surprisingly, Wallace was able to scream as both of his legs were removed from his body. The nanites filled the femoral arteries, then his arms were severed. The old man allowed Wallace to enjoy the pain for several minutes before he swung the sword in the fatal blow. Freeman had left some time ago. He couldn’t stomach what was happening. Even Robson turned away at the end, but he heard the gurgling coming through the severed neck as the body’s reflexes tried to draw in another breath. He turned back, and wished he had not. The mouth was trying to draw in air, as if it was the head of a fish. The man spat on the face, then turned, grabbed a cloth and began to clean all of his equipment. He seemed unconcerned at the dying head, still trying to gulp in air. “Good bye, Willem Wallace,” he spat out. It was the last thing Wallace heard. Ever.

Chapter 1.4

Freeman was in his office, outside of Honolulu. He felt very sick, probably because of what he had witnessed in the last few days. He knew that most people on the Earth felt that Willem Wallace, his brother, deserved to die for what he had done to so many people, and if he was honest, he agreed, but there was still a part of him that felt that Willem had deserved more.

There was a knocking at his door. He tried to say come in, but he couldn’t get the words out. He tried again. “Come...” his voice faltered, but he figured he could try a third time and it would probably work if he had to. Thankfully, he didn’t have to try.

The door opened, and his friend Paul Robson opened the door and walked in. One look at his friend, Fredrik, and Paul stopped in his tracks. “If now’s not a good time,” He began.

Freeman shook his head. “It’s okay, Paul. Come on in.”

Robson had been hurrying, but now, he reached out and carefully shut the door behind him. He moved to one of the chairs sitting in front of Freeman’s desk and slowly sat down.

Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

Freeman shook his head. “I know it had to be done, and I understand why Mr. Vetters did what he did, but I don’t think I’ll ever be okay after what I saw done to Willem.”

It’s a complex puzzle,” Paul told him. “What was done to us, without us even realizing it, and what was then done to those people on the station…” He stopped. “Fred, you know I’m your best friend, right?”

Freeman nodded.

You also know I would never have allowed what was done to Willem under any other circumstances, right?”

I know, Paul. And I approve. What is getting to me is he was my brother.” He sighed for about the hundredth time in the last hour. Suddenly, he raised his hand and slammed it down on his desk. “Stupid kid!” he shouted, as his hand smashed a coffee cup from the force he brought it down at. A considerable amount of blood erupted from his wrist as the ceramic cut through the skin and tendons.

You idiot!” Paul yelled as he stood and ran to get a towel from the private restroom. He came back to find Freeman standing with his left hand covering the huge slices. The blood had slowed, and Paul carefully pulled the hand away. There was a bit of seepage, and as he watched, that stopped as well. The nanites were working hard.

Would you watch what you’re doing?” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Freeman just looked at him. Paul tried a different tack. “That ‘kid’ as you call him, was almost eleven thousand years old! He wasn’t a kid anymore. Hadn’t been for a long time.”

Then I’m eleven thousand seventy-six years old. Regardless of his age, he was my kid brother, Paul.” He glared at Robson. “You knew him almost as long as I did.”

Robson sat down and motioned for his friend to sit as well. “Yeah, I know,” Paul conceded.

Fred finally sat. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Robson. For his part, Paul’s gaze was lowered. He didn’t want to look up at that accusatory stare. Finally, he murmured, “I’m sorry, Fred. If there had been any other way….” He broke off as he really didn’t know what else to say.

I know, Paul.”

The two of them just sat, their minds in their own private hell, until the sun had set.

---

Fredrik met with Paul and several scientists the next morning. They discussed at length the information they had received from Wallace. There were several things that had been planned for the people of N21. Before any communication with the people on the station, they wanted to do some research with the programming of the station.

A couple of months later they resumed their meeting. In the palace where Wallace had lived with his slaves, they found a room that had been sealed. With several drills, and explosives, they were able to remove the door, and inside, they found a laboratory where it was obvious Willem had worked on his changes to the station. It was insane, which was no surprise. The people had so many more problems in store for them. The computers were designed to go completely crazy. Stranding people in separate parts of the station, venting other parts. One tidbit of information showed that the command center hub was supposed to seal itself off on each end of the J walkways, and then blow some explosive bolts. This would send the hub away from the rest of the station, effectively dooming those in it to death.

Another spoke about a similar idea, but with different bays.

There were subroutines that controlled the temperature, both overall, and in each bay. By shutting the interior doors, the computer could vent bays, or make them freezing, or hot enough to kill the people caught inside.

Of course when a section was blown off, or a bay vented, the hatches did not have to be shut, and they could also be opened once the bay or command center was blown.

It was paramount that they send this information to the station as soon as possible. The problem Earth’s scientists had was they could not tell how to disable this programming. It seemed as though nothing would stop it at all. Even trying to disable the doors or ejection systems would kill a person, as they had seen on the video scene.

With a heavy heart, Freeman wrote a communique to send to N21.

(Excerpt from N21, Chapter 3)

“Hello, people of N21,” he said.”I am President Freeman of Earth. I know when you were sent away, Willem Wallace, or ‘Caesar’ as you referred to him, was the ‘Chancellor’.

“Approximately three hundred years after you left, Wallace had shown enough of his character to make those of us still on Earth recognize what you had long ago seen. There was an uprising, and we were able to remove him from power. He was in prison until we received a signal from you.

“Every computer around the world came on at the same time, and showed Wallace seated at his desk. He told us that we were all going to join him in a celebration of your exile. We saw what your camera’s recorded, Wallace telling you he wanted to ‘play’; the death of your maintenance worker. Then we saw a bay of the station open, and the people dying on the floor.”

For a moment, Freeman stopped. He looked somber, then rubbed his face with his hands.

“Wallace was questioned at length. That was an experience I never want to have again. He was, quite simply, insane. He wanted to toy with you as a cat toys with it’s prey. Revelling in your suffering was what he wanted most of all.

“He tried to bargain with us with his knowledge. He wanted freedom, but we refused. It took several months to obtain what we wanted. He spent that entire time in and out of consciousness. It wasn’t pretty. What we got from him, we want to pass on to you.

“There are several… surprises, in the computers of the station. They have been left there. There seems to be no way to remove them from the memory. Even a complete shutdown will reload the same information when you start them again.

“Much of what is programmed will be worse that what has already happened. Some not as bad. We will append a file to this message that will tell you what we have found. I hope you can find something on board that we didn’t think of here.”

Freeman sat back and pressed the send button. It was hard to make that call to N21, where his brother had been the one who arranged all these problems to the people aboard the station. He had deliberately not told them that the Wallace was his brother. He figured it would be better if they didn’t know that. He wanted their trust, and admitting that he was brother to their antagonist just didn’t see to be a smart thing to do.

After a bit, he found that he couldn’t sit still. He had to move. He went out and got his craft, then drove out of Diamond Head. He was feeling dejected after sending the message, so he wanted to be away from people. That was hard in Honolulu, but he figured he could head out onto the bay. He really didn’t want to be noticed, so he raised the top until he got a substantial distance onto the bay. He headed west, so he could circle the island and once he was out of sight of Pearl Harbor, he let the top down.

Once he was heading North, he paused and cut his anti-gravity system. The craft gently sat down in the water and he could feel the waves. That was the problem with anti-gravity. No matter what was under him, it was designed to give him a smooth ride. It also didn’t effect what was underneath the craft, so he didn’t have the ability to really take his frustration out by creating wonderful rooster tails. As an archaeologist, he had seen many old films, and he loved the James Bond movies. He wished he had an old style boat, but petroleum was never used anymore, so running an engine like James Bond had wouldn’t work. He would dearly love to run a speedboat and do some daredevil driving. He knew that people used to do the same thing in cars, but you didn’t get the huge spray of water while doing a sharp turn at high speed.

Instead, he reclined his seat and just let the ocean current carry him for awhile. His communication system started beeping. Someone was trying to reach him, but he ignored it. It beeped again, and he picked it up, looked at the name if the person calling him, and threw it as far as he could. He saw no reason to speak to anyone at the moment. Besides, Paul would still be there when he got back to the capitol building.

He leaned back again and closed his eyes. Eventually, sleep claimed him.

Chapter 1.5

Freeman arrived back at the capitol later that evening. He had woke up about fifteen miles from the island, and let the craft drive him back to Diamond Head.

As before, he really didn’t want to see anyone at that moment, especially Paul, so he turned his craft around and headed up into the hills. On his way there, he stopped by his own home and picked up a very old bottle of Scotch Whiskey he had found at a dig several years before. He had kept it as a souvenir. He knew he shouldn’t have, but they had found several of them. The thing was now God knows how many years old. The old date on the bottle had no bearing to the system they now used. A year was still a year, and a day still a day, but the numbers of the years had changed. Was it still good? He didn’t know, but this night was his time to find out.

He stopped at an old lookout on what was still labeled the H1 highway. This was a park in the city, so it was dark here. He let his craft settle to the ground, and got out. He walked to the edge of the lookout and stared down at the city below. The lights were on, as it was about 9:30 at night. He looked up, as if he could see the station. That was a laugh. It was pretty much out of the galaxy now. He walked back to his craft and picked up the bottle. Taking it with him, he sat down on a rock that let him see the city and beyond.

He opened the bottle, and sniffed it. The smell was very strong. He held it up and looked through the liquid. It was an amber color, and the lights below all glowed golden through it.

“Willem, you bastard. I wish I hadn’t have had to authorize what happened to you, but you brought it on yourself. I don’t know how or when you went mad, but it was pretty damned obvious that you were.” He took a swig of the scotch and felt the alcohol rush through his body. If this was what Scotch Whiskey was supposed to taste like, he liked it a lot.

“No one should have to endure what you did. You should have told us what we needed to know, then you wouldn’t have suffered.” he knew that wasn’t true, but it made him feel less responsible to say it. The boy’s father would have made Willem suffer regardless what or when he gave them the information. What had happened to his son was inexcusable, and Freeman knew it. His brother’s perversions had condemned him to hell on Earth. It didn’t make it any easier to watch, though.

He was a quarter of the way through the bottle when he heard another craft settle onto the ground. He was rather insensate now, and didn’t look up, even when he heard someone walking up to him. He didn’t even turn when he heard Paul. “Hello, Fred.”

Freeman held the bottle out abruptly to Paul, his arm completely straight.

Paul took it and read the label. “God, Fred, where’d you get this?”

Freeman didn’t answer that question, but rather told Paul, “Take a drink before I take back the bottle.” His words seemed labored to get out.

Paul took a ginger sip, then a larger one. It was good. “You know your brother wasn’t your fault.” He handed back the bottle.

“So you keep saying.” He took another drink.

Paul sat down beside his friend. “I keep asking myself if we could have gotten that info differently. I keep finding the same answer. ‘No’.”

“I’ve never murdered anyone before,” Fred told him.

“You didn’t murder Willem.”

“Bullshit, I didn’t. I stood there and watched him tortured, and I did nothing. I’m just as guilty as that sick bastard who killed him.”

“You think he was sick? Look at what happened to his kid.” Paul reached out for the bottle. Fred handed it to him.

“And killing Willem that way was sane?” Fred’s voice was louder than he meant for it to be.

Before Paul answered he took a gulp of the amber fluid. He coughed, and when he spoke his voice was a harsh whisper. “How about the way Willem killed his son. Was that sane?”

“He didn’t kill the kid.”

“That’s bullshit. He killed the boy the moment those nanites were activated. We watched those tapes, both of us. That one time when they were made to see what happened to them was the last time that kid ever was in control of himself. You saw what Willem made him do. He was the number one concubine for Willem. He murdered the kid, plain and simple.”

Fred didn’t say anything for a long time, while Paul took another gulp and handed the bottle back. Fred made a point of looking at the level of the liquid. “I’m catching up,” Paul said by way of explanation.

Fred nodded, then said, “You’re right, you know. But I still feel responsible.”

“Let’s say, for a moment, that you are. Was there any other choice?”

Again Fred held his tongue, but rather, shook his head.

“Did Willem bring it on himself?”

Fred nodded.

“Here’s the clincher. Under the same circumstances, would you do it again?”

Freeman didn’t answer. He held up the bottle and took a Paul sized gulp, then handed it to his friend. Finally, he almost whispered, “Damned right, I would.”

---

It had been several years since Willem’s death, and Freeman had build a wall around himself that insulated him from what he had allowed. What Paul had said that night still haunted him. He would do it again, under the same circumstances. He had never considered himself capable of murder, but that’s what it had felt like. No matter what his brother did, Fred had murdered him in his own eyes.

Now, he was in a courtroom, playing judge to another murderer. He felt like such a hypocrite as he weighed the man’s actions.

The man had killed someone for monetary gain. He had robbed a liquor store. Untold millennia had gone by since the earliest of these establishments, and there were still people robbing them.

The alleged murderer had turned up the power on his stun gun, to lethal levels – basically he had made the power source give up all of it’s power in one burst – shot the proprietor, then put his card into the register, and reversed all funds onto his card.

It was stupid, because planetary security only had to look at what happened and where the funds went. There was very little doubt of the man’s guilt.

How did he end up judging this guy, Freeman wondered. “How did I get talked into this?”

The defendant’s counsel was summing up her client’s innocence. Well trying to. Basically, she was asking Freeman to be lenient to her client who was obviously guilty as hell.

She finished, and Freeman called a recess until the next morning. He didn’t even look back as he walked out of the courtroom.

Defense just stood there, mouth agape. What had just happened?

Freeman, for his part, went into his chambers and sat down. People in this position still wore the robes they had always done. He looked down at himself, then ripped the robe off and threw it against the wall. At the same time, Robson entered the room. He dodged the robe, then look at Fred with a surprised expression. “Care to explain?” he asked.

“Nope,” Freeman told him.

“Why?”

In answer, Freeman told him, “Get the hell out of here, Paul.”

“Not till you explain.”

Fred sat down behind his desk. “I am the president of this planet, Paul, and I’m telling you to get the f**k out of my office.”

Paul said nothing. He moved to right in front of one of the chairs, and very deliberately sat down.

For several minutes, they stared at each other, until Fred broke. “I’m an effing hypocrite, okay? Happy now?”

“This again? I thought you’d put that away.”

“Of course not. I let you think that.”

Paul was furious. He had had it. “How long are you going to mourn that son of a bitch?”

“I’m not mourning him. I’m mourning myself.”

“No, you're not. You’re feeling sorry for yourself because you think you’re the only person in the world who has had to convict a person because they did something absolutely despicable. Wake up call, Fred. Shit like that happens!”

Fred just stared.

“That guy out there in the courtroom. You know he’s guilty as sin, but you feel like you can’t judge him because you’re a murderer too. Right?”

Nod.

“I’ve told you before. You’re not a murderer. You were a judge then, and you’re a judge now. No, we didn’t have a trial for Willem. How could we? No one would have been able to sit on a jury. You know that. Anyway, we all knew what he’d done.

“So now you’re judging someone who has a jury, They’ll convict him, not you. You’ll declare the sentence. Will he be executed? No! We don’t do that. Instead, he’ll be put in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

“So what do you do? Say that a judge is a murderer? You can look at it as either being a military extraction of information, or a punishment for what he had done, but that’s all it was. Not murder.”

Paul stood up. “Until you realize that, you’re going to be hindered in your leadership.”

Paul left and shut the door, hard. Fred sat behind his desk for several minutes, then wrote something down on a tablet and left for the day.

The next morning, he entered the courtroom and asked the jury their findings. He hardly had to ask. The man was guilty.

For the first time in many years, Fred felt that his conscience was clear. Without a moment’s hesitation, he sentenced the man to the punishment Paul had said the night before.

Freeman had accepted that he was a judge to this murderer, and a judge to his brother. He didn’t like the job, but as the president, it was part of his job description. He was determined to change that, but until it was, he would do the job to the best of his ability.

Chapter 1.6

It had been roughly two hundred years since the call came in from N21 now, showing what Freeman’s brother, Caesar, had done to them. Fredrik could hardly believe what his brother had done to them. The only crime they had committed was not considering that Willem was their leader.

He had not accepted Willem either, but he had not told those on N21 that. Rather, he had hidden. His mother and father had hidden with him. Willem’s mother, on the other hand, had gone along with what her son had done. She had been in the palace when it was flooded. It was suspected that Willem had turned her into a slave as well, which would explain why she had gone along with her deranged son.

Along with Fredrik and his parents, several people who had seen Willem’s growing insanity had hidden as well. Paul Robson was one of them. Freeman was pretty certain that was why he and Paul had been placed in the roles of authority that they had. They had never accepted Willem as their leader.

Archaeologists were now sifting through the ruined Death Valley. It had become an inland sea for many years. Eventually, the palace had degraded to the point it collapsed, and the valley drained back into the Pacific.

Much of the debris had been scattered as the water was pumped back When they opened the sealed room which held Caesar’s private workroom, much had been destroyed in the water. Luckily, much of the computer data storage was not destructible by water; even salt water, so by hooking them up to other computers, they were able to find out much.

Unfortunately, there was a section that without Caesar’s private codes was erased permanently from the storage. It mentioned something called ‘Total Fun’, and then nothing. None of the archaeologists could find anything other than that reference, but the general consensus was that if it was fun for Caesar, it would be misery for those on the station.

Still the search went on. They continued looking for some reference other than the name for another half a century till finally, they figured they should send what they had found.

---

As the archaeologists were searching the ruins, other people were searching looking at the technology that the people on the station would need. All that could be done, however, was to send information. There was really no way materials could be sent.

Or was there?

Engines were more powerful than had been on the station. N21 had been accelerated to ninety percent the speed of light. It was assumed that a similar size object, with new engines could be accelerated to ninety-five percent. That was with enough fuel to return to Earth.

Sitting in the briefing room, along with several scientists, were Paul and Fred. They were listening intently. What they heard was astounding.

A man with the unlikely name of Rashda Smythe was explaining how they could build another station and mount some of the new engines on it.

“Since we will be picking up the people on N21, we’ll be able to store much more fuel than otherwise. For the trip out, we will be able to use the bay space for fuel, so that we can stop and head the other direction.”

“I want them back as much as anyone,” Paul said, “but we’re talking about a huge investment to do this.”

“Not really,” Smythe disagreed.

Paul stared at him for a couple of moments, the got what he was saying. “No. Absolutely not. We need N22!”

“Why?” Smythe asked. “Are we going to stoop to the level of Wallace and have mutually assured destruction? We have a world government, so who are we going to assure destruction with?”

Fredrik was sitting back, watching and mulling the situation over. After a few minutes of the back and forth argument, he told Smythe, “I want you to draw up plans to do this. I’ll make sure you have a complete schematic on N22. You will not start on the station until I give the go ahead, however. Is that understood?”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Paul glared at his friend.

“I want you to give me an argument as to why we need that station full of warheads above us. That station has sixty bays, each with thirty missiles full of MRV’s aimed at this world. If all of them were set off, there wouldn’t even be a world here. You explain why we need that, Paul. You convince me, and I’ll tell Smythe here, to F off. Okay?”

There was nothing for Paul to do but simply nod.

Next to speak was a communications specialist. He ran the station that had multiple transmitters ready to send a message to N21 at a moment’s notice.

Again, the name of the man was completely strange. Noelle Rodriguez had hundreds of data transmissions ready to be sent. Multiple files of everything from recreational programming to news broadcasts since N21 left Earth orbit, would be compressed into highly crunched files to keep the size of the transmission down. It had to be sent as an ELF, or extremely low frequency to reach that far into space and not lose fidelity.

Next was Barb Johnson, who was the head hydroponics specialist on Earth. It was known that some of her teachers were on N21, but where she had centuries to fine tune the processes, N21 had aged only about a year.

The medical establishment was not nearly as far progressed, but archaeologists had found several millennia worth of medical research hidden away in Wallace’ palace. A copy of that would be sent to the station, as well as a complete course in medical research and practice for one or more people to take. There had to have been a reason for Wallace to space all of the medical scientists. Best to get people trained as soon as possible.

---

Freeman was back on the cliff overlooking Honolulu. He had a dilemma. He had decided to modify N22 and send it on it’s way. But should he tell those on N21 of the possibility of their rescue? It would be several decades, even in their subjective time, before the second station met up with them. In fact if their figures were slightly off, or if Wallace had not put the correct course down in his records, the stations would never even see each other in the void. Of course, as the station got farther away, their pinpointing of it was finer and finer as the direction the radio dishes had to be adjusted to receive and transmit data.

This time, Fredrik had no scotch with him. Instead, he wanted his mind clear. Should he tell them or not. To get their hopes up? What to do?

Once again, Paul Robson arrived. He knew this was Fred’s favorite place to meditate. He sat down beside his friend, but he didn’t say anything.

Finally, Fred asked, “You gonna try to talk me out of it?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already given my opinion. You don’t need me to repeat it. We’re going to send N22 after them, none of us can be second guessing ourselves.”

Fred nodded.

“Besides, you’re my friend, and even though we disagree, I’ve got your back. I’m gonna help to make this a success. Not a failure. I want them home too, Fred.”

“Thanks Paul. I want you to know, I really considered your opinion. I almost decided to go with your plan. If I did, however, I was going to have Smythe build a new one. My main concern here was the time factor. Doesn’t make much difference to them, but it does to us.”

Paul nodded. “I get that, and I understand your reasoning. I hope I was wrong in my treatise. I never want to see a need for N22 in it’s original purpose. I’d much rather it be used for this than MAD.”

---

It took Smythe and his teams more than ten years to modify N22 for it’s new purpose. It was the same basic layout as N21, but it was larger. While N21 had forty bays that had been full of missiles, N22 had sixty. The bays were correspondingly larger as well.

When the station was ready to depart Earth’s orbit, Smythe met with Freeman and Paul again.

“I want to let you know what we are doing. We have a crew of one thousand volunteers who will go on the station. Their purpose will be to build apartments as fuel is used. We have placed bladders of fuel in many of the bays. As bladders empty, they will be ejected and the bay that they are in will be turned into either apartments or other uses.”

“What about the missiles?” asked Paul.

“Well, we’ve had some thoughts about that, but I think our best bet is to mount the MRV’s around a few of the missiles, and then save the remaining empty shells for another purpose.”

“What’s that?” asked Fred.

“The missiles use the same engines as N21 had. It uses less than a gram of fuel to get to supersonic speeds as it enters the atmosphere. We’ve taken one hundred MRV’s out of each missile. With those gone, we can turn the missiles into engines for the station. If we use a third of them for accelerating from Earth, along with the main engines, we’ll get an extra boost, and jettison the used engines. We can then flip the station when it meets with N21 and we should be able to use a third of those engines to slow it to the same speed as N21. Then, we will use the rest of the fuel in those as well as the remaining fuel to bring the station to a relative stop to Earth. We will then jettison the remaining missiles to lower the station’s mass, and use it’s own engines to accelerate back to Earth. We’ll have to take into account the mass of the people from N21 for our return fuel consumption. We will not accelerate too much that we don’t have the fuel to stop relative to Earth when we arrive back.”

Paul nodded. He wasn’t a ‘rocket scientist’ but he understood enough to realize what Smythe was saying. His last question was, “Who’ll command N22?”

“I will,” Smythe responded.

Fred considered for awhile. “Very well. How long until you launch?”

“I figure we can get the missiles taken care of in about six months, and by that time, I believe we’ll be in the correct position for our launch window.”

Fred nodded. “Go to it.”

---

Author’s note:

Considering my love of Trek, It was so tempting to have Fredrik say, “Make it so” at the end, but the more boring won out. If you’re a fan of Trek, just imagine that Freeman ended with “Make it so”. I think it’s the perfect ending.

Chapter 1.7

The N22 station was fitted out with some of the missiles playing the part of engines, and several carrying the MRV’s into the sun. Freeman sat at his desk, wondering if they would even notice the light of the warheads hitting the sun. Probably not. They weren’t that powerful in comparison to the star they were aimed for.

N22 started accelerating from Earth even before the warheads hit the sun. Smythe called Earth as they were leaving orbit and wished them well. The feelings were reciprocated and the station was on its way.

Freeman flipped a switch and spoke to N21, He knew N22 would be a long way from Earth by the time N21 received the message. It would be several years from now. Perhaps several centuries from now.

Excerpt from N21 Part 1, Chapter 4

Hello again, N21.  This is Freeman.  We have found something very disturbing.  For the last fifty years, our people have been sifting through the damaged palace of Wallace.  250 years after the the broadcast from your ship, the decaying structure collapsed.  Our people had to pull the remaining shell down.

Apparently, there is a ‘special surprise’ for you.  According to records, it is supposed to make any and all other pale in comparison.  The others, we were able to dig to find out what was supposed to happen, but this one is only referred to as the ‘total fun’. What it is, we cannot tell, nor do we know how it is started.

I’m sorry we don’t know.  We are going to continue to search.”

He didn’t tell N21 about N22. Not for any reason other than he didn’t want to get their hopes up. Too many things could go wrong, and if N22 missed N21, they didn’t need to be blaming themselves for the possible death of Smythe and his people.

---

In space, a thruster fired changing the course of the vessel slightly. This would not be noticed by anyone for many years.

---

It had been fifteen and a half centuries since Earth heard from the N21. Still, the people on Earth knew that just a few minutes had passed on the station, so Freeman headed up an archaeological expedition to find as much information as they could. He was no longer the president of Earth, but a new one, his old friend Paul Robson, had taken over the roll.

Robson had made it clear that unless something happened to Freeman, he would remain the person to talk to N21. They knew him, and they trusted him. He hoped.

A message was received by Earth, and Paul had it saved and sent to Freeman.

Freeman watched it and realized what it could do for N21. Stopping all of the computer’s actions was exactly what they needed. He called his archaeological teams and took them off the project they were on. He had them start researching where the old operating system for N21. They couldn’t find it.

He debated sending the one for N22. That could be found, but when it was looked at, the station obviously had new hardware on board, and the operating system was simply not compatible with N21’s computers.

His people continued looking.

---

Fredrik decided he needed to think, so he headed to his favorite spot on Oahu, at the overlook. It was getting late in the day, and when he got there, a craft was already parked. He pulled up beside it and was not surprised to see that it was Paul’s

He climbed out of his craft and walked to his favorite rock.

Paul was sitting in his usual spot, and looked over at his friend. “I can see why you always came here,” he told Fred. “This is a great place to think.”

“Especially this time of night. The lights below, the ocean out there. The stars above.”

“Can’t see the stars like you could in Montana,” said Paul.

“No, but it’s cool nonetheless.” Fredrik paused for a bit, then asked. “What’re you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking how much easier it was to be your head of security, then your vice.”

“I hear ya. I’m so much happier being an archaeologist again.”

There was silence for a long time, then Paul asked. “Have you found anything yet?”

“Not yet. I’m not sure where it would be. We’ve checked all of Willem’s spots he might have worked on it. He had to have a copy. Somewhere.”

They were silent again, then “Fred, you know that station was built before Willem took power, right?”

“The Pearl City Science Museum,” Freeman said thoughtfully. “They have some stuff on all the N Stations. Maybe they would have something. They’re right here in town too!”

“It’s worth a look,” Paul responded.

---

The next day, Freeman went down to Pearl City and looked through the science museum. No luck. He asked the curator where he might find such a thing.

“Right here,” was the response.

“Show me?”

The curator hesitated, then motioned for Freeman to follow. He said, “I’ll show you, but I cannot let you touch the unit. It’s over thirteen thousand years old. Very fragile.”

Damn! thought Freeman. It’s here, or we think it is, but I can’t touch it. How do I get a copy of it?

It was a cylinder about ten inches high, and four inches in diameter. It had a holographic matrix inside that stored the information. It could last for millennia the way it was, but the power source would eventually die, causing the information to be lost. He wondered how to get the information stored in side. It was stored on a shelf in the back room, in a glass box.

“Are you sure this is the OS for N21?”

“Certainly.” He pulled the case down, and turned it. Etched in the side of the brass cylinder was Defense Platform – N17-N21 – SCO Unix 2500.2.12597.

This was it! He needed to get it. How? Fredrik had an idea, but would it work? “You know that the information will be lost eventually, right?”

“Of course. That’s the nature of things. Ebb and flow. Yin and Yang. In and Out. In essence, things are made then lost. There is nothing that can be done about that.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Fred told the curator. “The information on that unit is priceless. The people on N21 need it desperately. It is just as valuable as the canister. More so, actually. There are many canisters like that, but the information is one of a kind!”

The curator’s eyes began to sparkle. He nodded. “I can see what you mean, but I will need some things in exchange for the info.”

“What?” Freeman asked.

“Funds.”

The curator swept a hand to take in the whole museum. “This museum is going downhill. I’m the only person here now. I could hire help to catalog everything in this room if I had the money. Right now, I can’t.”

Freeman decided then and there, that if he had to, he would provide the money himself.

He stepped away from the curator, saying, “Give me a minute.”

He pulled out his comm unit and called Robson. He explained the situation: Robson expressed the same feeling that Freeman had. If he couldn’t get the government to go along with him, he would sponsor the museum himself.

Freeman ended the call and stepped back. “We will transfer the funds to you tomorrow.”

The curator smiled. “That will be fine.”

---

It took a bit longer, as the government decided to foot the bill for the museum, and as is typical of a bureaucracy it moved very slowly, but the funds were eventually in the hands of the curator. For his part, as soon as the money was confirmed in the museum’s account, he opened the glass case and allowed Freeman to connect a computer to it. The download took less than ten minutes. The canister was placed back in the case. The curator attached a brass tag to the case which had a description of what information was on it, and carried it out to the main part of the museum. It was going to be on display.

Freeman took the OS back to his home. In his personal office, he hooked the computer up to his comm system and attached the OS. He pressed send.

Not long after he sent the communique, he was alerted to a problem. He hurried to Paul’s office and asked what the problem was.

“Follow me, Fred.”

They started down a hall, and Fred stopped. “I’m not authorized anymore.”

“Would you come on? You’re with me.”

Fred started again and they entered the situation room.

“Fill me in,” Paul ordered.

“We’re showing a slight variation in the magnetic field of the Earth,” one of the people said.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not as far as we know.”

There were three women in the room, and suddenly they jumped up. Two were on the other side of the table from the door, and they both ran to the wall, clearly terrified. The other opened the door and ran as fast as she could. Fred was still standing and he jumped away from the woman who made it through the door before she touched him. Paul was not so lucky.

He fell to the floor as the woman bowled him over. As he lay on the floor, his body started to change. In a few moments, he was a woman. He stood and realized he was in a room full of men. The two women on the other side of the room were screaming for the men to stay away from them. For their part, the men got as far away as they could. Fred jumped away from his friend, terrified, and Paul turned and ran from the room. Part way down the hall, his pants could no longer stay up, and he, or rather she, had to pause to pull them up, then she headed for her office. She slammed the door shut and locked it. With a deadbolt and combination that only she knew.

She let out a sigh of relief, then stopped and wondered what the hell had just happened.

Chapter 1.8

Freeman wasn't sure what had happened either. There were still two women standing on the other side of the room, cowering in fear. He wanted to go to them and see what was wrong, but he felt fear of them as well. It was strange as he had never had a fear of women before.

As he watched several of the men present started slipping out the door to the conference room. They were obviously afraid of the women as well.

Freeman tried to stay so that he could comfort the women, but he found that he couldn't. He left the room as well. He went to the end of the corridor and turned to look if they had left. He saw them running down to the other end of the corridor.

---

The president was sitting at his, or rather her desk. She was incredibly confused to have suddenly become a woman. How in the world had that happened? She stood and went to her private restroom. There, she saw what she looked like now. She was quite pretty. Her face looked very much the same, but it had become feminine in appearance.

She was wearing makeup, but her clothes had not changed. That was very strange. In fact, she was still wearing the suit and tie that she had been in, but the suit hung off her body. Except up top, where her breasts tried to make their appearance known, and her hips. She turned to where she could see and found that she had an ample behind, but nothing really to write home about.

Curiously, she removed her jacket and shirt. She was rather surprised at the size of her breasts. She saw why her hips didn’t really show in her pants. She had a very narrow waist. Quite petite actually. She felt no shame at suddenly being a woman, which for her was shocking, as she had never been unhappy being a man. She was curious about what she would find when she removed her pants, and so she did. For her petite size, she had a nice derriere, which pleased her.

She looked at the men’s suit on the floor where she had left it and picked it up, folding it neatly. There was a bit of nausea when she looked at it all, and she decided that she would have to get some women’s clothes. Picking up the underwear that she had put on that morning made her even more sick. She used just her thumb and index finger to lift it. It went straight onto the back of the toilet, then she decided a shower would be best, so that she could wash off the last vestiges of her masculinity.

Stepping into the shower, she reflected that she didn’t really know how to wash her hair, but she had seen enough women come out of this very room, their hair in a towel. Then she remembered that under the sink was shampoo and conditioner that would be suitable. She stepped out of the tub and grabbed it. The shampoo directions really didn’t tell her anything she didn’t know, but the conditioner did.

She washed her whole body, finding that she had more sensitive areas on her anatomy, then grabbed a towel and quickly learned why women patted themselves dry rather than rubbed. She grabbed her robe, which was terry cloth, put it on, and looked at herself in the mirror. She needed makeup, but none of the women had left any. Oh well, she remembered her mother telling her sister not to share makeup with her friends. She did anyway, but she was a teenager at the time.

Paul – now Paula she figured, went out to her computer. What to do. She knew that she needed to call someone, but her government workers were mostly males. Finally, she decided to call Fredrik. She knew Fred would scare her; just thinking about him scared her, but he was one person that she trusted, no matter how frightened she was. She started to reach out to her computer to call, but then decided against it.

She walked over to her liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle. It was Tennessee whiskey, from a company that had been around for several millennia. She poured about a shot’s worth into a glass and drank it in one gulp.

She coughed and couldn’t get her breath for a minute. Wow! She would definitely have to watch her alcohol intake. She decided she needed another bit of courage, so poured another shot, but drank it slow. She started to the desk again, but grabbed her glass and bottle.

At the desk, she sat down and poured one more drink. Her vision was starting to blur, but she reached out and plugged in Fred’s call number. At least she hoped it was his. Her mind was starting to get a bit fuzzy.

Thankfully, Fred answered. When his face came on the screen, even with the alcohol, she had to hold herself back from getting up and running. She poured another shot.

For his part, Fredrik pulled away from his screen. He saw what she was doing with the whiskey, but figured he should keep a clear head, so didn’t get any for himself.

“Yes, Paul?”

“I guess it should be Paula,” she told him.

“Okay Paula. Are you as scared of me as I am of you?”

“I’m terrified,” she responded. “Just seeing you there is hard to take.”

“Agreed. What happened to you?”

“I’m guessing I turned into a woman. What do you think happened?” The question seemed ridiculous, but in retrospect, she realized what he meant. “I’ve no idea how, Fred.”

Just then, her comm panel beeped. “I’m going to merge this call with us.”

“Why?” he asked, but her chief of staff was already on a split screen.

Fred saw her quite afraid now, so he told the other man, “Make this quick, Reg.”

For his part, the other man stuttered as he said, “I’m really sorry S… Ma’am but we’ve had a death. Ronda Briggs was killed.”

“No!” Paula was shocked. “How?”

“It looks like someone used something very sharp to slice her in half from shoulder to hip.”

“Thank you, Reg.” She pushed the button to release the call, then said to Fred. “I need to get over there. Please would you come too? You’re the only male I find I can trust. I still am afraid of you, but I know you won’t hurt me.”

“I’ll be there,” He said. He understood very well. She was the only woman he could trust right now.

---

She hurried to where Reg called from, but when she got there, there were two women kneeling over the body of her daughter. She looked at them, and didn’t recognize one, but the other was Ronda’s twin sister, Rhoda. The other woman had her arms around Rhoda, hugging her.

A moment later, Fred rushed up. “Oh God!” he exclaimed. “What...” he suddenly saw the two women’s faces. “Reg?” he asked the one holding Rhoda.

Suddenly, he realized that he wasn’t the least bit afraid of Paula, so he pulled her into a hug. She was weeping at the loss of one of her daughters and he felt her tears touch his cheek. He reached up and brushed her hair back over her ear with his hand, allowing his cheek to touch hers.

Finally her crying slowed and she looked at Rhoda and her comforter. She saw what Fred had seen. “Reg? What happened?” Stupid question, she thought. She could see what happened.

“I was kneeling over Ronda, and Rhoda came out of nowhere, bowling me over. She pushed me out of the way, then my vision blurred. When I could see again, I was a woman.”

Reg still had her arm around Rhoda’s shoulder and she sheepishly moved away. “We need to tell Phineas about Ronda,” she said.

“Oh God!” Rhoda cried. Hesitantly, like she expected the president to yell at her, Reg put her arm around Rhoda and pulled her in.

Several people showed up, and they moved the parts of the body onto a gurney, and wheeled it away.

Fred reached for his comm unit, and realized he and Paula were holding hands. He let go, and immediately felt shame for doing it as he had. To cover his action, he said, “I’ll call Phineas.” He dialed the number he knew by heart. He and Paul were like brothers, so they each knew the other’s family, and call numbers.

The comm unit took a long time to connect. “Yeah?”

“Phineas, this is Fred,”

“What do you want?” He sounded strange.

“Rhonda has been killed.”

“No shit! Is that all you had to say? That bitch has been cheating on me for a long time, and with a woman too!”

“Are you saying you killed her?” Fred asked asked.

“I sure as hell am. Got the sword in my hand right now.”

“You’re going to have to be arrested,”

“So what? I’ve got what I needed. She’s gone.”

“You bastard!” Paula screamed into the comm unit. “You killed my daughter!”

“Who the hell is that?”

“I’m the president!”

“Sure you are. And I’m Shakespeare.” There was a small click and the unit went dead.

“That…!” Rhoda couldn’t finish her sentence.

Gently, Fred started to lead the three women out of the corridor, but Paula stopped him. “I need something to wear,” she said. “So does Reg.”

Strangely, Rhoda had perked up without Ronda’s body in front of her. She looked into Reg’s eyes, which were still above her. “I guess it’s Regina instead of Reginald?”

---

The four eventually got to the situation room after Paula and Reg borrowed some clothes from Rhoda. They didn’t fit Reg properly, but at least they were better than the men’s clothes she had been wearing.

Paula called on her chief of security and the chief doctor of the capitol. The doctor hurried to the situation room, but the security chief would not. He was too afraid.

Once the doctor entered, Fred watched the women. None of the them seemed afraid of him, nor did he seem afraid of them. “What is going on here?” he asked no one in particular. He turned to the doctor. “Jack? Are you afraid of the women?”

“Why should I be?”

“Because every other man in the capitol seems to be. The chief of security won’t even get near the President.”

“So it happened to you too?” he asked Paula. “Me ‘n Sylvia were working on a case, when she suddenly seemed afraid. I reached out to steady her, and she screamed. She backed up, but I grabbed her hand. Her eyes seemed to lose focus, then I was holding the hand of a man!”

“She seemed afraid of you? Were you afraid of her?

“Why should I be, Madam president? She’s my wife!”

“You didn’t have any fear about your wife at all?”

“No. The only feeling I had was what I always have when she’s around. Butterflies in my stomach.”

“Could that have been fear?” asked Rhoda.

“Miss, why would I marry someone that I was afraid of?”

None of us had an answer to that.

“She looked down at her body, and told me she was sorry she wasn’t a woman anymore for my sake. I told her not to sweat it, and we kissed. Wasn’t a problem for me.”

“Have you looked at my daughter’s body?” Paula asked.

“She had just come in when you called me. Sylvia is doing an autopsy now, but it’s pretty apparent what killed her.”

“Yes,” Paula agreed. She looked at Fred. “There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this. Jack wasn’t afraid of Sylvia, but she was of him, but when she became a man, there was no fear anymore.”

She started to pace, and Fred saw how beautiful she was. Her hair was dark, and came to her shoulders. She was very petite and probably five foot one or two. He had never gone for a woman that small, as he was six foot six. Even when she was a man, and five foot ten, he had still towered over her, or him.

She had a dark complexion as well, as if she was Mediterranean. He glanced at her daughter and saw that they both very beautiful, and could be sisters, although Rhoda’s hair was a slightly lighter shade, almost a deep chocolate brown, sort of like dutch chocolate. Ronda’s was more Paula’s shade.

Paula continued musing. “I was scared of you. Terrified, but I knew I could trust you. When we arrived at Ronda’s body, it was like that fear just washed away.”

“I was afraid of every man too, Dad; uh…. Mom,” Rhoda told her. When I got to Ronda, I wasn’t. I just pushed Reg out of the way.” She turned to Reg, “Sorry if I hurt you, Reg.”

“No problem,” the chief of staff responded, giving Rhoda a smile. Freeman was certain that if they had been side by side they would have kissed.

“Was Ronda fooling around on Phineas? And with another woman?”

“No, Mom! She wasn’t a lesbian. She wasn’t even bi! That’s me!”

Paula nodded, as did Fred.

They discussed things for awhile, then went to their own rooms to ponder things.

Fred was certain that he had missed something. Something vital.

Author's note:
I find it interesting that as I was working on this and N21, I had Supertramp playing in the background, singing “Take the Long Way Home” :-)
Rather fitting for N21.

---

Chapter 1.9

That night, Fredrik had a dream. In it, he had grown up with Paula, and when they went into hiding from Willem, it was as husband and wife, and they had three girls. Ronda, Rhoda, and Regina. He awoke, and realized that he wasn’t alone. He ordered the lights on and Paula was sitting in a chair in his room.

She was wearing some diaphanous lingerie that left little to the imagination, and her face was immaculately made up, but she seemed indecisive.

He was wearing just his boxers and a plain t-shirt, but he got up anyway, and sat down in the chair beside hers at a round table. “I suppose this is a ridiculous question, but were you hoping to do something?”

She did, but she looked at the very short time she’d been a woman, and she wasn’t sure why she felt the way she did. Certainly, she and Fred had been friends for many years. Approximately fifteen hundred, to be precise, but they were only friends. Not lovers! How could their friendship go from simply friends to lovers in a single day? Okay, the real question… How could she become a woman in about a minute?

She looked into his face, and she thought she saw tears in his eyes. She was certain that she had some in hers.

“This is some situation, isn’t it?” he asked her.

“I don’t understand it, Fred. How can I be in love with you in less than a day?”

He smiled. “I think I’m in love with you too.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but then again, I’ve loved you for a long time.”

Her mouth dropped open a bit as she tried to digest that bit of information.

“It’s true, Paula. I’ve been enamored with you for a long time.”

“You’re gay?” her voice broke at the thought that now that she was a woman, he wouldn’t – couldn’t love her the way she loved him.

“No, Paula,” he said as he reached out and took her hand. “I’m bisexual.”

She scanned his face, looking for some sign that he might be telling an untruth, but she saw nothing to indicate that.

“So would I be enough for you?”

“I don’t know what happened, Paula, but I am even more enamored with you now.”

She leaned over and kissed him, then he took her hand and took her to the bed. They made love two times,, and started an even more sensuous third, but something strange happened. In the middle of the orgasm, both of them switched sexes. They both fell asleep and Fred had another dream, but this time Paul had married Frieda, and she had had three daughters.

---

The next morning, Rhoda and Reg went to Paula’s room, desperate to find out what had happened to them. Both of them were now men. They too had made love the night before, and on the third time, they had switched. How this happened, they didn’t know, but they were still very much in love.

When they didn’t find anyone there, they went to Fred’s room as they had seen the very obvious attraction between the two the day before. They knocked on the door and Rhoda was shocked to hear her dad’s voice say, “Come in.”

They entered and they saw two couples. Her dad, and an ash blonde woman who looked remarkably like…. Fred! Also, there was Sylvia Hurst and again, an unfamiliar woman, but they quickly realized it was Jack!

“I see it happened to you too,” Paul said to them.

“Dad,” Rhoda began.

“Please. Call me Mom. I’m not sure how it happened, but I don’t want to think about being a man. This is disgusting to me.”

“Yes, Mom. Both Regina and I hate being men, but we still love each other.”

“You hate being a man now, Reg?” Jack asked.

“I’m not sure why, Doctor, but I want so very much to change back to a woman.”

“This is so strange,” Paula said, quietly, then she asked them “Did you change while making love?”

“Yes, we did,” answered Reg.

“We did too,” Fred told them. “I’m bisexual, but I’m completely nauseated by being a woman. I’m wanting very much to make love with Paula, however..”

“Sylvia, do you like being a woman?”

“Not a bit,” she said, “which is strange. Before, I always wanted to turn Jack on by being a sexy woman. I am not opposed to wearing women’s clothes, however. I don’t want to be a woman, but I don’t mind looking like one.”

“But you don’t want to be one.” Paula ruminated.

“I know it sounds strange,” Sylvia acknowledged, “but I really don’t.”

“So this just changed?” Fred wanted to make sure.

“Yes. Once I became a man, I didn’t want to go back to being a woman.” She glanced at Jack, and said, “As long as Jack’s okay with it, that’s all that matters.”

Fredrik wasn’t sure what was going on. It seemed like nothing made sense. He had known that Paul was a heterosexual man, and yet last night, they had spent the better part of the night with each other. Reg was also a heterosexual man, and now, he was a homosexual woman. Well, at the moment, he was a homosexual man, but last night, he was a… It was all so confusing.

His own situation was a bit more normal as was Jack’s and Rhoda’s. He and Jack were both bisexual, and Rhoda only liked women.

---

Later in Paula's office, both Paula and Fred sat discussing the problem. It wasn't easy. There was something weird happening, but damned if they could figure it out.

"I'm trying to piece this together. We've got two bisexual men, a homosexual woman, two straight men, and a straight woman. What's the connection," Fred said to Paula.

Paula pondered. "Perhaps you're looking at it wrong," she commented. "If we looked at it after the fear, it looks different. We then have, two homosexual women, three bisexual men, and a straight woman."

"Okay, I can see that," Fred agreed. "It still doesn't get us any closer to the solution."

"Well, I agree; but I think that when we look at this problem, we have to consider both scenarios, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Freeman said. "I think you're right."

Paula changed the subject. "How are you doing as a woman?" she asked him.

"Well, I hate the longer hair. I hate the breasts. I hate having to sit down to take a leak. I hate being short. Do you want me to continue?"

"No, that's alright. I think I got it. I hate being a guy too."

"You see, that's something I just don't understand. You were straight. How come you now hate being a male?"

She shook her head. "I really don't know, but I'm assuming I know who's responsible for all this."

He gave a disgruntled laugh. "Yeah, my degenerate brother."

Rather than say anything else, she just nodded. “Do you think looking at his character would help?” she asked.

“What character,” he countered.

It was her turn to give a small chuckle. “Willem had character,” she said. “It was just very poor.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Unconsciously, he brushed his long hair behind his ear where it had fallen into his immaculately made up face. Once he had done it, he let out a sigh and shook his head. “I really hate this,” he complained. “I keep doing things that all women do. I’m sitting the way a woman does. I’m walking like one. What’s the deal?”

“Remember the boys that Willem abducted and made into his harem? They were forced to act like sexy girls. I believe this is simply an offshoot of that.”

Fred looked at Paula for a long moment. “That’s a really depressing thought, you know?”

“Yeah, it it.”

“The bad thing, Paula, is I think you’re right.” He gazed at her, or at the current moment, his face, taking in every line, the dimples, the hair. Everything he loved as a woman. But he wasn’t a woman. He hated being one. He wanted to go back to being himself. These feelings he had were being forced into him, and he knew that the feelings Paula had were forced into her. “So that little asshole makes us into a couple, then reverses our sexes where we hate ourselves. Is that it?”

“Not according to the reports I’m getting,” she told him. “We’ve still got fear going on outside these walls. We have several transformations, and they seem to have no real reason...” Her voice trailed off, then she got on the comm to Reg.

“Reg, tell your investigators to check if those people have been touched by someone of the opposite sex.”

Fred held up a hand to get her attention.

“Hang on, Reg. Don’t leave yet. Yeah, Fred?”

“Check for people’s genders as well. Also...” He stopped for a moment, then shook his head. “I doubt it, but see if people have changed their sexual preferences as well. I’ve got another question to run by someone.” He stood, and told her, “I’ll be right back.”

---

They moved their discussion to the situation room, where they could fit more people. Normally, Rhoda wouldn’t be there, but as she was now almost inseparable from Reg, and one of the major players in this strange drama, she was present. Jack and Sylvia were as well.

“Your hunch was on the money, Fred,” Reg told him. “The reports of transformations is quite high. Most of the people report having been touched by someone else. We can only assume that it has probably happened in each case, but has just gone unnoticed.”

“Okay, but is there any suggestion as to who is going to change?” Jack asked.

“I’ll get to that,” Reg replied. “We’ve had some completely different changes as well. Sometimes, people will be touched by the same sexed person, but will suddenly change their sexual preferences. It always matches the person that they touched, or rather, were touched by.”

Paula nodded, but told her, “I see where you’re going, but I want to point something out. I don’t believe that the sexual preferences is such a different thing.”

“Oh?”

“No, it’s not. Look at Jack and Sylvia. They are both bi-males – at least mentally they are.” She looked Jack in the eye and said, “Sylvia told us that he doesn’t mind cross dressing for you. I’m sorry to ask, but do you feel the same?”

“Why apologize? We need this information. Yeah, I have no problem doing the same for him.”

“Okay, Reg, now look at yourself. Are you interested in men?” She shook her head. “Are you bi?” Again she shook her head, but this time a smile was forming on her face.

“I see. I believe you’re right. You change sex, and gender to the same as the person who touched you!”

Paula nodded. Beside her, Fred’s expression was one of disgust aimed at his damned brother. What a complete bastard!

---

Author’s note:

I really didn’t think I was going to get this out today. Yesterday was my birthday (don’t even think of asking my age) and I figured as it was a special day, I was going to cheat on carbs. Unfortunately, being a diabetic, that’s not a good idea, so I was not doing very well. I don’t even want to think what my glucose meter said this morning.

I finally convinced myself that I needed to get up a little while ago and post this. Now, I think I’ll drag myself back to bed.

G’night!

Chapter 1.10

It had been quite some time since ‘Total Fun’ had begun on Earth. Of course, they had no idea what was happening on N21, but it was assumed that, while sending the original operating system to the station, it triggered something on Earth. They had found that ‘Total Fun’ ran through cycles that were approximately fifty years each, and the population had suffered through almost six of them now. Each cycle of the ‘stages of Total Fun’ ended with a three year hiatus for the person before a reset occurred, then the fear would start for each person independently. Since the beginning, or ‘fear stage’, was a different length, as it ended by people being affected by ‘death nanites’, the stages that each person was going through could be very different than someone else. It was suspected that, given time, there could be people in the middle, while others at either end.

After three hundred years, anarchy had ruled Earth. The government that had been in place since Willem was removed from power, had broke down. The fear between genders had caused enough damage in society, that people trusted no one. There was a growing unrest that manifested in the question of who were you before this particular incarnation.

In isolated areas, people died by being beheaded by their nanites, but in larger cities like New York, London, and even Honolulu, there were murders which served to further the stages.

Some people developed such a ‘love’ for their bond mates that they were automatically reconnected to them after the ‘death nanites’ took effect.

With the anarchy, something had to be done. In an attempt to preserve the human race, a bold plan had been arrived at. With three periods of normality in the cycle of Total Fun, twenty ships had been built to ferry a load of children to other planets. The first one that would arrive was at Alpha Centauri. It was common knowledge that there was an Earth like planet there, and it was hoped that nothing completely deadly to human beings would be in residence. When everyone boarded the ships, an EMP would be set off before the computers were set up and brought online. Even though this did not work with adults, it was hoped that it could work with the nanites in children. It was a long shot, but all that they had.

Part of ‘Total Fun’ was known as the Pregnancy Stage, where people spent a complete pregnancy on their back, and several kids had been born. So far, none of the children had been affected by the stages, but the adults feared that it was only time.

For each of the ships, adults would command them. There would be enough adults to keep a pair who were in a normal stage at all times, plus some several doctors to keep people cared for. There would also be several backup people, as it was known that, unfortunately, there would be deaths.

One more thing that was prepared for. There would enough fuel in each ship to allow for changing course and, if they went into orbit around a planet that did not pan out, they would have enough fuel to go to another. Five times, if need be.

The ships were built along a similar design to the N22 station, only larger. It was thought that they would need the room to be able to increase their population by several times. Just the ship going to Alpha Centauri would require four hundred years to make that journey. The ship could go faster, but in order to keep enough fuel to make more trips, they needed to restrict their speed. Of course, they were stopping at planets where, if they could find enough natural resources, they could build a mining facility to ‘top off’ their fuel reserves.

Crews for the ships had not been chosen yet, but with the anarchy, Fred and Paula were definitely going. There was no reason for them to stay on Earth. The government had been completely obliterated, and Paula had gone into hiding in order to survive.

It had been many years before the ships were fully stocked and ready to leave Earth’s orbit. So many had to be built that it had been over a hundred years from the inception of the plan to it’s fruition. It had now been four hundred years, and everything was ready to go. Fredrik and Paula were brought aboard the Alpha Centauri ship. They were in the first section of sitting, staring at each other. So their minds would not be overstimulated, they were moved aboard the ship in the middle of the night when even a jackhammer would not have been able to disturb them. They were placed in an apartment on board the ship in a room that was identical to their rooms in Venice. Jack and Sylvia would check on them every day.

The commander of the ship for it’s leaving Earth orbit was Reg, or Gina as she went by now. Rhoda was, of course, present as well. They were in their one year hiatus before they entered the stage that Paula and Fred were in, and they would turn the ship over to another commander at the end of their year. Because Gina was in charge at launch, she was the senior commander of the ship, Centaurus.

Rhoda had been trained to navigate the ship, so she was in the control room with several other people waiting for the order to leave Earth. She had plotted the course to put them on line to Alpha Centauri, and the course continued to update itself for every millimeter they moved in orbit. When Gina gave the order, she pressed the execute button, and nothing happened. Certainly the computers took over, but it would be a few more kilometers before the ship powered up it’s engines.

They waited, then they felt a gentle vibration as the engines started to power up. There was no thrust applied. Just the engines warmed the fuel. Finally, the point in space came, and the engines fired. Slowly the ship moved away from the planet below.

---

On the surface of the blue and green planet, the fact that twenty immense vehicles were leaving them, was completely missed. The fact that the person who was, just tentatively, the active president, was no longer a part of the population, also went unnoticed.

The people on the surface were embroiled in fear, sex, and fighting. Many people were killed each day, babies were born, and transitions accomplished.

---

Gina stood on the bridge, watching the screen that looked back on the planet that up until a few hours ago had been their home. She was of mixed emotions as she left. She would not miss the problems that plagued the people on the surface, but she would miss the surface itself. She loved the planet, and the freedom of being under a blue sky. She had no idea if she would ever see one again.

“Gina!” It was a good friend of Gina and Rhoda’s, a man by the name of Vlad.

“Yes?” She was surprised by the excitement in his voice.

“Sylvia just reported that people are coming out of whatever stage they’re in.” He paused for a moment. “Rhoda, your parents are out of theirs. They’re going to have a rest, however. They’re experiencing cramped muscles.”

Rhoda jumped up, and both she and Gina hurried out of the control room. There wasn’t much to do, anyway. The computers would keep things running smoothly.

---

The next day, they were in the briefing room beside the control room. Fred and Paula were there, but still suffering from cramps after so much time being motionless. “I don’t get it?” Paula said to Jack and Sylvia.

“As near as I can tell,” Jack told her, “Something in the vicinity of Earth was making the nanites work against us.”

“Can you be any more specific?” asked Fred.

Sylvia answered for ‘her’ husband. She had found that during her times of freedom, she enjoyed still dressing the part of the wife, even though she was physically male. “No, we really can’t. We had no idea this would happen.”

“Best guess?” Gina asked.

“Sure,” Jack responded. “I’m guessing that something in the vicinity of Earth was making the nanites work against us.”

“You’re not very helpful,” Gina complained.

“Neither was Caesar.”

There was a beeping, and Fred answered his comm unit. Everyone stared at him as he received a communique from the control room. “N21 is calling.”

He switched the communication to his comm unit, and was astounded to hear his own voice in a conversation with Perl. She was talking about her friend’s cooking skill, and how she had made absolutely gourmet meals from the hydroponically grown vegetables on the ship. “That sound’s delicious,” Fred told her.

He sat at the table, his mouth open. “I never said that. Hell, I never had a conversation like this with her at all!”

He sat, staring dumbfounded at his comm unit as it relayed a conversation that never happened to the briefing room.

A moment later, they were drawn away from the phantom conversation by another call from the control room. “We’re picking up something on a collision course with Earth.”

Gina and Paula both jumped up and sprinted down the corridor, while the others followed after a moment.

“What’s going on?” Gina asked, yelling above the excited voices in the room.

“I’m not sure what they are, but there seems to be multiple objects. I had thought it was just one until the resolution got better.” It was Vlad.

“Gina?” Paula didn’t want to step on her daughter-in-law’s toes.

“Mom, if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”

Paula nodded. “Vlad, you said the resolution got better? So we’re getting closer to them?”

“They’re getting closer to us, Ma’am. They’re heading toward Earth from the other side, and they’re moving fast!”

“Okay. Can we slow down a bit so they come into higher resolution quicker?”

Gina thought about it, then, “Do it, Rhoda! Now!”

Normally the artificial gravity would compensate for any thrust, but Rhoda hit the retro engines hard. A few people stumbled, and the things on Vlad’s screen seemed to jump close.

“Oh, no!” said Vlad. Gina and Paula hurried over and gave the screen a look. “Check it out, now,” Gina shouted.

Paula sat down at a spare computer and called up historical records. “It’s them.” Her voice was completely devoid of emotion.

Chapter 1.11

“So you’re saying,” Fred asked, looking at his wife, “That these are the missiles that were launched from N22 before it left?”

“The same,” she replied.

“Those were sent into the sun!”

“I’m sorry, Fred, but apparently not.”

He sighed and slowly sat down at one of the unused stations. He kept his eyes on the screen the whole time.

The comm signaled that there was an incoming communications It was Kevin Grayson, the commander of Fomalhaut IV.

“I take it you see those, as you slowed down,” he commented to Gina.

“Yes, we...” Gina broke off as they all saw the missiles break apart as the MRVs split off. “How the...” She turned to her father-in-law. “I thought those were disarmed!”

“They were supposed to be.” He almost couldn’t speak. To compound what they were all feeling, they saw the solid fuel engines fire, putting the MRVs into carefully plotted, decaying orbits.

“Rhoda,” asked Paula quietly, “Is there any point in asking if we could make it back in time to stop any of those?”

“Absolutely no way, Mom.”

“We can help people, though,” Gina announced. “Turn us around, Rhoda. Keep the ship out of the range of the ‘Total Fun” signal.”

“That’s outside the moon’s orbit, Gina.”

“Okay. That will have to do.” She turned to Grayson. “I’m going to rescue as many of those people as I can. The MRVs will hit before I can get there, but I don’t feel comfortable just letting them die.” Her statement was sent to all of the ships, and a signal came back from each of them saying they would do the same.

All twenty of the ships wasted precious fuel, coming to a stop relative to the planet, then put themselves into an orbit around the equator, but beyond the orbit of Earth’s moon. They were barely moving so they could maintain the orbit they were in.

As they were moving into position, the MRVs exploded right above the military installations and major cities on the surface. It was as if an orange cloud swept across the surface. Unfortunately, the warheads did exactly what they were designed to do. They released the orange clouds, which lifted out of range of the primitive explosions, then descended. The explosions were simply to open every nook and cranny of anyplace a human being could hide. Then, the orange clouds, consisting of millions of nanites, converted all organic material into more nanites, and swept over the planet’s surface.

“How...” Rhoda was staring, tears flowing freely down her face.

No one was immune from the tears. Every person who could see the screens in each of the ships, cried that day. Each one had been chosen because they were known to care about other people, no matter the situation. Seeing every person on their planet destroyed was beyond what they could stand.

As soon as they could prepare their landers, they sent them out. The crew of each was all the same gender, so there would be no problems as they got close to the planet. Each returned the same story. No one was alive that they could find. The only ones who might be, would be locked in a bank vault Otherwise…

---

“We are gathered here today, to pay tribute to our fallen world.” The commanding crews of each ship had joined on Centaurus, as it was the ship of Earth’s president. Those who were not able to attend physically, sat in their own ship’s amphitheater, along with their thousands of neighbors, watching Paula Freeman speak.

“We have seen the outcome of the MAD project, and it was truly that. Mad. Watching as every human on the world was destroyed by the very things that are in our bodies, keeping us from being destroyed, was humbling. To think that one man was able to orchestrate this loss of life over this world, is unthinkable.

“There will never be anymore life on this world, our home, but we can spread our wings and build our lives elsewhere. We can, and we will. Each of us is set to go to a different possibility, with five backup locations each. That makes a hundred worlds that we can check, with even more possible as we look out in the galaxy.

“Where will we end up? We don’t know right now, but we will survive. We have to. This is the only choice for us. We know that there are two more ships out there, but they have left our galaxy, heading toward no galaxy that we know of. We know that N21 had the ‘Total Fun’ on their ship, but perhaps, if N22 finds them, they can move to N22 and be free.

“If N22 finds N21, and I believe they will they will return here. They will see what happened to our world, and then undoubtedly leave.

“Gina and I have discussed this possibility, and we have decided to help them, if we can.

“We are going to place Centaurus into an orbit where we can wait for them to arrive. It may take thousands of years, but we have enough substance on this ship to wait that long. Again, just as we had to check on our people on Earth, we have to save this last vestige of humanity, if we can.

“My charge to you, as your president, is to go out into the galaxy, and make us proud! Find a place to call home again, each of you, and never give up. Don’t surrender to whatever challenges you find out there. We no longer are Caesar’s playthings. We are our own again. Do not be beaten!”

She stepped away from the podium she had stood behind, then told the crowds, “Now, go to it, and be blessed!”

Then she stepped off the platform and walked out of the amphitheater. Just outside the door, she met Fred and just about fell into his arms. “You did great,” he told her.

“Remember all those times I got on your case about Willem and how you felt about watching him die?”

He nodded, not knowing where she was going with this.

“I want to kill him a thousand times over now. No, make that millions of times, billions of times. One for each person destroyed on our planet.”

“We don’t know if he reprogrammed those missiles, Paula. We’ll never know.”

“Whether directly or indirectly, he is responsible for each of them. We wouldn’t have any of the N series weapons platforms if he had stayed out of power.”

Fred hugged her hard. “Paula, I want you to know one thing.” He backed up so he could look in her eyes. “I would be right there helping you with those billions of times killing him. Long ago, I lost any love I had for him. There is no connection to him at all. I have been Freeman so long now, I hardly remember being a Wallace. He is gone from my soul.”

She nodded and pulled herself into him. It was awhile before they went back to their rooms.

---

Centaurus had sat on a cometary orbit around Sol for many years. Actually, close to fifty thousand. There had been a few upsets with the after effects of ‘Total Fun’, but they had dealt with them and moved on.

Finally the day came where they wanted to settle on a planet. The ship had enough supplies to keep them going for years yet, but being stuck in a ship, even one as vast as Centaurus, came at a price. ‘Cabin Fever’ had been known of for years, but with all the things to do on Earth, the craft that could take you anywhere, without ever fearing sliding off roads, or plowing snow, it simply wasn’t an issue. Now, however the people were wishing for more area to visit.

Finally, Gina had enough. She sat down with her mother-in-law and discussed the problem. “I want to see them as much as you do, Mom, but we’ve got to be realistic.”

“I know, Gina. I just wish they had shown up by now.”

“I have a possibility for you, Mom. I’m really not sure what you’ll think of it, however.”

They met up with a few engineers who had worked on the ships in the briefing room.

“This is really a matter for you and Fred, Ma’am.” one of the engineers told her.

“Why?”

“You haven’t told her?”

Gina shook her head, and Paula was starting to get really worried now. Just what had they come up with?

“On our way through here, Mom, we’ve scouted this area many times. The fact is, it’s mineral rich. There are enough metals out here to build a ship. Another one, even bigger than this one.”

“You think we should build another ship?”

The engineer nodded.

“Transfer our people into that?”

“No,” Gina told her.

“I’m not sure I get it, then.”

“Mom, call Dad in here, please?”

Very reluctantly, Paula called her husband. He came in ten minutes later, and no one had given Paula anymore information.

“What’s up?” Fred asked.

Gina filled Fred in on what was already said, then she went on. “We are thinking of building a ship that can wait here indefinitely for N22 to return. We will put a small crew on it, to contact N22 when they arrive. As such, there will be the possibility… No, make that certainty, that children will be born to these people, thus an indefinite wait is really not possible, but a very long wait is possible.

“Where the ship will be much bigger than this one, and a very small crew placed on it, there will be a vast amount of space for them to enjoy.”

“How big are you talking?” Fred asked.

“To put it in perspective, our Centaurus’ diameter is two miles. We’re talking about the same size command ring, but a diameter five times that of Centaurus.”

“As well,” said the engineer, “Because of the size of this thing, We think there needs to be a few modifications as well.”

“Go on,” Fred was very interested now.

“We will build an outer ring around the upstairs and downstairs, with ‘U’ corridors between them as well We’re also thinking of the same idea in the middle of the bays. Not only will this allow for quicker transport between, but it will help strengthen the entire structure.”

Paula had been listening intently, and now said, “I want to be a part of that crew.”

Gina agreed. “It will be yours to command.”

---

It had taken a few years to build the massive ship. They had found vast deposits of the raw materials to make fuel, in the Oort cloud, as well as from some of the asteroids. These had been pulled to the dwarf planet, Pluto. They used that as a base for the builders and engineers to work on the ship. Once the superstructure was built and pressurized, they installed the anti gravity, then floors. At that point, Pluto was abandoned except as a storage facility for raw materials. One of the bays was given over to a metal fabrication plant. Once that was done, things began to move along much faster. Raw materials were moved to an open bay. It was estimated that there was enough there to fit out the inside of the entire ship.

Fred and Paula had decided that, while neither had experience in building, they would lend a couple of pairs of hands wherever they could. It was a special time for Paula, knowing that when this was completely built, she would command it.

Another change in the structure was made soon after the basic plans had been made. To increase the capacity, the shape of the bays was changed. The other ships, while much larger than N21, were still built the same. The bays were the basic shape of a rectangle, with thirty of them on the upstairs and downstairs halves. The new ship was completely changed, in effect, more than tripling it’s capacity. Each bay was built into the next one, with multiple ‘U’ corridors joining the sides together. As a result, there was no need for an outside corridor to connect the bays but an interesting idea was made. A corridor was made on the outer edge of the ship. It was over thirty miles long, surrounding the entire ship. The ‘U’ corridors were connected with ‘J’ corridors to this ring. The outside had a metal shell, but the inside was transparent steel. It made a wonderful walkway, where you could see the ship. You could also see the center, command ring. Just for the fun of it, the ‘J’ corridors in the command rings and in the outer ring, went the opposite way. Thus you were standing the opposite directions in the rings.

Now, it was time to start the engines for the first time to make sure that they worked. These were massive compared to the ones that powered Centaurus. When Paula gave the order to start them, there was a vibration in the entire ship that felt like it was hitting the harmonics of a person’s bones. It rose in power until the ship began to move. The ship was placed into an orbit that ran parallel to it’s smaller sister, but several miles away to adjust for it’s much greater mass. Very carefully, it’s roll was started, then Paula took a brass plaque from a pocket, wiped it off and placed it in a receptacle just inside the door of the command center. It stated that the name of this new ship was Neo22.

Once the Neo22 was run through it’s paces, it was time for Centaurus to depart. She watched through a scope as the smaller ship started out of it’s orbit. “Smooth sailing, Centaurus,” she said over the comm.

“They will be safe, Mom,” said a very familiar voice from behind her. She turned and saw Rhoda. Not just her, but Gina as well!

“What are you two doing here?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Staying with you and Dad,” Gina told her. “You don’t think we’d abandon you, do you?”

“Who’s commanding Centaurus?” Paula asked.

“I transferred command to Rick Johnson,” She told her mother-in-law. “Right before I transferred to here.” She stepped over to Paula and asked the old question of seafarers. “Permission to come aboard?”

Chapter 1.12

Paula stood at one of the few observation ports on the outer ring, gazing out at the stars of the Milkyway. There was no sensation of movement, but the scene continually moved from right to left. It was one of her favorite pastimes, to simply stand by the viewports and look longingly out at stars. She always hoped that one day she would live close to one out there, somewhere.

None of the viewports ever showed Sol. It was hidden by the floor of the thirty mile tube that she stood in. She had been standing there for about an hour, when Fred's reflection appeared in the port beside hers. She saw that he had a couple of folding chairs with him, and he set them up right behind her. He gently guided her to the chair, and she sat down.

The tube was about twenty-five feet wide, and the viewports had been built into a small room in the along the outer wall.. The entire outer wall of the room was transparent steel, which gave the impression of standing in space, especially since the lighting was so dim to be almost nonexistent.

Fred sat down and picked up a pack that he had also carried with him. He reached in and pulled out a bottle. The label was a match to the Scotch Whiskey they had shared so long ago, overlooking Honolulu. He reached into the pack and pulled out two glasses. He poured them each a shot. She didn't down hers immediately. Rather, she held it up and looked at the liquid, which turned the starlight a dim amber color.

"I remember that night you had a bottle of this in Honolulu. I wondered how you had it. It was an artifact from so long ago. This bottle is almost twice as old."

"You told me that night that I hadn't murdered my brother. It took me a long time to believe you, but I finally did. Now I believe you even more."

"There's nothing left on that planet. Do we have the right to colonize other worlds? Maybe we should do as N21 and N22 have done. Just turn Neo22 out of the galaxy and fire our engines until they're out of fuel, to just spend forever between the stars."

He didn't respond for quite some time. He gazed out and finally said, "You don't believe that, Paula. You fought for our survival more than anyone. You were the president when this happened."

"Yeah. I really did well at that," she said dryly. She downed the scotch, and held her glass out for more. Fred almost refused, as he didn't want her to get depressed, but finally poured another shot for each of them.

"You did great, Paula. Nobody could have done a better job than you did."

"You don't believe that, Fred," she said, echoing his sentence back to him.

"In fact, my dear, I do."

"Uh huh. Name one person who couldn't have done better."

"Fredrik Freeman."

She didn't respond to that for several minutes. She just gazed at the stars again. Finally, she said simply, "Bullshit."

He downed his shot, turned to face her, and said, "Not very ladylike, is it?"

She snorted. "I'm not a lady."

"Bullshit," he returned, then they both laughed. When the laughter died down, he took her hand in his, and faced her. Very gently, he turned her face toward his and told her, "You are the most beautiful woman on this ship, and I love you more each day. You are brilliant, self assured, sexy... I can't think of anything you're lacking."

She kissed him, then leaned her head on his shoulder. They stayed there for a long time, holding each other in the light of the stars.

---

A few days later, the command crew had a meeting.

"We've waited another ten thousand years since Centaurus left," she told them. "I'm not a quitter, but perhaps it's time we admit that N22 isn't returning."

"And do what?" Rhoda asked. "None of the planets have turned out to be what we need to survive. Famolhaut IV is setting out across the galaxy, scanning planets as they go."

Gina backed up her wife. "Mom, we have no place to go."

"We can help look."

"We have twenty sister ships out there, looking for habitable planets," Fred told her. "They are way ahead of us. When N22 gets here…"

"If it gets here,"

"When," he said forcefully. "When... N22 gets here, we'll need to assist them to get up to speed. We'll be their only chance to get to our destination."

"Fred, the people on this shop deserve better than to sit here waiting for something that may never happen."

He knew that she was right, yet there was something she wasn't seeing. "Paula, they chose this, just like you did. Just like I did. The people on N22 deserve us waiting for them. They chose to do what they did. Whether they find N21 or not, they're heroes. That's their nature."

"Mom," Rhoda said, "Think of this. Willem did not think twice about abandoning the people of N21 to flying forever in between galaxies. Gina and I made the decision that we could never be like him. How could we ever face ourselves if we did the same?"

"You told me that I wasn't a murderer, Paula. I am here for that reason. I'm not. I will not do what my brother did. His decision was to abandon them. My decision is to rescue them."

Paula looked at each of her families faces and saw the determination written in each, that made her realize it was permanent. They would not go to a final destination without N22. It simply would not happen.

And so, for another eight hundred years, Neo22 waited

---

The wait abruptly ended all at once when they tracked N22 heading toward Earth. Gina was in command and called Paula to the command center.

When Paula entered to center she saw that Gina was trying to warn the much smaller ship away from Earth, but they didn't seem to hear. Neo22 watched as they passed the limit of the 'Total Fun' effect.

Suddenly, N22s engines fired, catapulting the ship away from the planet.

At that moment, Neo22 lost sight of Earth, but N22 was heading their way. What was happening on the smaller ship was anyone's guess. They still were now replying to any signal, but were skimming very near the star. Their engines came on for a moment and Paula watched in horror as she realized what they were going to do.

Their course would fling them away from the sun in an ever slowing and widening orbit which would allow Venus' gravity to quickly grab them and fling them into an arc right into Earth's atmosphere, to change course again, heading in a gentle curve back the way they had come.

It was an incredibly complex navigational masterpiece, but they were intending to head directly out of the galaxy!

"Rhoda, please plot us a course to intersect theirs. I know it will take us awhile, but we know where they are now!"

Rhoda was beaming as she started working on her computer. Paula stepped up behind her daughter and nodded her approval as she watched. All of the gravity inside the planetary system made things complex.

The closeness of N22's flightplan to the sun would make any rendezvous there impossible. Frankly, they had no idea if there was enough fuel left for them to change course. Paula knew how close the fuel of that ship had been figured, and she doubted that there was.

Rhoda was setting their courses to intersect well beyond the Oort Cloud. Neo22 would actually come closer to the sun than its counterpart, but would shoot across a very small amount of the corona, to be caught much more by Venus. It would then head toward the rendezvous point.

"Perfect," Paula told her daughter as she saw the course come alive on the screen. It took her a moment to order it, however. While it ended with them intersecting, this would be dangerous. The course was theoretically possible, but it was closer than any sane person would want to get to a star. Hell with it, she thought. "Do it."

Rhoda committed them by pressing a button, and the engines fired. The ship slowed allowing their fall around the star to become stronger. A moment later, the thrusters realigned them, and the engines fired again, making them accelerate their fall while at the same time, angling them to where they would miss the surface and just barely skim the edge of the sun's atmosphere.

---

Author's note:
I recommend that you read N21 Part 2 Chapter 6 after you read this.

Author's note:
At this point, N21 and After Caesar join into one story. I hope you enjoy the remainder.
The story will be told from here on, from the POV of Rose. Thus, those parts where Rose is not present are what was either told to her, or what her research turned up.

---

After Caesar 2.1

The command team of Neo22 were all present in the command center, their attention glued to the screens. They were watching for N22, and for several minutes, no one said a word. Eventually, Gina spotted a bit of reflection on a screen. “Look,” she exclaimed!

She was the only one who had seen it, but she touched the screen and zoomed in where it had shown.

It was very disappointing. What they saw was a piece of a bay, spinning in the darkness. Occasionally, it would catch the light from the distant sun, but it was mostly featureless. Rhoda carefully used the thrusters to bring them into relative position with the piece.

“Can we get over there in suits,” Fred asked?

“We should be able to,” Paula replied. As they watched, however, they noticed something strange. The reflections were getting less defined. Again, the screen was zoomed in, and light shone on the area of interest.

“Is this all that’s left,” Paula wondered? As the bay spun, they could see that it was slowly turning into dust.

“What could cause that?” Rhoda wondered.

“Emergency power, get us away from here!”

They felt the force as the ship backed away from the ruined station. Paula thought furiously. If she was correct, she needed to have something to destroy any nanites as they hit her ship. “Gina, can you make a spark each time a particle hits us?”

Her daughter-in-law looked at her as if she was insane. “I don’t follow you.”

“I want a big enough spark to vaporize any nanites if they touch us.” Gina glanced at the screen again and realized what Paula was saying.

“Oh shit!” Gina hurried to comply. When the charge was established, there was a flash of light as the dust was burned off. Fred also realized what had happened. “Do you think we were in time?”

“I hope so. I just wish we had been in time for them.”

Later that night, Paula wasn’t able to sleep, so she quietly got up. She didn’t want to wake up Fred, but she wanted time to reflect. She quietly grabbed some clothes and got dressed in the bathroom. Then she went to her favorite spot on the ship. The observation port. It was by common consensus that the people of the ship had decided that this particular port was for her and Fred. They had made a rock that very closely matched the one that they had sat on overlooking Honolulu.

She opened the door to the port, and walked in. She was surprised to see Fred sitting on the rock. “What are you doing here?”

“I woke up when you got up, and I knew where you’d be going, so I came up here.”

She sat down beside him. “Do you think the entire station is destroyed?”

He had been enjoying the memories he had of sitting by this port with Paula, but now, his mind was brought back to what they had seen earlier in the day. "I really don't know. I suppose it could very well be, but we have nothing to support that."

"We were so close, Fred! This is so wrong!"

Fredrik nodded. He often thought of what this very person he was so in love with had once told him. Willem deserved his fate. He deserved so much more than what he had received.

He put an arm around her. "Like I said, Paula, we have nothing to support them all being gone."

"We also have nothing to support them being still alive either."

"Look. We know that our course predictions were correct. Let's speed up a bit and see if we catch up with anything else."

She nodded and put her head into Fred's shoulder. She wanted to start now, but there were several people making sure that nothing was dropped into their ship that could hurt them… and if it had, then they needed a fix for it.

For his part, Fred leaned back against the wall behind him, and held her tight.

They stayed there for several hours.

---

Gina and Rhoda were at work when Paula entered the command center in the morning. Everything had checked out okay regarding contamination by nanites. Finally, something had gone right in that regard. The question was, were they in time.

Fred's idea of speeding up seemed to be the best one but a bit unsure now. The course followed by N22 would be affected by gravity from various objects operating on an item of a certain mass. Now, that mass was unknown. Predicting anything had new variables. All they could do was make estimates.

They had started computing logical search patterns for debris when they got a surprise.

"This is N22 calling the nearby vessel. Do you read?" The voice was female and sounded desperate.

Gina jumped to the computer and answered. "N22, this is Neo22. We read you loud and clear!"

"Oh, thank God! We have been trying to get this radio working for days. Can you rescue us please?"

Such a simple question, but one which required so much discussion. Fred stood at the back of the room and watched as his wife and daughters went to work. After a couple of hours, they were ready to revise their search pattern. After their engines had fired, the command staff met in the briefing room again.

N22 had discovered their predicament about twelve days ago. They hadn't got much past Earth, when much of their ship started disintegrating. It wasn't a huge leap to realize nanites were involved.

They knew that nanites were the main ingredient of the old missiles, and the orange atmosphere confirmed it. What they discovered, with the help of a doomed doctor on one of their bays, was that the nanites were able to change their food source. While they attacked organic matter, when they ran out, they were able to switch to inorganic of almost any type. When organic material became available again, they swarmed onto it. Kent Peterson, a doctor doomed on a disconnected bay observed this dispassionately as his wife was killed, then attacked himself.

Every bay of the N22 had been ejected by the computers before they could even react. Marc Dodson realized what needed to be done quickly, but too late to save any of the bays. The command ring had drifted too far away from the bays by this time. They had charged the outer hull, vaporizing the nanites as they touched it. All that was left was about nine hundred people from the several thousand that had been on N22.

The people in the briefing room were shocked. They had been prepared to take on several thousand. Now, the amount had dropped to less than one thousand. It was a shock that there would be so few to be rescued, but they would happily do what they could.

---

On the remains of N22, Rashda, Colleen, Marc, Carla, John, and I were in the command center.

John and I had hurried to help people in the command ring as soon as I was considered able to move around by Carla. We still had the upstairs and downstairs rings, but they were not usable. There were several breaches in the hulls where the large bays had made contact.

Carla and Marc worked to plug power into the hull before the nanites made it inside.

Rashda and Colleen were manning the controls, trying to dodge the bays, and clouds of debris.

Soon, we were away from the scattered wreckage, and free of all the nanites not intended to be inside us.

About eight days after the destruction, we heard a voice on our comm system! It was apparently a ship from Earth. Rather than question who they were or how they knew who we were, we tried to answer them. Something was wrong with our transmission system. We could listen, but not talk.

Marc and John worked to get our communications working again, but each time they tried to transmit again, the air got more and more thick with smoke. Finally, it worked! I'm not sure what they did, but it was so wonderful when we heard an answer. I ended up crying into John's shoulder.

Carla had a hard time keeping from crying too as she talked with the woman, Gina, from the other ship.

It was a real shock to hear that the other ship, Neo22, was there specifically to rescue us, and that they'd been there for so long, waiting.

We were waiting as well, as what was left of our ship was pulled against a docking port. We were able to travel through two by two, just as the animals long ago on Noah's Ark.

Slowly, we moved our nine hundred people aboard this new ark, hoping to find an Ararat and rainbow somewhere in the galaxy.

I was a bit embarrassed when John and I came through the airlock. As soon as Doctor Sylvia heard who I was, I found myself being placed on a gurney and taken to a hospital.

There, I was subjected to a whole bunch of tests to make sure I and my baby were alright after the last few days.

I sat back in the bed and sighed. It had been several days since I had felt human. I smelled like acrid electronic smoke. I think I had several patches of vomit (not all mine) on my clothes. I had been promised access to a bath just as soon as I was done here.

I really wanted that before I had to make the acquaintance of anyone. Unfortunately, that was not to be. John opened the door, and I was happy to see him, but then he held it open for Rashda and another man I thought was familiar.

"Rose," said Rashda, "I would like you to meet Fredrik Freeman, a friend of mine, and the former president of Earth."

I could almost have died. I looked like something even too gross for the cat to drag in, and I'm meeting the former president. No wonder he looked familiar! I'd seen this man in our command center.

I decided I had no choice, so I held out my hand. I felt mortified as he took my hand, and rather than shake it, he kissed it. I wondered if he knew where that hand had been. I had run out of gloves as I was helping some of the people.

There were many injuries we had to deal with, and Carla and I ended up as nurses. Most things were from trying to get people safely into the command ring very quickly, but a few people were injured by the bay doors closing on them. That was a nightmare. If it wasn't, it would be, I'm sure.

Now, here was the president kissing my hand.

"I'm very happy to meet you, Rose. I've heard so much about you."

"It's nice to finally meet you face to face, Sir. It was nice to know we had a friend on Earth to talk to."

Rashda looked a bit uncomfortable when I said that.

"What's wrong," I asked?

"I only spoke to your station a couple of times"

"But the long conversation with Perl? You gave us so much help," I supplied. He shook his head.

"Apparently it was another of Willem's tricks," my husband told me.

"We had left Earth before the first of Perls messages even got there. As a matter of fact, we began receiving the whole conversation being sent back from the station, I'm guessing as a mockery from Willem."

I couldn't understand. "Why did he do that? He gave us hope that Earth was there, helping us."

John shook his head. "He gave us information through his AI that he controlled. He could make us believe what he wanted. And it was more play. I can imagine how he would have enjoyed watching this conversation himself. He would have been thrilled."

Chapter 2.2

It was a couple of hours later that I was released to my husband’s custody. In all honesty I was quite happy to be in his custody. Doctor Sylvia had declared that I and my baby were in perfect health, and as N22 had only contributed about a twentieth of its original population, there was no problem with my being pregnant!

I’m afraid that on our journey to our new home, I talked John’s ear off so badly that when we arrived, he picked me up and carried me over the threshold. “You’re one or two years late for that, John,” I told him laughing. But to be honest, I had every intention of breaking in our new bed, floor, whatever. As long as I could get a good, hot bath first.

To that end, I went into the bathroom and to my delight, I found that there was a jet tub, large enough for two people. “Oh, John,” I called in a sing-song voice. “Would you come in here for a moment please?” Right beside the tub was an alcove that contained a shower that was plenty large for two people as well. In fact five or six could fit comfortably, but I was quite happy with just us two. John entered, and I looked at him innocently. “I’m going to need help washing my back.” I gave him ‘doe eyes’ then fluttered my eyelashes as best I could. He looked around at the facilities, then without a word, he left.

Great, I thought. I should have cleaned up before I tried to get him in with me. I started the shower, then prepared to disrobe. A moment later, John entered the bathroom carrying two towels and robes. He helped me finish getting undressed, then I helped him. Together, we enjoyed testing the shower, tub, bed, floor…. You understand, I’m sure.

---

We took about a week to get to know the ship. It was massive! Carla, Colleen and I took a couple of days to scout the shops, of which there were lots.

As I had done on N22, I wanted to scout out the restaurants to see if one run by me would be worthy, so I contacted Rhoda, the commander’s daughter one evening. She told me that she would join me tomorrow and show me around. My two best friends and Gina, Rhoda’s wife joined us. We visited just about every restaurant that served breakfasts that morning. Most of those were on the downstairs side of the ship, which was where John and my rooms were. I was surprised that most of the chefs wanted me to taste their food. I was glad for nanites as I would have put on a lot of weight that morning.

Then, we made some rounds for lunch. Oh no! I was tasting more food, everything from hamburgers to salads, and escargot to jambalaya! It was all wonderful, but I was stuffed just from the samples! Of course all of us got to taste everything; It seemed that all those who accompanied me received them. I was tired after lunch. All the food was heavenly. We went to the beach. Yes! They had a beach! We hadn’t brought anything to sunbathe in (yes. Don’t even ask. There was a faux sun in the sky. I’m not kidding.) so we borrowed some things there. I put on a short white skirt with a matching top. I also had to borrow a pair of sunglasses and a hat. This was heaven after all we’d been through. I was almost in tears, knowing that this had been made to find us.

I lay down on a chaise lounge and dozed off. I woke up to find John sitting beside. “Glad to see you awake, Rose,” he told me. “I was about ready to wake you up. We’ve been asked to join you and go to the second best restaurant on board, for dinner.”

“Second best?” I asked. Not that I was upset. If the quality food I’d tasted that day was any indication, we were in for a real treat.

“You got me,” he told me. I’m just repeating what I was told.

I sat up, and was again grateful to the nanites for controlling my weight, but I needed to find a restroom and fast! Carla and I hurried off, as the others weren’t present at the moment. When we went in the ladies, the others were there. I didn’t say anything but a hurried, “Hi,” and then was out of sight. I think Carla did as well. A few moments later, I was out, and it was then that I realized I had forgotten my handbag on the beach. I looked in the mirror, and definitely needed some fixing on my face, so went out and grabbed my bag. John got a couple of chuckles in, to which I threatened him with terrible things that night. He intensified his laughs. I promised him a very intense night as payback. For some reason, his laughs didn’t slacken. If anything, they got worse. I’ve really got to work on my definition of horrible.

After I had fixed my makeup, we hurried to our home, and I changed into something for the evening, as did John. We met up at a rather incongruous steakhouse. While I love a good steak (lead in a cow and give me a knife and fork is how I like mine done) I didn’t see one as the second nicest restaurant. I also felt conspicuously overdressed. Once I saw the menu, however, I quickly changed my mind about the food. It was packed with some of the most wonderful sounding meals I had ever seen.

I had no idea what to start with, so rather than make up my mind, I signaled to John to please order. I was overwhelmed. Something I hadn’t had in a long time was that nice rare t-bone, and knowing how much I loved it, John ordered two of them. When it came my eyes widened. It was a ten ounce. Where? I wondered looking down at my stomach.

The first bite of the steak was heaven, and the fried okra was divine. Second best? Really? Thank God for nanites in the blood stream! I was going to need them.

Poor John wanted a taste of my potatoes, and nearly got my fork through his hand. I’m rather possessive with food, but as he knew already, he would get the remainder of my dinner. There was no way I could even begin to eat it all. Then they brought out some homemade chocolate ice cream; on a brownie. I almost died!

When we left, I turned to Paula, who with Fred, had joined us at the steakhouse. “John told me that’s the second best restaurant on the ship. He’s putting me on, right?”

“I’m afraid not, Rose. We have one better.”

“If it’s better, I have to try it!” I exclaimed.

We came around a corner and I stopped. In front of me was a restaurant called, Heaven’s Rose. What? We entered it, and there was no one there. It looked like it was ready to open, although there were no menus. Gina smiled at me, and led me into the kitchen. It had the best equipment I had ever seen! I came out and was shown the dining areas. “You like?” Fred asked me.

“For m-me?” I stammered.

“If you want it,” Paula told me. “This building has been here since the ship was built. I’ve been wanting to see it open for a very long time now.”

I couldn’t get words out and Paula said, “Don’t worry about it yet. You don’t need to answer at the moment.” 

I sat down and looked around the establishment.   I had always had a restaurant that I ran. I couldn't even conceive of not having one.  Of course I wanted to do it!  I opened my mouth to say that, but John beat me to it.

"Of course she'll do it."

I wanted to glare at him, but I was too happy.  I had lost one just a few weeks ago, and to now have another one ready for me. 

I discussed with Gina and her father-in-law, what few things I would need to open the doors.  I still had a couple of assistant chefs who would love to help again. That made me think of all the people we wouldn't have.  I kept the tears back, but Fred saw my reaction, and was able to guess what I was feeling.

"We all will have so many people to mourn once this is over."

"Our entire planet," I agreed.  "How could that bastard do this to a planet?"

I saw Fred's demeanor change for a moment, and I wondered why.  

We decided to meet in the briefing room the next day, but for now, we said goodnight and John and I realized that the U from beside the restaurant ended up in our apartment complex.  

We were again on the third floor, but the builders of this ship had made some interesting changes in these complexes. There were no stairs to the upstairs levels.  Instead, the floor curved up and then leveled, all the while with gravity making you walk on what seemed to be a level surface. It was always strange to the eye, and could make even a well person nauseous until they got the hang of things.  John and my walk from the restaurant to our home was about a half mile of a straight walk until we arrived at the landings in our stairwell. 

We got home, and joined each other in the shower, then I fulfilled my dire threats to him.

I was so excited, I couldn't sleep, though.  I kept thinking about the restaurant.

I got up, so I wouldn't wake up my man.  He had done very well, that evening, so I let him sleep without bothering him.  

I sat down in one of our bedroom overstuffed chairs, after I put on my robe.  I watched John for awhile, marvelling once again, how our relationship had come about.  I had now been a woman several times the length of time I had been a man, and I had loved every minute of it.  I often wondered if I had really been a transwoman beforehand, but that didn't seem possible. I hadn't been afraid of John in stage one before I had become a woman.

I wanted to resent that part of Willem's actions, but I couldn't.  I loved John way to much to be upset. 

I'm not sure how long I watched him, but I eventually got up.  I didn't have any instruments yet, except a twelve string. I started playing an upbeat Spanish song from years gone past. I finished it, and put the guitar down.  

I went to the computer, and started looking through some recipes.  Many that were stored were ones that Perl had got from me before we left Earth. In that moment, my love and mourning for her came back, which naturally led to the same feelings for Kari.  Oh, the drawbacks for having a perfect memory thanks to the nanites.

I wanted to forget them, so I looked up some information on our hosts.

What I saw chilled me.  I had not known that Fredrik Freeman and Willem Wallace were brothers.  I didn't know what to think.  

I dug deeper, and found that Freeman had authorized the torture of his brother.  How could he do that? Could I have done that? I didn't know. I knew I couldn't now, but could who I had been do it?  It had been so long ago that I had been a man, I couldn't place myself in that situation.

I remembered Fred's momentary change when I called Willem a bastard earlier.  I wondered what that meant. Did they share some of the same predilections? Did Fred authorize Willem's death to take power for himself?

The records said that Fred demanded no more than a two millennia term for a president, but then he married the next president after she became Paula.  She had been the commander of this ship for over a hundred millennia. In essence, he had power as well.

I didn't know what to think.  I sat up, feeling the sleepless night, but absolutely unable to rest at all.  I wasn't sure I would be able for awhile.

Chapter 2.3

It was a few hours later that John got up and found me sitting in the living area. He gave me a strange look, but went into the kitchen and started fixing something which smelled wonderful. I say that because I know that his cooking is always that way. I love it.

I couldn't get into it today, though. My mind kept going over the fact of Fred being the brother of a monster. The monster who had taken my friends away. Had taken me away.

I was a woman. Had been a woman for hundreds of years, and I couldn't not like it. I was deeply in love with a man who would do anything to show how much he loved me! I had a baby growing inside me that I loved. Was I complaining? No! At least… I don't think I was.

Did I have any reason to complain? Well, yes. I hadn't asked for this. I hadn't wanted this! This wasn't who I was supposed to be!

But I loved it! Why was I complaining?

My head was spinning. I knew that a lot of this was lack of sleep.

John cena out of the kitchen carrying two plates of breakfast. He set them down on the table and I saw what they were. Even though I was too depressed to enjoy mine I knew that it was divine. An omelette packed with bacon, blue cheese, an assortment of vegetables, and spices that John would never tell me, although I knew what they were; coriander, cilantro, oregano. He said he wanted to keep it a secret as it was his recipe for me.

As I thought about all the loving things he did for me, I had mixed feelings. I knew that this was who I was now. The nanites were affecting my brain, pumping up my feminine feelings, but the fact was, they weren't making me love him. That was something I chose to do.

What galled me was that I was pushed into womanhood by Willem, without a second thought. Not even a second thought on my part either. When I became a woman, I was immediately afraid of men. I was revolted by the thought of who I had been just a few moments before. I hated Willem for doing this to me!

But would I go back? Oh God, no! Never! I loved John, the baby, all the wonderful things about being a woman!

This back and forth was starting to get to me. I decided to try to put it out of my mind. I got up and went to the table. John had covered my breakfast to keep it warm. He got up and went into the kitchen. A moment later, he came out with some toast and coffee, and set it in front of me. He bent down and gave me a kiss on the forehead, then sat down. I took a bite of the omelet, and I had been right. It was divine! I drank my coffee, got some more, and sat down.

I looked at him and realized he had finished his food and was just looking at me. I had a second piece of omelet halfway to my mouth, but I stopped and put it down. He had a question written on his face that I couldn't ignore.

His concern was like a warmed blanket on a cold night wrapped lovingly around me.

How could I ever complain about this? I felt the tears start. Thankfully, he had been there through it all. He had been by my side… had forced himself to be there when I became a woman, even though the nanites made him fear me. How could I complain?

Because it hadn't been my choice, and the beauty of it was wrapped up in horror.

He came over to me and gently, so gently, picked me up and carried me in to the bed and laid me down. All through breakfast, he hadn't said a word. Now, he knelt beside me stroking my hair. He gave me a kiss on the forehead again, then went out to the living area. A few minutes later, he came into the bedroom and lay down beside me. I rolled over and found him waiting for me. I buried my face in his chest and cried myself asleep.

That afternoon we went to the briefing room. John and I had been talking about the restaurant since we for up, and though he was chatting animatedly, I knew he wasn't fooled. I would have to tell him what was bothering me that evening. The concern was there. He had it hidden behind his smile and jovial spirit, but I knew him too well to miss it.

When we walked in and I saw Fred and Paula sitting there I tried to keep the smile on my face. I'm not sure Fred noticed my problem, but I know Paula did. While she had been born a man, just like me, she was a woman now and I know she saw through it instantly.

Our topic that afternoon was an interesting one. We were sitting in an orbit even beyond the Oort Cloud, but still around our home sun.

“Could we go back to Earth?” I asked, although I was sure we couldn’t.

“No,” Fred answered. “The nanites destroyed that idea permanently. We could never get rid of them all, and even if we could, we’d have to find Willem’s computer that controls the nanites. We have no idea where it is.”

“Your brother’s computer, you mean,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but I did. I regretted it as soon as I did.

Paula sighed. I guess she realized why I was upset that morning. “You did some research, this morning,” she commented.

“Last night actually. I couldn’t sleep thinking about the restaurant. How come you didn’t tell us?” I asked her. I pointedly ignored Fred.

“We were afraid of a reaction like this,” she said. We were going to after a bit. You needed to see that Fred was trustworthy.”

“That’s why I changed my last name to Freeman,” he explained. “It means I was...”

I cut him off. “Yes, free from Wallace. I get it. I saw the video of your speech.” I knew my anger was showing on my face. John put his hand on mine, but I pulled it away. “I’m not ready to give this up, John. We were lied to – by omission, to be sure, but it was still lying!”

I turned to Freeman. “I wasn’t going to say anything, and I apologize for the mistake, but I really want to know why. Why did you not tell us at first?”

He sighed. “As Paula explained, I knew some of you would react like this.”

“Well, what do you expect us to do?” I almost shouted. I could see that he was almost ready to get up and walk out.

“May I say something, Rose?” Paula asked.

“It’s Mrs. Carlson,” I told them, wanting to distance myself.

“May I say something, Mrs. Carlson?” Paula asked again.

“Go ahead.”

“You know of course, that the history books say that Fred authorized the extraction of data from Wallace.

“Yes.”

“What you don’t know, is that Fred agonized over it for months afterward. Years, in fact.”

“You’re not making me trust either of you by telling me this.”

“I realize that. What I’m trying to get you to see is how much different than his brother, Fred is. Where Willem didn’t care how much he hurt others, Fred didn’t even want to kill his brother who was a monster.”

“None of this is relevant,” I said. “The fact is, Fred now has the power that Willem no longer has. Is this something genetic?”

“I don’t have any power,” he argued.

“Sure you do. Your wife is the commander of this vessel.”

“She’s the commander, not me.”

“Doesn’t she listen to you?”

Paula replied. “Not really. I argued with Fred the entire time that he agonized over torturing Willem that the bastard had gotten exactly what he deserved.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t,” Paula admitted. “You’ve just got to trust us.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “I have no choice. My life is in your hands.”

“We have no wish to take your life. We want you to spend the rest of your lives in happiness. That’s why I had this ship built.”

“Mom fought for this,” said Rhoda. “Gina was the commander of the Centaurus. She wanted to stay, waiting for you, and so did Mom, but we had been waiting for fifty thousand years. Actually, no one really wanted to give up waiting. We were all willing to stay, but Gina decided that someone else would take her ship on to Alpha Centauri. We came over on the last transport from Centaurus.”

John took my hand. This time I didn’t refuse. “Honey, you know me. I don’t want you to live in depression. I want you to be happy. You have the restaurant. I’m told that your new instruments are being made. Please, forgive them for not telling us from the outset, and trust them.”

“I can forgive, John,” I told him, “ and I have, but it will take awhile to trust.”

“Thank you for forgiving us,” Fred told me. “I will do everything in my power to show you that you can trust me.”

I nodded. I wanted very much to trust, but I couldn’t at the moment. It was something that stayed out of my grasp.

“Thank you, Mrs. Carlson,” Paula told me.

“I’m sorry for losing it,” I told them, “and please call me Rose.”

Paula smiled. “Thank you, Rose.”

We got back to the business at hand, but we really didn’t know what to do. I think my outburst sidetracked everyone, so Paula suggested that we sleep on it, and come back tomorrow afternoon.

After the meeting, Paula asked if I wanted to do some work on Heaven’s Rose. I thought about it, and whether I should trust her. As I said before, I really wanted to. Finally, I accepted. We made our way there, as did the rest of the women who were at the meeting. There wasn’t very much to do. I checked everything out, and told them that I usually made a single dish every night, so I had time to work on my music as well as other things.

I was surprised after John and my two years sitting and doing nothing else, we still had muscle tone. I guess so we would be able to enter the next stage. Or perhaps it was the normal programming of the nanites. If someone entered a coma, they kept muscle tone so the person would be able to resume life afterwards.

I hadn’t played music for a long while, so when Gina asked if I would be willing to do a concert, I balked at it at first. I explained to her, and said I would have to see how comfortable I was playing, and work at it for awhile. “I might be able to after I practice for awhile, but please let me get the restaurant going first.”

“I understand,” she replied. “I do expect that people will want to hear you play. Perl raved about your food and your musical ability.”

I smiled sadly. “Perl was a good friend of both John and I.” I could feel the tears welling up again. When Gina hugged me, I was tense. She refused to let go, however, and I eventually relaxed. I’m sure it had to do with my distrust of Paul and Fred. Gina was Rhoda’s wife, and Rhoda was Paula’s daughter. I guess anyone in their family was subject to my distrust. I hated that, but it was what it was.

I knew that there were counselors on board Neo22 and I wondered. Of they might be able to help me. I figured I probably had PTSD. After years and years of being subject to the pain and horrors of Wallace’s demented play, I would be surprised if I didn’t.

Chapter 2.4

The next day, after a busy night with John, I contacted one of the local counselors. She seemed to be a very nice person, but when I tried to schedule an appointment, she almost declined.

“I’ve already agreed to be John Carlson’s counselor. If he agrees, would you like to come in for family counseling?”

“Uh...” I had no idea John was going to go to counseling. “Certainly.”

---

I was planning a small dinner, similar to what I had done for N22 for that night centuries ago for the command staff. I had planned on my own take on some Chinese food. I had found the recipes in an archaeology dig, on some hard drives that supplied information to, what was once called, the internet. I wasn’t sure what they were supposed to taste like; in fact, no one was, thus it was my own take, but I felt that they were excellent. I steamed the vegetables, and made the sauce and meats as written. I thought that it must be close to what they originally were. I doubted that the recipes had survived over the years. Especially as China was now gone. I had acquired several recipes like that. Several were from Italy, Japan and even Hawaii. I wasn’t sure how they had been lost, but there it was.

I was shocked when Paula and Fred showed up and respectfully asked, “May we join you?”

“Of course!” I told them.

“Thank you,” Fred told me, “but if you’d rather we don’t we will respect that. This is your restaurant, and we won’t violate that.”

I hugged Paula, and after a minute, I hugged Fred, telling both of them “Thank you. You’re always welcome.”

They started to enter, but Fred stopped for a moment. “I understand you’re feeling the way you do, and I appreciate the gesture.”

I nodded, and we entered the back room where the rest of the command crews were seated. John had helped me all day, and we brought out the entrees together. I did not believe in hiring someone to bring out the food when I could easily do it myself. Everything was buffet style, and I explained what was in each dish. It certainly seemed to be enjoyed. Later, we discussed what to do with the ship. We knew that to get to Alpha Centauri would take a hundred years, but Neo22 had never heard from Centaurus. We were not sure why.

I was silent through most of the meeting. I was still embarrassed at my behavior the previous day. Finally, Paula asked what I thought. I looked down, and answered carefully. “I think we should go to Alpha Centauri and see what is there. We have no idea if they made it or not, but if something happened, we might be able to help them.”

“If we find them,” Rhoda said. She had voted to go to the next planet Centaurus was supposed to visit.

“I know it’s a little ship in a huge galaxy, but if we don’t try, we’ll always wonder if we could have found them.” I took a deep breath and hoped no one took my next words wrong. “I don’t want that on my conscience.” John had been holding my hand the entire meeting, and he squeezed it now. I knew he supported me, even though we disagreed on this.

Rhoda turned to her parents. “What do you think?”

“We discussed this earlier,” Fred told us. “We both think we should go to Alpha. This ship was made for recusing people. If Centaurus had problems, we need to find out. Your mother and I also have six kids on that ship. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t concerned about that.”

Paula nodded, and I thought about what Fred had said. I could not fault either for their desire to find out about their children. Even though my first was still inside me, the love I felt was indescribable.

Paula looked around at everyone. Her daughter and daughter-in-law had disagreed with her. “Do I have everyone’s assurance, that even if you disagree with going to Centaurus, you will back us in every possible way?”

Everyone said they would certainly, but I think Carla said it best. “I can understand how Rose feels; I have considered her my sister for over four hundred years. When she spoke about your relation to Willem, I was as mad as her, but I had a chance to think about it last night, and I’ve decided that you didn’t have to rescue us. You could have left a hundred thousand years ago, and left us to die. You are giving us the opportunity to pay our rescue forward. Even if I didn’t want to go to Alpha, I want to rescue that ship. I’ll stand behind you in this until I die.”

She nodded, accepting our answers.

When everyone else had left, Paula and Fred remained at the table. John and I had been taking the remaining food back to the kitchen. There was very little. I came out to clean the table and was surprised to see them there. Paula was crying this time, and I turned around to give them their privacy.

A few minutes later, I came back out. I didn’t bother them. Instead, I sat down by the kitchen doors. I could see them, if I stood and walked to the door and looked in. Rather than do that, I decided to just wait until they came out. I wasn’t sure why Paula was crying, but I knew the feeling, or rather, I thought I did.

I supposed that Fred’s statement about their kids probably got to her as a mother. John and I talked about the success of the dinner while we were waiting, and I didn’t begrudge them the time at all. Maybe I was healing.

Everyone had agreed that Heaven’s Rose was going to be unanimously chosen the best restaurant in town. I guess I should tell what it was like in this part of the ship. Heaven’s Rose was it’s own building, which was strange. In the other ships my restaurant was always on the ground floor of a multi-story apartment complex. Her, however, there was a town at the outer edge. The steakhouse that we had been to was here as well. It was a little ways away from mine, and I personally felt that I would have to work hard to maintain an edge. Granted, there was no money used, so it was all a friendly competition. In a way, the one who was known as the best lost. They had to work hardest for no real gain except popularity. I had my pride, though. That was one thing that Willem had never been able to take away from me.

After about half an hour, Paula and Fred came out of the private room and looked around. They saw us and walked over.

“Thank you, Rose,” Paula told me. “That was one of the best meals I’ve had.”

“Thank you, Paula.”

“I’m sorry for losing it there after the meal. It had nothing to do with you or the meal.”

“If I’m out of line, please tell me,” I said to her. I put my hand on my abdomen. “I have not had the experience as a mother as you have, but if my feelings for this little one are any indication, it has to be horrendous for you, not knowing what has happened to yours.”

She sat down across the table from me. “Rose, I know you don’t trust us very much, but I hope we can eventually be friends.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded. I reached across the table and took her hands in mine. “I th-think we w-will.” I stammered to get the sentence out.

She stood and asked, “Can we help you here in any way?”

I smiled and shook my head. John spoke for me. “We’re done.”

Fred nodded, then Paula came around the table and as she put her arms around me. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

That did it. It was my turn to cry now. While we were in the embrace, she whispered into my ear, “I’m pregnant too, but don’t tell anyone. Fred doesn’t know yet.” I pulled back from her, unsure whether to continue crying or giggle. Paula glanced over to where John and Fred had moved to, and I did too. Since they were away, I made my decision and started giggling. I pulled back into the embrace and in an excited whisper told her, “Congratulations!”

---

“Well you’ve sure been in a good mood since we started home,” John commented when we arrived at our rooms. “What’s up?”

“Does a girl need a reason to be happy?”

“Not always,” he told me.

“Are you wanting to sleep on the couch tonight?” I asked with an eyebrow raised.

“That depends,” he answered. “Will you join me?”

I tried to keep a straight face. I really did, however I couldn't. I laughed and hugged him. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

So we did.

---

The next day, Paula got on the ship wide intercom. She had two announcements.

The first was that we were done in our solar system, and would be leaving now to head toward Alpha.

Her second was that Heaven’s Rose would now be open for business. I blushed a deep red when the cheers went up for that.

Author's note:
Well, I goofed and posted this before 2.4. So, I figured I'd leave this one up as well.
enjoy!

Chapter 2.5

John and I were sitting in a counselor’s office, waiting to be called back. I was nervous as could be. I knew I needed to talk to someone, but I really didn’t want to. I was gripping John’s left hand with both of mine.

A woman walked out of the office, and a few minutes later, we were called back. I really didn’t want to go and tried to drag my feet. John squeezed my hand and urged me to continue. We entered the inner sanctum and a woman stood up to shake our hands.

“I’m Mara Bitters,” she told us. “An ironic name for a counselor, don’t you think? I became intersex on Earth, and I decided to take the name Mara to go along with my last name.”

“Why is it ironic?” John asked.

“Mara means bitterness in Ancient Hebrew,” I told him.

“Interesting name,” he commented.

“Isn’t it,” she said. “So, Mr. and Mrs. Carlson. Tell me about yourselves.”

I nudged John to start. He told her about our each being about seven hundred, and that we had been friends all our lives, along with Perl who died on N21. He told her how I had become a woman on the station, and of our being bond mates.

Once he finished, Mara turned to me. “Mrs. Carlson, when we talked on the comm, you indicated that you suspected that you might have post-traumatic stress."

"I suspect I might."

"I wouldn't be surprised. There have been lots of people who have dealt with 'Total Fun' that way." She asked me to verify John's story from my point of view. I had very few gripes about it. More often than not, I simply added something that I felt differently than John.

To give me a break, she asked John to tell her how he felt now.

He took his time and made sure he was understood. He told her that when I changed, he had not wanted to fall in love with me. He just wanted to keep our friendship alive. Then, we became bond mates, and it immediately seemed that we were in love.

Mara asked me if I concurred and I told her that I did.

She asked me to continue, and I told her that I found it almost impossible to avoid thinking about John. No matter what I was doing, my mind would relate it to him. John nodded his agreement, and I continued. I told her how we touched the first time with a kiss. I told her that up till then, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced. It quickly fell down the list a substantial distance, later that night.

I hated becoming a man again. I decided that if we ever got out of that mess, I would never go back to being a man.

She switched us back to John, and I listened intently as he described his feelings for me during stage four, and when we got out from under 'Total Fun'.

During, he wondered how he would feel afterward if we ever got to that point. It was very similar to how I felt. He wondered if our feelings were real or if they were created by the nanites. He wondered if he would be enough for me afterward. He hoped so, but he really wasn't sure. What if his ability to make me orgasm was only because of the nanites?

I then related almost exactly the same story.

John said that when we were not in the stages, he felt like his feelings were now real! He said there had been something artificial about them before. It was as if they were set at a lower level as though to cause the doubts. On N22, those doubts disappeared. At least from his own perspective. Once I showed my love for him, he felt complete.

From my perspective, I found something similar. While under the influence of the nanites, I had felt like I was in love, but afterward, my feelings exploded way beyond where they had been. I enjoyed being sexy for John. I enjoyed sex so much more. It was so hard to be away from him. If he went anywhere, I needed to be with him.

"I've seen this in everyone I've talked to who has been through 'Total Fun'. Although I can't prove it, I believe the feelings were turned down during the stages. Making someone doubt their own feelings can push them into depression," she told us. "It looks like the emotions try to 'catch up' in proportion with the couple's natural affection and length of time in the stages." She waited for a few moments, then started to continue, but John stopped her.

"Okay, I'll bite. How do we rate in affection?"

I can't put it into numbers, but I believe you're the highest I've seen from N21 or N22.

I reached out and felt John's hand take mine. I couldn’t help it; I put my head on his shoulder.

“So is that why we find ourselves displaying our affection in public as much as we do?” John asked her.

“Very likely.” She seemed to think for a moment, then continued. "Many of the people I've dealt with who have been through the stages are dealing with post-traumatic stress. There are two ways to deal with this. One is to tune your nanites to do it."

"No!" John and I said it at the same time, and I'm not sure who was more forceful between us.

Mara nodded, and there was a hint of a smile on her face. "I figured you wouldn't want to do that. The other is the old way. We talk about it and work through your feelings."

We both agreed with that.

"What I would like to do is meet in a few days, separately, then together. I want to do the sessions one after the other."

We set up some sessions for three days later, then we left together.

---

I opened Heaven's Rose two days before, and I was supposed to have a wedding party that night in the restaurant, and into the outside dining area as well. It was a huge affair, and I was looking forward to it. John was planning to help me with it, and I was happy to have his assistance. We had worked together on N22 and he had learned how I preferred to do things. We worked together very well now.

It was a great experience and once again, we worked together like a well-oiled machine. It was amazing to me that John enjoyed helping me with my restaurants.

That night after a very delightful time enjoying each other, I lay awake. I was wondering why I had never taken a real interest in the things John found enjoyable. I was an artist in music and food, but I was sure I could learn his 'art'. Would I enjoy it? That wasn't really the point. I would enjoy helping him. As long as I wasn't a hindrance. I could see how I might be. I think John was afraid of being the same for me.

Suddenly I realized that I should have been more attentive to his feelings. He had given up his own time to be there for me. I didn't even recognize I should do the same for him.

I wasn't sure if he was awake, but I wanted to talk to him. "John?"

"Yes?"

I suddenly didn't know what to say. I decided to go for it. "Do you like helping me in the kitchen?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

"I get to be with you."

Great. Just what I needed to hear. He was helping me so he could spend time with me and I never helped him, even though I loved him to pieces. I hated to admit that I never thought of it that way, but I had to. "I'm so sorry, John. I never realized that was why."

"Wait a minute, Rose. That is not the only reason. Don't think that, okay? I enjoy helping you. You are a wizard in the kitchen, and I have the privilege to see you work all the time. That's a treat that only I get. Yes, some assistants get to observe your talents, but I am the only one who knows your recipes. Not to mention, I am married to the best chef in the universe. I eat very well all the time." I looked at him, and he had a 'gotcha grin on his face. I could barely see it in the dark, but I knew him so well I only had to catch a glimpse to know it was there.

"All right for you," I told him. "If you keep teasing me, there will be dire consequences for you in the morning."

"Hmmm. How can I get those without teasing you anymore?"

"Kiss me?"

"I can do that."

He did, and when we came up for breath, I told him, "Delicious. You, kind Sir, have earned my terrible wrath in the morning."

"Twas my intention, dear Lady."

We engaged in another, even deeper kiss, and then I curled up in his embrace. I felt so loved, but I had to ask. "Would you like me to help you with your hobbies?"

"Ahh. That explains your asking about me helping you.e

"I want to spend time with you too, John."

He thought for a bit and I was afraid he didn't want me to help.

"Unless you think I'd be a burden to teach."

"Rose, you are a woman of many talents. I don't think you'd be a burden at all. You wouldn't be in my way at all. My concern is that you wouldn't enjoy it like I do."

I propped my head upon my arm and looked him in the eyes. "Do you enjoy cooking as I do?"

"I enjoy it," he said, evasively.

"Uh-huh. As much as I do?"

"Not as much, but that's not the point."

"What is?"

He lay there looking at the ceiling for a long moment, then he said, "I don't know."

"Well?" I asked.

"If you want to help me, I'd love for you to."

He sounded like he wasn't sure, but I was determined to try. "I want to, John."

"Then I'll teach you."

I nodded, then curled up in his embrace again and we eventually fell asleep.

---

I had told Gina that I would do a concert. I had tried playing piano and found I was still able. It was a nice feeling to sit down and find that I still had talent. What I needed to work on was my mind. My fingers still had the required muscle memory, but my mind had to remember what it had done in the past.

I spent several evenings playing several of my favorite compositions and found they were still in my mind; just needed a bit of polishing. I also worked up a few pieces on my twelve-string.

One problem with both instruments was the fact that my hands were different than before, but I had practiced on the N22 and had learned to compensate. My fingers being narrower was a bonus on both, but I needed to develop calluses on my fingers to play the guitar.

Finally, the night came and I was nervous. I had always been fine walking on stage to play, but I had not done a concert in five hundred years. It was daunting!

Paula introduced me, although by that time, everyone knew me. I suppose it was a formality.

I came on stage to thunderous applause. I was wearing a fabulous gown and had fixed my hair and makeup to the point I almost didn't recognize myself. While I often wore dresses, probably because of wanting to capture my husband's eye, I thought that maybe I did need to be introduced.

I sat down at the piano and began.

Author’s note:

Okay, I know I use a very old action movie cliche in this chapter, and you have my apologies in advance.

Chapter 2.6

The four seasons on piano sounds a bit different than with a full orchestra. I played it that way, however. It took me more than forty minutes to go through all the movements. I was really having fun by the end. When I was finished, I liked up my twelve-string and did a Spanish flamenco, then I went back to the piano and played some light jazz.

I received an encore but I hadn't practiced anything else. In my previous life as a male, I had learned to play by ear, and I always considered the little dots on the page to be mere suggestions. I had heard some popular songs on the comm system, so I went to the piano and played one of them. It seemed to go over quite well, so I played another. Then I stood up and left the stage. While I received a standing ovation, I went to where John was standing in the wings. He hugged me and lifted me off the floor, and spun around. He set me down and gave me a delicious kiss and said, "That was wonderful!"

"The music or the kiss?"

"Both!" He exclaimed.

---

The next morning Paula invited John and me to the command center. When we arrived, Marc and Carla were already there along with Rashda and Colleen. Paula and Fred asked us to join them in the briefing room. After they sat down, Paula told us, "You have all been on the command crews of your own ships. I think it would be prudent to ask you to study this ship and be placed in the command line here."

"I've already got my hands full with my music and Heaven's Rose, " I told her. "Plus, I've decided to learn more about engineering from John.

"As it is, I'm going to have to put music on the back burner for a while to learn from him."

Marc gave me a strange look but didn't say anything.

Fred however did. "I never knew you were interested in engineering."

"I want to learn about what my husband enjoys, " I explained.

"I see."

While I wasn't sure he did, I wasn't going to press the issue.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea for one of us to be in the chain of command," Marc said. "All of us who have just come out of 'Total Fun' and the death of so many friends and family have post-traumatic stress disorder."

Fred nodded. "I understand. Do you think you can work in other areas of the ship and eventually move to the chain of command?"

"I think that is a possibility," John told him.

“As soon as I’m cleared for command, I’ll have the counselor talk to you,” Rashda told them.

---

We were on our way to our respective homes when we felt a peculiar vibration in the superstructure. A moment later, there was a incredible lurch that we felt in our bones. John turned around and started running back to the command center. A moment later, I followed him.

When I entered the command center, it was in turmoil. I noticed that there were lots of red lights flashing all over. I noticed that everything felt still as well. The vibration from the engines had ceased. I didn’t say anything, just looked around at the bustle of people who, though they were concerned, were still acting professional. John was beside Fred at a console that showed the status of the engines.

It looked like the starboard side had a burnout that affected all six engines on that side. I didn’t want to disturb them, so I just watched. I understood most of what the displays were saying. In the first engine was a pump which sent the fuel for the other engines on to them.

The engines were mounted on the central hub, not far from where we were. The engines were huge. It looked like they were fifty feet or thereabouts from top to bottom, and several hundred feet long.

Marc ran into the center right then. He looked at the board, and seemed to take it in all at once. “That’s going to blow if we don’t adjust it, now!”

Fred and Marc ran out, and John took my hands. “Honey, I’m going to help them, but I don’t want you out there. There is serious radiation in there, and you have to take care of that little one.”

I threw my arms around hims and kissed him. “Make sure all of you are careful, John!”

“We will be.” Then he ran out after the others.

---

This was later related to me from John.

The engines are set up three on the right, and three on the left. When you walked out the docking tube, you came to another tube that went right and left Apparently, I was wrong when I thought that one engine supplied the fuel for all six. It supplies just the three right hand ones. The one that was the number one for the right, which was the first one. In between them was the docking port.

When they got into the engine, the problem was near the exhaust vent, so they had to hurry to the other end. There was a incredible wind in the engine tube. The walkway had gravity that allowed them to walk along the ‘bottom’ of the tube and there was another gravity field that was pulling the air down to the front of the engine for just such a problem as this.

A field that I really didn’t understand, even though John explained it to me held held the radiation away from the walkway, and thus held it away from the rest of the ship. That had failed. Because of that, the gravity fields were weaker, to keep radioactive particles from settling down to the walkway as quickly as they might. The other gravitational field pulled anything that might get out of the walkway field to the forward part of the engine tub. Thus any air would stay in the engine, rather that leave through the exhaust port. This would start as soon as someone entered the tube because the walkway was not usually pressurized. With the mysterious field broken, the electronics behind the walls of the walkway were fried. What they had to do was fix the generators for this field.

What was causing the wind was that the gravitational field that held the air to the front of the tube was on full power. This field also pulled the air ‘down’ to the depressurization vents, but they were closed and wouldn’t open until no one was in the tube. The field would also stop air from going back to the walkway, but with it broken, air was in a cyclonic circle. The three men were fighting a tailwind to keep from being pushed to the end of the tube. When they reached the end, they had to be careful because the wind was being sucked ‘up’ at high velocity.

Marc opened an access panel and started to set it to his right. Apparently the wind caught the panel and it pulled it upwards. The edge of the panel sliced three of his fingers off! Fred grabbed at the panel, and he was pulled up. Before he could be flung ‘down’ to the other end, John grabbed his hand and started to be lifted. Marc grabbed his ankle, and threw his left arm, with the severed fingers over a rail on the walkway.

Not only was Fred being pulled by gravity, but he was being forced ‘downward’ by hurricane force winds. Marc could not hold onto John’s ankle for long. There was no good handhold, and he was losing blood fast. He was trying to pull them ‘down’ but it was no use. John tried to hold onto Fred’s wrist and pull as well.

Fred saw what was happening, and he somehow got his right hand up to his left wrist, although how against the wind, I had no idea. He started pulling John’s fingers away from his wrist. John could barely hold on with all his fingers. He shouted at Fred to stop, but Fred wouldn’t. He finally got a couple of John’s fingers loose. He fell. Hard. The gravity near the front was close to three G. He normally weighed eighty one Kg. At the end of the fall, he weighed two hundred forty Kg. He was dead. The power of the fall broke almost every bone in his body, including his neck and several vertebrae.

Much of what happened, we saw on monitors. I was beside Paula when she watched in horror, her husband fall. It was terrible! All of my distrust of Fred evaporated in that moment. He had saved my husband’s life by giving his. Fifteen seconds after Fred fell, Marc passed out from the loss of blood. If John had kept hold of Fred, he would have fallen too.

Any one of Fred’s injuries, or even a few of them, could have been repaired by his nanites, but so many spread them too thin. They couldn’t repair him fast enough to hold off death.

Paula fell apart. After that, Gina took over command of the ship. Some other engineers fixed the engine and we resumed our acceleration, but none of us felt like doing much of anything. We wept. Paula because of her husband dying, me because I never trusted him until I saw what he was willing to do for someone else.

I felt that I hadn’t given him what he deserved. John had trusted him, but he saw how it affected me, and he knew why. I spent a lot of time depressed. Feeling sorry for myself, I suppose. I couldn’t imagine that I could treat someone so unfairly. That seemed so foreign to me.

I had been spending a fair amount of time with Paula before this catastrophe, and after she blamed no one as she had seen what happened. I hated to see her so hurt because we had been developing a wonderful relationship.

---

A statue was made of Fred, and put over his grave. On N21 and N22, we had recycled bodies. We had to. Here, we had few enough people that we didn’t need to do such a thing. Fred was buried in the town square where Heaven’s Rose was located. My restaurant didn’t look out on it, for which I was grateful. The steakhouse did, however.

We had a memorial service for Fred as well. I did my best to play piano for it, but I was so broken up I had trouble. I was asked to sing as well, but my voice broke so many times, I think I butchered the song. John told me it was okay to display that type of emotion. I knew it was, but it still bothered me.

It took a long time for us to get life back to normal. Paula and I both had our babies. Paula named her little boy Fred. I had a girl, and she was named Frieda, in honor of the man who saved her fathers life.

To be continued...

Authors note.

Thank you very much to Jamie Lee for help in creating Willem's backstory.

Chapter 2.7

It was thirteen years after Fred died. An investigation was done to see why the problems occurred that led to his death. It was found that a part of the computer controlling everything had failed.

It had taken several years for us to all get over what happened to Fred. Paula had let her daughter-in-law take command of the ship. Gina had been in command of Centaurus before and while Neo22 had been built.

Paula had a little boy, and he was now twelve. My little girl had been born about a month later. I think Paula and I both hoped that the two would expand their friendship to something more.

Paula was also getting to know Winston Reese. They were often seen together in Heaven’s Rose or Maverick, the steakhouse around the corner from my restaurant. I hoped that they got together as well. Winston was an old friend, and I thought they made a nice couple. I had been scheming different ways to urge them to spend more time together. Carla was a confidant in this, to which John and Marc just shook their heads. I’m sure I heard John mutter under his breath at least once, “Women!” to which we snickered.

In the last few years, I started going through the vast computer system aboard the ship, and I was shocked when I found some of my own files. I asked Paula about it, and she told me she had no idea how they were there, but as much as could be retrieved from Willem’s computers was.

I began searching in earnest, and incredibly, I found almost all of my files. They had been locked, and unreadable, but I typed in my password, and they opened. I was thrilled. I showed it to John, and he wondered if some of his had been collected as well.

We started a search and found an incredible hoard of scientific and artistic files from our friends. Some of it was undoubtedly from those who had died on N21 and N22, but there were files from almost all scientists who had been sent away.

Granted, much of the work was far behind what had been accomplished now, but it was so exciting to find our own work. Our artists now had a record of their works. What was interesting, much of their physical work was found in Willem’s palace, usually in places of prominence.

Since it had been assumed that N22 would return to a safe Earth, the art, when retrieved, was entrusted to museums with the arrangement that, when the rightful owners returned, the loan would expire.

What was in my files was music that I had written, and some I had found. I had gone through ancient media to revive it. I found music, food recipes, and even what had once been called television. I had stored as much in my files as I could, which was a remarkably large amount. I had found lots of books as well, and laboriously had copied them into computer files before I sent the originals to museums to carefully preserve. Earth had gone through many changes in the past, and even the major cities had been all but destroyed, so artifacts from ancient times were rare.

There had been several earthquakes and volcanic eruptions long ago which had left much of the world devastated. Several eruptions and tsunamis had left much of the Pacific Coast destroyed. A massive volcano in the mountains of the western United States had destroyed much of the center of North America, and earthquakes had destroyed much of the Atlantic Coast.

With all of the earthquakes around the Atlantic Ocean, Greenland decided to join in and wiped its own fair share of Northern Europe out.

The repercussions for the rest of the world were disastrous. The area left was so hurt from all the eruptions. Volcanic ash choked everywhere that hadn't been buried. Airplanes weren't able to fly for several years, and cars were unable to run because of the ash deteriorating the pistons and cylinders.

Interestingly one of the least damaged places was Honolulu, even though it had been built on an extinct volcano. Tsunamis destroyed much of the old city, however.

It took a huge amount of time to rebuild all of the earth. A universal government helped to unify the people and the surviving population rebuilt the cities. People slowly refilled all of the cities, and in time, the people numbered in the billions again.

A few thousand years later, when old cities we're being excavated, I was given the charge of researching the media. It was fun, but before I had finished, Willem Wallace rounded us up and exiled us from Earth.

---

I sat down one day and spoke to Paula regarding Wallace. She had grown up with Fredrik and had known his little brother as well.

"Have you any idea what made him the way he was?"

"Willem was a boy who was plagued by an inferiority complex. We believe he viewed his brother as someone to try to be like.

“He was still young, when he started constantly accusing Fred of taking what was rightfully his. We didn't realize for a long time what Fred supposedly took, but we finally had an idea.

"Willem seemed to withdraw from everyone after one particular visit from Fred. Fred's mother was still alive, but she and her husband had different goals in life, so she divorced him. Their father married Willem's mother some time later, and he wanted to show Fred that he still loved him.

"Both of his boys were very important to their father, and he went all out to be Fred's friend at the time. His wife, Willem’s mother also became a friend to Fred.

"This seemed to devastate Willem. He couldn't understand why, as he was the important child now, not Fred. His older brother didn't live at home, and his father wasn't even married to Fred's mother. They weren't even the same race. Fred's mother was a dark-skinned woman, while Willem's was the opposite. She was a very light-skinned Nordic woman.

"As odd as it seems, all of these things caused Willem to withdraw from everyone, and his parents especially. He never spoke to his parents about the incident as far as we know. He just built up hate for them and his brother.

"We suspect that as he got older, he heard about love for, and of helping, others and he began to resent everyone else. Fred told me that it would be very much in Willem's character to figure if humans wanted his help, he'd give it to them, but they would pay for it."

I had a hard time understanding this explanation, but with Paula's permission, I took it to my counselor. She said it sounded likely as Willem was a sociopath. He had no compassion for other people, so how they hurt in response to his actions didn't bother him at all.

It made no sense to me but I accepted it. John also seemed to have problems with the explanation. Neither of us understood something like that. We had never experienced anyone like him, thus what made him tick was beyond us.

---

Many of the artists started putting their art on the public network on the ship so it could be enjoyed by everyone. I saw so many pictures and three-dimensional renditions of sculptures that were long gone. Interestingly, I had seen some of the originals before being exiled, but now they raised different emotions in me.

I found videos of me playing and singing in my restaurant back on earth. I found it interesting and considered posting them on the network as well, but I really wasn't comfortable with videos of me as a man out in public.

John didn't mind the thought but told me that it was my choice. I didn't know what to do. I didn't ever want to go back, and even thinking about that time bothered me. I had an incredible husband and such a sweet daughter. I was so happy with my family and my life.

I got to thinking about what I had left behind. It wasn't bad, but I didn't enjoy it as I did now. I know I hadn’t been even partially trans, because I would have… suddenly I realized something.

The woman who touched me. I became what she was. I could have been a trans woman without even realizing it. I had no way of knowing. I just knew I wasn't as happy with my life. I remembered that.

I decided to talk to Mara about it.

I had no secrets from John, so when we next went to Mara, I told her first and then I talked about it with John present.

"I remember how I felt while I was male. I was not happy like I am now. Whether that was Willem or my situation, I don't know."

"How did you feel around women?" Mara asked.

"I'm honestly not sure."

"How about men?"

I hesitated. "I…"

John took my hand.

I sighed. "If you're asking about sex, there was one person I was interested in."

"And who was that?"

I looked at John and smiled.

"John?" Mara asked.

I nodded. John was looking at me with his mouth hanging open.

"Were you a homosexual?"

"I don't think so."

"Were you not happy because you didn't see a way to have John?"

"That was so long ago." I tried to hold back what I considered extremely embarrassing memories.

"I was a man before 'Total Fun'," Mara told me. "I was changed into a transwoman when I was touched. Like you, I was made to love what I became, but the person I became hated being a man! All I wanted was to transition into a woman."

"That sounds paradoxical," I responded.

She nodded. "I understand you were friends with Perl, and you went on dates with her. Can you remember how that felt?"

"We were friends, " I said. "Just friends."

"John told me something in our one on one talk just a little while ago. Would you like to know what it was?"

"Okay?" I looked at him, wondering where this was going.

"I always told you I just wanted to be friends with Perl because I thought you had fallen for her," he explained to me.

"I told you…"

"I know, Rose. But I thought you were just saying that for my benefit."

I was flabbergasted. John was in love with Perl? How should I take that? Was he not in love with me? Wait… I always knew he was straight, so of course he didn't. There was nothing to be upset about.

If he was straight, what was I? I thought about others. "Reese and Marc. I didn't love them, but I thought they were cute," I admitted.

"When you thought about John, did you want to make love to him?" I nodded and I knew what she was going to ask next.

"I wanted to be his wife," I almost whispered. I looked at John and more memories started to flood back. "Perl… when I went out with her, it was really just friends. It was like the relationship I have with Carla or Paula."

"Do you remember what you felt when you saw a woman?" It wasn't Mara who asked, but John.

I nodded sure of what I was. "I found them attractive, but it wasn't sexually attractive. I wondered how to be like them. I admired them so much. Perl was such a beautiful woman, and I wondered, if I looked like her could you be interested? If I became like her, would you like me?" I paused again and gathered my courage. "Even if you couldn't love me wanted your friendship. I wanted that beauty too. To be like her. I wanted so much to be a woman."

It was like a dam broke free, and the tears came. I was crying so hard. I wanted to lean against him, but however irrational it was, I was afraid again. It made such a huge difference in our friendship.

Maybe that's why I couldn't remember how I felt then. I was afraid of what he'd think of me. I was always in love with him, all through our childhood. Wait? Was I?

I thought again, and my mind went back. The floodgates were open now, and I could remember it all. Yes. I always saw myself as the smaller, more dainty one, and I really was.

He was bigger and more muscular. I went into music and he went into engineering. I wanted to cook meals for him for the rest of my life. After all, there was an ancient saying I had heard. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. If that was true I was all for it!

I was just a child, but I started learning and found it didn't matter if cooking attracted John or not. I loved it anyway. Cooking became a way to please him, and I loved it. I loved the creativity the same as with music.

All of these realizations hit me hard. I had been trans. I knew it then but had hidden it where it couldn't hurt me. Not having the love of my life hurt so bad that I had to! Doing anything else was too hard.

I think when we were exiled I put it away even more. I had to because I was with him all the time. When 'Total Fun' hit, I was so afraid to tell John I had become a woman, but I think I would have been anyway, without Willem's help.

I wanted to become a woman no matter what, and it would have been so easy, but how would John have reacted? I was too scared back then, but now I had no choice. I had attributed it to the nanites, but was it just them? I would probably never know.

I couldn't look at him. I felt ashamed that I had not remembered this until now. I was crying softer now, although my body kept shaking as the sobs came. I felt his hand on my left cheek gently turn my face toward him. I kept my eyes down. I couldn't look. I was so afraid!

He leaned toward me and kissed me so tenderly. I didn't know what to do. We were on separate chairs but what I wanted most was to be held. For these fears to just go away and never come back.

I leaned in and although it was uncomfortable, I put my head on his shoulder. I heard a door shut, and realized it was just the two of us in the room now. "Come here, " John told me. I wasn't sure what he wanted but I stood and stepped to the front of his chair. He turned me so I was standing the opposite way and pulled me down to his lap. He wrapped his arms around me, and I snuggled in.

I loved him so much!

Chapter 2.8

It was afternoon, and we had just got back to our apartment after spending what I found to be an exhausting time with our counselor. I wanted to relax, so John put on an old television show that we had found in my archives. It was a British show, called Doctor Who.

This particular episode had a handsome man playing the Doctor and a beautiful, dark-skinned woman who reminded me of Kari. Every time I watched one of the episodes with Martha, (the woman’s name) I felt tears bubbling up. This particular episode had another effect on me, however.

It was about time-locked beings that were the origin of the statues of angels that covered their eyes, from that time period. They couldn’t move if you were looking at them. When they got an evil expression, I always jumped and buried my face in John’s shoulder. It was one of his favorite episodes. I always had a sneaking hunch that it wasn’t the episode itself, but my reaction to it.

This time, however, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep against John’s shoulder, and woke up with my head on his lap. I looked at our screen and saw the closing credits of the show.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” I murmured.

“I can rewind if you’d like,” he told me.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me curling up, begging for protection.”

“I’d be lying if I said no.”

“Uh-huh.” I sat up. “Listen, buster. Scaring me for your own gratification isn’t very nice.”

“For you or me?”

“Oh, what I will do to you tonight… You are going to regret that, my dear,” I threatened.

“I certainly hope so.”

Well, I didn’t regret it. I don’t think he did either.

---

I sat down with several friends to play some music. I felt I had no ability to teach, but these were people who had read some of my books and had applied the ideas in them to their own instrument of choice.

We were practicing music for a concert. Much of what we were getting ready was ancient band music. I was handling keyboards, Vernon Wang was playing drums, Carla had taken up lead guitar, and had gotten quite good. We also had a bass guitar player named Phillip Troy.

I was singing lead and the others were singing backup.

We did okay but not as good as we could have been. Practices had gone better, which scared me. I knew that a bad dress rehearsal means a good performance and vice versa. The best part of the concert, as far as I was concerned, was when I dedicated a song to John. It was an old song called You Belong to Me, that was covered by many people, but my favorite version of the song was by a woman named Patsy Cline.

---

It was a few nights later that John and I went to the outer ring. I had mentioned to him that I was sorry we really had no way to view the stars. We viewed them from the ship-side of the rings, but there was too much light. We went to the other side, where Fred and Paula had sat on the rock, viewing so much. It was nice to view things there, but we felt like we were taking advantage of Fred’s absence.

It was a friend who came up with an interesting idea. He had been one of the pioneers of the holographic technology with which we had made our parks on N21, so when John asked him to produce a birthday gift for, he was glad to show it off. Amazingly, Neo22 had nothing like it.

Trent Carr had been working on his holographic technology for a long time, and he had come up with some interesting applications for using it. He had an idea of mixing the ability to make a hologram with the fields used in various aspects of the ship’s systems to make a hologram seem solid.

Of course, I knew nothing of this at the time. I knew what Trent had done on John and my ship, but I had no idea what he was going to do on this one.

On my birthday, I went up to Heaven’s Rose as I usually did. I always found the building nice, but it had always bugged me that it appeared to be in a giant hanger, even though the ‘town’ around looked nice. The ceiling overhead just seemed out of place, as did the walls around. Granted, the ceiling was nearly a quarter-mile above, but it looked like a ceiling.

I was very busy making about a thousand different things in my kitchen (a slight exaggeration, but only slight) when I realized John wasn’t by my side as he always was. He was always there, but that time, I turned to speak to him, and no John! I turned around to see him walk into the kitchen with a huge smile on his face.

"Where were you, and what are you so chipper about?" I couldn't stay mad at him for long, but he was going to feel this for as long as I could make him. I didn't have him to help me when I needed it, and I had lost a dessert in an oven. Happy, I was not!

"Come here, Rose. I want to show you something."

"Now?!!?"

He looked around and seemed to realize that I had been very busy. His smile was replaced by a look of concern. "You needed my help, didn't you? I'm sorry, Honey."

I looked around the kitchen. A few things would require starting again, but I could see what he wanted to show me right quick. "What do you want me to see?" I asked with a sigh.

"It can wait. Let's get this fixed first."

We got going, and I didn't have time to think about it until we were finished cleaning up after dinner. "I'm sorry I was upset earlier, John." I turned as I was taking off an apron.

He had specified that he wanted me dressed up for the evening. I needed to change, so I went into my office and took a shower, then put on the dress I had brought and fixed my makeup. I went out into the kitchen again and saw John closing what looked like a picnic basket. I looked down at my dress and again felt rather overdressed, however, he went into my office and a few minutes later, came out in a suit.

"A picnic?" I asked. "It's dark out there, and look how we're dressed."

"Do you trust me?" He asked.

"I did until I had to make a second cake this afternoon, " I told him.

He was looking at something but glanced up when I said that. He saw my smile, however, so he said with his own grin and a pretend sigh, "I suppose I deserve dire consequences tonight."

I raised an eyebrow as I told him, "That remains to be seen."

He touched a button on what he had been looking at before, then picked up the basket and held out his other arm for me to take. Even in heels, I was still a bit shorter, but he knew what I wanted when I tipped my head back. He kissed me and I pulled his head closer afterward so I could whisper, "I trust you completely."

I took his arm and we walked out of the building.

I gasped at the sight! In front of me was the town, but instead of a steel ceiling, it was a night sky! There were stars everywhere! I looked around, and I couldn't even see the walls. It was as if we were standing in a small town with just the occasional streetlight shining in the night.

"Happy birthday, Rose," he told me.

"Birthday? This isn't just for me, John."

"No, but I helped Trent get it ready so we could turn it on tonight."

"What were you going to show me this afternoon?"

"It will show a blue sky during the day, and you still won't see the walls."

I felt like giving him another kiss, and I wasn't one to go against feelings like that, so I did. "Thank you, John! It's beautiful!"

We walked out into the park where the memorial for Fred was. From there, the stars looked incredible. I was absolutely thrilled. I hadn't seen a sky like that in so long. Sure, we could see it out the viewports, but it was not the same as seeing the town around us.

I leaned into his side, and he obligingly put his arm around me. I know the temperature was as it always was, but I imagined I could feel a breeze, and his arm felt all the more wonderful wrapped around me.

He led me to a table on the other side of the park and we sat down. He pulled some champagne out along with two glasses. Next, he pulled out two dinners as well as the cutlery to eat with. The dinner was from the steakhouse, and I gave him a curious eye.

"Well I didn't think you should have to cook your own dinner," he told me with a smile.

I had to admit that it made sense and the steak was excellent.

He had one more thing to show me, so I picked up the basket. He took it from me, and when I started to object because I was perfectly able to carry it, he just held out his arm for me to take. Damn it! He knows I love chivalry! Okay. It was my birthday.

We walked through the town and onto a dirt path. I was very glad for his arm which I now clutched with both hands as I was wearing heels. We came into a clearing, and I could see the outline of a building in front of us. None of the lights from the town showed through the trees here, so it was hard to see what the building was. John stopped and he switched the basket to the arm I was holding, then reached into his pocket. Suddenly, lights came on both in the building and outside.

It was a house! An honest to goodness house! We walked up to the door and inside.

We entered a living room that was decorated with our things. My instruments we're hanging on one wall and my grand piano was in a corner. Another wall had a bookcase full of books that had been in both of our old collections. We had replaced them as soon as we could.

He led me to the kitchen, and I found everything that had been in my kitchen in our apartment.

Down a hall, he showed me a bedroom door. There was the sound of music I didn't like coming from within. I opened the door and saw my twelve year old daughter laying on the bed, her comm playing the horrendous music at high volume, and she was playing some kind of game.

Apparently, she had good hearing, because she rolled to where she could see us and removed the VR helmet from her head. "Hi, Mom! Dad! Isn't this place great? Our own house! I guess everyone who has a shop in Fredriksburg gets their own house!"

I turned to stare at my husband. He had known and not told me! He defused my anger in a way only he could. He hugged me hard and told me, "Happy birthday!"

I didn't tell him he had said that before. I just looked around in awe. He teased me by pushing up on my chin, closing my mouth. We turned and walked down the hallway the other direction. We passed three closed doors, one on the side that Frieda's room was on, and two on the other side.

When we entered the living room, John led me toward a hall on the other side. In that hall, we found a music studio for me and a workshop for John. We started for the last door and Frieda ran around us, opening the door.

It was our bedroom, and it was wonderful. There was a large bed in the center. I had a vanity on one wall. There were windows on two sides and a door that looked as if it led to an ensuite. There was another door on the same wall as the restroom, and I opened it to find a huge closet with my clothes taking up most of the space. I turned to John and asked, "What were the other rooms by Frieda's room? I'm assuming one was a restroom?"

"There's a restroom at the end of the hall for guests. Frieda has her own restroom too."

"So what are the other rooms?"

"Unoccupied."

"Any ideas for occupying them?"

"One or two," he told me.

I didn't look away from his face as I said, "Frieda, would you leave us? Your father and I need to discuss something."

"Uh-huh," she said in a way only a pre-teen can and walked out. She paused at the door and turned back. "You want this door shut?"

"Yes please," I said, still looking at John.

"Locked?"

"Sure."

"Want me to put on some loud music so I can't hear your 'discussion'?"

This time I turned and gave her my mother glare. "Would you just go?!!?"

She snickered as she shut the door. I could hear her running down the hall toward her own room. A moment later, her awful music came on, very loud.

I turned back to John. "Couldn't you have soundproofed our door?"

He laughed. "Have I earned your dire consequences?"

I cocked my head at him. "With that music playing?"

"She won't hear us."

"But I'll hear it!"

"I've got some earplugs in my shop."

I started to laugh. "What am I going to do with you?" I asked.

"Well… We could always fill those extra rooms."

"Oh. Is that why you built this? So we can populate the ship?"

"I didn't build it. As Frieda said, everyone who has a shop in town gets a house."

"They followed your specs. This is what we talked about for when and if we ever get to a planet. By the way, you didn't answer me."

"Uh, no. This isn't just to populate the ship." He paused for a moment for effect. "I'd like to populate those three rooms, however."

"Do you really think you've earned my wrath?" I tried to sound fierce, but I couldn't carry it off. Not while I was so happy with him.

"I'm hoping I have."

I grabbed his lapels and pulled him to me. I gave him a kiss and told him, "For several days."

I turned and went into the bathroom kicking off my shoes on the way. When I saw the interior, I called out sweetly, "I'm gonna need someone to wash my back".

He was beside me in a heartbeat.

Chapter 2.9

A few days later, I had a couple of days off from running Heaven's Rose. I got dressed in some casual clothes and went outside. I wanted to see what had been done for decorating the house outside.

I stopped just outside the door. I felt a breeze! I turned and looked in the glass of the front door. I could see my hair blowing gently.

I hurried back in and saw John getting up. "There's a breeze outside." I was concerned as wind is not something you want in a spaceship. It usually has dire consequences, and I don't mean the kind I give when when he makes me happy.

"That was my doing, dear," he told me while he was pulling on his pants. "I placed some gravity plates at the narrow end of the bay. They are at the top of the bay, and will only create a breeze at ground level."

"They can be turned up, though?"

"They can, but I won't allow it."

"Do you control it?" I asked him. I remembered what happened to Fred. I turned to face the wall because I didn't want him to see my fear at his idea.

He must have known what was going through my mind. He came up behind me and enveloped me with his arms. "The default on these plates is off. Not full power like the ones in the engines."

I nodded. I recognized that he knew what he was doing, but it scared me. We had been through so much that I suspected most new things.

I had been told by Mara to face the things that scared me. John had been there at the time.

I sat on the bed for a while, crying but building up courage. It was frustrating. I would work out tears only to have to cry again, just a little while later. What the hell had that bastard done to me?

Finally, I looked up into John's face and put on a shaky smile. "Do we have a kite?"

He looked at me shocked, then he slowly got a big grin. "I'll make one."

I smiled back, then went to the closet. He changed into some shorts and a tank top, then headed to his workshop.

I pulled off the shorts and tank top I was wearing. John could wear his, but if I was going to fly a kite, I was going to do it right! I put on a sundress and some flats, then I washed my face and put on some eye makeup and a little blush. I put my hair in a ponytail then went to Frieda's room. I knocked on the door and heard her say, "Come in."

"Your dad is making a kite. Do you want to help us fly it?"

She stared like I'd lost my mind. "You're kidding, right?"

We had a great relationship, but I doubt she could see the joy of getting a kite flying. John had built one when we were kids, and I loved flying it with him.

"I just figured I'd ask."

She gave me a strange look, then said, "Mom, go enjoy your time with Dad, okay?"

Somewhere, she had learned to read me like a book. Obviously, she had gotten that ability from her dad. Thinking about it, much of her personality seemed to come from him, as did her dark brown hair and hazel eyes. The rest of her looked like me, but I was a honey blonde and had blue eyes. Well, mostly. I could see elements of him in her face, although it seemed to be the general consensus that she was a dead ringer for me.

I heard John come out of his shop and asked, "Are you ready?"

"Last chance," I said to Frieda.

She smiled, motioned for me to leave, and picked up her virtual helmet, put it on and lay down. "Have fun," she said.

"Be good, " I retorted, then went out to the living room.

John took one look at me and said, "This is a really nice day."

I took a look at his muscular arms and legs. I knew that his chest matched very nicely. "If you lose the shirt, " I countered.

"Gonna lose the dress?"

"When we get back home."

"I can lose my shirt then as well."

"And shorts?"

He laughed as we went outside. "That can be arranged," he said as he started toward town.

I was still standing on our porch and he stopped and turned around to look at me. "Aren't we going out back?" I asked as we had a pretty good-sized back yard.

"Now why would I hide you here?"

"Do you remember the last time we flew a kite together?" I asked.

He came back and we sat down on the swing hanging from the porch roof. It wasn't likely to rain in Fredriksburg, but this was something I had fallen in love with when I was a little girl. Okay… I was in my fifties and was physically a man, but… oh hell with it; I was a girl back then too. Anyway, I loved a scene in a movie where a girl and her boyfriend watched a thunderstorm from just such a swing.

"I remember it, yes."

"How did you feel about it?"

He processed my suggestion, how I was dressed, and my question then he became serious, which was not his normal personality. He looked down at the kite he was holding, then back at me. "I'm sorry Rose. I don't think it meant as much to me as it did you. I did have a lot of fun that day, but to me, we were just two boys…"

"I know, John. It was something completely different to me. In my mind, you were my handsome boyfriend, I was your girl and we were enjoying a nice spring day. I was dressed something like this, and…" I stopped. I could get past much of the pain by thinking of myself as female back then, but I was having to explain it to him, and it was a painful reminder that I was a boy, maybe not just like him, but male physically.

"You want today to be the way it should have been back then?"

I nodded, feeling again those tears that always seemed so near the surface.

"You know, don't you, that if… oh hell. How to say this so and not hurt you." He paused. "Nevermind."

I wanted to know, however. I didn't like secrets between us. Well, at least not the painful kind. Birthdays were a wonderful time for the nice kind.

"Please tell me?"

"I don't want to hurt you."

"So how can you stand me? I'm dealing with so much hurt now. I had forgotten what I was as a child. Probably drove that…" I struggled for a bit. "You know, there are really no words to describe my contempt for Willem." I looked away to hide my tears. "Probably drove his computers crazy trying to figure out what the hell I was."

"You were my girl," he told me. "I was the one too blind to see it.

I laughed at that and some of the pain slid away.

He took my hands and looked into my eyes. "I want to tell you something, Rose, and this is the honest to God truth. If you had transitioned before Willem's interference, I would have been happy to spend time with you; get to know that side of you; love you."

I was surprised that he would make such a joke. That wasn't normal for him. I looked in his eyes and saw that he was quite serious.

What? He was serious? Oh great… more hurt. I thought about what this meant. It would have been another two hundred years together. Maybe have some kids. No. That wouldn't be good. Then our kids would have gone through 'Total Fun'. I wouldn't have wanted that.

I finally got myself under control and told him, "Let's fly that thing."

Again, he took in the way I looked. "It's up to you, Rose, but I'd love to show you off."

"People have seen a lot of me."

"People have seen you dressed up and they've seen you dressed for work, but right now, you are showing yourself completely casual. I don't think there's a more beautiful woman on the ship."

"Shall I count them off for you?"

"If someone thinks there is any woman more beautiful, they need to know that they are wrong."

I shook my head at him in exasperation. "Okay. I'll go to the park, but you'd better let me lead you. You're obviously blind, John."

"I believe you have that backward, Rose. Anyone who disagrees with me is the one who is blind." He took my hands and spoke in earnest. "You have felt this probably more than other people. You had shoved these feelings into a box where you didn't think they could hurt you, but you were wrong."

He looked down for a moment, thinking. "You asked me how I can stand you? Because I have a love for you that I never thought possible. You're hurt, I know, but you've got to stop living in the past. You have got me, and I will never leave you. Whatever happened back then, whether it was Willem or something before, it's over, never to come back."

"I'll tell you what. Come to town with me, let's start a kite fad, then let's go home and talk about the hurt, okay?"

I sighed deeply, then nodded. This wasn't the way I wanted to have a new kite memory, but it was probably my own fault.

---

We arrived at the park and John held the kite while I ran with it. Several people stopped walking and watched as it caught the wind and started to fly. John hurried over to me and put an arm around my waist. We had fun! Some people wondered how it was constructed. I guess they had never seen one. I brought it in and John caught it, then showed what he had done to make it. We got it airborne again, only this time I held it for him. I ran back to him and watched as he made the kite do tricks. It spun, did figure eights and soared higher and higher.

He finally reached the end of the string, and I was curious how much of a pull the wind was producing. He gave me the spool, and it was very impressive. I asked how he made it spin, and he showed me. Very soon, we were laughing at my attempts.

I finally got it to do it, but my arms were getting sore. The wind really was hard up there. I started bringing it down and John pointed across the park. I looked and giggled when I saw two kites flying and then a third one start to rise.

"You were right about starting a fad," I remarked.

He laughed and gave me a kiss.

We started home, and although I wasn't looking forward to our coming talk, I had really enjoyed myself. It was a memory I would treasure. Just enjoying being out and playing together. It's not something a girl close to a thousand years old gets to do with her husband often.

Chapter 2.10

We arrived back at our home after our fun in the park. I had been right when I asked for it. At first, my sundress swirling around my legs reminded me how the wind was made, and that bothered me, but I soon got over it and had more fun. I started to realize that this was a day like that one so long ago, the difference being, it was the way I had wanted it to be.

As we got closer, we could hear a hard rock beat and bass coming from Frieda's end of the house. It was a song that we both agreed on from the ancient archives. The group had a lead singer with an incredible voice and a stage presence that was hard to imagine.

I listened to the music and tried to remember the group's name. I knew the lead singer had a name I would never forget. 'Freddy' and then the name of a planet. Oh yeah… Mercury. I hadn't heard the song for so many years. It had a throbbing bassline and electric guitar, but not much else. Somehow, Freddy Mercury pulled it off with just that.

We sat down and started talking. I wasn't sure what to say, but John remained open and just listened for the majority of the conversation.

He started it off, though. "Do you remember when you started to feel love for me?"

"Yes," I said quietly. "I was nine years old. You were ten. We were heading to that creek near my house to go fishing. There was a girl just down the street from you, a couple of houses, who had been crushing on you, and you were telling me how she didn't want to fish because it was gross. I looked at you and figured it was her loss."

He chuckled. "And that's when you fell in love with me?"

I laughed as well. "Just remember, John. You asked."

"Yes, I did." He pulled me close and I leaned on his shoulder.

"What really got me was the fact that even though I couldn't touch the worms, you didn't hold that against me. I had made the effort and went. You baited my hooks and we had a good time."

"You caught us lunch that day too Rose."

"I learned from the best."

"Suck up," he told me.

"Just giving praise where praise is due," I countered. "Besides, I only ever went fishing with you. I have a rather limited pool to choose good fishermen from."

"That makes me feel so much better," he laughed.

I looked at him with an impish expression. I'm sure he felt like sticking his tongue out at me, but he would never do that. I, on the other hand, had no such inhibitions.

I put my head down again, and he asked, "Did you ever think about telling me?"

"John, I rehearsed that particular talk so many times, I could almost quote it now. The long and the short of it is the ending was almost always the same." I paused and chose my words very carefully. "You told me earlier that you would have been happy to spend time with me if I had transitioned to a woman. I didn't think I could take that chance. I never had a rehearsal where we ended up together. The best I could think of was that we might have been friends afterward.

"I believe you, though. I was looking at it through the eyes of a young girl. By the time we were adults, I had decided that I wanted to be your friend for the rest of my life, and if that meant I had to remain a male, I would rather do that."

"Look at the harm it caused, Rose."

I hated to admit that my strategy didn't work but looking back at things I had to say it hadn't.

"John, I didn't want us to part company."

"Didn't you trust me to know I would never have given up your friendship because you wanted to transition?"

"If I had only wanted that, of course, but I wanted you as well. I couldn't help but think that it would be awkward. Remember Connie?"

"She wouldn't even try fishing!"

I couldn't help but giggle. He was doing a masterful job of keeping me on an even keel as we talked. His humor was one of the things I loved about him. I missed it terribly when we were under Willem's influence.

"You sent her packing," I told him.

"I loved fishing!"

"So did I! I wish we had a place to fish here. Would you still bait my hooks?"

He laughed at that. I got to thinking about the cruelty of children and was glad John and I never fished with anyone else. I would have been a sissy for not baiting my own hooks. Little would they know they were right. Or maybe I'm fooling myself. Maybe they would. John knew me better than anyone and he never suspected. Maybe they wouldn't. I was getting confused now.

"Do you think anyone knew what I was?"

He sighed. "Remember when I came over to pick you up when we were teenagers? We were going hiking and I had a black eye and that sore on my arm?"

I nodded, almost afraid of what he was going to say, but also elated at the suspected chivalry.

"Brad Gibson and Gene Osborne were giving me shit about hanging around with you. About hanging around a sissy. That's not to say they knew you were trans. Just that you acted a bit more girly than other guys."

"I see." My thoughts went back to that time. I saw the two boys in my mind. They were always giving me guff. I was someone who was different. A ready-made target.

"You know what bothers me most about that time?" John asked. "I was so pissed at them for calling you names, I fought them both… lost miserably, by the way, but I would fight them again if they continued. The problem was, I wanted to protect your honor, and I never bothered to think about your position. I thought I was defending you when if I had done a bit of thinking, I might have seen you for who you were."

I stretched up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you for defending my honor."

We continued going through our lives until N21. There were lots to cover in those two hundred years, and we spent the rest of the day talking. I lay with my head on his lap most of the time. I was opening so many doors that had been closed.

Finally, I said, "I wonder how the nanites didn't know?"

"I think Willem wasn't the god he wanted everyone to believe he was. He needed us to react to his shit. He needed to have us be afraid, but how to do that? By that time you had forgotten your gender. All you remembered was your sex. We were made to fear anyone different than us. I believe that the mental state in regards to gender was passed on to the one touched, along with the biological sex."

"So if I had touched someone, they would be a person as messed up as me?" I thought about that for a bit, then something occurred to me. "Where is all this coming from, by the way?"

He would have hung his head, but that put him looking at my curious face. He seemed to struggle with that for a bit, then looked me in the eye. "I discussed it with Mara. I wondered about it myself. I wondered if it could be false memories."

I was shocked he would think that, but then I realized it was a valid question. It hurt, but I knew it had to be asked. "What did she say?"

"She has noticed this type of thing in the past where people were confused for one reason or another. She's also found other people where the nanites made mistakes. All of them were where people were confused."

"So she doesn't think it's false memories?"

"No she doesn't, and honestly, neither do I."

---

We spent about a year talking to Mara, and it was helping. What really raised my spirits was when Paula and Winston decided to tie the knot. We had known that he had proposed and she had said yes, so a few weeks later, we met in Paula’s house. She and Winston were already living together, most of the time. Winston didn’t have a house around Fredriksburg, but I had found out awhile back that Paula owned the steakhouse around the corner from Heaven’s Rose. She, Carla, and I had become very good friends, and many people referred to us as the three sisters. We had no problem with it, because that’s how we felt about each other.

When we sat down, Paula started going through who she wanted to take part in the wedding. Gina and Rhoda were also there. It was a forgone conclusion that Gina would officiate, but she had a serious problem deciding who was going to be her maid of honor. She looked at her ‘sisters’ and her daughter and told us that she was going to have Rhoda be her maid of honor, and have Carla and me be her bridesmaids. Both of us were absolutely fine with that arrangement.

We had the wedding two weeks later. Paula decided to wear white, even though, this was her second wedding. She looked radiant. Thankfully Rhoda, Carla, and I didn’t have matching dresses. They were pastel colors, but the style was the same. Mine was in peach, which was my favorite color, so I was rather happy with it.

We had a large dinner afterward, and it was at Heaven’s Rose. Of course, John was one of Winston’s groomsmen, so he couldn’t be the chef, and I couldn’t either. We had my best assistant chef cook the meal, and he did rather well. I was happy to taste the meal. It was really up to my standards. Perhaps not quite as good as what John or I could do, but I figured I would get Rik’s training up and eventually let him do more of the cooking. I honestly thought he might be able to take over from me at some point to let me cook just for my family and concentrate on my music more, he was that good!

---

We arrived at Alpha Centauri eventually and started scanning the surface. There was no sign of a civilization on the surface, and no sign of Centaurus either.

We scanned the atmosphere and found that there was a gas in it that was not really conducive to human life. It wouldn’t kill us, because of the nanites in our bodies. They would do something with the gas and keep us alive.

The problem was, any children before they had their first infusion of nanites. Nanites did not cross the placental barrier, because the were tuned to the mother’s DNA. It was very tough to decide that your children have nanites after what we’d been through. All we had for making nanites were the specifications for the same model that we had. Neo22 had developed a new model, and even when a child was born, and they had been infused with these, it was shown that they responded to the same signals that the old ones had. It was so hard to build a complicated receiver inside something that small.

A few days after we arrived, we were asked to come to the command center. Gina looked very solemn, and explained that they had been slowly altering our orbit to where we had a straight shot to the Kepler planet we were going to go to next. When it had been changed, we ran across some debris in orbit. It was supposed that it had started out at a much higher orbit because it hadn’t burned up yet.

Very quietly, John asked what it was.

“It is pieces of, if not Centaurus, a ship just like her,” Gina answered.

“No other ship was scheduled to be here,” Paula said.

“I know.”

“What would have destroyed her?” I asked.

“The only reason I can think of,” Rhoda explained, “is a miscalculation in their course. A planet this far away would be hard to pinpoint exactly. Just a fraction of an inch off at Sol’s system could end up being hundreds of miles difference here.”

“Do you think that’s likely?” asked Marc.

“No.”

“Why,” I asked.

“Because I entered the course.”

“No offense, Rhoda,” Paula said gently, “but you just said a fraction of an inch at home could yield hundreds of miles here. Even if they realized it, it would take just a tiny thrust to fix it. It would only take a millisecond to long, or short a burn to mess up.”

“This would have to be a too close flyby,” Rhoda explained. “I checked those figures about fifty times. One time a day, so I wasn’t too tired to go over them.”

“Could it have been anything else?” Gina asked.

“I really don’t know, Gina. It really doesn’t seem like much else would yield these results.”

“Are we sure there’s no life on the planet?” Carla asked.

“We’re as sure as we can be,” answered Winston. “We’ve scanned the surface many, many times. Nothing has come up.”

“What about underwater?” my ever imaginative husband asked.

“That’s a possibility,” answered Gina. “We can stay in orbit a little longer, and send some ships down to check it out.”

“That sounds good,” said Marc. “That makes a lot of sense. Thy could filter the air before it was used to pressurize their habitat.”

“Let’s check it out,” Gina told us. “Marc, and John. Can you set up some teams to go down in landing craft?”

“Yes, we can,” John answered. “We’ll bet on it right away.”

We left the command center wondering what we would find below.