This choice: Go ahead and make the change to Rosalie • Go Back...Chapter #82The New Body by: Seuzz   "There'll be time for that after we've finished up," you reply.
"Will there?" Joe arches his eyebrows. "You're going to be busy playing your new part, going to school, getting reacquainted with people--"
"It'll be okay," you say with more confidence than you feel. "We had a long talk earlier. We understand each other perfectly." Joe grunts skeptically. "She said she can get you Dane. Apparently he likes to hang out at her house."
"Cool! Maybe we can have that pow-wow at her place. Oh, but we'll have to find another disguise for Frank. Does Chelsea hang out with Andrea?"
You fight down a smile. "I don't know what they'll be doing, now that they're on the same team."
"Oh, really?" His face splits into a wide grin. "Tell me who they like. I was wanting a girl for my collection. We could have a slumber party, paint each other's toenails when we're not licking out each other's--"
"Are we ready to go?" That's Andrea, coming out of the bathroom. Her face is a little ruddier, apparently from a good scrubbing and washing.
"Lemme just grab my keys," Joe says, and can't resist giving you a quick wink.
* * * * *
Before quitting your company, Chelsea had had the presence of mind to give Andrea a spare key to the gym. But there's a little complication to handle before you can get to business. There are several cars in the parking lot, and among them you recognize Gordon Black's VW Bug. "I'll go scope it out," Joe says as you survey the building. "He's not likely to pay any attention to either of you."
So you and Andrea wait silently in her car for ten minutes or so, until Gordon, in the company of Jason Lynch, appear and drive off. Neither of them look very happy. Joe calls to say that the coast is clear, and you and Andrea join him up in the loft. "How'd you manage that?" you ask, for you were skeptical that even "Mr. Hagerman" could get the two assholes out of the loft.
"They didn't want to go until I told Gordon he should probably talk to his girlfriend," he says. "Those seemed to be the magic words. He pulled Lynch along in his wake."
"I thought Chelsea was going to get rid of Jason," Andrea says. "Break up their friendship."
"I guess she hasn't done that yet." Joe looks down at the sigil. "I wonder what they thought of this."
"Another reason to get rid of Jason," Andrea says. "Or make him a puppet. Maybe for Frank?"
"We don't need a psycho working for us," Joe says. "Let's go ahead and-- How is this going to work?"
"I'm not totally sure," you admit. "Except that I know I'll have to get here." You drop onto the sheet metal. "Oh, and I think I'll have to use your body, Joe. I can't do it from mine."
"Well, if you have to," he sighs.
You wipe your hand over you face, and bring up the control sigils.
* * * * *
You sway a little on your feet, and blink at the prone figure of Will Prescott in the middle of the sigils. You rub your hands thoughtfully. "I think this job is going to be easier than the others," you say. "It's just stripping and replacing imago. But you'll recharge my juice afterward, won't you?"
She shrugs. "If I have to. Hagerman is good looking, but--"
"Is Andrea really only into the girls?"
"No. Neither was Aparijita."
"So why were you so--?"
"Andrea can go either way. But who would you rather snuggle up with, Will?"
"Ah." You're a little disappointed to learn that any girl-on-girl proclivities in your new partner are due less to her psyche than to your own. "Still, I owe Joe for this." You stretch and flex lightly; Hagerman's muscles are strong and fit tightly against his shirt. "Or, shit, maybe he owes me. He scored last night, the bastard."
"Let's just do this. Are you going to be able to? If you're modifying your own body--"
"The control sigil connects directly to anima, it's not mediated by imago. I won't break the connection. And since his imago is displaying in this state, I'll be able to see my work as I do it. So, we just need the mask--"
It's in the bag you'd brought with you from Straussler's: the mask containing Rosalie's imago. And since it's just a straight replacement of faces and bodies the switch is quick and fairly easy to pull off. The activation of one spell sends lightning arcing from your body into a blank mask you've pulled from the supply cabinet, and you get a queer and queasy feeling to look down at the blank golem on the sigil, and to realize that the featureless thing is you. If you were to lose control of Joe's body, and slip back into your own, would you be able to recover?
So you quickly activate the other spell. Another shoots out of Rosalie's mask, and connects with the golem. It's probably your imagination--a kind of sympathetic vibration--but you feel a hot tingle all over your body as you see the glow envelop your real body. An instant later it fades, and you blink away the phantom lights in your eyes. The figure is dressed in the clothes you'd been wearing, but it is no longer Will Prescott.
It is the slim figure of Rosalie Shabbleman.
* * * * *
After all the waiting and all the preparations, it seems very anticlimactic to look down at yourself and find that you've finally and so quickly given yourself a new body. You're silent and unmoving for a very long minute. "So, that's it," you finally say lamely. "That's the new me."
"You sound disappointed," Andrea says.
"No," you say. And you're not disappointed. It's a rather coltish body, with long legs and small hips and breasts; the face is pretty enough without being especially beautiful. You like the hair, which with its curls and dirty-blonde hue has some character. "No, it's just--" You can't put your finger on it, but you've a sense that the disguise is rather thin. "Well, she still looks a lot like me, doesn't she?"
"She could be your sister," Andrea agrees. "That's why you wanted to do it, right? It's not a huge change, but enough of one that no one would suspect you're the same person."
"Yeah," you grunt. "Well, I guess I should try it out."
"It'll be--" Andrea says, but the rest of her words are swallowed by blackness as you release Joe's body. The control sigils appear before you, then vanish as you open your eyes. "You'll see," Andrea is saying as you blink.
"It'll be what?" you ask, and raise yourself onto your elbows.
Andrea swings around to look down at you; Joe is frowning and also blinking. "I said it'll be fine. It is, isn't it?"
You don't answer, and just get onto your feet. You expect to feel unsteadier than you do, but despite the change in your carriage you feel quite normal. More normal than you felt when you were guiding Chelsea's body. You put your hands to your chest and feel the small but firm breasts. You take a few breaths. With a frown you put one hand to your crotch, and feel the absence of any kind of package.
"Get you into your new clothes," Joe says, "and you should--"
"Where's a mirror," you ask, and brush past him to find the full-length looking glass that Gordon and Chelsea installed in the corner. The world is a little blurry--you'd forgotten that Rosalie needed glasses--and you have to get up close to it before you can make out your features. They are the same as you'd seen when looking at yourself from Joe's point-of-view, though of course reversed. A pert nose, a slightly sharp chin, deep brown eyes. Your hair falls into your face, and you pull it back.
Despite all the body-hopping you've done in recent weeks, this face feels much more alien than any of the others you've worn. And yet this face is yours. It's now your real face, as real as the one you were born with, for it is resting on your substantia in exactly the same way that your original face had. So why does it seem so--?
And then it hits you. "I don't know how to be a girl!" you exclaim.
There's no reply from the other two, and they just gaze back blankly as you turn toward them. "I don't know how to--" you repeat again.
That's what's missing, and why this face feels so strange. In all your other guises you had another psychology--another mind and sense of memories--to go with the look. You could inhabit another person fully. But now you're only yourself, but with a look that you're not used to. It's a look you don't know how to inhabit. You are seized with sudden fright. You're a girl, and all the guys in Westside will be looking at you as a girl, and treating you as a girl, and you won't know how to respond. You start to shake.
Your partners exchange glances as you stammer this epiphany out to them. "It's a little late to be realizing this, isn't it?" Joe says quietly.
"It's never too late," Andrea briskly replies. "You can always get another face. Become another girl at Westside. Or another guy, if you want to change your sex back." She cocks her head. "Or you can pick up some mind bands of other girls and fashion yourself a new psychology to go with your new look."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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