Carly could tell something was up with Parker, and it wasn't just the fact that his head was now stitched onto a middle-aged woman's body now. She could see it in his face. He knew something, but she also knew him well enough that he would say it if he needed to. At least, she thought so. Right?

She sat on the bed, looking down at her new body. She had taken off the tie completely and undid the top buttons of the shirt. That tie was a pain the ass, she thought and she saw no need to strangle herself with those damn top buttons. Otherwise, she realized, men's dress clothes weren't bad at all. Actually a bit more comfortable than plenty of women's dress clothes she had worn over her life.

Parker, however, was feeling much less comfortable and not just that he wasn't used to dresses, or a bra, or pantyhose, or even had this womanly body now. He knew that there were experimental things going on, but what should he tell Carly? He didn't really know any concrete details.

"Parker, I know you know something. Just say it. Please." She meant to say it with confidence, but it came off as more of a plea.

"There's experimental work in head transplants, Carly. I do know the work exists but actually doing one on humans isn't supposed to be a thing yet. Nothing I've heard suggests they've actually done one, much less like this!"

"Do you know anything else? Like who is doing them?"

"No one is supposed to be, that's the thing. Everyone is supposed to be working on the prerequisites, not the actual surgery. There's a couple of companies I've heard are working on those, but that's it. Obviously someone isn't being honest."

"Then we need to check them out to see what we can find out!"

"We have more immediate problems, I think. Whose bodies are these?"

Not far away, Ian asked what happened as well. Tina stood up, pacing around the suite.

"I don't have the slightest idea. A young couple. Do you think they're staying here at the hotel?"

"Do you want to find out?" Ian asked. "How would we?"

"We could go ask around. Look around ourselves?"

"Like this?" Ian looked down at himself. "I don't exactly look right. If I walked up to you like this and you didn't know me, would you really think 'yes, I'll calmly answer this person's questions'?"

"Then what idea do you have?" She asked, voice raised, though not a shout. "Nothing isn't really an option!"

"I didn't say that! Maybe see, wait, do we have anything of theirs on us? Something to identify them?"

"God, maybe he has a wallet." She reached into her back pocket. "Wow, they didn't think to remove it. Look, he even has his contact info on a card in his wallet."

"I wonder if..." Ian looked around, looking for a purse, knowing there was no wallet in these shorts. "Maybe..."

He walked to their luggage, but instead of their luggage they saw what he assumed to be the other couple's luggage.

"Okay, we try that first, if not, then we search these. Do we still have our cells?"

"Yeah, they didn't take those. I think they just forgot to take out his wallet. They grabbed everything else out of his pockets. There's not even lint in the front pockets."

"Weird, but good for us."

"Shit!" Dr. Carson looked at the monitor. So, we forgot something, huh? They weren't supposed to meet at all, but he realized that might have been a failure right from the start. They were close to each other, so if they did go out, it wasn't really a far-flung notion for them to meet.

We should have gone with people farther away, but that meant more risk of moving the heads and everything else, plus more risk to the actual test subjects' health. Keeping a severed head or a decapitated body alive wasn't easy to begin with and doing so like this... no, they did the best the could under the conditions. Doing it any other way would have been too risky.

He sighed as he thought about the implications here. Really, there weren't too many. They should have realized that it was likely they would meet. Plus, it's not like they'd be inconspicuous. If both couples ventured out at all, people would notice and would talk, and it would be pretty damn likely both would find each other eventually. If nothing else, the older couple looked to be in town for business or one of the conferences going on and someone would notice if they suddenly stopped attending. Someone would feel the need to investigate.

He shrugged. Seems obvious now that it was inevitable, and that they should have planned for more. Tunnel vision is a thing, though, and they were so focused on trying to get the experiment in place to even do it they left the observation part a bit less situated. Oh well, now we know and we have the resources to adapt to this.

Meanwhile, Carly felt her stomach, unhappy with the paunch she felt.

"At least your still thin." She grumbled.

"And have tits."

"So? What's wrong with tits?"

"Nothing, on someone else. But, I guess it's no different than you having a dick now, huh? We're going to have to deal with all this." Park said with a sigh.

"You know, we didn't really address who these people are."

"I did mention it, but let's face it, we don't have anything. You checked your pockets?"

"Yes, all of them, including the coat. Nothing. By the way, where's your wallet?"

"Huh?"

"It's not in the room. I mean, their clothes are here, ours are gone, but stuff like our phones and wallet is here. Purse is gone, though. Did we miss it?"

"No, we didn't miss it. Maybe they have it. God, it's got my contact info in it! They can call us!"

"Assuming they want to." Carly said darkly, but thought better of it. "Sorry, just hard to be optimistic right now."

"It's something, at least." He pointed out.

"Small favors, I guess."

Just as she spoke, she saw his phone start to buzz. He heard just after she saw it and he immediately went for it.

"Hello?" Parker said as he took the call.

"Yes, is this Parker?" A middle-aged woman's voice came over the phone. Carly could hear it, Parker put it on speaker.

"Yes." He didn't know how to ask the next question. It sounded so absurd. He figured he'd try with something a bit easier and work up to it.

"Do you have my wallet?" He asked.

Over the phone came a surprised laugh.

"I think I have more than that. Do you want to meet?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm in a hotel, room 709. I can give you the directions..."

"Hold on, go to your door and wave your arm out. Right now."

"Why?"

"I think you're two rooms from us. In fact, we'll open the door, come on over."

A moment later, the four of them were in Parker and Carly's room. Carly sat on the one chair, Parker stood leaning against the wall, and Tina and Ian were both on the couch. After introducing themselves, why everyone was in town, and going through what had happened to them including Parker explaining more in-depth what the state of head transplants was supposed to be, he stopped talking and let everyone else speak.

Ian started first.

"So, is this supposed to be permanent? You didn't say."

"I don't know. I'm a medical technician, not a doctor, but I've never heard of a temporary transplant. Not for something like this, at least, and I'd know about something like that."

"Would you know?" Tina asked. At first, Parker thought she was being rude, but he looked at her face. She was hoping he'd missed something, he realized.

"I would, yes, given what surgeries I'm in. They expect us to be well-informed, because if something goes wrong, 'I don't know' isn't a real answer. Not when someone is on an operating table."

"I see." Tina said. "You do a lot of transplants?"

"More often reattached limbs like a hand or a finger. The equipment I specialize in deals with the nervous system."

"Then you'd know." Tina. "Damn it!"

"Amen, sister." Carly said, looking Tina, and then quickly at Ian. She did notice that he looked a bit less uncomfortable in her body than she did in his. His posture reminded her of her when she was feeling okay. Not relaxed, but more loose than the rest of them.

"I feel I should say." Ian started. "That I'm sorry, Carly. Truly I am."

"Why? You did nothing wrong. It's okay."

"Not for the surgery, but for the state of me. I've noticed, you've felt my stomach a few times as we've all been here. I know you mean nothing by it, but I wish now I had taken better care of myself, if not just for myself but also for you. I didn't want to saddle you with this."

"Again, it's okay. I'm not thrilled about this, but we'll manage."

"A very mature view for both of you. You're both in your mid-twenties, right?"

"Were." Parker said with a laugh. "Now, how do we even gauge that? Kind of hard to now. But, uh, thanks Ian."

"You're both, you seem very calm with this." Tina asked. She wasn't quiet sure what to say. Ian, at times, was better with this stuff than she was.

"I'm not, I'm scared Tina, but both Parker and me survived worse when we were still in high school. Oh, I should tell you, Ian, you don't have a spleen anymore. Those two sentences might be slightly related."

"Oh." Tina said, surprised. "I think I understand that now. I've never had anything serious, neither has Ian. So, what should we do now? About all of this?"

Parker sat down, not realizing his legs weren't together. Tina frowned a little and he put them together.

"Would crossing them be better?" He asked.

"Can you keep them together?"

"Not the way I normally sit."

"Uh, please. I don't want to see up my own skirt, you understand."

"Yeah, that would make this even weirder than what it already is." He crossed his legs, feeling weird as he felt the nylon rub against his legs. He wondered if he'd ever get used to that. How was Ian handling this better? Well, Parker realized, he had shorts on so maybe that made it easier. Yes, definitely easier.

"So, I'm going to get in touch with people and see what I can find out. That's going to take time. Like, we'll only find stuff out over a few days. You two, how long are you in town?"

"At least a few more days for our conferences. Five, no four full days and then our flight five days from now." Tina said.

"I can have something, hopefully, by then."

"I can talk to some people too." Ian said.

"You're an forensic accountant." Tina said.

"You don't do this without leaving a money trail. Parker and me can work together."

"What do you want me to do?" Carly asked. "I might as well do something."

"You're better with people than I am." Parker said. While he was good, she was better. Much better. "We're going to need that. Tina, you, I'm just getting this vibe, you're a manager, aren't you?"

"A vice-president, actually." She said proudly. "But not in the medical field."

"Still, you understand corporate levels like I don't. Okay, I'll get going. I'll be pretty busy tonight but the rest of us probably won't be. Tomorrow, however, be prepared. We may have a lot of work ahead of us."