People told me I should get on with my life. How could I? I didn’t even know what it was, now…
Before all this happened, I was a teacher at the local high school. I suppose I could go back to that; all my knowledge was intact, but would they accept me? Even worse, would I be able to cope with them?
People were bound to talk. After all, I definitely had changed…
I should never have volunteered to help my brother out at his lab, but I’m a sucker for a sob story, especially from family.
He was testing a new ‘whole body’ diagnostic system. It was like a combined MRI / Cat / X-Ray system; it was supposed to produce a full 3d model of the person being scanned, but it took it all in one go, instantly, like a photograph.
The problem was his test subject, Andrea, had gone and gotten herself pregnant; she had pulled out, unwilling to risk her baby’s health (which was understandable).
This had left him without a test subject, the day before he was supposed to present his interim results to the funding commission.
He had pleaded with me; even got down on one knee and begged, knowing that I would go for it if he did…
The first run was uneventful. The device performed exactly as advertised; I came out of the ‘booth’ the first time to see an amazing 3d view of me on the monitors. It even highlighted a health condition that I didn’t know I’d had.
“Let’s take another scan, just to be sure” my brother had said.
I went back in, and he set the machine off again.
Then came the power surge. I felt like I was being ripped apart…
I woke up in hospital, and sat up with a groan…
“Oh, my head…!”
My voice sounded all wrong.
Then I looked down at my body.
Andrea’s breasts were sitting on my chest…!
Somehow, the machine had made me into an almost exact copy of Andrea. I could have been her sister.
“What the hell…?”, I squeaked.
My brother was sitting in the chair next to me.
“God, I’m so sorry…!”, he said. “We had fitted an experimental ‘repair module’ into the scanner; we were planning on trying later to get the device to perform some simple medical procedures, to keep whoever it’s scanned in good health. We’d disabled the module for your scans, as we just wanted the scanner working for now.”
“The problem is, the power surge re-enabled it”, he continued. “The only pattern it had on file was Andrea’s. It’s ‘repaired’ you to match Andrea as closely as it can. Um… you’re even pregnant…”
“What!!”, I squeaked, in my new high voice…
The doctors gave me a thorough check over (in a conventional way, not using any fancy gadgets). I was now a healthy Afro-Caribbean female, about ten years younger than I had been, and was indeed pregnant.
Mom came to visit me in hospital. She heard all that had happened. She then cuffed my brother around the back of the head, hard.
“Don’t worry, dear, I’ll take care of you”, she said to me. “I’ll teach you about all the ‘woman things’ that you’ll need to know.”
“Can’t you just change me back?”, I asked my brother.
“Sorry, no”, he said. “The surge that caused your change also wiped all the recordings of your original body. I’ve got nothing to change you back to. The only recordings on file are those of Andrea.”
I recovered quite quickly and moved back in with mom for a while so she could take care of me while I did.
I eventually decided that I needed to take control of my life again and went back to my job teaching. I had had to change colleges; the people at my old place couldn’t get their heads round me being a woman. Starting from scratch at a new institution, however, worked beautifully.
I made friends there quickly; the students also really enjoyed my light-hearted style of teaching. Some of my new heritage was coming out in the way I taught.
I didn’t expect the principal to come on to me so much, however. She nearly threw herself at me when I’d been there for about a week. Turned out that she was fascinated by my whole story, from being a man to the ‘change’…
I must admit, she’s got one hell of a body. There might be something good in this, after all…