Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Read online

  What comes next is even less pleasant. Dr. Palmer wheels over what looks like a computer with a console and flat screen. She holds up what looks like an electric toothbrush, except it’s got a cord to connect it to the computer. “This is an ultrasound transducer,” she says. “To verify you really are a woman, I need to insert this into your vagina. That way we can make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be.”

  “Can’t you do that from the outside?”

  “I’m afraid not. It is a pretty common procedure. There’s really no risk of anything bad happening to you.” The doctor gives me a hard stare. “Unless there’s something you don’t want me to see in there?”

  “No, it’s not that,” I say, my eyes focused on the transducer. It’s hard to believe she plans to stick that thing inside of me. I remember when my old doctor gave me a prostate exam; this will be like that times a thousand. But if I don’t do it, then she’ll think I’m faking. “Go ahead.”

  “This shouldn’t hurt at all,” she says. “It might just be a little cold.” She motions to the computer screen. “You can see what I’m doing on that.”

  “Great,” I mumble. I close my eyes as she inserts the transducer inside of me. She’s right that it doesn’t really hurt; it’s more like when I had to put a suppository up my rear for a nasty case of hemorrhoids.

  About a minute goes by. There’s a bunch of white and black noise on the computer screen. I remember when Debbie’s obstetrician showed us an ultrasound of Madison. Despite my keen detection skills, I couldn’t see a baby amongst all that chaos.

  This time there’s no baby to find. Dr. Palmer taps the screen with one finger. “There’s your left ovary,” she says. “Looks perfectly healthy.”

  “An ovary? So you mean I can have babies?”

  “As many as you want,” she says. “There’s your uterus. No little Staceys in it right now.”

  “That’s a relief,” I say, and put a hand to my stomach. “So I guess I really am a woman, huh?”

  “You are a woman. There’s no denying that,” she says as she pulls the transducer out of me. While she cleans my juices off of it, she adds, “It doesn’t prove the rest of your story.”

  “How do we do that?”

  She holds up a metal tray; on it is a very nasty-looking syringe and a half-dozen clear containers. “We’ll start by taking some blood. If the drug is still in your system we should be able to see it.”

  “Are you going to leave a little blood in me?” I can see her smile beneath her mask. “What?”

  “I remember why I like working with animals better than humans. They complain a lot less.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Close your eyes and it’ll be over soon enough.”

  I do as she suggests; I close my eyes and turn my head towards the door. I’ve never liked needles, especially needles that suck out my blood like little vampires. Still, if that’s the only way to convince Dr. Palmer I’m telling the truth, then I’ll let her take my last drop of blood.

  A couple minutes go by before the doctor says, “All finished. I’d give you a lollypop if I had one.”

  “So now what do we do?”

  “You can get dressed. Then we’ll go upstairs for an MRI and some X-rays.”

  “Lucky me,” I grumble.

  Chapter 19

  The rest of the exam is easy enough. For most of it I lie on a table; I occasionally move as they take pictures of the inside of my body. By the time I’ve changed out of my paper hospital gown, used the bathroom, and drank a bottle of Gatorade from the vending machine, Dr. Palmer has the X-rays back.

  “That was some fast work,” I say.

  “Just had to lean on them a little. Helps when I can say it’s for a police investigation.”

  We stand in a little room lit with blue-white light for the X-rays. She puts one against the lights. I see a ribcage and spine—my ribcage and spine. There must be something wrong with the film, because there are a lot of lines on the film that look almost like spider webs. “That isn’t how it’s supposed to look, is it?”

  “No, there shouldn’t be any of those squiggly lines. Not for a normal person.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “The serum contains low dose radioactive isotopes—”

  “It’s radioactive?” Saying the word brings to mind monster movies I saw as a kid that featured giant ants, lizards, or turtles. Maybe before long I’ll grow to fifty-feet-tall and rampage through the city.

  “About as much as the average carrot from the grocery store. I said it’s a low dose. Not enough to do any damage, but enough to show up on an X-ray.”

  I’m not a scientist by any stretch, but even I can put the pieces together. “So that means there is some FY-1978 in me yet?”

  “That’s the best possible answer. Not the only one. We’ll have to wait until we get the blood work back to know for sure.”

  “But still, you know I’m telling the truth now. I wasn’t born like this and I didn’t have any sex change surgeries either.”

  Dr. Palmer nods and then turns to me. “I think you are telling the truth. And that scares the hell out of me. No drug should be able to work that kind of change, not in the amount of time you described. It should take days or even weeks if at all. Our test subjects in the lab took ninety-six hours on average to show signs of a change.”

  “But there has to be some way to reverse it, doesn’t there? Or maybe it’ll wear off. Once all this FY-1978 is out of my system.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. The FY-1978 will eventually break down, but the changes to your cells—to your DNA—are permanent.”

  “But you have to be able to do something. You’re a scientist.” Tears bubble up in my eyes as much as I don’t want them to. In the back of my mind I always knew a cure wouldn’t be easy to find, but the opinion of a scientist like Dr. Palmer carries a lot more weight.

  “I’m not as good of a scientist as Dr. Nath. Few people are. She was the best in her field.” As I begin to sob, Dr. Palmer puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll do what I can. I know some people who might be able to help. After we get everything together, I’ll show them and maybe they can find a way.”

  “But you still don’t think it’ll work.”

  “I have to be honest here, Stacey. I don’t know why it worked the first time. It’s incredible. Until about two hours ago I would have said it was impossible.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  She pulls me in closer, to hug me to her body and stroke my hair. After a day of being prodded and poked like a steer going to market, this kind of intimacy feels good. “You have to stay positive. You’ve been given a second chance. You can start a whole new life. You’re young and pretty and you’re not dumb either. Find yourself a job. Go back to school. Is there something you always wanted to do before you became a police officer?”

  I shake my head. Being a cop was all I ever wanted to do. Ever since I began to play cops and robbers with my toys as a toddler. “I don’t want to be anything else.”

  “Well, you could always try rejoining the police force.”

  I sniffle but don’t say anything. I could try to go back to the academy. Maybe I could make it through and become a beat cop again. In another five or ten years I might even make detective again. That hardly seems fair.

  “I’m sure you can think of something. Give it some time. In the meantime try to relax. Get some rest. I’m sure Detective Madigan can help you get through it.”

  “Maybe.” She gives me a couple of minutes to cry myself out before we go down to the cafeteria, where Jake nurses a cup of coffee while he checks something on his phone. The moment he looks up, he winces.

  “Didn’t go so well, did it?” he asks.

  “Let’s talk in the car,” I say.

  ***

  I give Jake a PG-rated version of Dr. Palmer’s examination. “She says with Dr. Nath dead there’s probably not much they can do.” I look in the mirror to see my fac
e. I’m about as much of a wreck as I was this morning. I run a hand through my hair to try to smooth it down. If I’ll see this face for the rest of my life, I ought to try to take care of it. “I’m probably going to be stuck like this forever.”

  “Jesus,” Jake says and takes a puff on his cigarette. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” We go a couple of blocks in silence. Finally I say, “Dr. Palmer says I should look on the bright side. I’m getting a second chance and whatnot.”

  “I guess so.” Jake flicks his cigarette out the window. I’m sure he hoped I’d get back to normal too. “Any idea what you want to do?”

  “Yeah. I want to kill Artie Luther.”

  “Steve—”

  “Look what he did to me! He took everything away from me: my job, my home, my family.” I choke up. The tears start to flow again. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. Maybe it’s because I’m too inexperienced to handle all these hormones. “I know things weren’t good with Debbie and Maddy before, but now I can’t ever see them. Maddy’s never going to call me ‘Daddy’ again. And it’s his fault! He took all of that from me.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can let you kill him.”

  “Jake, please. We’ve been partners for twenty-five years. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Yeah, it means I don’t want to let you do something stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid!”

  “Are you looking in the mirror at yourself? You think you can go up against Lex’s thugs like that? What are you going to do, scratch their eyes out?”

  I look down at my ropy arms and legs. He’s got me there. “Just get me a gun,” I say, though it sounds ludicrous in my little songbird voice. “All I want is to put a hole in his head when the time comes. Like he did to me. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Yeah, it is too much to ask.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do? Go learn to bake brownies? Find some husband to take care of me and pump out his babies? Is that what you want?”

  “What I want is for you to have some fucking common sense. You’re not a cop anymore. You’re not Steve Fischer. You’re a cute little girl. You should be hanging out at the mall, giggling about boys.”

  “Is that how you see me? As some empty-headed bimbo?” I reach across the seat to poke him in the chest. “Whatever I look like on the outside, I’m still me on the inside. I’m still the guy who’s pulled your ass out of the fire more times than either of us can count. Got it?”

  He seizes my hand and begins to bend it back until I hear something pop. Though I don’t want to, I whimper; fresh tears come to my eyes. “Stop it!” I shout like a little girl with a boo-boo.

  “You see my point? You aren’t Steve anymore.”

  He lets my arm go. I hold it against my chest as if it’s broken. It’s not; it’ll just need a couple of hours to feel better. “I get it. Can’t I help you track him down?”

  “How are you going to help?”

  “I don’t know,” I whine. “I can do something.”

  “What you can do is stay home with Tess. I’ll feel a lot better if I know you’ve got someone looking after you.”

  “I don’t need looking after. I’m still an adult.”

  “You don’t have money, a job, a place to live. You don’t even have any ID. No one knows Stacey Chance exists except for me, Tess, and Dr. Palmer. For now you are my child.”

  I sulk for a few minutes. The silence lets both of us cool off a little. I’m sure Jake knows how important it is for me to nab that bastard Luther; he wants to protect me from myself. “I can at least help you go through some of the files. I can still read.”

  Jake sighs heavily. “All right, you can help with some of the legwork. But when it comes time for the muscle, you’re going to be at home with Tess. Deal?”

  I reach across the seat with my good arm to shake his hand. “Deal.”

  Chapter 20

  My second night in the Madigan household goes a lot more smoothly than the first. Though I insist I’m fine, Tess tucks me in again. She’s changed the sheets, to a set of dark blue ones that won’t show any stains. At least she hasn’t put garbage bags under the sheets like I’m a bed wetter.

  This night I sleep like a baby. When I wake up it’s still dark in the room, but the clock says it’s almost eleven in the morning. Tess didn’t wake me up. She probably wants me to get some rest after how bad I’ve felt the last couple of days.

  Before I go downstairs or even to the bathroom I go over to the vanity. As I start to brush my hair out, to replicate what Tess did, I notice something: the bruise is gone! There’s a little bit of a dark circle left, but otherwise my eye looks normal. The arm Jake put into his kung-fu death grip feels normal as well.

  There’s only one explanation: FY-1978. Dr. Palmer said the drug was still in my system. It probably still is working its magic on my boo-boos. I lean forward until my nose almost touches the mirror to see if anything else is different. Can I still call myself eighteen or am I seventeen now? Maybe even sixteen? I can’t see that much of a difference other than with the shiner. I’ll have to see if Tess notices anything.

  She of course notices that my bruise is gone. “Such a wonderful job with the makeup,” she says.

  “It’s not makeup,” I say.

  She frowns at this; she does the math like I did. “That’s remarkable. I’ve never seen a bruise heal so quickly.”

  “Guess I’m a quick healer.”

  For the moment it seems my period is gone too. It might be lying dormant, but there’s no fresh blood on my maxi pad and my stomach feels just fine as I wolf down the eggs and bacon Tess puts in front of me. She doesn’t eat anything herself; she probably ate hours ago when Jake left. I slow down a little when I see the way her lip is curled, a rebuke on the tip of her tongue. I’m supposed to be a young lady now, not a street urchin.

  “Are you feeling up to going out?” she asks after I finish breakfast.

  “Sure. What about Jake—Mr. Madigan? What’s he doing today?”

  “He said he’s going to work on a case. He promises to be home for dinner.”

  Jake’s the kind of guy who usually keeps his promises too. He’s probably going to do a little work on the Lennox Pharmaceuticals case, the kind of work he doesn’t want me around for. Maybe lean on a few snitches like the Worm. Someone out there has to know where Artie Luther is holed up. Someone might even know where to find some more FY-1978; if there’s any more to be found.

  In the meantime there’s nothing I can do but get dressed and go shopping with Tess. I’d rather shop for men’s clothes, but whatever we get will be better than this stinky old tracksuit or a dead girl’s clothes. Tess spreads ads across the table. All of these are for suburban stores: department stores, outlet shops, and supercenters. I stare at the models in their T-shirts and jeans. When I see a girl in sweatpants with “PINK” written on them I remember the thrift store and that nice woman Grace.

  “What do you think, dear?” Tess asks.

  “Um, actually, this stuff isn’t really my style,” I say. “I thought maybe we could go to the garment district.”

  “Of course, dear. Whatever you want,” Tess says, though I can see disappointment on her face.

  ***

  The garment district got its name because it used to be populated by textile mills and seamstresses, though most of those have gone in the last fifty years. The garment district doesn’t have all the trendy stores like downtown or the suburbs, but it does have plenty of boutiques that charge reasonable prices. At least that’s what Tess says as we make our way there.

  “When I was a girl it was still a lot of hippies and drugs,” she says. “It’s been cleaned up a bit since then.”

  Cleaned up means taken over by the hipsters. They’re the ones in the “vintage” clothes with too many piercings and look as if they haven’t bathed in a month. I could probably fit right in with them.

  We leave the car in a lot so we can get
out on foot and explore. I haven’t spent a lot of time in this part of town as a cop. I only came a few times on a tip or to find a snitch. Those were always in the dark; in the light the place looks worn and dirty and claustrophobic. The buildings are all squeezed together; most of them date from the 1910s or 20s, back when everyone still believed in progress.

  I feel around in my pocket for Grace’s business card, but Tess must have taken the card or else it got destroyed by the washer. If there were still phone books we could go look it up. The garment district isn’t that big; we’ll probably run across it eventually.

  The first shop we stop at smells like meat. Old, salty meat. In its past life the store must have been a butcher shop. Now some woman almost Tess’s age who dresses like she’s still my age runs the place. “My niece needs some new clothes,” Tess says. “What do you have that would look good on her?”

  The woman’s judgment runs contrary to what I want. She shows me a lot of peasant blouses and flowing skirts, the kind of outfits where I’d just need to put some flowers in my hair to look like someone from Woodstock. After the fourth such outfit Tess says, “Thank you so much, dear. We’ll think about it.”

  The next shop features a girl with a pink Mohawk. There’s a lot of leather in the place, not all of it clothes to wear in public. Tess and I beat a quick retreat from there. From the way Tess’s face has paled, I know she’s having second thoughts. We probably should have gone out to the suburbs, to the mall or Wal-Mart.

  Then I see the sign for the Second Chances Boutique, which is hand-painted and matches the font on the business card. “Let’s try in here,” I say to Tess. I hope I don’t sound too eager.

  The boutique isn’t much to look at, just a space about as big as my old apartment with racks of mismatched clothes on the walls and scattered throughout the store. There’s a wooden counter with an old brass cash register. Grace sits behind it on a stool and reads a psychology textbook as large as the phone book. She marks her place and then looks up at me.