“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mumbles. Major Dalton manages to get her a bedpan an instant before she throws up. Since she hasn’t eaten anything in hours—days perhaps—there’s only yellow bile. As Midnight pukes, Major Dalton holds back her hair as if she were a drunk girl who drank too much at a party.
“We’d better get you back to the room.”
“Wait. Why are they all together like this and I have a private room?”
“Something told me you’d be the first one to wake up.”
“Uh-huh.” Midnight uses her scrawny arms to wheel forward, over to the bed of a woman with long black hair. Despite the differences in the cheekbones and jaw, it’s clearly still Apex Man—or Apex Woman now, she supposes. “Is she…does she have all the same abilities?”
“We can’t be sure, but it seems like it. Same for the other two. It’s basically like someone switched a Y to an X chromosome. Otherwise they have the same DNA, blood type, fingerprints, all that.”
“That’s impossible,” Midnight says. Then she remembers the Feminazi said it was alien technology Dr. Roboto had recovered. Who knew what sort of crazy invention could come from that? She turns the wheelchair to face Dalton. “What happened to the Feminazi?”
“The ringleader of those fascist gals? They’re still scraping her off the throne room floor.”
“Oh. Shit. Then we need to talk to Roboto. He knows what this device is—”
Dalton stops Midnight before she can wheel to the door. “Hold on. You’re not going anywhere except back to bed.”
“We have to interrogate him—”
“We will. Or I will at any rate. You’re staying here until Dr. Harken says you’re up to traveling.”
“I can’t just lie around like this—”
Dalton kneels down to look Midnight in the eye. “Rob, stop it. You’re in no shape to go anywhere right now.”
Midnight tries to show her by attempting to wheel forward, but Dalton needs only to plant one boot against the right wheel to stop her from going anywhere. “Get out of my way!”
“See, you can’t even get out of this room. Now come on, let’s get you to bed. I have a nasty feeling your friends are going to wake up soon.”
***
A scream not only wakes Midnight up, it shakes the entire room like an earthquake. Right away Midnight knows Apex still has her powers; no one else could make a noise like that. A smaller scream accompanies this.
Midnight is already on her feet. She tries to take a step, but her shorter, scrawnier legs fail her. She drops to her knees. Like an invalid she crawls over to the wheelchair Dalton left in the room. It takes every ounce of her feeble strength to hoist herself into the chair.
By the time she’s seated, she wants to go back to bed, but she forces herself to wheel next door. Dalton’s already beat her to it, along with a trio of nurses and a fat, bald man in a white coat who must be the doctor. Apex is on her feet, eyes blazing red and fists clenched.
“What is going on here? What’s happened to us?”
“Take it easy, Stan. I can explain. Somewhat,” Dalton says.
“It was an alien device,” Midnight says. She hates how squeaky her voice sounds now, like a cartoon mouse. “Some nutjob feminist and her gang used it to make us girls.”
Apex’s eyes smolder and then return to normal. “Rob?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
“Oh my God!” a voice calls out. Velocity Man—or Woman—has her blanket raised and looks down at her new body. “Is this some kind of nightmare?”
“It’s plenty real,” Dalton says. “I need you two to relax before Dr. Harken here has to sedate you.”
“Go ahead and try,” Apex snaps.
“Come on, Stan, what are you going to do: bust out of a military hospital and go on a rampage? What good will that do?” Midnight says. She had been prepared to do the same thing two hours ago, but had seen the logic of Dalton’s argument. Someone like Apex or Velocity especially couldn’t go running around half-cocked—or no-cocked as it were.
Apex’s fists unclench. “No, I suppose not.” She collapses on the bed, which sends it crashing to the floor. Tears spring to her eyes, though Midnight doubts it’s from the pain.
“It could be worse,” Neptune says. She holds a mirror to stare at her face. “At least we aren’t ugly. Most of us anyway.” She glares at Midnight as she says this.
Midnight forces herself up from the chair. “You still want to go?”
“I don’t beat up children,” Neptune says with a sneer.
“Oh yeah?”
“Stop it!” Velocity shrieks. “Someone tell me what the hell happened.”
Dalton does so. By the time she finishes, Velocity is sobbing. “You mean you can’t change us back?”
“At the moment, no, but—”
“What the hell am I supposed to tell my wife? And Jenny? Shit, how long have we been gone? I have to call them—”
“That’s not a good idea,” Dalton says. “We’ll have Ralph at the lab give them a call. Tell them you’ve been sent out on a rush project out of cell range.”
“The hell with that!” Velocity gets to her feet. She tries to make a run for it, but manages only two steps before she trips just as Midnight did. Before she can get up again, Dr. Harken stabs a needle in her arm.
Apex steps towards the doctor. “What did you do that for?”
“We can’t have any of you leaving here,” Dalton says. “Not until we’ve prepared for it.”
“Prepared how?”
“I’ve been discussing that with the Pentagon. Until I hear back, you’re all confined to this hospital. And no phone calls, emails, text messages, or contact of any kind with the outside world. As of now the four of you are under house arrest.”
“I don’t think you want to try that, Major,” Apex says. Her voice might be higher in pitch, but it still drips with authority.
Major Dalton takes a remote from her belt. She presses a button. Instantly the room floods with green light. Apex drops to her knees, wailing in pain. “You…can’t keep…me here.”
“Stan, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Promise to cooperate and the light goes off. Or we can take you to the solitary room and flood the whole place with gamma rays. Understand?”
Apex’s fists clench. Her eyes light up again. She tries to get to her feet, but can’t. Between the change and the gamma rays, she’s too weak. She finally nods. “You win…for now.”
“Good.” Dalton presses a button on the remote. The room returns to normal. “I want your word you won’t try to escape.”
“I promise.”
“Thank you. I know I can take Stan Shaw’s word at face value. But just in case, you should know we have this entire basement rigged to lock down and fill with gamma rays strong enough to turn every normal person down here to ash.”
“I understand,” Apex mumbles. She rolls back onto her bed and sobs. Midnight can’t really blame her at the moment.
Chapter 5
It’s twelve hours later when Major Dalton gathers them in a lounge. Midnight notes the doors are locked with two armed guards posted outside. No doubt Dalton has that gamma ray trigger of hers too. For the moment no one’s tried to break out, but from the way Velocity twitches, she’s itching to try.
They each sit on a plastic chair facing Dalton, who sits with her chair backwards, a pose that’s never made sense to Midnight. Dalton motions to a box on a table between them. “Your new lives are in there, ladies. We’ve created new passports, birth certificates, and the rest. I’ll be going over your cover stories to drill them into you until it’s like you really were born with a vagina.”
Midnight’s face warms though she knows it shouldn’t at the mention of that piece of anatomy. She used hers for the first time eight hours earlier. She had expected some pain, but everything had flowed naturally without diffic
ulty. She found that more disturbing than comforting.
Dalton reaches into the box to take out one stack of papers. She hands these to Apex. “From now on—at least until we can reverse this—your name is Starla Marsh. The computer generated it based on your old name and names of dead people we could piggyback on.”
Apex—Starla—says nothing to this. She begins to scan over the documents. Dalton hands a pile of papers to Velocity. “You’re Allison Sable. And Ellis is now Elise Gold.”
“Cute,” Elise says. She’s had the easiest time coping with the change so far; Midnight suspects it’s because she largely had a girl’s sensibilities when she was a man.
“Rob, I didn’t see much need to change yours.” Dalton hands over the documents. Midnight’s cheeks warm again as she sees the full name is mostly the same as before: Robin Holloway. The only difference is the middle name has changed from James to Jane.
What’s more damning is the new date on her birth certificate. “Seventeen? I’m not seventeen!”
“The geniuses at the Pentagon determined that based on your height, weight, and other characteristics. I tried to push them to eighteen, but they didn’t listen,” Dalton says.
“Too bad, kid,” Elise says. She pats Midnight on the head, which prompts Midnight to get to her feet. When Elise stands, she’s a good six inches taller and probably twenty pounds heavier. No matter, Midnight has taken on larger opponents before.
Dalton gets between them. “That’s enough, ladies. This is no time for bickering.”
“How soon until we can get out of here?” Allison asks.
“I’m not sure.” Dalton clears her throat. “I’m not sure you people understand the gravity of the situation. We can’t just tell the world that its four greatest superheroes have turned into women. There’d be panic in the streets. All our enemies—yours and America’s—would decide to take a poke at us to see if they could get away with it. So until we can reverse this, we have to keep it Top Secret.”
“How long are we supposed to keep my family in the dark? And what about Stan’s—Starla’s—job at the newspaper? And Elise’s people in Pacifica? How long you think you can keep them fooled?”
Midnight feels another damnable surge of emotion that Allison doesn’t mention her. Maybe she doesn’t have a wife or child or kingdom, but she has Jasper and her job with Holloway Corporation. What’s she supposed to tell them now? Especially since at seventeen she can’t even legally sign a contract; she’ll need a legal guardian—
“Rob, what’s wrong?” Dalton asks.
“It’s nothing,” Midnight says. She wipes furiously at her cheeks. “Just these stupid hormones.”
“Right. That’s another thing. This is going to be a huge adjustment for you all. Being a woman isn’t easy. I’ve been doing it nearly forty years and it’s still a pain in the ass. And you gals don’t have the luxury of a normal childhood to learn the ropes. That’s why the Pentagon decided to bring in a heavy hitter to help us.”
The door opens and in comes a woman of the type Midnight used to routinely take to bed in order to keep the tabloids sated. She has the long legs, hourglass figure, enormous breasts, and long blond hair of a supermodel—or Barbie doll. Her face has the taut skin of someone who’s had one too many Botox injections and facelifts to keep Father Time at bay.
Elise squeals like a girl at a One Direction concert and leaps to her feet. If she had a pen and paper, she would probably offer it to the woman. “Oh my God, you’re Samantha Cash! I loved you on Extreme Model Makeover.”
“Thanks, it’s always good to meet a fan,” Cash says. Midnight cringes as she remembers making that same lame joke to the Feminazi before she blinded him.
Cash surveys the room, her gaze stopping on Midnight. “Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
***
Over the next two weeks they attend what Cash refers to as “finishing school.” What it finishes is killing any self-respect Midnight might still have. She yearns to wake from this nightmare and to find herself back at the mansion with her penis still attached.
The first day Dr. Harken does a guest lecture on female anatomy. He tells them all about their new parts: the breasts, vagina, ovaries, and uterus that make them girls instead of boys. Cash joins in when he gets to talking about periods, PMS, and everything else to do with that fun time of the month for women.
“This one photo shoot I was doing for Vogue in Bermuda they wanted me to wear a white bathing suit. Right in the middle of the shoot they had to stop because there were red spots showing. I was sooo embarrassed.”
Elise laughs like this is the funniest thing ever. She and Cash have become fast friends; it probably helps that Elise looks like Cash’s little sister. Or Cash looks like what Elise will twenty years from now if she’s still a woman.
The ultimate embarrassment is to have Cash supervise while they try out tampons and maxi pads. She shakes her head at Midnight. “Sweetie, you have to get it up in there. Don’t be shy.”
“I’m not shy,” Midnight growls. “I’m just not as comfortable shoving things up my orifices as Elise is.”
“Other than that stick you always have up your ass,” Elise says and snaps her fingers.
Midnight resists the urge to shove something up another of Elise’s orifices. With her eyes closed, she gets the tampon inside, until Cash is satisfied. She removes it the second Cash turns her back.
Day Two Cash takes over to discuss grooming. She uses Elise as her mannequin to practice brushing and styling her hair. “Why can’t I just cut it off?” Midnight whines. Her long red hair has become tangled and greasy since she woke up, plus it constantly gets in her face when she walks or turns her head.
“Now, sweetie, you don’t want to look like a boy, do you?”
“I don’t care.”
“But it’s so pretty.”
“I don’t want to be pretty!”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Elise says. Starla and Allison get between them before anything can happen.
So far Starla and Allison have remained relatively quiet. They follow the lessons and do what they need to by rote. Midnight knows they aren’t any happier about this than she is. Allison especially must want to get out of here.
At lunch, while Elise and Cash blather about Cash’s glory days, Midnight sits with Starla and Allison. She leans forward to whisper, “Why are we still here? Let’s blow this Popsicle stand and go home.”
“We can’t,” Starla says.
“Come on, all you have to do is punch a hole in the wall and fly out of here. Allison can run out of here before they can even raise their guns.”
“I promised the major I wouldn’t leave,” Starla says. Despite how her face has changed, it still has that same dopey earnestness to it when she says things like this.
“So what? The major also threatened to kill everyone in this prison. You really think you should worry about a promise made to someone like that?” Midnight turns to Allison. “Al, I know you’re with me. You want to go home, don’t you?”
Allison looks down at her tray. She must have one of those emotional surges as tears sparkle in her eyes. “I do, but how can I? Look at me. What am I supposed to tell Sally and Jenny?”
“If they love you, what difference does it make? They’ll be happy you’re alive.”
“Maybe.” Allison sniffles. “For now I think I’ll let things play out.”
“Am I the only one who still has some balls?” Midnight shouts. “They have us locked up like prisoners! Like all those punks we busted! How can you sit here and take it?”
“What choice do we have?” Starla says. “Major Dalton is right: if the world finds out, it’ll be bedlam. We’re better off in here until we can figure out what to do.”
A hand takes hold of Midnight’s shoulder. She tries to shake it off, but it’s too strong for her. “I think that’s e
nough, Robin,” Dalton says.
“Don’t call me that! There’s a reason I never used that name before.”
“Fine, Rob. I think we need to talk in private.”
“Afraid to say it in front of witnesses?”
“You can come with me peacefully or I can drag you there by the ear like my five-year-old niece.”
“Fine,” Midnight says with a huff. She stomps after Dalton into the lounge where they took their lessons. Midnight drops onto a chair. She tries to cross her arms, but her stupid breasts keep getting in the way. “What do you want?”
“Look, Rob, I get it. You’re angry. You kind of got the short end of the stick on this. But I need you to get on board.”
“Why?”
“Because I care about you. I want what’s best for you. And right now that’s to accept that this change is most likely permanent, unless you use those billions of yours for some surgery.”
Midnight snorts at this. She’s considered this a few times late at night, but always casts the thought aside. If she got sex change surgery she’d still be a scrawny little seventeen-year-old; she’d just have a fake penis. “I don’t want that.”
“Then what other options are there?” Dalton stares at her until Midnight can’t take it and has to look away. “You’re one of the smartest people I know, Rob. You already know the score. You know sooner or later you’re going to have to accept what’s happened. I think right now you’re too scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know, maybe that you might like it.”
“That’s not likely.”
“Then what do you have to worry about? If nothing else, go through the motions. Stop giving Elise and Ms. Cash such a hard time. Stop being such a pain in my ass.”
“Why? So you can keep us locked up in here?”
“You’re locked up in here for your own protection. What do you think will happen if Clownface or Ion Girl or Major Carnage finds out the mighty Midnight Spectre is a little girl now? They’ll be running wild—and not just them—”
“Yeah, you said that already.”
“I’m hoping maybe this time it’ll get through that thick skull of yours.” Dalton comes over to put a hand on Midnight’s shoulder; this time it’s loose enough for her to shake it away. “Listen, sweetheart, it could be a lot worse. You could have ended up three hundred pounds with a club foot and halitosis.”