“Right.”
“Sure.”
“What about Wood’s protection detail for you?” Cory asked.
“The one in D.C. will pick us up,” he said.
Everybody strapped in.
The jet took off from Santa Barbara to the west, out over the ocean, then turning to angle toward the east, climbing to flight level three five oh, 35,000 feet.
“Doritos?” the cook/steward asked Cory.
“First class joint,” Wood said. He reached over and took the bag that was offered to Cory.
The steward gave Cory another bag.
Drinks were served to everyone.
Cory turned his seat around, facing Marie, Lori, and Wood, but he stared at Marie. “You mind?” He indicated questions.
“Sure,” Marie said.
“You were— That lovely, little—”
Marie giggled at him. “Yes.”
“How in the hell?” he asked Lori.
“Cory,” Lori said. “Like I said—”
“Yeah, but this isn’t just a species change. It’s an evolution. The neuro-circuitry—”
Lori nodded.
“What evolution,” Wood asked.
“Marie,” Cory said. “She used to be Lori and John’s English Springer Spaniel. Now, she’s—Lori’s human daughter?”
Lori smiled, took out her cell phone to show pictures to Wood. “See? Here she is playing on the beach—”
The photo was of a dog chasing a stick.
“What?!” Wood said gaping at Marie.
“Jim— Cory!” Lori said. “You guys—”
“You kept this a big secret!” Cory said.
“That’s what R&D is,” Lori said. “But it worked, and now I’m going to show it to Cadence— Try to get Marie a birth certificate—”
Wood got out of his chair to stand apart from them. “You used Lwaxana to morph her into being?”
“Yup,” Marie said.
Wood went over to Marie and touched her on the shoulder.
Marie giggled.
“How old are you?” Wood asked.
“Twenty,” Marie said. “I guess. I mean, I was fourteen, but that was dog years, which means I was elderly there, but I’m about twenty, here.”
“You remember being a dog?”
Marie nodded.
“What’s it like?” Cory asked.
“You remember being five years old?” Marie asked him.
Cory nodded.
“It’s probably like that. You were here. You knew it. You remember things. You had feelings. But not much cerebral detail. Kinda like that—as if you used to be that, a long time ago, but now you’re all grown up.
“Dogs are people, too, you know,” Marie said. “There isn’t much difference other than simplicity and form. Genetically, we’re close enough.”
“How did she learn all this stuff in only three months?” Cory asked Lori. “I mean, there is so much less neural activity in a canine brain compared to a human. Where did you get the brain to grow her into, if you will? Without losing the neural net that made her her?”
“I asked Lwaxana to make a template for her as she was, then I asked her to successively blend one of my more playful templates with hers over time—through several steps over a couple of months—and voila: Marie.”
“Why not all at once?” Cory asked.
“I thought it would be important for her to experience life with each step, to help memories root.”
“We took it in as few steps as possible,” Marie said. “Kinda like growing up without much waiting.”
“So she knows a lot of things you know,” Cory said to Lori. Then to Marie, “You know a lot of the same things Lori knows?”
Marie nodded. “Not everything, but a lot of it, I guess.”
“John?”
Marie nodded.
“Coming to Earth in a space ship?”
“A little,” Marie said.
“Having sex?”
Marie giggled.
“My memories aren’t the same as hers,” Marie said, “but you can think of it as if we were raised in the same house, experienced a lot of the same things.”
“She’s a mini-you,” Cory asked Lori.
“No, not like that. Just—more like my daughter. Which she really is, D.N.A. and all.”
Lori gave Marie another hug and turned back to them. “The old standard of the species was that you had to be born that way. Nothing else was possible. Same for sex or gender. But that’s old school.”
“You embarrassed to have been a dog?” Cory asked her. “It’s a cut down, to humans. Shouldn’t be, but—”
Marie laughed at Cori. “No. It was fun! I could run like nobody’s business. And I’m great, now, too. I love this.”
“Holy buckets,” Wood said.
“You got that saying from me,” Cory said.
“It’s mine, now.”
The President sat gracefully in one of the two couches in her Oval Office.
Lori, Marie, Cory, Wood, and Georgina Wells, Secretary of State, sat or stood variously around the office.
Gadin took a seat next to Marie.
“Thank you, Gadin, for getting my transmuter up and running,” Cadence said.
“No problem,” Gadin said, smiling at everyone. “Glad to be of service! Marie! I don’t believe what I’m hearing from them. You look beautiful!”
Marie’s eyes glanced at Lori and Cory, then back to Gadin. “Thank you,” she said. “So do you.”
“I never knew you from before,” Gadin said. “I’m sorry. But I’m glad to meet you now. Lori’s new daughter?”
“She’s been my mother, and John my father, my whole life. I’ve never known a time without them.”
“Did you know when your father died?”
Marie looked to Lori then back to Gadin and nodded. “I knew it was something, because Mom was so upset. I think I sensed it, without knowing the words. I was sad, too.”
“I’m so sorry for you,” Gadin said.
“You were an effing dog!” Gina said, which lightened the mood for everyone. “Oh! Sorry, Marie. It’s not a cut. It’s just that I’m amazed.” She went over and gave Marie a big hug.”
“That’s one of the things I’d like to do here, today?” Lori said it like a question. “Do I need to adopt her to claim her? Can she be a citizen? I mean, she’s real.”
“We’ll work it out,” Gina said. “No problem. One way or another, she’s yours.” She turned to Marie. “You were born in the U.S.?”
“Yes. In Kansas, actually.”
“Well, that makes it easier.”
“You good with this?” Gina asked. “Say your whole name?”
“Marie Curie Faraday. And yes, She is my mother. John Michel Faraday was my father. I am Lori’s daughter.”
“Birth certificate.” Gina turned to Lori. “You know you’re both young adults, now.” She rolled her eyes. “This world is so different.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Cory said.
“All of you have the little T on your left temple— You didn’t used to have one, Lori— But then you are younger, now, so you would.”
“While we’re in process, I thought a person might want to mark as a T so that social systems and people will know their old I.D. is a mis-match. Once pretty much everyone in the world goes through this, it will have no point, so it’ll be phased out. But we’ll have to use retinas or finger prints or something. At least that’s my thought.”
Gina smiled. “Everybody’s becoming trans.”
Cadence thought. “Lori, could someone use one of the transmuters to do this to others? Like Marie?”
Lori shook her head. “No. Lwaxana and I discussed it beforehand. The transmuters are for humans, for rejuvenation only, health, longevity. That’s what it’s for. Other things, I’ve reserved.”
“Could they use transmuters to make a race of superbeings?” Cadence asked. “Supersoldiers? An army of Arnold Swarzeneggers
?”
“No,” Lori told her. “Same thing. We discussed it. The same template, or similar templates, cannot be used that way. It’s just about rejuvenation, adjustments in appearance—fitting with that, changes in gender, sex—which are becoming rather popular, I hear?”
“They are,” Gina said. “Some twenty percent of all people going through transmuters seem to be opting to be the other gender—aware they can switch back later if they don’t like it—and I hope it works out, too, because if anything ever went wrong with the gizmos, they’d be stuck with it. And the thing is, maybe fifteen percent of those who want the other gender want certain features—or even want to be interex, like Lori.”
Gina shook her head.
Cory looked at Gina critically.
“That head shake,” Gina said, “is wonderment, not criticism. And the truth is, I— Once transmuters are fully integrated into society, after the big rush when everyone’s trying to stay alive, making quick-decisions in their life, after they’re a part of norml living? What will people wind up doing with themselves?” Gina looked to people for ideas. Seeing none, “I think the range of variation in human expression will be—”
Cory finished for her, “Much greater than anyone ever expected—”
Gina nodded. “It’s a trans world.”
Cory continued, “The way it’s been, we’ve been locked into a form rather set at birth, and then only with limited variations allowed by the former state of medical technology.”
“What’s the rate of people asking to be reverted to their former gender?” Lori asked.
Gina shook her head. “Of the hundreds of thousands who have opted for it so far? Only a few, but it also hasn’t been very long, so far.”
“It can be quite a shift,” Cory said.
All turned to look at him.
Cory explained, no longer self-conscious. “I’ve always been a man, mis-assigned at birth because of external features. I was transgender, switched to a man. Lori took my transition to where I wanted it, so I’m just male, now—trans, like everyone else.”
“No kidding?” Wood asked.
Cory nodded to him. “And I thought I’d like to go for the whole salami. Wanna see?” Cory stood and readied himself to remove his pants.
“No!” Gina said. “No problem.”
Cadence and others smiled at him. “We believe you.”
Cory grinned and sat back down.
Cadence asked. “But what if a certain body type becomes popular, like something that looks like Angelina Jolie or something?”
“Well,” Lori said. “They could. We could have millions of Angelina Jolies and Brad Pitts running around, I guess. But they would not be super-soldiers, unless they were in a movie and there was a good script.”
Cadence asked Lori, “What about the intelligence in the transmuters’ artificial intelligence trying to reach out and infect global computer systems? Taking over?”
Lori explained, “These transmuters, the intelligence within them, are A.I.s far ahead of our own. And unlike may be shared in sci-fi novels, the smarter you get, the more you weigh things, and that includes an A.I. bigotry, where they might think they’re superior to us organic thinking machines. We’re being nurtured by them, for sure. It’s been going on for a hundred thousand years. It’s nothing new. But it’s subtle. For betterment, where it occurs, and, actually, it’s based on human desire to be better—like Cory, there. You wanted to be how you felt would be better in some ways—”
Cory nodded.
Lori explained further. “But they do not think they’re better than us. There is built within a respect for life as it chooses to grow, nurtured only along a path that is sought. Interference is unwise, something Ahleth have known for millions of years, though some big mistakes have happened. We’re not perfect. All other transmuters I’ve created on this planet, generations down from Lwaxana, are a copy of her brain—in he areas of human rejuvenation and shape, only.”
“And you broke the code to help us,” Cadence said.
“Uh, that I did,” Lori said. “I— I’ve been wondering about this a long time. At some point, a society can move into an age of rejuvenation. That is not unusual. What’s unusual is for someone like me to make the decision. It’s above my paygrade.”
Cadence thought. “What was your role in Ahleth society?”
“I was like a navigator on the ship,” Lori said. “And, I think, trouble-maker.”
“You weren’t the captain?” Gadin asked.
Lori shook her head. “I had good spatial awareness. I interfaced with the ship’s A.I. in getting us from place to place.”
“So you were like a junior officer?” Cadence asked.
“Uh, medium, I guess. There were no officers, or enlisted. A different system. I was the one who did that, and I’ve made a unilateral decision to do this. It’s not what I’m supposed to do.”
“What about transmuters working with other Ahleths who are on this planet?”
CHAPTER
14
Lori, Cadence, and Gina left the others to talk in the Oval Office, while they went down the hall to an elevator.
“Gadin got it all set up for us,” Cadence said. “Supposedly it’s fine. Do you have a way to check that it’s set up right?”
“Hasn’t Gadine already run some people through it?” Lori asked.
“Yes,” Gina said. “A few of us from State, some administrative staff. But it’s just that she’s the President.”
Lori nodded.
Inside the elevator, Cadence pressed a button for a lower floor. The doors closed on one floor and opened on another.
One physician and two Secret Service agents were waiting for them. “Good morning, Madam President,” one said.
“Hello Harry,” Cadence said. “Good to see you.” Then to Lori, “Harry runs my detail.”
“We’d like to run some checks before you go in as well as after. If that’s okay?”
Cadence nodded. “I understand.”
The agent held up an instrument and read Cadence’s retina. Cadence placed her hand on a palm reader to scan both her palm and finger prints. The physician drew a little blood.
Lori waited patiently while they finished.
“All done?” Cadence asked.
Everyone nodded.
Cadence took a large breath and let it out sowly, then spoke to Lori. “It’s kinda important to do this right.”
“Yes, it is,” Lori said.
“Gina?” Cadence asked her Secretary of State. “Look good to you?”
Cadence nodded. “I’ve been getting a bit of a cold. We might as well shake that, too.”
“We’ll be alone in there,” Cadence said.
“Be back in a few,” Lori said. “We’ll talk. She’ll decide. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”
Lori and Cadence entered the next room together and closed the door behind them.
The Cadence who emerged from the room twelve minutes later appeared to be the same woman, though younger, in her forties.
Lori looked calm.
“Madam President?” Gina asked.
“Lets see,” Cadence said. “Scan me, Harry?”
The Agent checked her with his instruments. “Same retina, same fingerprints.” Blood was drawn. “We’ll check the D.N.A. right away, but, yes, you appear to be the President. May I take your new photo for the computer’s image recognition system, Madam President?”
“Sure.” Cadence stood against a wall for its bland background. Several photos were taken of her, the T on her left temple, with a smile, without…
“I need to do a systems check,” Gina said. “Madam President, what party are you?”
Cadence grinned at Gina. “The party of we ain’t in no way stuck up.”
Gina smiled. “What do you think about abortion?”
“I’m in favor a woman’s right to choose,” Cadence said.
“An LGBT Equal Rights Amendment?”
“Of course,
” Cadence said. “Better yet, an all-human equal rights amendment.”
“The war on drugs?” Gina asked.
“Frightful waste of money. We should legalize and tax the things. Balance the budget in two weeks. What are we doing letting the black market administer the business.”
“What was that business we discussed before you were even elected?” Gina asked.
Cadence leaned over and whispered into Gina’s ear.
Gina smiled and withdrew. “Sounds like her,” she said to Harry.
“You didn’t want to look twenty?” Harry asked Cadence.
Cadence shook her head. “The world’s not all that accustomed to transmutation yet. I’ll still get more respect if I look a little older. But I’m twenty, inside, where it counts. The forty is just appearance.”
Harry looked at Cadence earnestly. “Can I do it?”
All looked at each other then him. “Have we got a minute,” Cadence asked.
“Sure,” Gina said.
Harry looked relieved, as if a huge stress was being removed.
Nine minutes later, two women exited the transmutation room, looked at the group.
Lori was smiling.
The other woman also had a T on her left temple and was crying.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lori said. “Please let me introduce Hanah.”
Hanah was the same height Harry had been, a striking 6’ tall model from a Paris fashion show, slim and shapely. She wore harry’s suit coat over her shoulders, yet she was nude otherwise, as there was no way Harry’s pants would fit over her ample hips. Where Harry’s hair had been brown, Hanah had long blond hair, which fell loosely around her shoulders.
Hanah’s face was red. Tears streamed. Her hands flew to her cheeks to wipe them dry.
Everyone stared at Hanah’s crotch, glancing up now and then at other parts of her body.
“I’m sorry,” Hanah said, “but I just couldn’t tell on the chance it wouldn’t happen—”
“Jesus, Harry,” the other Secret Service agent said. “You wanted to be like Lori? The penis—”
“I like it!” Hanah said. “So what of it! Lori has one!”
“Sounded like a girl when she said that,” the agent said. “You also have a vagina? Can you still shoot—I bet so.”
“Not funny,” Lori said.
“Does anyone have a dress?” Hanah looked to all of them for an answer.
“I don’t think you can work well on my detail in a dress,” Cadence said. “You can’t manage it. And sensitble shoes for running will look wretched with it—”