Now What?

[LilJennie]

This story was my idea ... it's extremely loosely inspired by El Goonish Shive, which has better characters, and is also a sequel to our story "Center of Creation." Why I thought a pseudo-superhero story would fit into the "Center" universe is a good question. Anyway, it was fun. -- LilJennie

Now What?

by LilJennie and Miki Yamuri

“Oh, hey, Jason, come in!” said Patrick. Jason entered his best friend’s house and took off his shoes. “I already ordered us some pizzas.”

“Hey, great!” said Jason. “I heard Star Armada 2 came out … did you get it? Wanna play?” Jason and Patrick had been playing video games and hanging out together since they were kids. Now that they were both in college, they still lived in the same town, though Jason still lived with his parents while Patrick had moved to an apartment. It was more of a townhouse, really, with a basement downstairs and a bedroom upstairs.

“Well, Jason …” Patrick began, closing the door. “You know those experiments I was doing, with that thing I found?” Jason couldn’t help wondering whether something was wrong with Patrick’s voice. It seemed higher than normal.

“Yeah, you’ve been messing with that thing since we were … what, 14?” Jason remembered the day when it fell in Patrick’s back yard. A meteorite, they’d both thought, though they’d only seen a flash of light. A meteorite had been the only explanation. Patrick hadn’t told his parents for some reason. They’d been out at the time.

The thing was … the rock, if that’s what it was, was a perfect geometric shape, a regular dodecahedron. And it glowed. It had never stopped glowing. They were both 19 now, and in those five years it had never stopped glowing. Patrick kept it inside a closed box when he wasn’t trying to figure it out.

“Something, er, happened,” said Patrick. “And it’s reproducible.”

“What?” said Jason. “That’s awesome! You gotta show me!”

“I can’t wait to!” said Patrick, bouncing downstairs to where he kept his workbench. Jason followed. He entered the basement to see a complicated apparatus. The stone was clamped into the center of it, and it was positioned in the center of a number of black tubes that led from a bunch of devices to the twelve faces of the stone … Jason couldn’t guess more than that. He was a poli sci major.

“Whoa,” said Jason. “You’ve really been stepping up your science game.”

“Twelve tunable lasers, each pointed at one face of the dodecahedron,” said Patrick. “They’re exactly the same wavelength as the peak of the light coming from the stone. The system can calibrate them automatically so they’re all in phase. Took me a while to buy all these lasers. They aren’t cheap.”

“I bet,” Jason said. “So … what happens?”

“First let me show you something,” Patrick said. He was wearing a pretty baggy sweatshirt but took it off to reveal a T-shirt below, but that’s not all Jason noticed … Patrick had small but definitely recognizable breasts. His figure … it looked like a girl’s. Now, Jason and Patrick had their secrets; Patrick had always fantasized about being a girl, and Jason was starting to suspect that he himself was actually trans, but hadn’t gone to any therapy about it. It was something they talked about when they were alone. But … this was astonishing.

“Have … have you been on hormones without telling me?” Jason asked.

“No, nothing like that,” said Patrick. “It’s because of this!”

“What, you fire up the machine, and boom, you’re a girl?” asked Jason.

“It’s more than that,” Patrick replied. “I’ve switched back and forth several times. And it can do more than that … I just haven’t figured out why yet.”

Jason stared in amazement. “It can do more than that? Isn’t that incredible enough? Can it … make me a girl too?”

“I assume it can,” said Patrick. “I don’t see why it would only work for me. Do you … want to try?”

“I don’t know,” said Jason. “It’s not going to, I don’t know, give me cancer or something?”

Patrick said, “What kind of scientist would I be if I didn’t test for radiation and other dangerous phenoma? I haven’t detected anything like that. Want me to light it up?”

“I … I guess so,” Jason said. “You can change back?”

“Yeah, I’ve done it a bunch of times,” Patrick said, flipping a switch and tapping on a computer keyboard.

“How … do you do it?” Jason asked. “I mean … what do I do?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Patrick. “I’m not sure why yet, but you have to touch the stone. Don’t worry, it doesn’t get hot or anything. And while you do, think about what you want to look like. I’ve tried it with long hair, short hair, different colored hair, big boobs, small boobs, whatever. It somehow takes its cue from your thoughts.” A humming sound was coming from each of the lasers’ power supplies. The stone, which always glowed a soft violet shade, was lit up brighter now.

“It doesn’t work unless you touch the stone, and it can read your thoughts?” asked Jason. “That doesn’t sound very … scientific.”

“I don’t have a complete explanation for it yet,” Patrick said over the humming sound. “Hey, you know what? Since you have to touch the stone to make it work, I’m calling it the Touchstone.”

“That’s great … uh … is it … ready?”

“Yep!” Patrick said. “Just clear your mind and think only of what you would want to look like as a girl. Then … just touch it.”

Jason reached out a finger. He couldn’t see the laser beams; they were apparently traveling through the straight black tubes leading from the lasers to the stone. But there was still plenty of reachable surface area. He thought … he’d always imagined himself looking basically the same, with the same brown-blond hair, just longer, and with rounder features, and thinner eyebrows, and a medium-sized chest … he reached out and touched the stone.

Its surface was warm to the touch, but not hot. When he made contact, he seemed to hear a voice in his mind. “Ah, yes, you’re the one this was meant for,” it said. “The other one is an excellent conduit, but you are even better. Things are about to get … interesting …”

Jason suddenly had a feeling as if he was waking up after a long sleep, but simultaneously felt as if no time had passed at all. He was still standing there touching the stone. He drew his finger back. Did his hands look … different?

He saw Patrick also removing his finger from the stone, and he looked male again. Not that Patrick was a big burly guy under the most normal of circumstances; he was built pretty slightly. Patrick must have taken the opportunity to change himself back. While Patrick tapped on his keyboard and the lasers powered down, Jason looked down at his body. He had … wow. He had a chest. He had curves. He had long hair.

“What … the … “ said Jason. His voice was higher. “Oh my … wow!”

“Wow, look at you!” said Patrick. “You’re … you look … amazing!”

Then a sound came from the apparatus on the workbench. It was a loud crack.

The Touchstone had split in two. It was still clamped in place in many places, but it had a large, visible crack right through its center. Patrick gasped in horror.

So did Jason. Was he stuck this way?

“Patrick!” Jason said. “That’s … that’s supposed to happen, right? That’s normal? You can change me back, right? No, of course that’s not normal, that’s broken, it’s busted forever … what am I gonna tell my parents? What am I gonna tell my girlfriend? What am I gonna tell the university? What am I gonna tell my doctor? What am I gonna tell my bank? What am I gonna do?”

“I … I … dunno,” said Patrick. “But … but … ok, you’re still my friend. I’m gonna help you figure this out. I gotta see if I can fix it first. Maybe I can still change you back. If not … uhhhh …”

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“So what’s the big secret emergency now?” asked Tamara as she came downstairs into the basement. Jason was sitting there in an ill-fitting T-shirt and jeans, looking disconsolate.

Patrick was practically babbling at her in his panic. She was a childhood friend of both of them, and Patrick had called her. “Oh, Tamara, thank god you’re here, you’re our friend, and you’re really smart, and we need your help …”

“Hey, you’re plenty smart yourself, Patrick, and who’s that?” She looked at Jason, who looked up.

“Uh … h-hi Tamara …” said Jason.

“Um, hello?” Tamara said questioningly. “How do you know my name? Who are you again?”

Patrick said, “Tamara, deep breath. That’s Jason.”

“Jason … is a girl now.” Tamara stared levelly at Patrick, as if trying to gauge whether he’d gone insane.

Patrick just nodded.

“It … it just happened,” said Jason. “I … I guess …”

Tamara said, “Well, I saw you yesterday, and hormones don’t work like that, let alone hair growth, so I’m gonna imagine this is one of your crazy experiments gone wrong, Patrick.”

“My experiments are not crazy! This one worked perfectly! Up until the stone cracked! And now I can harmonize the lasers with it all I want, but nothing happens! We’ve tried!”

“And now Jason is a woman.”

“And now Jason is a woman, yes.”

“Well, Jason,” said Tamara, “I knew you’d come out to yourself, I knew you’d been thinking about going to therapy for dysphoria … but now I guess you’re like the dog who caught the car it was chasing, right? The question is what you do about it now.”

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Jason could feel the panic rising as the reality of the situation started to catch up. He was … a woman now. He was stuck like this. There was no way back. This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a fantasy. He’d been inwardly thinking of himself as a girl who’d been accidentally born as a boy for as long as he could remember but had been acting like a boy for the sake of his parents, his friends other than a few chosen and trusted confidants, and school. But Jason guessed there was no point in pretending anymore, was there? He didn’t have to keep thinking of himself as “he” if there was no one on Earth who could reasonably call him that, right?

This should have been her perfect solution, but the panic kept rising. She began to whimper as tears slowly began running down her cute face, “W … wh … what am I gonna do?” She held out her arms and looked down. “How am I possibly gonna explain the fact that I’m a girl now? I hope at least my fingerprints haven’t changed, so I can prove I’m who I say I am.”

Tamara took Jason by her hand and said, “Look, the first thing we gotta do is get you into some proper clothes.” She pointed to the way oversized and baggy clothing Jason currently had on. It was designed to fit a larger person, and one who had a different shape.

Jason looked down at herself. “Y-yeah … I’d think something that fit a bit better would be nice. At least I wouldn’t have to keep holding up my pants to keep them from falling off.”

Tamara giggled to herself. She’d sometimes helped Jason do makeup and dress up. For a long time she’d known he was trans and just wanted to be a girl, but since puberty it had become more difficult for him … no, her now … to believably look like a woman. But that wouldn’t be a problem anymore, she assumed. She knew Jason had been sad about that.

This was the perfect time to show Jason just how pretty she could be. “You look to be about my size, if not a bit smaller, and in better shape too,” Tamara said. “I’m gonna have to be jealous of you now, aren’t I? ‘Scuse me for just a second.” Tamara lifted Jason's loose-fitting T-shirt up around her perky breasts, then softly cupped them in her hand to take her measure. “Looks like one of my sports bras would at least approximately fit you. C’mon, let’s get you over to my place, and we can get you dressed, then maybe get you something better.” She began leading Jason out of Patrick’s apartment and to her car, with Patrick following behind like a lovesick but worried puppy dog.

Once they were over at Tamara’s apartment, they headed up to her bedroom. Patrick tried to follow. “Oh, no,” said Tamara, “girls only.”

“But until today I’d been a girl all weekend,” said Patrick.

“Well you aren’t one right now,” Tamara said. Handing him the TV remote, she said, “Here, I’ve got Ruko. There’s a new Wisp series. Why don’t you check it out?”

“They made a series of that?” asked Patrick. “I love those comics!” as he flopped on the sofa and turned on the flatscreen TV.

Leading Jason into her room, Tamara went to her dresser and opened several drawers. From one, she took a grey colored sports bra and tossed it on the bed. She pulled from another drawer a really cute and sexy pair of white bikini panties with lace around the waist and legs and tossed them on the bed. She went to her closet and opened the door. She removed the cutest pair of hip hugger jeans she could find and tossed them on the clothing pile.

Tamara pointed at them and said, “I’m guessing you’re about the same size as me if a bit smaller, so try those on, and don’t be shy about it. You’re a girl now and should dress like one. We’ve gotta get you some clothes of your own, but you can’t go looking like that.”

Jason felt many things rush through her as she picked up the panties and held them up. She felt the heat in her ears and neck as a strong feeling of embarrassment washed through her. Tamara was enjoying watching Jason actually become the girl she had always felt she was. She didn’t know how some of her other problems were going to get solved, but for now maybe she could make one of her best friends distracted with happy thoughts while Tamara thought about what to do to help.

Tamara helped Jason strip down and tossed all her old baggy clothes into a pile in the middle of the bedroom floor. She held out the panties for her like she was a little girl and said, “Ok, step into your panties, time for you to get dressed.”

Jason shyly complied. She was surprised at how good it felt to have on a pair of panties that actually fit properly with no gaff or tucking. Jason turned, and Tamara handed her the sports bra.

Tamara said softly, “Hold up your arms, and i’ll show you how to arrange yourself so this is super comfy.”

Jason complied. It felt so .. different wearing a bra as a girl. Jason actually had really cute little breasts, and the bra more or less fit. It held her and even felt like it was caressing her.

Then Tamara held out the jeans. “OK, step in. You’ll have to put them the rest of the way on.”

Jason took the hip huggers and wiggled into them. Once she had put them on and buttoned the three buttons in front, she was astonished. As tight as they fit, they not only fit properly with no binding in her crotch, they enhanced her already very cute round bottom and showed off her very sexy curves. Maybe this wasn’t so bad for now. They were a tad bit loose, but then, they were just borrowed and they fit comfortably.

Tamara handed him a top. She said, “This is called a Pog .. sorta like a baby T.”

Tamara led Jason to her closet door and opened it after Jason had wiggled into the Pog. There, in the full length mirror’s reflection on the back of the door looking back, was an extremely pretty woman in a very sexy pair of jeans and top with a wide eyed expression of shock. The image’s hair was disheveled and needed something.

Tamara picked up a stiff bristled brush from her vanity and began to slowly brush Jason’s now shoulder length blonde hair. After several dozen strokes, Jason’s hair became soft, shiny, and supple. Tamara gathered it into a ponytail slightly off center and high on Jason’s head. Jason couldn’t believe that very sexy and beautiful girl looking back from the mirror's image when next he looked … was really her.

Tamra stepped back and admired her handiwork. Jason was now a very pretty and sexy girl and with these cloths on, even though they were slightly big, she was a real knockout. Tamara also knew that Jason would have to be very careful. She was now too cute and sexy for the guys not to notice, and since Jason hadn’t been raised as a girl, she wouldn’t know how to watch herself around men.

As she led Jason back into the living room, Tamara said with a slight giggle, “You’re gonna have to decide on a new name. There aren’t too many girls named Jason.”

Patrick stood and stared open-mouthed and saucer-eyed at the two girls. Both young women were the very flower of sexy young womanhood, and the way Jason was dressed left very little to his imagination.

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“Where are we going?” asked Jason. “To get me some clothes, I guess, but … I’m not sure where would be best. Mohl’s? TJ Minn’s?”

“Either of those would work,” said Tamara. “Heck, Mohl’s actually has men’s clothes too. But we are college students on a tight budget, so we’re going to Flor-Mart. We don’t need to get you evening wear. You just need some basics to get you started.”

“How do I pay for this?” asked Jason. “Will my … huh … I guess my credit card will probably work fine if I just use one of the self checkout things. No human to say I don’t look like a Jason.”

“Hey, what do we call you?” Patrick reminded her. “We can’t keep calling you Jason in public. Are you gonna use Jess?”

Jessica was the name that Jason had always wished she could have been given. It wasn’t quite the same as Jason, but it was similar. She did like the letter J. “Yeah, OK,” she said. “Let’s go with Jess. Jessica.”

“OK, Jess,” said Tamara. They drove on in silence for a few minutes, but then she finally said, “Wow. This is so weird. Now that I’m not panicking, what … how … how did this even happen? This just doesn’t happen. Patrick, you somehow did this, didn’t you? You and your experiments with that weird stone.”

“Yeah,” said Patrick. “but those are over now, with the Touchstone broken. It cracked right in half. It still glows, though, so there’s still some hope. And what’s more, I’ve never been able to break so much as a grain off it. No chisel or drill has even been able to so much as scratch it. But now it’s cracked.”

“What is that thing, anyway?” Tamara asked. “I know you found it in your yard after some kind of flash of light. I know you think it’s a meteorite. But is it?”

Patrick replied, “I’ve never heard of a meteorite like this. And I’ve been very careful who I showed it to. I don’t want anybody to take it away.”

“If it helps,” said Jess, trying out her name in her head, “maybe you’re gonna think I’m nuts, but I heard kind of a voice in my head when I touched it.”

“A voice?” asked Patrick. “I never heard a voice when I touched it … except …”

“Except?” Tamara asked. “Patrick. Jess. What. Did. It. Say. Could be important.”

“You first,” said Patrick to Jess. “You were about to.”

Jess responded, “It said I was the one it was meant for. It said the ‘other one’ was a great conduit but I was even better, whatever that means? And it said things are about to get interesting?”

“What,” said Patrick. “You’re a better conduit than me? What does that even mean?”

“How should I know?” Jess replied. “Were you going to say it talked to you too?”

“I …” began Patrick. “Well, when I found it, the first time I picked it up, I … I don’t know, it feels like it was a dream now. It said …” He spoke as if in a trance. “‘Yes, you are an excellent conduit. You will be able to open the door. And then it begins.”

“I don’t know if I like that,” said Tamara. “And then it begins? Open the door? Things getting interesting?”

Patrick said, “And I know I’ve told you before … it was never really like a meteorite. There was no hole in the ground where I found it. Not a blade of grass was burned, or even touched. Nobody saw how it got there in our back yard. I saw a flash of light come in the windows – in the middle of the night, a starry night with not a cloud in the sky, by the way, so it wasn’t lightning.”

“I feel like you didn’t tell me all of this to begin with,” said Jess.

Patrick replied defensively, “What? No, I totally did! It was so weird! OK, I didn’t tell you about the voice when I first touched it. I thought I was dreaming or imagining it.”

“OK, this is getting out of hand,” said Tamara. “Yeah, this is all very weird, but once we get you looking like you belong in that body, what do we do next? It might be time to start thinking about … well, how you prove that your bank account, your academic record, your medical records, legal records, and whatever are all yours. If you can’t prove you’re a citizen … they might throw you out of the country, the way things are now.”

“OMG you’re right,” said Jess. “That’s … they’re horrible about that now. Do I need to find a lawyer?”

“Maybe I can help with that,” said Patrick, getting out his phone. “Let me see if I can find a pro bono lawyer who does gender stuff.”

“OK good, that’s a step,” said Tamara. “If we can find a lawyer to help you for free or for not very much, they can get the process started of legally changing your name. Have … have you decided what to tell your parents?”

“Oh no, my parents!” Jess said. “What are they even going to do? They thought they had a son! They were wrong, but … I guess now they were really wrong!”

“I’m finding a few lawyers we could try,” said Patrick, “but I thought of something else. What if … well, what if they want you to go through medical testing? I mean, what are your tests gonna say? I don’t think you’re gonna look like a trans girl. I’m not a doctor or anything, but … are they gonna try to experiment on you or something? Are government spooks gonna get involved? National security?”

“How about you stick to lawyers, Patrick?” Tamara told him. “Here we are.”

Tamara took Jess to the women’s section, where they didn’t have much in terms of fashion, but they did have a selection of basic bras and panties. Tamara helped Jess zero in on her bra size and picked a number of things to try on until she had a good idea of what sizes she was. She made Jess write down all her sizes, too. “You can’t buy clothes online unless you know what size you are,” she said. “Of course, every manufacturer uses a slightly different size scheme. Oh, and they’re different in Europe too.”

“I know!” Jess said, having looked into that before. “It’s insane! I’d say I’m not putting up with it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Once Tamara had her clothes back and Jess was in a new sexy Billabong Romper and had several other outfits to choose from as well as a good number of undergarments, cute leggins, socks, and shoes, they paid and left. The automatic self-checkout machines didn’t raise a fuss about her not looking like a Jason, as it still said on her credit card, but that reminded her that they needed to get some kind of legal help … who would believe her.

“OK, here’s the first number,” said Patrick once they were in Tamara’s car. “State Legal Services, Inc. They represent a lot of trans people who need their documents changed, and they have a sliding scale based on how much you can afford.” He held up his phone so Jess could see the number. She got her own phone out and dialed it.

After pressing a few numbers to get through their phone system, she got a real person. “Hi, my name’s, uh, Jess Ellman and i … I’ve recently transitioned, and I … yes, I need legal help … it’s kind of different … I was wondering if I could … yes, I’ve, uh, transitioned already … uh well it’s a little hard to explain, so maybe if I could …”

She looked at the phone. “They hung up. They said if I went out of the country to get an unapproved procedure done for cheap, they couldn’t help me. Do they get a lot of that?”

“Huh,” said Patrick. “Try this one. Pro Bono Central, Inc.”

“OK,” said Jess, dialing. After pressing a few numbers, she said, “Yes, hi, this is related to gender transition legal services?” They’re transferring me. “Hi, yes … yes … yes … um sort of … yes … ok, how about tomorrow at 3? … OK.” She hung up. “OK, at least they’re willing to talk to me. But … aaaaaaaa … it’s getting to be almost 6 pm … what about my parents? I need somewhere to sleep tonight! I don’t know if they’ll believe I’m me! …”

“Look, Tamara believes you’re you, and I can tell them … uh …” began Patrick.

“Yeah, don’t tell them what happened,” said Jess. “The stone’s broken anyway. Just say you know it’s me and you don’t know how it happened.”

“That’s not far from the truth anyway,” said Patrick. “For as much as I used science, the stone has to be some kind of magic. By which I mean science we just don’t understand yet! The stone glowed nonstop for five years despite not being radioactive. And it’s still glowing despite being cracked! That means … something. I know it does …”

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“Mom’s home,” said Jess. “Her SUV’s in the driveway. Oh God. I’m sweating bullets.”

Tamara interrupted, “We don’t sweat, we perspire daintily.”

“Yeah, right,” Jess replied. “Well, I’m perspiring heavily, then.” She got out of Tamara’s car and fished in her new purse for her keyring. “Stupid girl clothes,” she muttered to herself. “It’s like somebody said, pockets? What are those? Fashion, now that’s important. Flor-Mart, so fashionable.” She unlocked the front door and entered.

Jess heard her mom’s voice from the kitchen. “Is that you, Jason? I’m making your favorite – Spaghetti Casserole with lots of extra mild cheddar.” She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Hi, Patrick – you too, Tamara. Who’s the new girl?” She pointed directly at Jess.

Jess felt a wave of dread rising within her as she said, “Hi, Mom. It’s me.”

The expression on her mother’s face went through several appearances until it settled on one that looked sort of annoyed, “Oh really? And just how are you going to justify that you are female and Jason is male?”

Patrick spoke up. “Umm, I’m sorry, Ma'am, but one of my experiments went wrong and …”

Tamara interrupted, “And we don’t know what went wrong or how, but the end result was, Jason is now Jess.”

“And you saw this happen?” she asked.

“Well, no,” said Tamara.

“I did!” Patrick said. “Look, I don’t know how it worked, but my experiment was working – I turned myself from male to female and back lots of times over the past week!”

“OK, if you were anyone else, I’d say you were nuts,” said Jess’ mom. “Actually I still say you are, but I mean it in a friendly way. And you saw this happen?”

“Yes!” said Patrick. “I got Jason to try it with me! I was already a girl. It switched me back at the same moment it changed … her … and then it broke!”

“You need to fix my son,” said Jess’ mom. “You did this. Fix it.”

“I can’t!” Patrick said. “I tried! Maybe with more time, but for now …”

“No,” Jess interrupted. “Mom. I don’t need to be fixed. I have always wanted to be a girl. I’ve never known how to tell you.”

“Jason …” she said, pausing. “I …”

“It’s really me, Mom.” Jess looked at her hands and said, “I’ll prove it. I think my fingerprints are still the same. I know there’s a set of them, and footprints, on my birth certificate. That might help prove it to you. I know a long time ago you use to work in forensics before you had me.”

Jess’ mom replied, “Well … you knew that. Anybody could have found that with research, but why? That’s a good idea. Put the lie or shine the truth on this once and for all. I only hope I still remember how to look at prints.”

She left the room. They could hear her fumbling around in the back, opening and closing drawers. She returned with the envelope that held Jason’s birth certificate, a roller, an inking board, and an ink pad. These were sitting on top of the 12 x12 inch inking board as she brought them to the table and pulled the certificate from the envelope. She held a magnifying glass viewer over the images of Jason’s prints on the certificate.

Next, she placed a sheet of paper under the spring clamps on the inking board and inked the roller well. Jess didn’t need to be told what to do next as she sat in the chair and let her mother ink her fingers and palm. Carefully and professionally, she rolled Jess’ fingers and palm prints onto the white paper. There were no smudges or smears – clearly she still remembered how to do it right – so the prints were easy to examine.

Even Jess looked. Under the magnifying lense, the prints on the certificate appeared to be exactly the same as the ones on the ink sample. Her mom’s eyes grew large as her mouth fell open in total shock.

“It’s true.” Jess’ mom gasped as she looked up at her. “I … I never told you that I knew, Sweetie, but I did. I can’t believe you got your childhood wish.” She came over to Jess and gave her a huge loving hug. “Now I have the daughter I’ve always wanted.” She held Jess at arm’s length. “And that romper you have on is really cute, too.”

Jess blushed, “Aww, Mom. It was Tamara who picked it out.”

Tamara said, “I’m so jealous too. She’s got a better figure than me.”

Mom laughed. “Don’t even think that. Not one person will notice any difference. I’m sure all the guys will flock around you like flies.”

Patrick laughed. All the women looked at him in one of those ways. He shut up, then shyly slunk to a sofa, and sat.

“Oh no – dinner!” said Jess’ mom and hurried back to the kitchen. From the other room they heard her shout back, “Oh good, it’s fine. OK. We have to tell your father when he gets home. He … I think he knows too. But he’s going to want to fix this, one way or another. And I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“I know, Mom,” Jess said. “Here, can I help?”

“Sure, Sweetheart,” she said. “Wash your hands and chop the meat.”

Tamara and Patrick stayed out in the front room. “They need mother and daughter time,” Tamara said to Patrick. “So you said something about a stone. You found it in your yard. Five years ago, you said.”

“Yeah, in the middle of the night,” said Patrick. “There was a flash of light, I went out, and there it was. Glowing with kind of a purplish bluish light. I picked it up. It wasn’t even hot.”

“And nothing happened until now?”

“Well, I tried lots of things with it,” Patrick said. “It wasn’t radioactive – nothing on the Geiger counter. It wasn’t toxic – I tried soaking it in water, but nothing dissolved from it. I tried etching it with a sub-zero treated tungsten carbide drill bit and even hitting it with a hammer and chisel – not even a scratch. I tried applying an electric current to it – now that was interesting, kind of. Different frequencies of alternating current had different resistances. And at the right ones … it lost its gravity.”

“What?” asked Tamara. “You mean it floated? Levitated?”

“Like it didn’t weigh anything anymore,” said Patrick. “That was neat, but I couldn’t get it to impart that property to anything else, just itself. So I kept trying things. Sound waves, different chemicals, radio frequencies. Finally I tried lasers.”

“I saw you had lots of lasers pointed at it,” Tamara said. “That’s what finally … worked? Assuming you call that working.”

“Well, that’s what finally did something amazing,” Patrick replied. “Somehow I knew there was something to the thing. But … now it’s broken.”

“It looks broken,” Tamara said. “And it seems broken. But see what you can do.”

“Wait,” said Patrick. “Cold welding. Cold welding!”

“What’s that?” asked Tamara.

“Well with metals at least, when two pieces of the same metal are really smooth and fit together perfectly, they can actually attach to each other,” Patrick explained. “As in, their molecules bond together. They have to be really smooth and perfectly clean. But … these two pieces used to be one piece. What if they can reconnect?”

“You have to what, clamp them together really tight?”

“I’ll make sure they’re really clean first,” said Patrick. “Spray them with alcohol to remove any dust. That’ll evaporate. Then I’ll try clamping them together. See if they bond.”

“If they do,” asked Tamara, “then what? Are you gonna offer to turn Jess back?”

“Maybe, but I doubt she’ll take me up on it,” replied Patrick. “Seems like to her this is a dream come true. No, I’ll try it and see what happens.”

“Uh, don’t do it alone,” said Tamara. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling.”

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“Hey, Tamara, hey Patrick,” said Jess’ dad when he came into the house and saw them there. “Guess we’ve got guests for dinner?”

“Hi, Honey!” came the voice of Jess’ mom from the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad!” came Jess’ voice from the same direction at almost the same time. Jess’ voice wasn’t drastically different from Jason’s, thought Tamara and Patrick, so it wasn’t surprising when her dad didn’t react right away.

“Hello, something smells good!” Jess’ dad called back.

“OK, here we go,” said Jess’ mom. “Just carry it like that.”

Then Jess and her mom came out with casserole dishes full of food, setting them on the dining room table. “Here we go!” Jess’ mom said again, probably meaning more than one thing.

“Hi Dad,” said Jess to her father, blushing. She wore an apron over her romper outfit. She was clearly a girl.

“Uhhh …” Jess’ dad said in confusion.

“Dear, our daughter, Jess, helped me make dinner,” said Jess’ mom. “Say hello.”

Jess’ dad’s brain was still rebooting. “Uh … h-hello … Jess?” He turned to his wife. “What happened to Jason?”

“Complicated story,” she said. “Let’s have dinner. Tamara, Patrick, come on over!”

One fantastic explanation later, Jess’ dad was filled in but still obviously processing this. “OK … so … basically I just learned my s … uh … my child is trans, and doesn’t have to pay for any medical procedures, and is more completely transitioned than any other trans person has ever been, except no one knows exactly how or why scientifically.”

Jess, Tamara, and Patrick all nodded at each other. “Yeah, Dad, that’s pretty much it,” said Jess. “I just … wish I knew what to do now.”

“How does she go to classes?” asked Tamara.

“How do I legally drive?” asked Jess.

“What does her DNA even look like?” asked Patrick. “What? It’s for science.”

“What happens when I go to the doctor?” Jess asked.

“OK, first of all, we need a lawyer,” said Jess’ dad.

“That’s what I said!” said Jess.

“Without legal advice, I really don’t know how to go forward,” Jess’ dad said. “But … other people have gone through this. Just not … in exactly the same way.”

Tamara said, “I just have to say … you are soooo lucky, Jess. I know a lot of parents would have just … thrown you out on the street.”

“Tamara!” said Jess’ mom. “I would not do that to my own child!”

“Some would,” Tamara said. “And their child wouldn’t have to get … you know, transformed by a weird experiment. They’d just have to say they’re trans.”

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After dinner, Tamara said she’d drive Patrick home, and they left. Jess took the bags of clothes she’d bought up to her room. “This is gonna be different,” she said, looking through her dresser at all the clothes she’d never wear again. “Hmm, maybe I can keep some of these T-shirts.”

“Jas – Jess,” said her father, “I just want to make sure you’re OK.”

“W-well, Dad,” she said, “I … was thinking about how to tell you … but then this happened and kinda rushed the issue. I was thinking about going to counseling for gender dysphoria.”

“How about now?” asked her dad. “Any feelings like that now?”

“I … I think I’m still kind of in shock,” said Jess. “Ask me in a few days.”

That night Jess lay in bed. It was her own bed, but it felt bigger. She felt smaller, and not just physically smaller. She felt like big things were happening that she couldn’t control.

She didn’t know that the stone Patrick had found wasn’t the only one out there. Not by a long shot.

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The next day was Saturday, and Jess’ phone rang. A hand reached out from under the covers and pulled it in. “Hello?”

“Dude! I put the stone back together!” It was Patrick’s voice.

“That’s great, Patrick, I … uh, no offense, but I don’t want to touch that thing again,” said Jess. “I might get turned back into a guy and not be able to change again, and after everything …”

“No, no, but I want you to be here in case something goes wrong,” Patrick said. “I’m gonna try it.”

“Uh, well, OK, I’ll get a shower, and … maybe you can call Tamara to come pick me up? My car’s still at your place.”

“Oh right,” said Patrick. “She’ll probably want to make sure I don’t … I don’t know, turn myself into a fish or something.”

In a little while, Jess was showered and dressed in a short skirt and top outfit that Tamara had picked out for her the previous day. She was waiting outside, enjoying the weather, when Tamara’s car pulled into the driveway. “OMG! Jess! Looking good!” called a voice.

“Oh hi … Paula?” asked Jess. Paula was with Tamara in the car. She was a friend from high school who was going to the same college. Jess trusted her, but … she hadn’t known her as long as she’d known Tamara and Patrick. “Thanks!” Jess tried to smile happily. She got in the car.

“Guess we’re all just three girls driving over to see Patrick!” said Paula. “Yep, all of us girls now!”

“Cool it, Paula,” said Tamara. “Yes, we’re all adjusting. Yes, it’s weird. But Jess is the same person as before. Same gift, different package.”

“I … kinda wish you could put that a different way,” said Jess.

“Well, you know what I mean,” Tamara said. “Jess’ parents are totally cool with this! They’re going to help her!”

“I wouldn’t say they’re totally cool,” said Jess. “They’re … on edge about it. They want me to go to therapy anyway.”

“I mean, who doesn’t need therapy?” asked Paula. “I see somebody about my anxiety.”

“You do?” Jess asked. “You don’t seem … anxious at all. Is that the word? Anxious?”

“Well the fact is, you’ve only seen me at my best,” said Paula. “You have no idea. Wait!”

“Huh?” asked Jess.

“Tamara!” said Paula suddenly. “You said that this happened because of some kind of experiment or something? Is Patrick a scientist or whatever?”

“I think he thinks he is,” said Tamara.

“I gotta ask him about something,” said Paula. “Probably has nothing to do with this, but …”

“Is it about a stone you found that glows all the time?” asked Jess.

Paula’s mouth dropped open. “How the flippin’ heck would you know that?”

“What? That’s what Patrick found that he experimented with and it, you know, made me the girl I am today.”

“No flippin’ way!” said Paula. “It’s like the size of a golf ball and has eight sides and they’re all perfect triangles, and it glows all the time?”

“Eight sides?” I asked. “That’s interesting. Patrick’s has 12 sides, and they’re all pentagons … hmm … when did you find it? And where?”

“My back yard, in the middle of the night … but it was like two years ago,” Paula said. “It’s still glowing, and … this might sound weird, but the first time I picked it up I thought I heard a voice?”

“OK, tell Patrick about that when we get there,” said Jess. “That’s like what he said about finding the one he has now. Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“Because I’ve been having dreams about it lately,” Paula said. “I just put it in a box with some fossils and geodes and left it there. Sometimes I look at it.”

“Do you have it with you?” asked Tamara.

“No,” said Paula.

“What did the voice say when you picked it up?” asked Jess. “Never mind. Patrick’s going to ask that. Let’s wait until we’re there.”

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“Well … as I recall,” said Paula, “when I picked up the stone, it seemed like the voice said something like, ‘Yes, perfect, I can see what you want … but can you find the key to unlock it?’”

“Huh,” said Patrick. “Well, I’ve got 12 lasers, and it sounds like your stone has 8 sides. Maybe if you bring it over here we can see if it works?”

“I’ll bring it next time I come over here,” said Paula. “Which isn’t often, but I’ll make a special trip. I just hope it doesn’t turn me into a guy – I don’t know what the voice could see I wanted, but that isn’t it!”

“I mean, you’re doing ROTC, maybe it thinks you want to be a guy?” asked Tamara.

“What?” asked Paula. “Lots of women go into ROTC. Besides, I’m in Air Force ROTC. I wanna fly planes.”

“Anyway,” said Patrick, “I’ve tried something. I examined the cracked stone very carefully. It’s not any normal material that I know of. As I said to Jess, it’s super hard. Nothing I’ve tried has even scratched it. Yet it cracked in half – but it cracked exactly in half. No fragments, no irregular parts. The two parts were perfectly flat. So I tried cold welding. I cleaned the two pieces off as thoroughly as I could to make sure there was no dust or other foreign matter. And I clamped them together as exactly as I could.”

“Well? Did it work?” asked Jess.

“I took the clamps off just before you came, and I can’t tell it was ever cracked,” said Patrick. “So I’m going to try putting it in the device.”

“How’d you get the idea of using lasers in all directions on it?” asked Paula.

“Well, I tried a lot of things to even just affect it,” Patrick said, picking up the stone and clamping it carefully into place in the center of his laser apparatus. “Sound waves, vibrations, then lasers. And I found that at certain frequencies, weird things happened. At one frequency it actually moved away from the laser. At half that frequency, it moved toward it. So I tuned the lasers to that frequency and basically pulled it in every direction at once.”

“And then you touched it,” said Tamara, disbelieving.

“Well yes, then I touched it,” Patrick said. “And turned into a girl. Did it again, and I was a boy again.”

“Well I’m not touching it again,” said Jess. “I don’t want to be a guy again, and I definitely don’t want to be stuck as one.”

“Fine with me,” Patrick said. “As long as it’s fine with you. But I want to know if I’ve fixed it.” He was making fine adjustments to the alignment of the stone in the device. “OK, it’s ready. Let’s see what happens.” He typed something on his computer keyboard, and every laser’s power lights came on.

“How come we don’t get to see the beams?” asked Tamara.

“Generally you don’t want laser light reflecting around where it could hit anything – like your eyes,” Patrick replied. “It’s not terribly good to shine lasers into your eyes. So the beams travel inside these black tubes to absorb any light that gets loose. It’s just for safety.”

“OK, makes sense,” said Jess. “Are you gonna touch it?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Patrick. “Here goes.” He reached in among the laser tubes and touched the Touchstone.

Patrick didn’t visibly change or anything, but he did sit there for a moment. What the others didn’t know was what the mysterious voice said inside his head. “Hmm, you’re really determined,” it said. “You like to unlock mysteries, don’t you? Perhaps you’re a better conduit than I thought. Very well, then. Perhaps you are the key.”

Patrick jumped away from the stone as if it had given him a shock. “What? Wha? Huh?” he said.

“Whoa, are you OK?” said Jess, running around the workbench to get to Patrick.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine, I just …” He paused. “It spoke to me again.”

“What did it say?”

“It said I might be a … better conduit? I don’t get it. What’s a conduit? Conduit for what, I mean?”

Tamara said, “Maybe some kind of … energy? I don’t know, you’d know better than I do.”

“Some kind of energy …” said Patrick. “Let me turn this off.” He typed on his keyboard, and the equipment shut down again. He took the Touchstone out of its brackets and examined it. “Looks like it didn’t crack again. I can barely even see where it was cracked before. I can …” He gasped.

“What?” asked Jess, looking at the glowing stone in Patrick’s hands.

“It disappeared,” said Patrick. “The crack, or what was left of it. It disappeared before my eyes. Now I really can’t tell where it was. It’s like it was never there.”

“But it didn’t turn you into a girl,” said Paula.

“No, but … I wonder if it did something else to me,” Patrick said. “Let me … no. I’ve got guests. Let’s go upstairs and get some drinks.”

“OK,” said Jess, “but I’ve got an appointment with a lawyer soon. My mom and dad found someone.”

“And I’ve got to get my stone and bring it over,” said Paula. “I’m super curious now.”

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Jess and her dad sat in the opulent office of Louis Demarker, one of the very best lawers in the area specializing in trans and gender issues. He looked over the folder in front of him and stopped with an expression of incredulity when he came to the copy of Jess’ birth certificate, and the ink sample of Jess’ prints her mom had made. Of course, the story was so incredible that he also took a sample of Jess’ fingerprints to compare with the birth certificate himself and couldn’t believe it.

Louis looked up and said, “This ... is incredible.” He placed the three fingerprint samples side by side and examined them closely. He sat back in his chair and said, “This seems hard to believe. But … scientifically figuring out what happened isn’t my job.” He paused for a moment.

“Fixing this legally might seem impossible, but it really isn’t,” said Demarker. “First, we all agree not to tell anyone that Jess here has transformed from male to an actual female in some mysterious way … the story is that she’ll be transitioning in the ordinary way, just like anyone else does.” He slid open a drawer, brought out several pages, and handed them to Jess’ dad. “This is the plan. You’ve forwarded her medical history to these offices, and I know many counselors who would be willing to see Jess and evaluate her. I know some tricks, and we can get your counseling sessions backdated. We’re going to get the system to think that you’ve been in counseling for some time, and now you’re living as a woman pending your reassignment surgery – which will never actually take place, but we can go through all the motions as if it will.”

“I still have to go to therapy?” asked Jess.

“Yes, unfortunately it’s mandatory to do that, so it’s on record.”

“What about the fact that I’m … well, already a woman?” Jess asked. “The therapists won’t wonder about that?”

“I’m selecting counselors who are on your side here,” said Demarker. “They want you to be happy and healthy, and there are lots of trans women who start on hormones without ever seeing a therapist or getting them prescribed. They’ll just think you’re one of those. You don’t have to pose naked for them or anything. We’ll say you’ve been practicing voice training and getting hormones from no-questions-asked sources, and concealing it from casual acquaintances until just recently.”

“Err, what about my hair? And my face?” asked Jess. “And my Adam’s apple?”

“We’ll say you’re using a wig until your hair gets long enough,” said Demarker, “and you just took a makeup class recently. Most people won’t really want to look into this too deeply. You’ll be fine until we can get your supposed surgery scheduled. It does mean you’ll have to go to another country – there’s a place in northern Canada that does amazing things, I’ve heard, with very short recovery time. You can even go there and talk to them; I’ll bet they’ll find your case very interesting.”

“Or even … unrealistic?” Jess asked.

“Well, they’re also focused on your well-being more than whether you fit into some scientific worldview,” said Demarker. “They might try to come up with theories to explain it, but again, their focus is on your care. But the point is, we have to do something to explain the fact that when you come back, you’ll be … well, as you are now, but with an explanation. If we can keep the court focused on the issue of transgender reassignment and not allow speculation that something unexplained occurred, the birth certificate name and gender change will be easy. Once that’s accomplished, I’ll file the briefs with the court and make it all official.”

Jess asked, “How long will it take before I have everything changed so I can get my driver’s license and get my bank account back?”

The lawyer smiled, “As far as the name change goes, that should take about a month due to the fact this has to be put on the judge’s docket. Once that’s done, the rest is just a matter of taking the legal brief with you and giving copies to everyone showing the court ordered change of name and gender. I’d think that within 90 days this should all be resolved, but you must insure at all costs not to reveal the fact that you actually changed from male to female instantaneously. That fact must be kept secret and must be avoided. It would open a can of worms that I have no ability or experience to deal with.”

Jess’ dad gathered all the papers together and put them in a manila envelope. He stood and shook hands with the lawyer, “Thank you very much. When should we hear from you?”

He pointed to a small pile of legal documents, “I’ve already prepared the brief. All I need do is get it on the docket. As soon as they set the date, I’ll let you know. I’ll call Dr. McKenna as soon as you leave, and you should hear from her later today. She’s the best.”

Jess stood and said in her cute voice, “Thank you very much.”

The lawyer smiled pleasantly and replied, “I’m glad to help. I do have to admit though, discovering that you really did suddenly go from male to female was kind of a shock. I can’t understand how such a thing is possible.”

“I’m not sure I understand it myself,” said Jess.

Jess and her dad left the office, went to lunch, then arrived back home. By the time they got back to the house, Jess’ mom informed them the lawyer had called and said the case was on the docket for next Monday at 10 am in Superior Court. And she’d set up an appointment for Jess with the therapist, Dr. McKenna.

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Meanwhile, Paula and Tamara had come back to Patrick’s house. “I guess Jess is talking to that lawyer she mentioned,” Patrick said, “but come in.”

“Thanks,” said Paula. “I kinda can’t wait to see what you make of this.”

When they got down to the basement, Paula took out a jewelry box and opened it. Inside was a glowing octahedron that looked like it was made of the same material as the Touchstone that Patrick had found. “Oh my gosh,” said Patrick, looking at it. “It really is another one. Can you set it down over here?” Paula placed her stone on the workbench, and Patrick looked at it carefully with a magnifying glass.

“Are you going to … put it in your laser machine there?” asked Paula.

“Yes, with your permission,” said Patrick. “And I’m not going to try to touch it, either. Something tells me that I really shouldn’t.”

“Should I?” Paula asked.

“Up to you,” said Patrick, “but it seems like … somebody … wants you to.” He started reconfiguring the clamps and rigging, then picked up Paula’s stone with a pair of ice tongs and placed it into the receptacle in the center. Then he started rearranging the lasers to point at the stone’s eight faces. “I’m going to get some more lasers,” he muttered to himself. “I think it’s inevitable that someone’s going to bring in a stone with 20 sides one of these days. Somebody out there likes Pythagorean solids. Or they’re into tabletop RPGs.”

“What’s he talking about?” Paula asked Tamara.

“Dice, I’m guessing,” Tamara replied.

“OK, time to calibrate,” said Patrick, tapping on his computer keyboard. “Number six, half a degree …” He adjusted one of the lasers. “Number two, 10 seconds …” He kept adjusting. “OK, everything’s balanced. Now … for real. Zeroing in on the frequency … interesting, this one has slightly different resonance parameters …”

Suddenly, as before, there was a sort of a thrumming, crackling energy in the air. “The forces balance exactly. How about that? I’m recording data.”

“Should I …?” asked Paula, gingerly approaching the workbench.

“I’m not going to tell you that you should,” said Patrick. “But if you’re going to, now is the right time.”

“Oooo, I’m too curious,” she said. She carefully reached between the laser tubes and touched the stone.

What everyone else saw was Paula being suddenly thrown backwards across the room. What Paula felt was like being struck by lightning, except she’d never actually been struck by lightning, so she didn’t really know what that felt like. So it was a rush of energy and a rush of adrenaline. And then that energy stopped and sort of hung in the air, which was a coincidence, because that’s also what everyone else saw Paula do.

“What?” asked Paula, hanging there in the air. She’d been thrown across the room and had then stopped midair before actually hitting anything. Her feet were almost touching the ceiling. Her head was a bit lower; she was at an angle. But there she was, levitating in the air, defying gravity. “What’s going on?”

Patrick ran over to Paula. “I … don’t know,” he said. “You’re … hovering? I’m still taking data.” He pointed a meter of some kind at her. “Can you … right yourself? Imagine moving so you’re vertical?”

“I’ll try that …” said Paula. She focused, and slowly her body rotated. Her feet were now below her head; her shoes hovered six inches above the basement floor. “OK wait. I’m … flying?”

“You’ve convinced gravity to leave you alone one way or another,” Patrick said. “At this point I couldn’t guess how.”

Tamara was staring wide-eyed at this. “Can you fly?” she asked. “Did you just learn to fly?”

“I already learned to fly,” said Paula. “I’ve had my pilot’s license since I was 17. But … um yeah, that’s the regular way, using a plane?”

“I’d be interested to know how much control you have over this, what your maneuverability and top speed are, and whether you can stop the effect,” said Patrick, “but only if you’re up to it.”

“OK, first, let’s see if I can walk,” said Paula. “I’m a big fan of Jess becoming a girl permanently like she’s always wanted to be, but I don’t think I want to say goodbye to gravity forever.” She focused again, and her feet settled to the floor.

“Just a second,” said Patrick, running upstairs and coming back down with a bathroom scale. “Stand on this.”

“Hey, don’t ask women their weight,” Tamara said.

“No, I see where he’s going with this,” Paula said, stepping on the scale. “Now if I …” The numbers changed. 40, 30, 20, 10 … 5. “It says whatever I want …”

“Whoa,” said Tamara.

“I wonder about gravitational weight versus inertial mass, though,” said Patrick.

Paula said, “Right! That’s why they like women pilots – we weigh less than men on average, and every kilo lighter the pilot is, that’s one less kilo of mass the plane has to spend fuel to accelerate. Though usually the difference is tiny compared the mass of the plane itself, it can make a measurable difference over time. But what if I can lower my inertial mass?”

“Well, float, and I’ll try to push you,” said Patrick.

“Um, all right,” said Paula, and once again her feet left the floor by a few inches. Patrick pushed on her back, but moving her wasn’t any easier than it would have been if she’d been standing.

“Hmm,” Patrick said. “You still have plenty of inertia. Can you move around while up there?”

Paula focused and slowly moved forward, then backward, then side to side, then rotated. “This is so weird,” she said. “OK, yeah, there isn’t a lot of space down here in this basement for speed or maneuverability trials. And I don’t want to go outside right now; too many people could see.”

“Maybe tonight, then?” asked Patrick. “Wait a few hours? We’d also find out whether the effect wears off.”

“Aw man,” said Tamara. “Now I want a stone. Can I try hers?”

“Uh, if you want?” Patrick said. “At your own risk, though …”

“Well, I’m trying it,” Tamara said, touching the stone. It felt warm, but …

She heard a voice in her head. “Now, who are you? You’re not this one’s conduit. Sorry!”

Tamara pulled her finger back. “Well, excuse me for not being the right conduit or whatever.”

“We have to call all our friends,” Paula said, trying some careful twists like a figure skater. “See if anybody else found one. Whoa, now I’m dizzy.”

“Maybe we can get an idea of how long ago they started showing up,” said Patrick, “and even whether they might still be appearing.”

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“First of all, Jess,” said Dr. McKenna, “it’s completely up to you how much you want to tell me. Maybe there are things you won’t feel comfortable talking to me about just now, and that’s OK. The more you tell me, the more I can help you, but I’ve seen a lot of patients with gender dysphoria, and I quite understand if there are things you’re not ready to talk about just yet.”

“Thank you,” Jess said. She was sitting in a comfortable chair in Dr. McKenna’s office. “But I don’t think there’s anything I’m really uncomfortable telling you. My thoughts and feelings are an open book.”

“I’m glad to hear that, but let’s just wait on saying that until we really get into some issues,” the psychiatrist said. “I do want to tell you one thing, though. Times have changed. Sometimes it might seem as if it’s a year and a half ago.”

Jess blinked. “I … understand.” She thought the doctor was trying to tell her that she was aware their records were going to be backdated. Was she also aware that her body had transitioned under mysterious circumstances? Demarker had recommended Dr. McKenna; was she a friend? “I know my case is a bit … unusual.”

“I understand that’s putting it mildly, but we’re using standard procedure here,” Dr. McKenna said. “By the book.”

“Are … are you making a Star Trek II reference?” Jess asked.

“I kind of was. Do you like Star Trek?”

“I really do. There was an episode of Next Generation where Dr. Crusher fell in love with a Trill, but then …”

“... he died, but his symbiont lived on, but then it was put into a female body, and Dr. Crusher just didn’t feel physical attraction anymore,” the doctor finished. Jess nodded. “Well right there’s a character who underwent a gender transition … in a way. The Dax symbiont in Deep Space Nine was Sisko’s good friend, but he’d known him as male … but now she was female, and Sisko didn’t bat an eye; they were just as good friends as they’d been before. That might be a better example.”

“An example of a character being accepted after undergoing a gender transition,” said Jess. “Star Trek is just so full of examples of unusual situations because it’s science fiction, and just about anything can happen somewhere in the universe. There’s a nonbinary regular character on Discovery.”

A while later, they got to talking about Jess’ childhood and why she’d felt like a girl but had chosen to hide it from everyone, including her parents. “It was … lots of little things,” she said. “I wanted to grow my hair long, and I was liking how it looked on me, but then my dad said something like, ‘We’ve gotta get you a haircut – I can’t tell if you’re my son or my daughter!’ He laughed. I didn’t.”

“If he actually knew at that time that you were trans, that would have been a microaggression,” said the psychiatrist, “but it sounds to me as if he just didn’t know.”

“No, I’m sure he didn’t,” said Jess. “But that’s the sort of thing that I used as a signal to gauge whether it was safe to tell them. And the answer was no.”

“But you’d decided to start therapy recently,” Dr. McKenna said.

“Well, I was in college,” Jess said. “I could always move out if therapy got me comfortable with coming out and it caused things to go bad at home. I noticed that some other students were experimenting with their gender, and I just felt intensely envious. They got to do it now that they were in college – why didn’t I? Then I thought, why can’t I? What’s stopping me?”

“Well, we’re here to help,” said Dr. McKenna. “Mental health professionals, that is. I’m glad you’re here. I’m especially glad you came to me for several reasons.” She stood and slowly rotated around once, then sat back in her chair. “You see, I too wasn’t assigned female at birth. The reason I started this practice was to help all my trans-sisters who needed help.”

Jess gasped. “That is … so … cool! It’s like … you turned being trans into a super power!”

“I … guess? Kind of?” Dr. McKenna replied.

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Patrick sat at the controls of his apparatus with the large stone fastened firmly in the frame. He had constructed another that contained the new stone. Currently he feverishly worked to try and get the large stone to respond as it had before it had broken and been repaired.

Every once in a while, he would hit on something and the voice would come and speak. It was sort of like it was mocking him, but if Patrick swallowed his pride and listened to what the voice was saying, it actually told him if he gotten something right or had blundered far astray. The really frustrating thing was it never gave any clues or any suggestions on how to make it work once again.

The smaller stone was worse than frustrating. The only response out of it Patrick could get, said that he was the wrong conduit, although it admired his persistence.

And then there was the weird phone call. His phone rang; he answered on the second ring. “This is Patrick. What can I do for you?”

The strangest-sounding voice with the very weirdest accent replied, “There are many of a sort and only a few of one. To each bundle is added but one. Although there are many bundles. I have one bundle missing one sort.” Then whoever it was hung up.

Patrick stared at the receiver until the open line alert started sounding. He hung up the receiver as a look of worry crossed his face. Who had that been? Somebody knew about the stones and wanted to tell him about them, but didn’t want to say it directly, speaking in riddles instead. Why? Was this some kind of game to them? Or was there something important about not just handing him the information? Maybe he wouldn’t learn as much if it was just given to him? Maybe they were just sadistic? Maybe they didn’t really speak English and that was the best they could do to express it? He had no clue what a bundle was or even what it was in reference to. He didn’t know if the missing sort from a bundle was a threat … or meant something else entirely.

The rest of the gang were to arrive at his place about 4:30 p.m. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It read 10:45 a.m. … he had plenty of time. He began tinkering with some of the spare pieces and parts. He had realized there was a commonality in the frequencies required to allow the stones to do as they did. He had also begun to become suspicious. What if … his equipment wasn’t entirely the reason the stones performed as they did? What if … by some means Patrick had yet to discover, there were another factor also causing the stones to function.

From some of the strange readings contained within the variableness of the frequency modulations throughout the stones, Patrick had begun to realize they were made of crystals, and not one solid piece, but in fact layers of some unknown crystal stacked and somehow molecularly bonded in such a way that they acted as if they were one crystal.

“One crystal that is many …” Patrick thought. And suddenly he had a realization. What if … he started looking closely at the structure of Paula’s stone, the octahedron. Yes! It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t actually made of multiple layers. Only the dodecahedron was made of layers. He couldn’t make it crack open again, but he’d had a look inside it when it had cracked in half and had taken some high-definition photos. But they weren’t detailed enough to see what he wanted to know. Still, he suspected … “I think the dodecahedron is sort of the key to all the rest? Or … some kind of combination of them? I wish I could examine more stones!”

But one thing he could tell, from all his laser scans … at least one of the layers of the dodecahedron had the same exact crystal structure as the octahedron.

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At 4:30, everyone he knew who was free came over. Tamara had been busy, calling all their friends. Paula and Jess were there too – Patrick was actually dying to know how the appointment with the lawyer had gone, and neither he nor Jess had wanted to talk about it over the phone. But Tamara had managed to get three more to join them; the rest couldn’t make it today.

Patrick answered the door, and a short girl stood there. “Anne! Good to see you!” he said.

“Patrick,” she said, nodding her head, but her eyes fixated on Jess, who had decided to answer the door with Patrick in order to re-introduce herself to their friends. “Wait. Wow. Are you …?”

“Yep, I’m Jess. Hi Anne.” She opened her arms for a hug. Anne slowly moved toward her. Jess knew Anne didn’t hug much, so it meant something that she was open for this.

“It’s … amazing,” said Anne, pulling back after the hug to look at Jess again. “If it had only been Patrick telling the story, I wouldn’t have believed it, but Tamara …”

“Hey,” said Patrick.

“I’m still not 100% sure I believe it myself,” said Jess. “I mean, things like this just don’t happen. Except when they do, I guess?”

“I’m … going to go downstairs,” said Anne, “because another car just pulled up. I think it’s Robert’s, and Joyce is with him?”

“Oh, OK,” said Jess. “We’ll see you down there in a couple of minutes!”

Sure enough, a tall, broad-shouldered man and a slender woman emerged from the car and came to the door. “That’s amazing!” the woman immediately said upon seeing Jess. “It’s Jess now, right? I’m totally shocked, but not totally shocked at the same time, if you know what I mean. You’re a total knockout too! Wow, whatever decided to do this, it must have really liked you!”

“Hi Joyce,” said Jess, hugging her because she knew that Joyce would just have kept going. “It’s great to see you! And how are you, Robert?”

“I’m … wow,” said Robert, blushing. “You look … great!”

“Thanks!” Jess was surprised at how attracted she felt to her old friend, and that was embarrassing, especially considering that she knew Robert and Joyce were an item now.

“Well, I think everyone’s here who’s going to be here,” said Patrick. “Tamara and Paula are already downstairs, and Anne too.”

“Oh …” said Joyce, oddly briefly. As they moved toward the stairs, Patrick shut and locked the front door.

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“All right,” said Patrick. “I’ve been studying these things constantly. With the tools I have, which aren’t a lot, but I’m working on that. What I want to say is, we’ve got this dodecahedron here – that’s twelve sides, each shaped like a regular pentagon – and this octahedron here, which is Paula’s – it’s got eight sides, each shaped like an equilateral triangle.” He indicated the two stones, each within its own laser apparatus. “And just in case we find another one, I’ve set up a third laser resonator, with an empty spot.”

“Um, so like, magic D&D dice?” asked Robert.

“Almost, except these don’t have numbers,” Patrick said. “They glow, and they seem to be indestructible for all practical purposes. They’re shaped like the five perfect solids – three-dimensional geometric shapes with regular polygons as sides and with all the angles the same. There’s just something about the universe we live in that causes there to only be five shapes in existence that fit that description.”

“And one of them turned Jess into a girl?” asked Joyce. “That’s super awesome, by the way; I always thought Jess would make an awesome girl! Whoa hold on, no way, Paula, how are you even flying?”

Paula was in fact hovering a few inches off the floor, her knees slightly bent. “That depends on what you mean by ‘how,’” she said. “Short answer: I touched my stone while Patrick had it all lasered up. Long answer: I have absolutely no idea.”

“That long answer is shorter than the short answer,” Anne said.

“So Patrick and Jess have stumbled onto something that is … well, unexplained,” said Tamara.

Patrick added, “And something that seems to involve our group of friends, for some reason. I just … have a feeling. Also, I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting these flashes of intuition about this, ever since my second contact with the dodecahedron. I wish I could know more about these, so I’m asking, if anybody has ever seen anything like these, at any time during your life, to please tell me about it.”

Anne stood up and held up something she took from her purse.

“A … nightlight?” asked Paula, floating over to look more closely at it. It looked like a small glowing cube with an electrical outlet. It did look like a nightlight.

Patrick said, “A nightlight, except it’s glowing and it isn’t plugged in! Anne, how long have you had that?”

“I was seven years old,” she said. “I found it during the Christmas season. It was out on the balcony, which was decorated with lights. Only I noticed it. I realized it was strange, so I hid it in plain sight by repurposing a nightlight.”

“You were seven, and you did that?” asked Patrick.

“You were seven, and you were worried someone would think it was strange?” asked Jess.

She opened the nightlight and set the glowing cube-shaped stone on Patrick’s workbench. “If it’s helpful, please examine it,” she said. “I would like it back, however. I’ve grown fond of it.”

“Of course,” Patrick said, getting his magnifying glass and ice tongs. Holding it up, he inspected it. “I’m going got have to do a laser scan, but if it’s like these others, there’s nothing that can harm it.” He blinked. “And I just realized that this one might be even more durable than the others, for some reason. If I energize it with the lasers … are you interested in touching it to see what happens?”

“Are you actually insane?” asked Anne. “There’s no telling what it could do.”

“That’s fair,” said Patrick. “I’m not asking anyone to put themselves in danger. That said, do I have your permission to energize it in case someone else wants to try? By the way, I’m proposing to do that with the other two as well. I have no idea who they might work for and who they might not.”

“I tried both of them, but only mine did anything for me,” said Paula, shrugging in midair. “And I can turn this off anytime I want. I haven’t been flying around town. It seems like it would raise a lot of questions.”

“I tried both too,” said Tamara. “Neither of them did anything for me. Not that I’m envious or anything!”

“She totally is,” said Paula.

“Totally is,” agreed Joyce.

“Hey!” said Tamara. “Envious isn’t the same as jealous, anyway. Jealous means I both want something and want you not to have it. Envious just means I want it too.”

“You realize you just confirmed being envious,” said Joyce.

“No I didn’t.”

They were interrupted by some filtered light coming from inside a box on Patrick’s workbench. Data and images were appearing on his computer monitors. Everybody looked. “I just put Anne’s cube inside the scanner. It’s running a crystallographic scan on the stone. I’m trying to get a glimpse of its crystal structure and compare it to the others.”

“I guess every bit of data helps,” said Jess.

“So Jess, I guess you’re … not looking for a way to change back?” asked Robert.

“I thought of that at first,” Jess replied, “but only for a moment. Then I realized … well, this is who I was already, on the inside. I’ve been given a huge opportunity. I want to, you know, grab on with both hands and hold tight.”

“Is that from ‘The Last Starfighter?’” asked Paula.

“Oh my G …” said Patrick. “It’s true. The dodecahedron … it’s got layers, four kinds of layers, and one of them is just like Paula’s stone. And … Anne’s stone is just like one of the other layers. There are two other kinds of layers. That must mean there are two more stones out there. I’m betting they’re the tetrahedron and the icosahedron. Four sides and 20 sides. Oh! By the way, Anne, did the cube … speak to you when you touched it?”

“Touched it?” asked Anne. “Why would I touch it? I picked it up with gloves. I didn’t know what it was. Also, it was winter.”

“Well, I’m going to put it in the energizing frame, which is what I’ve just now decided to call it,” said Patrick, taking it out of the scanner with the tongs and clamping it into the empty apparatus. He started adjusting the lasers to point evenly at all six faces. “Six sides, each a perfect square, all angles exactly 90 degrees in every direction,” he said as if it must mean something.

“This is exciting!” said Joyce. “It’s like, this is the only place anywhere where this is happening, and it’s something amazing! And maybe we can take part in it!”

Soon Patrick had it in place and its frequencies tested. “All right, here goes,” he said, tapping on his computer keyboard. “I’m lighting them all up. Anyone who want can touch any of them. But let’s be careful. Paula’s threw her across the room – she could’ve been hurt if she hadn’t literally stopped in midair. So, I suggest one at a time.” All three devices hummed, though the stones at their centers glowed just as serenely as they always had.

“I’ll try the other ones,” said Jess first. Not touching the dodecahedron, she tried Paula’s, then Anne’s. Nothing obvious happened. “Heard voices each time,” she said. “Is it weird that I’m used to that now? Both times it was the same, though. It said I wasn’t an ideal conduit. But it’s like there was another voice too, saying I didn’t need partial aspects? The first voice was kind of dismissive. But the second one sounded … I don’t know, serene and wise?”

“Really? Two voices at once?” asked Patrick. “That’s interesting.” He made a note on his computer.

“I’m going to try Anne’s!” said Tamara. She touched it. “Awww. It said I’m not a good conduit.”

“But only one voice?” Patrick asked. She nodded. Patrick made a note. “Sorry, Tamara.”

“It’s OK.” She sounded disappointed.

“Can I try?” asked Joyce.

“Sure, if you want,” said Patrick. So Joyce touched Paula’s octahedron.

Her body seemed to spasm or jerk as she did so. And then … there was kind of a blur, and before anyone knew it she was kneeling on the floor, holding Patrick’s magnifying glass in her hands. “Sorry, I knocked this off the table but I caught it before it hit the floor so I think it’s OK! I heard a voice and it said I was a conduit but what does that mean?” She stood up and set the magnifier back down on the workbench.

Patrick blinked in surprise, then typed some notes on his computer. “It means that Paula’s stone did something different for two different people,” he said. “In a way, that makes me feel better. I think maybe … the Touchstone – it’s what I call the dodecahedron – affected me after all. It did one thing for Jess, and another for me.”

“But what did it do?” asked Joyce. “All I know is that I knocked the glass thing off your workbench, but then it was falling really slowly, weirdly slowly now that I think about it, so I just moved really carefully so I didn’t knock anything else off, then I caught it so it didn’t hit the OMG what did I do? Did I slow down time? Can that happen? Is that a thing that can happen?”

“At this point anything can happen,” said Patrick, “but I think what you did is move really fast, from our point of view. That’s interesting. The octahedron is associated with flight and speed, both having to do with mobility …” He made more notes.

“I should probably try the other ones just in case,” Joyce said, but nothing happened with the others. “Nope, just not a good conduit for those I guess.”

“Very well,” said Anne, “but I advise caution.”

“Are you sure?” asked Jess.

“No. But I’m doing this before I change my mind. My glowing cube has been with me a long time. I feel like … it’s my friend. It won’t betray me.”

“We might want to stand back,” said Paula. Everybody backed away.

Anne slowly approached the apparatus containing her cubical stone. With a finger she reached out …

… and was thrown backwards across the room as Paula had been. She knocked over a bookshelf, an old desk, and a stack of folding chairs. There was a lot of noise.

“Anne! Are you OK?” shouted Paula, flying to her rescue. But … Anne stood up. She was unharmed, except that there was a purplish-blue glowing aura around her, extending about two inches from her body in all directions.

“I seem intact,” Anne said, “which is odd, but …” She looked at her hands and did a double-take, startled. “I … I’m glowing.”

Jess said, “May I?” and touched her on the shoulder – but didn’t. Her hand came in contact with the glowing light. It felt solid, and slightly warm, kind of like the stones did when energized. “Wow. Anne, you’ve got a … defensive shield of some kind.”

“Can I turn it off?” she asked. “I don’t want to become my own nightlight.” And as she formed this thought the field around her vanished.

“Defensive shield,” said Patrick, taking notes. “Cube associated with … solidity? Defense? Protection? But the Touchstone … gender change and intuition about the stones? What would those have in common?”

“I apologize about your furniture, Patrick,” said Anne, returning to her seat near the workbench.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll handle it later,” Patrick said. “Are there any others you want to try, Anne?”

“Thank you, but I believe that is sufficient excitement for me today,” Anne said. All agreed that was fair enough.

“That leaves me,” said Robert. “Do I want to do this? Ehh, why not.” But he tried each stone and simply reported, “Not a good conduit. Oh well.”

“Hey, no-powers club,” said Tamara, holding up her hand for a high-five. He completed the gesture with a good-natured smile.

“Remember, there are two more stones out there, or so I think anyway,” said Patrick. “You’ve both still got a chance. Two more chances, really. But I get the impression that it’s quite rare to be affected by any of these things. Maybe that’s why … well, something or someone picked our group to give at least three of the stones to. Maybe we’re just lucky and we’ve got a lot of good conduits, whatever that means, in our group of friends? And that’s why we’ve been picked?”

“Don’t forget the others,” said Tamara. “Some haven’t answered yet, and some couldn’t make it today. I asked them about finding a strange glowing rock. I used that app we use that has direct messaging with encryption.”

“But you said not to discuss that except in person,” said Anne. “I believe that was wise.”

“What … what do we do now?” asked Jess. “That was what I asked myself when, you know, this happened to me.” She waved her hand toward her body. “But … now more than one of us has, you know, something odd going on.”

“Well, I checked Paula out, for one thing, and I’m going to check Joyce and Anne out too,” said Patrick, starting to measure them for any radiation or other strange signs. “But yes, I guess everybody but Jess has some kind of change that can be hidden or deactivated unless needed. But … why? Is there something coming that these … abilities will be needed for? And …”

“... and why did mine just change my body but give me no obvious ability?” Jess asked. “If we’re supposed to be some kind of superheroes or whatever, why am I ‘Got Turned Into a Girl Girl?’”

“Many unanswered questions,” said Anne.

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The others had left and gone home for the night. Patrick was slightly concerned that he still had Jess and that wonderful perfume she was wearing on his mind the way he did. It truly amazed him that Jess had turned out as pretty as she had. He was very thankful to the other girls for helping Jess through her initial … feminine issues. It had worked out well so far, but Jess was still having to be taught things that most women learned as little girls.

Patrick put those thoughts out of his mind for now and started concentrating on the three stones. He laid them out on a large wooden table. To his amazement, they actually appeared to fit together. All the angled surfaces were as smooth as glass; might they be able to be cold welded like the dodecahedron’s fragments? But the five Pythagorean solids couldn’t fit together like that, not into one larger shape. The faces were different shapes. But who knew?

He was considering placing an ad in the local paper asking if anyone had more information, but he wanted to hear back from their other friends first.

Patrick gathered together materials and began assembling another frame for the two remaining stones that he believed were yet to be found. He was assuming that they would be the four-sided tetrahedron and the 20-sided icosahedron … but what if there were more than one cube, or more than one of the others? Again, he didn’t know. But he had nothing to go on but what they’d seen so far. The two additional frames he assembled looked exactly like the ones for the dodecahedron and the others, although Patrick was positive their crystalline matrices would turn out to all be different due to the fact that these stones seemed independent … but somehow similar?

Each stone had its own unique frequency except for the dodecahedron, which demonstrated all the separate frequencies overlaid almost perfectly one bandwidth apart with no bleed over particles, which was thought to be impossible. This meant that somehow all the energy was super-coherent and traveled like a laser beam with little to no expansion or energy dispersal.

What came to mind was a flashlight on a slightly foggy night. He also thought of the difference a laser pointer at the same time made. He knew this because he and Jess, back when she was a guy, had performed this experimental observation early one foggy night when they’d been camping in the mountains. Gave them both an A in physical science.

One thing Patrick knew he had to figure out was the difference between each of his friends and himself. Maybe if he could discover something interesting, he might even find out what constituted a conduit.

Patrick knew the proton’s spin arose from its internal constituents: quarks, which were bound together by gluons, which mediated the strong nuclear force. However, the precise contributions of quarks and gluons to the proton’s overall spin remained unclear.

He knew when physicists discussed the “spin” of a proton — or any particle — they were referring to its intrinsic angular momentum. As physicists’ concept of subatomic spin was a quantum mechanical idea, explanations from our visible world could only go so far; particles carried this angular momentum even when they were at rest. Spin could be negative or positive — think clockwise and counterclockwise – but that depended on the reference frame.

And spin was a peculiar characteristic of the quantum world. Every proton had spin of precisely ½, not 0.51, not 0.501, and not 0.50001. And that number was made of the components inside the proton, the quarks, each of which had its own spin. He couldn’t help thinking about that for some reason. It was as if something was telling him this was important.

Now, if Patrick could make any of this data make sense …

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Jess dreamed. It was a dream she’d had since childhood. She was in school and realized she was wearing a dress and everyone was laughing at her for putting on the wrong clothes that morning. Only this time she turned to everyone laughing and said angrily, “Why aren’t you laughing at the other girls?” And then the speaker on the wall came on, the one the principal used to make announcements in the morning.

The voice said, calmly and serenely, if a bit crackly and distorted, “Becoming your true self is only the first note of the symphony.” Behind it she heard some kind of music, but it was hard to hear what it really sounded like – it was like it was being played over the speaker at a drive-through restaurant, and really quietly.

Jess woke up as if this dream had been some kind of nightmare or shock – except that it hadn’t. That voice – it wasn’t like the one that she’d heard before, talking about conduits. It was like the one that had said she didn’t need partial aspects.

For some reason she was thinking about Dave. He was a friend of theirs who had been absent on that recent Saturday, when Anne and Joyce had learned they had abilities. He’d had to work all day, so Tamara had asked him what days worked for him, and he’d said Thursdays, so he was going to show up at Patrick’s that coming Thursday afternoon. Wait, Jess thought – that was tomorrow. She looked at the clock – it was after midnight. Today, then. She had a feeling that Dave was important somehow. Did he have one of the stones? Or would one of the other stones work for him?

She looked at the calendar on the wall – yes, it was Thursday. She’d make a point of being at Patrick’s to find out what happened. Then she went back to sleep.

Three hours later she sat bolt upright in bed. The room was dark. The blinds were down, covering the windows. The calendar was a regular paper calendar. How had she seen it? She couldn’t see it now. She squinted at it and could barely see that it was there, a slightly less dark rectangle on the dark wall. She lay back down and tried to get back to sleep. Would things ever stop getting weirder?

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“Patrick, what does it mean if there are two voices?” asked Jess. They were at Patrick’s townhouse, waiting for Dave to arrive.

Patrick looked at his computer. “Oh yes, you said that there seemed to be two distinct voices when you tried touching the other stones,” he said. “One seemed dismissive; the other seemed serene and wise. I’m not sure whether these voices are actually the voices of separate entities or are somehow created by our subconscious, but considering that everyone described a musing, dismissive, perhaps condescending voice, that really sounds as if they’re somehow the same. But the phone call I got had a thick accent of some kind, whereas nobody’s described the voice they heard when touching the stones as being accented. Including me; it sounded entirely different. Is the serene voice accented?”

“Not at all, the two times I’ve heard it,” said Jess.

“Two times?”

“I had a dream,” she said. “This time, it said that becoming my true self was only the first note of the symphony.”

“Cryptic,” said Patrick, making a note of this.

“I know,” said Jess. Then she told him about seeing the calendar in the dark.

“Maybe you remembered what it had looked like last time you looked at it?” suggested Patrick.

“But there it was, plain as day,” said Jess. “Except nothing else was plain as day, so it wasn’t exactly very daylike.”

“Wait,” said Patrick. “Wait wait wait wait. I’m turning off the lights and closing the curtains.” Patrick did that. He even turned off his computer monitor – any source of light. It was difficult to see anything, though the vague shapes of objects were still visible.

“You want me to try reading something now?” asked Jess.

Patrick held up … something. It looked like a book, open to some page within it. “Yeah, can you see what it says here?”

“No,” said Jess.

“Well, don’t try to see what it says,” Patrick said. “Try to … just know. I don’t know why I’m suggesting this. Sometimes I’ve been getting … flashes of intuition.”

Jess stopped concentrating on seeing it with her eyes. “So I have to … use the Force or something.”

“Basically.” Patrick continued holding the book up.

“I need a distraction,” Jess said. “I wasn’t thinking about seeing the calendar. I was thinking about what day it was.”

Patrick gulped. “I … love your perfume,” he said. “I don’t know what kind it is. Did you pick it out?”

“What? Oh, it’s just Ariana Pequeña … it’s from Flor-Mart. I got it when Tamara took me shopping there. She thought I should have at least one. I liked it more than the other ones they had, but it’s just, you know, Flor-Mart. But … thanks!”

“Did she have you get any makeup?” Patrick asked, still holding the book.

Jess was still facing in the direction of Patrick and the book but wasn’t looking right at the book now. “Not then … she said makeup’s a complicated thing if you’ve never tried it before. Too many different aspects to it. She and Paula took me back there the other day, and now I have some lipstick, blush, and nail polish. But I still don’t use them. Tamara said eye makeup was a whole deal all on its own. You know who does eye makeup really well?”

At the same time, both Jess and Patrick said, “Beth.” They laughed. Beth was an eye makeup artiste, among other talents. She was a theater major, though she liked to work mostly behind the scenes – yes, she did makeup, but she also liked doing lighting. She’d been theatrical as long as they’d known her, which was since grade school. They didn’t know why she hadn’t come over that past Saturday; she’d just said she’d been in a rush.

“What?” said Jess, taking a step back.

“What what?” asked Patrick. “Did you see the page?”

“No, I mean yes, I mean, it wasn’t the book I saw,” said Jess. “I saw Beth. It was … Beth picking up a stone … it looked like a pyramid …”

“What?” Patrick said this time. “You had some kind of … vision? When was it happening?”

“How should I know?” asked Jess. “Suddenly the open book was like … a TV screen. It was … nighttime, though, so it wasn’t right now.”

“Beth might have the tetrahedron,” said Patrick. “I have to turn on the lights. Watch your eyes.”

The doorbell rang. “That must be Dave; I’ll get it,” Jess said.

“Thanks!” said Patrick. “If he has a stone, I’ll bet it’s the icosahedron – the 20-sided one. But I have to text Beth. ‘Did you by any chance find …’”

Jess was going up the stairs to answer the door. Sure enough, it was Dave, his sandy hair and beard just like the last time she’d seen him.

“Hi … I didn’t know Patrick had a girlfriend!” he said.

Jess blushed. “I, uh, I’m … Jess?”

“What?” said Dave. “Oh – wow, I’m sorry! I heard, but I didn’t … uh, expect you to be here today, so I didn’t put two and two together, I guess!”

“Hehe, no worries, come in!” said Jess. “Patrick’s downstairs. I think he’s texting Beth.”

Dave came in, and Patrick shut the door.

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When they went down to Patrick’s workshop, Dave reached into his jacket pocket and produced a polyhedron known as an icosahedron, which didn’t surprise Patrick in the least, as he had already suspected. “Ah, the icosahedron! 20 faces, each of which is an equilateral triangle. It has 12 vertices and 30 edges. One of the Platonic solids.”

“Yep!” said Dave. “I roll them all the time – in roleplaying games. I tried using this one for that, but … well, I tried writing numbers on the sides with a marker, but the ink just came right off. As a d20, it’s really not very good. Neat glow effect, though.”

Patrick looked at it. “It … pulses,” he said, looking at the stone with his magnifier. This particular one softly pulsed a delicate blue glow. “All the other ones are steady.”

“Oh really? So you’ve been studying other ones?” asked Dave.

“Yes, and I can show them to you, the ones we’ve found anyway,” said Patrick. “But first … just making some notes.” He typed on his computer keyboard and talked aloud. “Stone: icosahedron. Finder: Dave. 20 triangular faces. 12 vertices. 30 edges. There. Dave, didn’t you think this was something strange when you found it?”

Dave replied, “Yeah, I did. Only thing, I didn’t and still don’t want anyone to come and take it from me. I’ve grown fond of it over the years.”

“When exactly did you find it?” asked Patrick?

“About … seven years ago,” Dave replied. “Exactly? Hmm … I remember it was summer. August.” Patrick made a note of that.

Patrick continued studying the new stone. “Facets flat and smooth as glass, as seems common with these stones. Ancient Pythagoreans considered Icosahedron to correspond to the classical element of water.”

“Oh really?” asked Dave. “I’m not a swimmer or anything like that.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what that signifies,” said Patrick. “The Greeks considered the octahedron to correspond to air, and the stone Paula found seems to have associations with motion. The cube they connected to earth, and Anne’s stone seems to have to do with solidity or defense. The tetrahedron, which we haven’t found but suspect Beth might have, the Greeks connected to fire. And the dodecahedron … well, the Pythagoreans tried to hide its existence, because when they discovered it, they were out of elements. It wasn’t one of the classical four, so they philosophized about some mysterious fifth element for it to correspond with.”

“Fifth Element – underrated movie, actually,” said Dave.

“Now, water …” mused Patrick. “I suppose we might try placing it in a tank of water, but we really haven’t done that with the other stones. Maybe it would affect the propagation of the lasers?”

“Lasers?” asked Dave.

“OK, yeah, Dave … you’re our friend, so I’m gonna tell you a secret,” said Jess. “This doesn’t go outside people who already know, all right?” She told him about how the dodecahedron had changed her – and how it had seemingly given Paula, Joyce, and Anne new abilities, and Patrick some kind of mysterious insight.

“OK, whoa,” said Dave. “First of all, I do remember some kind of voice when I first touched the d20 of Glowiness. Sorry, that’s what I call it. It said something like, OK, this one’s a conduit but it’ll have to be activated. It was like it wasn’t even talking to me. After that, I’d occasionally hear a voice in the background when I touched it, but sometimes nothing. So are you gonna point lasers at this one too?”

“If that’s OK with you,” said Patrick. “You found it, so it’s yours. Paula and Anne have allowed me to borrow theirs to examine further. I can power them up and you can try those too.”

“Wait, I might get super powers?” asked Dave.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” said Jess. “I didn’t get any powers, but it turned me into who I felt I truly was – I guess that’s a boon but not a power?”

“Well, still, the stones haven’t done any harm to anyone, right?” Dave asked.

Patrick had to admit, “No, not so far.”

“OK, then, let’s fire things up,” said Dave.

“OK, then,” said Patrick. He switched on the three existing frames, and Dave tried those while Patrick set up a new one.

Patrick said, as he began to disassemble one of his large laser frames and reassemble it on the exterior of a large square tank he had made of Lexan plastic, “I’m going to see if I can get some kind of reaction from your stone like we managed from the others. I’m going to approach this from a new angle, since your stone is supposedly representative of water. I used Lexan to build this because of safety, really – glass can shatter, but this stuff can stop a .44 caliber bullet.”

“Where did you get all of this?” Dave asked.

“Oh, it’s just a nonlinear system using an indium-gallium-phosphide nanophotonic platform I assembled over time,” he replied. “It’s made from the discarded components left when a university research project ended and surplused all their gear. They let me take it if I carted it away.”

“Wow,” said Dave.

“Did anything happen?” Jess asked Dave as Patrick got set up.

“Well, I heard more voices,” Dave replied, “or really, the same one. Said something like, ‘No, no, not the right one, why don’t you do the right one? Why’s he messing around with water?’”

Not having heard, Patrick finished setting up his water tank. “This should significantly boost the efficiency of the light frequencies and keep them in a clean coherent state – no stray energy losses or contaminations. It requires much less light, even down to single photons. It’s the first real path I’ve found to a deeper investigation of these stones.”

“Oh, so you won’t have to figure out how to make those black tubes go through the plastic,” said Jess. “You can turn the power way down.”

“Yes, there’s a safety aspect too,” Patrick said. “I’ll just turn all the lights off, and …” He did so. The curtains were closed. It was totally dark except for the glowing stones in their frames. He powered up the lasers on this apparatus, having placed Dave’s stone in the receptacle at the center of the water tank, where it glowed, calmly pulsating. As the computers adjusted the lasers’ frequencies, the stone vibrated, then came to rest suddenly.

“So … I should reach in there and touch it?” Dave asked.

“If you want to,” replied Patrick. “I’m taking readings of the lasers’ frequencies. They’re locked in now.”

Dave rolled up his sleeve and stuck his arm in the water tank, reaching for the stone. He lightly brushed it with his finger and … there was a huge splash of water.

All Jess and Patrick heard was the splash. “Dave?” asked Jess. “Are you OK?”

They heard the splashing sound again, but in reverse. “Uh, I’m fine,” said Dave. “Don’t turn the lights on yet.”

“Um, OK,” Patrick said. “Let me know …”

Dave was moving in the darkness. “Are you … putting your clothes back on?” asked Jess. “How’d they come off? Did you get magical disrobing powers?”

“Uh, kind of, I think,” Dave said. “OK, turn the light on.”

Patrick did. “I’m ready,” he said, poised over his computer keyboard to take notes. “Tell me what happened.”

“I touched the stone, and I heard a voice saying, ‘Yes, he’s done it. The conduit is formed.’ And … as near as I can figure, I just turned into water and was so surprised I made a puddle on the floor.”

“Well, I nearly made a puddle on the floor when I changed,” said Jess.

“No, really, I was a puddle on the floor,” Dave said. “But I was still me. I … guess I can turn into water?”

“Well, you did make contact while the stone was submerged,” said Patrick. Something’s telling me that the stone governs aspects of change or transformation, though, not specifically water.”

“Wow, so I do have a super power, sort of,” said Dave. “I guess I’m like Hydro-Man, but he’s a supervillain. I suppose there’s Zan from the Wonder Twins, but he mostly does ice.”

“What about Mera?” asked Patrick. “Wife of Aquaman? Doesn’t she control water?”

“Hmm, can I control water?” asked Dave. He reached his hand at the water tank and willed the water to rise out of it, but nothing happened. “Maybe not.” But he held up his hand, and before their eyes it transformed into transparent, flowing water, held in place in the shape of his hand, then he changed it back.

“Your clothes are dry,” said Jess. “So’s the floor. I’m guessing you just … pulled yourself together, drawing all the water back into yourself?”

“I think that’s exactly what happened,” Dave said. “OK, this is really weird.”

“Sorry about irrevocably changing your life,” said Patrick, scanning Dave with one of his detectors.

Dave shrugged and said, “No, I’m the one who chose to do it. You were right – I didn’t have to but I did it anyway. I didn’t know what would happen.”

“I get the impression that it’s very rare for these to work for anyone in the entire human race,” said Patrick. “I also get the impression that … well, the range of things you can do will increase if you exercise your ability. Maybe you can’t control water now, but maybe you’ll be able to? No … that wouldn’t make sense.” Patrick paused. Then he said, “There will be other things you can change into.”

“Patrick?” asked Jess, because Patrick’s voice was really weird, all of a sudden. It was like he was listening to something far away.

“I’m all right,” he said, but to Jess he replied, “You won’t need the stones.”

“What? What’s that mean?” Jess asked, but Patrick seemed to snap out of it.

“Now … we just need to get in touch with Beth,” said Patrick. “Dave, do you mind if I borrow your stone so the others can try touching it? It might do something for people like Tamara or Robert, who haven’t gotten any kind of a reaction yet.

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Beth was … very big on makeup. That was why Jess wanted to see her. “Need makeup help,” she texted to her. “Don’t know how. Suddenly a girl.”

“There, that should get her attention,” Jess said, before going to bed that night. She put the phone down on her nightstand, plugging it in to charge.

In the morning, there was a message from Beth. “Sorry for not getting back,” it said. “Call me.”

So Jess called. “Hi, Jason,” she said.

Jess guessed she hadn’t heard the news. “It’s Jess, now,” she said.

“Oh wait, that wasn’t a joke?” Beth asked. “I guess Tamara said something too, but I didn’t believe it. Let’s fix your name in my phone first. There, now it says Jess. Short for Jessica?”

“Yeah, that’s my intent,” Jess said.

“Wow, you sound really different,” Beth said. “Anyway, we can meet up at my place if you want. Here, let me text you the address I’m at.” Jess got a text message from her.

“Maybe you can show me how to send texts at the same time you’re on the phone too,” Jess said. “I can never get that to work.”

“Ha! Maybe.”

Later, when Jess drove over to her place downtown and rang her apartment, Beth buzzed her in, and Jess walked up.

Her apartment was like a theatrical dressing room, a nightmare of different set and costume pieces everywhere. Jess remembered Beth was really into theater.

Once she’d ushered Jess inside, Beth said, “Whoa, OMG, is that you? You look like you’ve always been a girl.”

“OK this is a secret,” said Jess, “and I can’t explain it, but it happened by, I don’t know, some kind of magic? Or alien science? There was this glowy stone …”

“Holy crap,” said Beth. “I just found something like that. I was in the park late, coming home after a show, and it just appeared right in front of me. There was a big flash of light, and then this glowy triangle thing was on the ground at my feet. So I picked it up. But I’m not a trans guy or anything …”

Jess quickly said, “These stones can do a lot of different things, it turns out. And it seems like our group of friends is being targeted with them, I don’t know why. Did you hear … some kind of voice when you touched it?” asked Jess.

“Yeah, it was weird,” said Beth. “It was in my head, and it was something about how this one would be a good conduit if they can activate it? Something like that?”

“We have got to get you to see Patrick,” said Jess. “He’s studying the things. With the one you found, there are five of them.” Jess briefly told her the story.

“So like, yours turned you into a girl?” asked Beth. “Only, you were kind of already one inside, where it matters?”

“Yeah,” Jess replied. “But there’s so much I never learned about being a girl? Like makeup? Tamara showed me blush, lipstick, and nail polish, but she said she defers to you when it comes to eye makeup.” It was true; Beth’s eye makeup was elaborate and stunning. She looked like a movie star.

“Huh, that’s nice of her,” said Beth. “I thought she didn’t like me.”

Jess was confused. “Why would you think that?”

“I’ve been getting these text messages from her,” Beth said. “Here, let me show you.” She tapped and scrolled on her phone and showed Jess some messages.

Jess read them aloud. “‘Hey, you any strange thing’ … ‘Really important tell you weird rock’ … ‘Got stones not get bck to me’ … oh, Tamara, your text messages are illegible … Sorry, Beth, I guess she shouldn’t have opened with one that looked like it called you a strange thing …”

“Yeah, I was just too busy to deal with whatever her deal was right then, and then it looked like she was mad that I wasn’t getting back to her. I was just gonna let it blow over, whatever it was.”

“Oh, I understand now,” said Jess. “But yeah, we do need to talk about the stone you found, but I really did come about makeup tips.”

“OK, it’s true that I’ve taken actual makeup classes,” said Beth. “Part of theater. And I would be absolutely happy to show you some things that women should know. But the number one thing women should know is: you do not need makeup. Not every day. You are beautiful. I know this is coming from me, and I’ve got a pound of stuff on my face right now, but you are not me. I want this to be a career. I have to show people I know how to do this. But after that lesson number one, the rest is pretty simple once we figure out your colors.”

Jess was astonished by both how simple it was, and how complicated it was possible to go with it. But Beth gave her an excellent primer on makeup and told her exactly what to buy. When they were done, Jess had had a makeover, and Beth told her, “Now remember, you only need to go to this much trouble if it’s a special occasion. Like you’re getting married, or doing job interviews, or going to a formal dance party. Most days, you don’t need anything, not at our age. Maybe a light lipstick or even just lip gloss for fun. But otherwise, you’re fine. Hot date, maybe some foundation, blush, and light eye makeup.”

Jess blushed. “I … don’t know if I’m ready for dating just yet …”

“Still getting used to … things,” Beth said. “I sorta understand.”

“I’m still gonna practice until I get the hang of it,” said Jess. “Thank you so much! It’s a big thing I was missing out on.”

“Happy to fill in the blanks,” said Beth. “Is Patrick OK with late tomorrow night? Late nights are the only times I’ve got free.”

“I’ll tell him, but I’m sure he’ll be OK,” Jess said. “This is all very important to him.”

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“There she is,” Jess called down the stairs to Patrick. “Right at 11 p.m., just as she said.”

“She’s always been punctual,” said Anne. All the friends were present at Patrick’s house this Sunday night, knowing that this was the fifth and (according to Patrick) final stone. Only Paula hadn’t arrived.

Jess opened the door and saw both Beth and Paula. Beth was staring at Paula, who was removing a motorcycle helmet. “Oh hi!” said Jess. “Did you come here together, or …?”

“Flew,” said Paula.

“Holy crap,” said Beth. “This is for real.”

“I guess the helmet’s for safety?” asked Jess, letting them in and closing the door.

“Keeps the bugs outta my teeth and the wind outta my eyes,” Paula replied.

The three went downstairs. Patrick had all the stones arranged in their apparatuses – and his Lexan water tank was off to the side just in case. “Great, you’re here!” he said.

“I suppose you want to see the pointy stone thing,” said Beth. “Got it right here.” She took the glowing pyramid-shaped stone out of her purse. It shone more brightly and with a more reddish light than the others.

“Can I examine it?” asked Patrick.

“Break a leg,” Beth said, setting down on his workbench, where Patrick looked closely at it with his magnifier and took readings with various devices.

“So everybody’s had some kind of weird powers show up after he points lasers at these things?” Beth asked.

“Not everybody,” said Tamara. “Not Robert or me.”

“Tamara!” said Beth. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. But you gotta admit, those were some sketchy texts you sent.”

“I sent what?” Tamara said, looking panicked and getting out her phone. “OMG. What. How did I type these? Beth, I’m sorry. I don’t know how anybody reads what I text them.”

“I’ve got a PhD in TamaraText,” said Dave.

Patrick had finished taking notes and said, “OK, so Beth, with your permission, I’m going to place your stone in this frame, which I’ve prepared for it already. Just like the others, it uses lasers and finds the resonant frequencies that seem to activate the stone. I expect they’ll be different from all the rest – although the Touchstone, the 12-sided one, seems to resonate to all of them, which means I already have an idea what it’ll be.”

“I guess it doesn’t hurt them, so OK,” said Beth.

“Here we go, then,” said Patrick, carefully putting the tetrahedral stone into the final empty apparatus and clamping it into place. He started the now-automated process of zeroing in on the frequency series the stone reacted to. “This one’s got the highest energy level of all of them,” he said. “Annnnd … locked in!” The stone seemed to hum as the four lasers synchronized their frequencies with it.

“OK, and I can turn the rest of the stones on too …” He tapped on his keyboard. “Now, everyone who hasn’t had a chance to try any of the stones, you can try, but I do suggest one at a time. The one time two people touched the same stone at the same time, well, that was Jess and me, and the stone cracked. I don’t know that’s why it cracked, but best to be safe.”

Jess suggested, “Beth, you brought your stone in tonight; why don’t you go first? Followed by Tamara and Robert, who haven’t reacted to any of them so far.”

“Good idea,” Patrick said. Beth stood up and walked up to the apparatus.

“I just touch it?” she asked.

“Yeah, and try touching all of them,” said Patrick. “You might hear those voices we’ve been hearing – I’m still not sure what those are.”

Beth reached out and gingerly touched the tetrahedron between the laser tubes. Suddenly a bright light surrounded her, like a spotlight. “What –?”

“Wow!” said Patrick, typing notes furiously. “That’s new!”

Beth said, “So I can … be in the spotlight whenever I want?” she wondered. “I mean, that can be useful if I can’t find my phone or a flashlight …”

“Can you shine it wherever you want?” Jess asked. Beth tried, and the circle of light moved around, lighting up whatever or whoever she seemed to mentally be pointing it at. She tried making the light wider or narrower, and she could do that too. She tried varying the direction where the light seemed to come from, and that was also something she could do. She tried changing its color, making it brighter and dimmer, and even varying the shape of the light – she could make simple geometric shapes, like a square or star-shaped spotlight. Finally she turned it off.

“OK that’s pretty amazing,” said Beth. “And this … doesn’t go away?”

“Hasn’t so far,” said Paula. “Feels like I unlocked something that was already there, frankly.”

“Try the other stones,” said Patrick. “We haven’t yet seen anyone who’s gotten more than one, but who knows?”

Jess interrupted. “Wait – first, did you hear any voices, Beth?”

“Yeah, something like, ‘OK, that’s expected. We might be done soon, unless there are other surprises.’”

Patrick looked concerned and deep in thought, then took some notes as Beth tried the other stones. “”Methodical, just like the others,’ the voice said,” said Beth, “but I’m not noticing anything else weird.”

“Let’s see what happens with Tamara and Robert, then,” Jess suggested. “Beth’s and Dave’s are the only ones they haven’t tried.”

“I-I should try it?” asked Tamara, tentatively getting up from the couch. “I’m kind of … uh …”

“Worried that nothing will happen and you’ll still be left out?” asked Patrick.

Jess added, “Tamara, no matter what happens, you’re not left out. Same with you, Robert. You’re our friends.” Everyone else said the same.

“Thanks guys,” Tamara said. “Well … here goes.” She got up and looked at the icosahedron Dave had found.

“Didn’t this thing turn Dave into water?” she asked.

“I mean, I got better,” said Dave. “I can turn into water and back.”

“Did you try anything other than water?” asked Patrick.

“What, like … iron, or stone?” asked Dave. He held up a fist and concentrated. His fist turned into a fist-shaped piece of solid iron. “Whoa!” he said, feeling it with his other hand. “I’m not Hydro-Man, I’m Metamorpho! That changes everything!” Everyone was staring open-mouthed.

“The possibilities just multiplied by … a lot,” said Patrick. “Plus, Metamorpho’s a hero,” said Patrick. “It’s probably because I was experimenting with taking readings of the stones underwater that you started with water.”

“So you didn’t need that water tank thing?” Dave asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Patrick said. “I got a lot of very interesting data from that test, though I’m not ready to make any solid conclusions.”

“So what happens when I touch one … might depend on what I’m thinking when I do?” asked Tamara.

“It’s possible that’s true,” said Patrick. “And Dave’s icosahedron there seems to have to do with change or transformation, but not necessarily of yourself – though it could be.”

“OK, well, let’s think of something harmless,” she said. “I don’t want to go flying across the room like Paula and Anne did.” She concentrated. “Think about fuzzy bunnies. Think about fuzzy bunnies.” She touched the stone.

And turned into a fuzzy bunny. She was small, light pinkish brown, and … her clothes had vanished somehow. “I didn’t want to be a bunny!” the bunny said. “Though … wait, you can hear me, right?”

“Yeah,” agreed Jess, “and might I add, OMG you’re adorable!” The room was full of “Aww” noises.

Smiling, Patrick said, “Tamara! Try changing back to yourself. The fact that your clothes are gone means that when you change back, they should reappear.”

“Should?” asked Tamara.

“I mean, they’re probably somehow dimensionally suspended?” Patrick shrugged. “Or you could hop over behind that divider wall thing over there and change back.”

“Uhh, yeah, if you don’t mind …” Tamara the bunny hopped behind a changing divider and … emerged as Tamara again, fully clothed. “Whew. OK, close call.”

“That … didn’t happen when I turned into water,” said Dave.

“Yeah, but the lights were out,” Jess said. “We didn’t see anything.”

Patrick added, “A lot of it has to do with intent, I think. If you think about making sure your clothes will come back when you change back, then they will. Or that’s what I’m getting from this, anyway. But Tamara, I’m betting you aren’t limited to bunnies. Try some other animal?”

“Wow, OK, huh,” Tamara said, thinking for a moment. “I always like owls.” She concentrated, and she was an owl. A gray and brown Great Horned Owl, in fact. She was a bit less impressive standing on the floor, but she flapped her wings and landed on the staircase bannister. “OK, wow,” she said.

“OK, so you’re Snowbird now,” said Dave. “Also, now we have two on our team who can fly.”

“I’m not sure we’re forming a superhero team, exactly,” said Patrick. “But … I’m not sure we aren’t, either. Anyway, Tamara, we can help you experiment with it, if you want,” said Patrick. “I wonder if you can transform other people too. Or if you can transform into other human forms. If you can do that, I’m gonna be envious.”

“But first try the other stone,” Jess added, picking up where Patrick was going. “Nobody’s gotten two yet, but … whoooo knows?”

“Very funny,” Tamara the owl said. She changed back into human form, slipping off the railing. “Whoops! That could’ve been more graceful.” She went over and touched Beth’s stone, the tetrahedron. “Fuzzy bunnies.” Nothing happened. “Nope, something about only one conduit. Not that I’m complaining!” She turned into a large wolf and sat down on the carpet next to Paula.

“Urge to scratch behind your ears … rising …” Paula said.

“Go for it,” said Tamara.

“OK, Robert, I guess it’s your turn, then,” said Patrick.

“All right …” said Robert, getting up from the two-seater couch where he was sitting by Joyce. “I guess if my girlfriend’s the Flash, I can be Iris and maybe occasionally have speed powers? Or there’s the girl who’s got some kind of telepathy …”

“Focus on girl heroes and you might end up a girl,” said Jess.

“Oh dang. Yeah.” Robert paused. “I’ll just think about whatever happens happening.” He tried the tetrahedron first. Carefully reaching out to touch it …

He heard a voice in his head saying, “Now this one’s a cautious one. Of course, that stone’s a good one to be cautious with …” Nothing obvious happened.

“I … felt a jolt,” said Robert, “but did something happen?”

“Well, you were focusing on going with the flow,” said Patrick. “Think about something now.”

“Something like …?” Robert wondered.

Patrick replied, “I don’t know, it’s the tetrahedron, so think about lightning – I’d prefer if you tried that outside, though. Or rain, or … I’m just brainstorming.”

Robert looked out the window, seeing Patrick’s narrow back yard. “No lightning or rain,” he said. “It’s dark out there … Beth could do something about that, I guess.”

“Or I could do that in here,” she said, shining a spotlight on Robert. “Third degree. Where were you on the night of right now?”

Robert chuckled. “I’d need a cheap metal folding chair, and …” He blinked. He turned around. There was a cheap metal folding chair right behind him. “That wasn’t there before, was it?”

He looked around, and saw that everyone was staring at him. “It was not,” said Patrick slowly. “Can you … make other things appear? Can you make the chair go away? I wonder how long it stays around if you don’t make it go away? Try making another object. Something simple, like a pencil.”

Robert held up his hand, and suddenly there was a pencil in it. “What about a battery?” Patrick asked, and he handed Patrick a battery, which Patrick tested. “It’s … actually charged. OK, let’s go for broke … how about a stone just like that one?” Robert held up his hand … and produced a glowing tetrahedron just like the one in the apparatus. “I think I’m about to pass out,” Patrick said. “Holy … living …” He examined the new stone and said, “I can’t tell the difference between that one and the one Beth found.”

“I’m gonna see if I can make the chair vanish,” said Robert. One look, and it was gone.

“Whoa, Green Lantern!” said Dave. “Kind of. No, more like Zatanna.”

To everyone’s surprise, Anne spoke up. “Gremmy Thomeaux,” she said. “Only … he’s really a brain in a jar. He uses his power to create a body for himself.”

“What’s that from?” asked Joyce. They started talking about manga.

“I wonder if I can make something that’s alive,” said Robert. He paused. “I wonder if I want to make something that’s alive. Anyway, there’s the other one …”

He stepped up to the icosahedron. “OK, again, just whatever happens happens …” He touched it and again felt a jolt. The voice in his head said, “Fascinating. But then, this one’s two conduits are related.”

Patrick looked up from examining the stone Robert had conjured. “Did … you just react to another stone?” he asked.

“I … think so?” said Robert uncertainly, because again, nothing had immediately happened. “But that one’s related to change, right? What if …” He held out his hand and made an old-school wood-and-graphite pencil appear again. He concentrated, and the pencil twisted itself into a knot.

“Not going to be evil … not going to be evil …” said Robert.

“I’m not gonna let you be evil,” said Joyce.

“Looks like you can not only conjure temporary matter,” said Patrick, “you can also modify it once it exists. That’s the first instance I’ve seen of two different stones’ principles working in concert. Not that it couldn’t be possible …”

“It’s past 1 in the morning, and I’ve got class in the morning,” Jess said. Several of the others did too. “Maybe we should all think about what just happened and how it might change our lives … and whether we want it to.”

“Or if you wanna stay up even later, I’m free to hang out,” said Beth. “No such thing as a dark alley anymore!”

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After everyone had touched every stone and gone home for the night, Patrick sat at his research computer and read over the many gigabytes of collected data. Even with all the data he had, he felt a slight frustration at his inability to scan within the molecular structures of the crystals.

There was no delusion of ever being able to get such scans on his part either. One of those types of devices cost millions, if not billions … and that was assuming human technology had some way to even penetrate whatever these stones were made of. There was no way he could possibly convince the University’s Board of Trustees of the necessity for one without revealing way more than he was ever wanting to. That still didn’t stop him from wishing hard for it.

He shook his head sadly as he removed an almost filled data storage chip from his system and placed a new one in.

In the midst of his doom and gloom, as he waited for the data to transfer from the new chip, his cell rang. He answered it on the second ring, although he was unfamiliar with the number calling, “Afternoon, this is Patrick. How can I help you?” He had a habit of answering the phone with times of day that it wasn’t. Besides, what do you say when it’s 2 a.m.? “Good Way Too Late?” “Good Very Early Morning?”

A rather deep voice answered, “Forgive the interruption this time of the morning, but are you the Patrick who is top listed as clean up for EOR materials?”

Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Just what are” … “What are EOR materials?”

The voice replied, “ I’m sorry, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dr Thomas Anton, head of the R&D department for the Nano/Gen Research facility in town. EOR means end of research. All the materials and equipment used in our research projects are classified as scrap once the study has completed … and this number’s on file, with specific instructions to call Patrick about removal before taking any further actions.”

Patrick snapped to at that point. “Yes, I would be more than happy to collect and remove any non-classified items.”

Dr. Anton replied, “There is also an email address here specific to Patrick. I’m sending a list, along with directions to the testing facility. Please reply yes to the email if you are going to collect all items – after all, we pay you to remove it too, don’t we? Thanks. Looking forward to meeting you.” The phone went dead.

Wow, a real windfall. and from a world-famous research facility. The new influx of a large sum of money didn’t hurt in the least either. Patrick was positive he was going to get new and interesting items as his email notice chimed.

Immediately after opening the mail, Patrick was more than dumfounded as several of the items on the list caught his eye. He couldn’t believe it, but the very devices he had wished for were also included in the EOR listing and in need of disposal. The other thing that amazed him shown in the email, they were paying him exactly double the amount of money he had been wanting for fuel and other related costs for removal.

As fast as Patrick could, he emailed Jess, knowing she wouldn’t see it until the morning, and told her what was happening and that he was taking his panel truck to the Nano/Gen research facility to pick up the first load first thing in the morning. He also asked Jess to gather some of the others of the gang together to help assemble and sort through much of this stuff. It was all very high dollar.

In the morning, Jess contacted Beth, Tamara, and Robert. Beth didn’t reply, of course, as she was very much a night owl. But the rest were more than eager to help, and contacted others. Needless to say, Patrick made many trips and cleared the whole research wing. He couldn't believe what had happened … and he was starting to suspect something. He also began deciding where he was going to put all of this new gear in his townhouse.

First thing Patrick examined and assembled after collecting all the items from Nano/Gen was the partially disassembled scanning tunneling microscope. Patrick was totally mind blown when he flipped the power switch after he had assembled it like it appeared it went together and the device ran through is start up diagnostics and came to the main operational GUI screen.

“What is this?” asked Jess.

“Scanning tunneling microscope,” said Patrick. “Electron microscopes can’t directly image individual atoms, but they can visualize nanoscale structures and material properties … but this can show us individual atoms on a surface.”

Jess asked, “Patrick, isn’t all this the equipment you were mooning over to investigate the stones on a nano scale?”

Patrick replied, “Yeah, it is. A real dream come true. There’s an atomic force microscope too. I have a major suspicion … since this equipment is worth millions.”

Jess replied softly in her new sweet female voice, “It changed you Patrick. It gave you a power to make your desires and wishes come true.”

Patrick took a deep breath. “I had thought it had just given me an insight into the stones. But I suspect you might be right. I think … I have an insight into whatever’s behind them. And I can affect it to some degree. I’m not sure I fully understand. But I’m going to try my hardest to figure it out. Because … I have another suspicion, one that I don’t like.”

Robert and Tamara came over. “What I was just talking about … it’s some kind of energy or force. Part of the cosmos, the universe we live in, or maybe multiverse. The stones … somebody sent them. Somebody made them. They’re not the Infinity Stones or something. They’re opening pinholes to whatever great energy lies beyond. But whoever made them is … experimenting on us.”

“Experimenting?” asked Robert. “Why? They already know way more than us.”

“We know way more than lab rats, but we experiment on them,” said Patrick. “These are people who think they’re as far beyond us as we are beyond rats. They’re from some other planet – or dimension, or I don’t know. And they’re trying to learn more about this primal energy or whatever it is.”

“When I dream,” said Jess, “it feels like beautiful music, just out of hearing.”

“Hey – me too,” said Patrick. “And that’s interesting, seeing that we were both affected by the dodecahedron. That particular pinhole seems to have to do with the music itself, directly. And what I feel is …”

“I think I know,” said Jess. “You feel like the ones who sent the stones don’t really understand it.”

“They want to, but they see it as power,” said Patrick. “The only possible use they see for it all is as a means to greater power.”

“That isn’t what it is,” said Jess. “It’s a means to greater self-expression and understanding. Oneness with the whole.”

“And the only people who can truly glimpse it, grasp it, realize it, are the ones who aren’t looking for power,” Patrick said. “But in the meantime, the ones who can only partially channel it can do a lot of damage. And that’s why I’m worried.

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Patrick and his friends were amazed at the amount of money Nano/Gen had paid and the high dollar equipment they had basically given to him for free. There was no way Patrick was able to store everything in his townhouse or basement. Boxes and equipment were stacked floor to ceiling everywhere.

No one complained, since Pat also received the exact research equipment he had so badly wanted to continue his molecular research on the stones.

Jess had climbed over a large box of electronics after seeing Patrick and said slightly exasperatedly, “Patrick, you have beaucoup of money now and we are unable to do anything in this mad house due to all the stuff jammed in here. Why don’t you see if you can find a bigger place to do the research?”

Patrick replied, “I’m way ahead of you. I contacted one of the agents at the business forum, and they turned me on to a large factory floor. It has two upstairs levels and two subterranean floors, with freight elevators. I even set up an annuity with a bit of the money to pay the rent and other expenses annually. I’ve backed my panel truck up to the door and have a sturdy ramp from the steps to the truck. I’m going to start moving things over.”

Jess, along with Robert and Tamara, who had shown up just as Patrick started loading the panel truck for the second time, all pitched in. There was so much equipment, including the already assembled laser frames, it took many trips. Fortunately, as time went by, others joined in, like Paula, who could fly things from one place to another, and Dave, who could turn himself into literal steel and somehow still move. Robert was experimenting with conjuring simple machines like wheeled pallets and hand trucks – though sometimes even simpler machines like custom-created ramps helped a lot. And Tamara found out that turning herself into a gorilla made her extra strong. They had to be careful not to do any of this where anyone could see them, but it really helped.

They stood inside the ground floor of the factory and looked around. Much equipment and many crates were now stacked neatly everywhere.

Robert went to one of the crates and opened it. “Where do you want to set up the laser frames?”

Patrick replied, “I know it’ll take a bit of extra leg work, but I want all the original equipment in the sub basement. I want all the microscopes and the related analytical equipment to be in the level above it. This leaves this floor and two above to plan the location of the reassembly of the rest of the equipment.”

Robert climbed onto one of the forklifts Patrick had rented and picked up the huge crate with it. From there, he went to the freight elevator and descended to the sub basement before returning shortly, grabbing another large crate, and proceeding back to the elevator.

Tamara climbed onto one of the forklifts and cranked it. “This looks like it’s gonna be fun. Turning into an ape was also fun. Different kind of fun.” Then she proceeded to familiarize herself with the operational controls. It only took a few minutes for her to figure it out before she began to carry crates off to their assembly locations.

Jess and Patrick took their place in other forklifts. Before long, a huge dent in all the large crates stacked on the floor became more than noticeable. In reciprocals, the two basement floors rapidly began to contain a large number of huge crates.

“I’m glad I’m able to help to some extent, anyway,” said Jess. “I’ve never been certified as a forklift operator. I’m watching what you do.”

“Do it carefully, and we’ll be fine,” said Patrick. “There’s no rush. If somebody has to go to class or meet somebody, it’s OK. Now that all the crates are inside the building, we could even all lock up and leave if we all had to go, and just pick up on it later. I’m just saying, don’t worry, take it slow, it’ll get there.” But he was working his forklift while talking, and he didn’t seem like he was as stress-free as his words seemed to suggest.

“I just hope I don’t slip up and break something –” began Jess, and then a load that she’d thought was well balanced turned out not to be. She’d picked up two crates, and the bottom one wasn’t level, and the one on top started to slide off. “No!” She tried to lower them so it wouldn’t fall as far, but the forklift was just too slow. The crate slipped off …

No! thought Jess to herself. I can’t let this happen! I can’t ruin all of Patrick’s hard work! Just because the only thing I got was turning into my real self! I just –

Then she realized that the crate wasn’t moving anymore. Then she realized that nobody was moving anymore. Had time stopped? Or was she just thinking really fast and perceiving time really slowly?

“Ah, you begin to understand,” said that calm, wise voice she’d heard sometimes, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. “Your perception begins to expand. All things are possible. Merely listen … to the music …” And Jess heard it, distantly at first as before, then louder, and now it was as if she was in the middle of a symphony orchestra, only the sound was as multitudes of instruments playing at once, only a few of which had been heard by any human ear. She listened, raptly, because the music was heartbreakingly beautiful, for an eternal instant.

And then she saw the world through a new lens. The crates were … gone. Gone from the forklift, at any rate. They were just elsewhere – where she’d intended to put them. Jess was so startled that she snapped out of this trancelike state.

“Wait, what?” asked Patrick. “Where’d your crates go?” Time had suddenly started up again. But it clearly hadn’t been Jess’ imagination. Her forklift’s cargo was actually gone.

“I … think …” said Jess, “they’re down in the sub basement where they were meant to go.”

“W-what?” asked Patrick.

“Hang on, Patrick. We were affected by the same stone. I don’t know if this means we can both do this, but … I have to talk to you about it.” Jess walked over to his forklift. “Set things down for safety.”

Patrick said nothing, but lowered the forks and turned his forklift off. He walked over and stood in front of Jess. “I have a weird feeling that what you’re about to tell me is critically important,” he said.

“I want to know if you’ve had any dreams or visions lately where you could hear music,” said Jess. “A song, a tune … I keep hearing an unearthly symphony. It was far away the first time … what just happened was that I heard it up close, really loud and clear.”

“And … you teleported crates?” asked Patrick. “That’s so … prosaic. It sounds as if you should be creating some kind of art.”

“I only got it for an instant, a fraction of a second,” said Jess. “But have you heard it?”

“When I get one of those feelings,” said Patrick, “like I did just now when I felt like what you were about to tell me was important, I hear something in the background … like the ringing of bells, chimes, even cymbals. Far away, though.”

“Can I ask you do something for me?” asked Jess. “You’re my friend. We’ve known each other forever. I know in your heart that sometimes … well, sometimes you wish you were like me, and sometimes you don’t. I want you to think about that and listen to the music. Close your eyes … and listen to the bells. Let them guide you.”

“That sounds kind of woo-woo, but …” Patrick paused. “I’ll do it for you. You’re my friend. I know you won’t guide me wrong. And … I just have a feeling that you’re right …” He closed his eyes. “The bells …”

Patrick heard the chimes this time, but they became peaceful tubular wind chimes, played by gentle breezes. It was a meditative experience. He heard them absolutely clearly, along with the breaths of wind that moved them. He could flow with the breeze, become the wind, and play the chimes himself – not forcing them to play as he wished, but moving with them. The chimes became chords, simple, natural harmony.

And Jess was right. He knew Jess had always felt like a girl born into a boy’s body, and now he knew that these chimes were one aspect of the music that had righted that accident of nature. But Pat wasn’t the same as Jess – to Pat, the way he expressed himself wasn’t the same from day to day, or even moment to moment. The music and he flowed as one. How did he feel right now? He wanted … to know how Jess felt. But he imagined looking exactly like Jess, and that felt wrong. He imagined looking how he’d felt when he’d started experimenting with the Touchstone and had made himself the female version of himself. Yes. That. The chimes played, low and non-rhythmic.

He was back. “You did it!” Jess was shouting with joy. “You heard it! It listened to you, or you listened to it, or both really!” Pat opened his eyes …

Tamara and Dave had come, and Paula and Robert were coming this way, wanting to know what was going on.

“Pat,” said Tamara, “you turned into a girl again. Like when you first found that stone. That’s awesome! But … you don’t have the stone, do you? You did it without it?”

“I did?” asked Pat. Her voice was noticeably different. She realized that she had not only a female shape, but the female-fitted version of the clothes he’d been wearing. Unlike Jess, she didn’t have to go shopping for clothes that fit her. At least, not right now. She could if she wanted to. And for days when she felt male, she already had that wardrobe.

“You did!” Tamara replied. She snapped a photo of Pat with her phone and showed it to her. Pat was amazed.

“I think the stone gave us powers we didn’t realize it gave us,” said Jess.

Dave asked, “What, Pat can turn into stuff too?”

“No,” said Pat, “I think that’s just a side effect … but I’m not yet sure what it’s a side effect of, exactly. Wait, Jess, you said that this is all just a glimpse of something greater, something vast and cosmic, that’s all about self-expression and understanding?”

“Yeah,” replied Jess. “I think … I’ve got more of the self-expression, while you’ve got more of the understanding. For now. As we all learn more, all of our abilities will increase, won’t they?”

Pat replied, “Yes. Yes, they will. I feel that with certainty.” He looked at the others. “Far be it from me to give you assignments, because you’re all in classes, but I suggest you all make a point of stretching your abilities. Think of anything you might be able to do and try it – safely, of course. But try new things, see where your limits really are, and push the envelope. And … I wish I could say the same thing to everyone who isn’t here.”

“Joyce, Beth, and Anne need to hear that too,” said Tamara. “Here, I’ll text them.”

“I’m thinking of the last texts you sent,” cautioned Jess.

Tamara laughed. “Noooo, I’ll be more careful!”

“Where’s this crate go?” asked Paula, pointing to a heavy one that was taller than she was.

“That’s part of the atomic force microscope,” said Pat. “Goes to the first basement level. The one above the sub basement, I mean. But no, don’t try to pick that up, you’ll hurt … yourself?”

Paula put her hands on it and … it rose an inch off the floor. She obviously wasn’t lifting it with her muscles, but she was concentrating. “Motion,” she said to herself. She rose from the floor herself and slowly rotated the huge, heavy crate, then started either pushing it, or perhaps willing it to move, toward the freight elevator.

“Paula! Way to go, Paula!” shouted Jess. “Girl power! You found a way to transfer the force that makes you fly to another object!”

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It would have taken the better part of a month, but Patrick and his friends managed to move all the new equipment and even assembled it properly within about a week using their abilities, constantly finding new ways to use them. The subbasement worked out perfectly and held all the laser frames and stones. The room wasn’t crowded or cluttered and left much room for them to move around among all the equipment and make observations.

The floor above was filled with millions of dollars’ worth of highly advanced microscopes and the necessary analytical equipment to research whatever findings the microscopes discovered.

Patrick was in seventh heaven as he placed the icosahedron into the vacuum staging area of the microscope, sealed the hatch, then started the vacuum pump. He watched as the Hg readings fell ever closer to complete vacuum and the scan became less and less contaminated with stray readings.

As soon as the green ready light on the scanning control panel lit up, Patrick adjusted the scanning beam as finely as he could before starting the recording equipment. He had already adjusted it to filter out the neutron beam of the scope, leaving any leftover energy readings or atomic structures as close to uncorrupted as he could make them.

The first data he received showed that the stone was polycrystalline, meaning it was made up of many different types of interconnected crystals, giving it a very tough and durable structure. So it really was made of matter after all – Patrick had been wondering whether the stones were made of something impossible. A deeper, ever more detailed scan revealed that each of the interconnected crystals had been meticulously arranged in such a manner as to tune into and amplify a certain energy frequency. But he had no idea how anyone could so carefully arrange billions of atoms into such a structure.

He felt like a guy today, so he’d shifted back to male. Now that Jess had shown him how to do that, he was able to change back and forth with only a bit of an effort of will. With Jess being gone for her visit to Canada, Patrick was glad she’d made that discovery before her trip.

On a subatomic level, Patrick managed to image strange channels running a serpentine path through the stones. Within each of these channels appeared to be some from of unknown crystal pillars no larger than several perfectly aligned atoms.

From the readings he was getting, it appeared that the stone was channeling a form of energy into something that resembled some type of cavity resonator designed to capture and indefinitely hold a type of energy he had never seen before. Was this evidence of a fifth fundamental force of nature?

Patrick singled out the particular frequencies the strange signal resonated at, then made a spectrograph of the energy signature on one of the large oscilloscopes. The erratic rise and fall of the intensity of the signal and the varying impulse strengths of the frequencies gave Patrick an idea.

He went upstairs and retrieved his electronic synthesizer keyboard and brought it to the basement lab. He hooked the keyboard’s output to one of the oscilloscope’s input ports and played a few notes while he watched the scope’s wave pattern.

He realized, to his total shocked amazement, the stone was specifically designed to capture, resonate, and maintain a form of energy that turned out to be some sort of extremely high energy music.

He plugged his keyboard into the energy scanner’s output port that had been tuned to the particular frequencies he was interested in within the icosahedron, then turned on the keyboard’s amp. The most perfect and beautiful music he had ever experienced washed all through him and even somehow changed somethings within him that made him feel even better.

His mind began to clear as if a veil had been lifted. Then Patrick had a real live waking dream that was far more than a dream. He saw and experienced things as if he were standing somewhere else. Another country? Another planet? Another universe? He couldn’t tell. But wherever this was, it was as if he was watching and listening to a gathering of men in white body suits all discussing something about sterilizing the Petri dish in the same manner as they had a planet he somehow knew was called Mars. Then the vision faded, and he was once again back in the basement lab.

Patrick knew that cavity resonators were widely used in electron paramagnetic resonance, very high field magnetic resonance microimaging, and also in high field human imaging. This stone’s particular application was a new concept. And he now knew it was designed to capture and maintain a musical frequency.

Usually, he knew, a resonator was an acoustic device that amplified or modified specific sound frequencies, enhancing or altering the sound's character. They worked by amplifying certain frequencies, shaping the sound, and could be used in various applications, including exhaust systems and musical instruments.

Now Patrick understood his vision. Earth was basically a planetary Petri dish for some alien species’ tests. A tingle of fear ran down his spine at the thought of what they would do to the Petri dish once the experiment had concluded. Images he had seen on the internet of the rovers’ images of the barren landscape of Mars appeared momentarily before him. After that, his thoughts went to very dark and horrid places rather quickly.

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Jess stepped out of the … electric vehicle? She didn’t know what sort of car it was, but it had traveled almost silently, with no engine noise. The friendly driver had introduced herself as Andrea after meeting Jess at the small airport in this northern Canadian town and driven her to the clinic called the Center of Creation. “Here we are!” said Andrea with a smile. “This is where you’ll create your new life! That’s what I like to tell people. That’s how it was for me!” She’d told Jess during the drive how she’d come here for help with her gender transition.

“Well,” said Jess, “in a way, I think my new life has already started – but I really hope they can help!”

“Oh, Dr. Seven Stars can help!” said Andrea enthusiastically. “She can help anybody with anything! She’s so nice, too. You’ll be fine! I have to go plug the car in. I hope to see you later!”

“Thanks, Andrea! I hope so too!” So it was electric. Jess waved to her and smiled, then entered the building, which was apparently the main building of the complex, an architecturally amazing assemblage of what appeared to be glass and steel prisms connected by elevated walkways.

After checking in, and after a wait in a waiting room that seemingly had reading material for people of any age or gender, the receptionist smiled at Jess and called her name, telling her that it was her turn. So she went though the indicated door … and into the office of Dr. Elaine Seven Stars.

There were low bookshelves containing a number of both popular and academic works on gender and medicine, some by Dr. Seven Stars herself and others by other leading doctors and therapists, but three of the … five? walls of the office were all windows. Jess wasn’t sure how the room and buildings’ geometry worked, but clearly some advanced architect had worked it all out. A black-haired woman about Jess’ height stepped out from behind her glass desk and strode over to shake Jess’ hand. “Jess? I’m Dr. Elaine Seven Stars. And …” She looked at Jess for a moment, her eyes widening slightly. Was that surprise? “... I think we might be similar in more than one way.”

Jess shook her hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Doctor,” she said. “Are you … trans too?”

“Yes, but that’s not what I meant,” she said. “I’ve read Dr. McKenna’s letters but, of course, she couldn’t discuss details of your therapy sessions with me. If you don’t mind, could you tell me anything you’re comfortable telling me about your … transition experience?”

So Jess described how Patrick had found the stone and how it had caused her sudden change, and how their group of friends had supported each other as they had discovered things about themselves as well.

“You say that there were five stones, in the shapes of the Platonic solids, and that once your friend Patrick energized them with the proper resonant frequencies, they had different effects on different people?” asked Elaine.

“Yes, but not one of our group of friends ended up unchanged in any way,” said Jess.

“I’m … not entirely surprised by that,” Elaine replied, “but we’re here to discuss you. You know that you’re not really here for any kind of procedure, yes? It’s already happened.”

“Yes, I understand that this is just basically meant to legally ‘explain’ whatever happened to me,” said Jess. “But I was hoping … that you might be able to actually explain it. If just to me.”

Elaine nodded. “I’ll explain what I know … but you must understand that to the rest of the world, this is a place where people come for gender counseling and surgery. But here’s the thing. No surgery takes place here. What happens to those who come here is just like what happened to you. But I do it.”

“You … change people’s bodies to be like what they wanted them to be? So you … you have powers like my friends do?” asked Jess.

“Well,” explained Elaine, “I can only explain how I experience it. The universe … is a song. It’s a very complex song. I’ve discovered that I’m one of the rare ones who can hear the entire song and … make suggestions to its harmonies. The song is always changing, but I can guide how it changes. And you and your friends each had the potential to hear one of the song’s threads and guide its change, but that potential was unrealized. Then someone sent these stones to you, and your friend Patrick learned that they’d been sent to unlock that potential.”

“But … only little bits of it,” said Jess. “To me it feels like a symphony, an orchestra with millions and billions of parts, and each of us has learned how to be the conductor of one of the parts.”

“Except for you, Jess,” said Elaine. “Well, perhaps you and Patrick both. You hear the whole song, and the moment you did, it brought you into harmony with it.”

“You mean that’s when … I changed.”

“Your physical body changed,” Elaine said. “You, your mind, your spirit, didn’t change. You just … soared on the wings of the music. And you continue to hear the song, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” said Jess. “It’s … kind of always there, in the background.”

“You’re somewhat like me,” said Elaine. “You hear the song and can suggest some changes. If you keep listening, you might find that there are few harmonies you can’t influence. Your friend Patrick hears the song too, I think, only he hears the song with more clarity. You said he has surprising insights into the stones – I think he’ll find that he has insight into the song, not merely the stones, and that the song can tell him anything he needs to know. He can hear and understand it, and you can express yourself through it.”

“Wait,” said Jess. “Are you telling me that … you found yourself with incredible cosmic powers … and you chose to use them to help people like us?”

“That is exactly what I did,” Elaine said. “I’ve been asked that before. There have been other ways that I’ve tried to help people, but I must be subtle. For one thing, it’s the nature of the song; drastic changes aren’t its way. Some would say that changing someone from male to female is pretty drastic, but …”

“But you don’t change people from male to female,” said Jess, “you change people to be what they truly are within.”

“That’s what I was about to say, actually,” Elaine replied. “Some come to me who are nonbinary or genderfluid, or intersex, and those cases are more difficult. This is why we have a staff of counselors. We take the time and effort to find out what each patient truly is within before we make any changes whatsoever. Sometimes we don’t make any physical changes at all and only help them psychologically. But the fact is, if I tried to use the song to do something that was entirely against what someone was within, it just wouldn’t work.”

“So the song can’t be used … destructively?” asked Jess, thinking of some of the things that her friends could do with the abilities they’d found themselves with, if they chose.

“Oh, it can,” Elaine said. “It’s not as easy, because it doesn’t like to be forced to make drastic changes, but the harmonies can be made dissonant and discordant. That doesn’t seem right to me. And I believe that those who are truly in tune with the song, truly able to use its real power, are those who wouldn’t do such a thing with it. Those who would do so are in conflict with the song itself, and those in tune with it.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to harm anyone with … this,” said Jess. “Can you show me … how to get in better touch with it?”

“Yes,” said Elaine. “You’ll learn sooner or later, so you might as well learn it from me. As with most things about the song, I expect that what I can show you is subtle and will only make a gradual difference, but let’s start with listening to it as we go about our daily affairs. Would you like some tea? Can you hear what it sounds like as I pour the water?”

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Jess closed her eyes and listened. The most amazing tinkling sound filled her with wonderful rushes. Jess stood up suddenly and by reflex grabbed between her legs. She as nearly wet her panties over the marvelously wonderful sensation of the water’s music running through her as she had when she was a little girl.

Elaine smiled as she added some honey and a small spot of cream to her tea, “Sorry, I should have warned you. The music can be rather intense at first. You don’t ever truly get used to it, but enough you won’t wet yourself. I do have some pullup panties from some of my older little girls that would fit.”

Jess blushed several shades of red and a couple of pink, stammering, “I’m … I’m not sure …”

Elaine stood and walked over to a cabinet and opened it. Within were several large stacks of really cute lacy little/ big girl absorbant panties. Elaine grabbed what looked like to Jess the cutest and thickest pair in the pile and held them out, reassuring her, “Don’t be embarrassed. These are way better than having to wear a pair of soaked panties when none are available to change into. Besides, it could happen more, and it’s best to be prepared. The music is everywhere, and there are two occasions when it can overwhelm you … when you’ve just learned of it, and when you’ve been listening to it for a very long time and learn to truly let go and really feel it.” Elaine momentarily pulled open the front of her pantsuit and showed Jess. She too was wearing a really cute and lacy pair of the absorbant panties, just in case.

Jess didn’t feel so embarrassed as she took the panties from Elaine and retreated to the bathroom in Elaine's office. Jess took off the soaked bikini panties she had on and laid them on the counter next to the pullup panties.

Jess was amazed; the pull ups didn’t appear very much different from the wet bikini panties Tamara had had her buy. They were thicker, maybe, and had a few more ruffles, but they weren’t much different. Jess wiggled into them. They did feel quite soft and comfy. Jess got dressed and looked in her purse for something to put her soaked panties into, finding a specimen bag she had left in there when she had gone to the woods looking for fireflies. Something she would have to learn was the practice of cleaning out her purse, but for now it was good that there were random things in there.

She stuffed the wet panties into the baggie and closed the zipper, making sure they wouldn't mess up anything else, then stuffed the bag back into her purse. After Jess looked at her shapely sexy self quickly in the mirror and made a small adjustment to her makeup, she went back out to Elaine’s office and sat back down.

Elaine smiled and asked, “Feel better now? I know it can be very uncomfortable to be in wet undies. Happens to me now and again when I get really lost in the music.”

“You mean I’ll always wet my panties?”

“Not as if you were incontinent, but only when the song catches you off guard,” replied Elaine. “There are some who want to be incontinent, part of the infinite diversity of the universe, and the song can accomplish that.”

Jess quickly replied as she shook her head, “No thanks. I’m embarrassed enough with it happening this way.”

Elaine laughed. “If you ever want to experiment with being a baby girl, I’ll show you how to manipulate the music to make it happen.” She opened a folder and began to fill out the stack of forms within.

Jess thought for a moment. “I … never got to experience being a baby girl, did I?”

“Frankly, it’s not that different from being a baby boy,” Elaine said. “Pardon me if I fill out a bit of your paperwork. It has to be done. But anyway, the fact is, babies don’t really notice what clothes they’re wearing … that’s something parents do so they can take photos. It isn’t until you’re at least a toddler if not a young child that girls have a noticeably different experience from boys. But it’s very different, more than most people even realize.”

“Yeah … even from an early age I remember being told I was going to grow up and be a big strong man,” said Jess. “Told how handsome I was, a real lady killer …”

“That’s what happens,” Elaine said. “It doesn’t have much impact before babies learn to understand words, though. But once you do … imagine what it would’ve been like if you’d been told how beautiful you were instead of how handsome … and if you’d been told you were going to grow up to be pretty instead of strong.”

Jess immediately replied, “And that it was OK to want to be pretty!”

“Yes, we do want to make sure everyone’s segregated into their gender pigeonholes, don’t we?” Elaine asked rhetorically. “There, that should do it,” she added, signing the last form. Then she looked up at Jess again. “Jess, I have no doubt in my mind that you’re the perfect candidate for our procedure – if you needed it, that is – and I still wouldn’t have any doubts if you hadn’t done yourself exactly what I’d have done for you. So I’m glad to sign these forms. I’m going to help you out a bit by … arranging a few things. You’ll learn how to do this with the song sooner or later, but this will just prevent you from having problems.”

“You aren’t going to change things so that I’ve always been a girl, or alter the past so that I really did start counseling two years ago?” asked Jess.

“No,” explained Elaine, “although the song can accomplish such things, they’re very disruptive to the fabric of reality unless you limit them to something going on on the very edges of society or on an island isolated from the mainland, and even then there can be adverse consequences. But Dr. McKenna’s plan is to make it look as if your counseling sessions took place two years ago but were recorded with the wrong date, so they can be ‘fixed’ when this ‘error’ is discovered. I’m just going to make that easier. The error will be discovered by someone else and corroborated with other paperwork that will be found. There’ll be no doubt in anyone’s mind that you went through the process correctly and legally, and then you were referred here. Everything will say that you went through the procedure here, today, and from this point on you looked like you do now.”

“So … things like my Adam’s apple …” Jess began.

“Oh, I won’t even need to do anything about that,” said Elaine. “When you get home, if anybody thinks back to how you looked before, they won’t remember whether you had an Adam’s apple or not. Nobody notices things like that. They’ll see you as you look now, and they might wonder about that, but unless there are photos, they won’t remember that you looked any different.”

“I don’t think there are any photos,” said Jess. “Wait – there are some on my phone. I took selfies after it happened. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.”

“This might be a good exercise for you,” Elaine said. “The song can alter anything. Can you make your selfies look like you have an Adam’s apple?”

“Or … can my selfies just be changed so I took them after I left here?” Jess asked.

“That would also work,” said Elaine. “Changing their dates could actually be done without even using the song, just some software. Just make sure they don’t show you wearing anything you already threw away … or show you at a place you couldn’t possibly be at that date and time.”

“What about things like security cameras?” Jess wondered. “Oh wait … they’re probably not detailed enough to see that.”

“Probably not,” said Elaine, “and in fact, unless some kind of crime happened and they need to set them aside and save them as evidence, security footage isn’t usually kept for more than a few days. But don’t worry about it, because nobody will find any images of you that don’t fit into the puzzle. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You’re … just so reassuring,” said Jess. “I’m so glad to have met you.”

“I feel certain that we’ll meet again from time to time,” said Elaine. “You’re the only other human I’ve met with such attunement to the song.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who really understood the music and what it is,” said Jess. “Now I know I’m not going crazy.”

“Your friend Patrick is learning quickly,” said Elaine. “Please share with him what you’ve learned. There isn’t really a reason for him to come to the Center … not yet, at least … but you can at least pass along your knowledge. I can … well, I can hear that he’ll need it. The song isn’t that good at telling us the future, but it sometimes, well, foreshadows.”

“So it isn’t surprising that none of us got the power to see the future,” Jess said.

“Not at all,” said Elaine. “I do wonder what those stones are, and who sent them to you, and why. But I encountered a message once, from a being from another world who was also a hearer of the song. Perhaps these are also messages of a kind from another world. The song tells me that they are. But they seem different. I’ll continue to think of you and listen for what the song tells me about you. But for now, I have another appointment, one far more mundane.” Elaine smiled and got up from her seat again.

“Thank you so much,” said Jess, and when Elaine opened her arms, she rushed to hug her.

“Remember, the Center wants you to be happy with yourself,” Elaine said. “And personally, I do too. I’m so glad we met too. And we will meet again.”

“I hope so,” Elaine said. “I feel so … full. Like … I need to process all of this.”

“I fully understand. But for now … go with the song guiding you.”

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“I guess it’s official, then!” said Jess’ dad, hugging her as she emerged into the public area of the airport. “You’re my daughter for real, as far as the law is concerned … kind of … it’s confusing.”

“Yeah, some of the paperwork’s done but other things aren’t yet,” said Jess. “I’ve got a whole checklist that I keep updated. The good thing is that the Center of Creation’s procedures don’t require a recovery period. It’s amazing.”

“However they do it, it’s got to be super advanced,” said her mom, hugging her. “Oh, it’s good to have you coming home, Honey. Even though you’re the same, it’s … different, somehow.”

“Now, what’s this?” asked her father, looking at one of the TV screens in the airport, which was set to a news channel. “Huh. The number of solar flares is higher than normal. They think it might disrupt global communications if it keeps up. Well, nature always finds ways to remind us that we’re at its mercy, not vice versa.”

“That’s interesting, Dear, but we should probably get our daughter home,” said Jess’ mom.

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“I don’t know why I thought you’d look any different,” said Patrick, “but somehow I did. And in a way you do. I’m not sure I can explain.”

“I’ve got some things to explain to you too,” Jess said. It was the next day, and the first chance she’d had to visit Patrick. They were at his townhouse, not his warehouse workshop. She told him about her visit to the Center of Creation, leaving out the part about occasional incontinence for now.

“So this … music you’re hearing is a real phenomenon,” Patrick said. “It’s corroborated by someone with a Ph.D. who’s been making use of these energies for years now. That’s very important. But I can’t exactly cite her as a reference, since she’s doing so covertly.”

“Yes,” said Jess, “but more than that, I have to walk you through some things. But I don’t know how it’ll manifest itself to you. For her, well, she called it a song. I’ve described what I experience more as a celestial symphony.”

“So … what do I do?”

“Just … do something ordinary,” Jess suggested with shrug. “Pick something up, move it to somewhere else, put it down. Don’t use any technology yet. Just something low-tech and simple. Roll a ball across the floor.”

“How about this?” Patrick asked. He picked a book up off a table and carried it to the shelf where it belonged. But he stopped before putting it away. “So … I should … listen?”

“Yeah, and try to understand,” said Jess. “I’m about self-expression; you’re about understanding. Just … flip the pages and try to understand it, feel it, whatever impressions you get from that insight you’ve been experiencing.”

Patrick turned a page, then grabbed a number of pages and riffled through them. “It’s … faint … but … I think …” He did it again. He did it more times. “It’s …”

He put that book away and took out another one. “I’ve never read this book. He closed his eyes and riffled through its pages. “I can … hear the music. It’s like … the most cosmic rock and roll guitar solo ever played. And I feel the meaning …”

“Wow!” said Jess. “That’s completely different and yet somehow the same.”

“OMG! It’s like … the most fantastic progressive rock band in the universe! …” said Patrick. I feel like … I just know what this book was about …

“OK, try something else,” Jess said. “Let’s go watch a car go by on the street.” They went upstairs and looked out the front window. “Close your eyes. Don’t even look at cars with your eyes.”

“It’s like … jazz fusion …” Patrick said. “There goes a family and I know their names and where they’re going and what they’re talking about … and I know their car needs an oil change and their right rear tire is worn …”

“Maybe that’s too much for right now,” Jess interrupted.

“Yeah maybe you’re right. Uh … now I wish I were at the lab with the stones. By the way, we’re an experiment,” said Patrick.

“We’re what?”

“The stones,” Pat reiterated. “They were sent by aliens. From some other star system. They experimented on Mars, long ago, when it had life. I don’t know whether they put the life there first. But then they autoclaved their Petri dish.”

A chill ran down Jess’ spine. “Are they going to … autoclave the Earth?”

“There’s something being reported about higher than normal solar activity,” said Pat, “but I don’t know if that’s it or what. These aliens are powerful. They know more about the music than we do, and they’re trying to learn more.”

“But you can learn about them now,” said Jess. “How long do we have?”

“Well, if they seeded life on Earth to do this experiment,” said Pat, “it would’ve been billions of years ago, so maybe they don’t act all that quickly. But I wouldn’t know how to estimate.”

“What if you had the stones?”

“Maybe I could understand their scientific procedure better?” Pat wondered, shrugging. “Or maybe not. But if billions of years isn’t an object, then millions would be normal, and thousands would be rushing it? Maybe?”

“Maybe we still have time, then,” said Jess. “Time to figure out how to stop it … how to prevent them from destroying all life on Earth … ok let’s not assume right away they’re gonna do that …”

“That’s true, because Mars is really not big enough to hold an atmosphere and too far away from the Sun to have liquid water,” Patrick said. “And the astronomical evidence isn’t there to say Mars used to be bigger or closer to the Sun.”

“But couldn’t they have … somehow changed the Sun?” asked Jess.

“OK, that speculation’s getting a little bit wild,” said Pat. “There are just too many possibilities. I need to know something. Let’s go to the lab.”

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It had started to get late and Jess had gone home for the night. Jess’ question about changing the Sun was bothering Patrick a lot. He called up the NASA website and looked into the live streaming data and videos of the Parker Solar Probe. He looked at the Hyper-K experiment and other solar neutrino detectors.

From the data he saw, he realized the Sun’s neutrino flow had increased, though readings for the past few weeks were as always very uncertain. He also noticed solar luminosity had increased by about 2%, which would also be an indication of an increase in the amount of radiation the Sun gave off.

Patrick worried a lot. It was, as always, nigh impossible to tell whether each neutrino observed from the Sun was a neutrinos or an antineutrinos – physicists were even arguing about whether antineutrinos existed at all, or whether neutrinos were their own antiparticle. But why would the neutrino flow have increased?

He just had a feeling. What if something were somehow speeding up the fusion processes inside the Sun? What would that do to the neutrino rate and solar luminosity? It would be …

He sat and stared at the data as it scrolled slowly up his screen. It would certainly explain what he was looking at.

The solar wind, the constant flow of charged and neutral particles that flowed outward from the Sun, would increase in density and energy. The planet Mars had little to no magnetic field, so its atmosphere had been stripped, probably hundreds of millions of years ago, but Earth’s magnetic field had protected it somewhat. There was still geological evidence of such an incident now that he had more data to go on. It did cause much volcanic activity on Earth and shaped the landscape.

Earth was closer to the Sun, and everything had its limits. If they just kept turning up the heat, the magnetic field would be overwhelmed, and Earth would find itself with a hydrogen and helium atmosphere. Pat banged his fist in helpless anger. There had to be something he could do …

It began as a soft tinkling of what sounded like bells. Slowly more musical sounds were added until the faint music sent chills all through him that overrode the fear of what the aliens were doing.

Without warning, it was like reality in front of him shattered as if made of glass. Next thing Pat knew, he was standing in a room beyond his wildest imagination. Nothing he saw could he even hope to describe. Four things he saw he recognized immediately. Four figures dressed in some type of white suit with integral gloves and boots.

The first few sentences they spoke among themselves he couldn’t understand. Then, something like a discordant screech, and the conversation was suddenly understandable.

One of the individuals was saying, “… from calculations, the fusion amplification should magnify the star’s mass-energy output, as it did last time we had to sterilize a crucible.”

One of them was sitting at a control panel and replied, “I am going to increase the production and will attempt to enhance the collision rate.”

The oldest one of the four said, “Why are you in such a hurry? I was waiting to see if the ones that changed gender would become attracted to the opposite sex.”

The one sitting at the control panel replied, “They are on the verge of breaking containment. Several of them have even gained mastery over some amazing attributes we have yet to be able to manifest.”

The one who had first spoken asked, “How can anything so insignificant as these creatures manage to manifest anything that we cannot?”

The third one said, “What is the point of this experimentation, if we wipe out this experiment without so much as attempting to learn how to manifest the effects we may be seeing?”

But the fourth said, “But if they break containment, and they know of our plans, they may retaliate.”

The first one replied, “Ridiculous. There is no way they could know of our plans. They cannot possibly be listening in on us ...”

Suddenly, all four of the beings turned, and the one seated at the control panel stood and looked with what seemed to be a seriously surprised expression … right at Patrick.

The first one to speak, who appeared to be the oldest, pointed at Patrick and shouted, “They have broken containment. Destroy them immediately …”

“Jess! Jess, come here! Please! Right now! This is an emergency!” Pat heard himself shouting.

Jess rushed over; she’d been looking at the stones. “What’s wrong, Pat? The stones were suddenly resonating somehow … I could hear them …”

“They know we can hear them!” Pat explained quickly. “They’re going to, I don’t know, do something to destroy us all, meaning all life on Earth! We have to do something!”

“I didn’t hear that, but I trust that you did,” said Jess. “You see, while I do. But together …” Jess held Pat’s hand.

“I see now,” said Patrick. “They have some kind of … device inside the Sun. It withstands the temperature … no! It isn’t just a device. It’s one of the aliens, operating and protecting the device. They can shield themselves from the Sun like Anne’s shield.”

Jess said, “Now that you point it out, I can sense it. I hear its music. Its discordant crescendo is intensifying the Sun’s melody.”

“Can you stop it?” asked Pat.

“I have to do it without harming the Sun or the person,” Jess said.

Pat reminded Jess, “That person is trying to wipe out all life on Earth!”

“That doesn’t mean we become like them,” Jess replied. “Not when there’s a choice. Not when it’s easy.”

“What do we do?” asked Pat. “How do we stop them from just trying again?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Jess, “but I know someone to ask. For now … I can hear in the music that the device is very old … millions of years … and it’s huge … so if I can get rid of it … replacing it won’t be a walk in the park for them … I can hear what to do … you have to tell them that we can defend ourselves and that the power they think they have isn’t what they think it is …”

Patrick didn’t actually know what happened next. The wonderful music within him suddenly joined with more wonderful music coming from Jess, like the most glorious concert ever heard. Pat said to the aliens in one of those ethereal echoey voices, “You don’t understand … and you won’t until you learn that the power you seek isn’t a power at all …”

Meanwhile, Jess heard the mechanical theme of the machine inside the Sun. She harmonized with it, and she didn’t know how she was doing this, but at just the right phrase she changed its motif and now heard it as a much smaller theme, much farther away. The theme of the person protecting it was now all alone, shielding nothing but themselves from the Sun’s heat, and the machine had become a tiny planetoid, drifting in interstellar space.

At that point, Patrick could have sworn reality had turned upside down. His vision cleared, and he was once again sitting at the computer in his lab. Sitting next to Jess. Holding Jess’ hand. Jess blushed, but didn’t let go.

“What are they doing now?” asked Jess, looking into Pat’s eyes.

“I can’t tell,” Pat replied, looking back. “What happened?”

“Their big machine inside the Sun is now a little rock, super far away from any stars. But the shielding alien protecting and operating it is still where they were, just without their machine.”

“It’s … just gone? Like that?” asked Pat.

“They might try again, but it won’t be easy,” Jess said. “Depends on whether they have more of those devices. Meanwhile, is what they just did going to affect the Earth?”

“It’s very likely, but the worst it can do is disrupt communications for a while, until the Sun goes back to normal,” said Pat. He paused, still holding Jess’ hand, still looking into her dazzlingly beautiful eyes.

“How long do we have before it hits?” asked Jess, holding herself back with difficulty.

Pat replied, “The particle flow … will take 2 to 3 days to get here …”

“Days …” repeated Jess. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, and their faces grew closer together, until Jess took a deep breath, pulled back, and said, “We still have to tell our friends, while we can.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” said Pat, also reluctantly pulling away. “Before the worldwide communications blackout. They won’t all get the message right away. Better send it out now.”

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Jess’ mind was befuddled. She had enough reason to make the calls. She had to leave voice mails for a couple. Jess hoped they got it before all comms were blacked out.

Even with all that going on, she still couldn’t get Patrick’s handsome face out of her mind. Jess couldn’t believe how she was starting to feel about Patrick. It actually scared her a bit until she thought it over. She had known Pat for a long time, for years and years. She knew everything about him. She’d already loved him like a good friend, not that she’d been about to tell him exactly what that meant while she was a guy in such terms.

It’s not as if he wasn’t a good-looking guy, but … her hormones or whatever just weren’t right then; she didn’t feel that way about him. But now, though … now Jess was a girl with a girl’s body and girl hormones. And, apparently, she was also a heterosexual or at least bisexual girl, because she did in fact feel a strong attraction to him.

She knew he was just as attracted to her. It was just that … well, with everything going on, she hadn’t really had the time, energy, attention span, or whatever she wanted to call it, to even think about relationships. But what she’d felt just now was hard to deny.

Jess entered the room just as an emergency broadcast came on. The Commentator said in a serious tone, “According to the scientists at NASA, an unprecedented solar event is approaching Earth. It goes beyond any class of coronal mass ejection; this is some sort of spike in solar emissions, both in energy and density. In preparation, all satellites have been placed in safety mode when possible. There will be no GPS or other satellite services, including satellite internet. The public at large is instructed to immediately turn off and unplug all electronic devices and shut down as many electrical systems as possible. Be advised that the last time an X-class CME hit the earth, it destroyed electrical grids and set fire to transformers and Morse code equipment … and this goes far beyond that.” The news commentator gave a specific time and date when the total blackout would happen and would remain in effect for 48 hours to protect as much of the electronic and electrical infrastructure as possible.”

Jess came up to Pat and said, “Looks like we’re in for a rough couple of days.”

Pat replied, “It could have been a lot worse. Especially if we don’t comply, it could knock us all back to the Stone Age.”

Jess felt an odd tingle rushing through her as she looked over the very handsome Patrick. She hadn’t felt like this since her body changed. Her nipples became hard and tingly; other parts of her were … well, a wonderful thought tiptoed through her mind. A full 48 hours of everything being turned off …

Pat turned and looked at Jess as she actually leaned over and kissed him on the nose. Jess said softly, “Two whole days with nothing working. You know? I can think of a couple of fun things to do during that time.”

Patrick felt it too, as his pants became a bit too snug in a private place. His new perception abilities gave him wonderful hints at what Jess was suggesting.

Jess took Pat by his hand and pulled him to his feet, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him directly. It turned into a French kiss, as well as she could manage. At first, Pat was a bit stiff, but he melted into the kiss as Jess softly caressed him.

Jess felt so weird, but extremely nice, actually, doing this. Even before she’d become a girl, she’d been inexperienced, and now she was in a body that she’d had zero practice with. But … Pat was aroused, she felt his hugeness as she caressed him, it was because of her, it and that fact itself made her more aroused, to the point where she wanted to gently caress him even more to make it worse. She could tell he wasn’t very experienced either, but then, that’s what she’d thought and it tickled something inside her a lot.

“Wow, Jess,” said Patrick. “I, uh … mmm …”

“I know,” Jess said breathlessly. “This is … more than I expected …”

And then, as these things always go, Jess and Pat’s phones both blew up. “Wouldn’t you know it …” said Pat with a sigh. Every one of their friends and family was texting or calling at once, trying to get in touch before all communications went totally dark. There was even a ring at the door to Patrick’s workshop.

“It’s … Tamara and Paula,” said Pat. “I … somehow know that. Let me let them in.” He reluctantly went to the elevator, taking his phone with him.

Jess sighed. “Well, it’s probably good we didn’t go too far,” she said to herself as she answered text messages on her phone. She reassured her parents that she was with Patrick, at his workshop, which was a well shielded facility that used to be a warehouse and was very difficult to break into, and that Tamara and Paula were there too. Beth was asking her whether she or Pat had protection in case she was alone with Pat and things got out of hand. Jess wondered how Beth knew.

The elevator came back down. Pat brought Paula and Tamara in. “Hey, Jess,” said Tamara with a smile.

“Yeah, I see why they’re the ones who are here,” said Pat. “Tamara’s the most online one, and Paula’s the most mobile person we know now.” Pat’s face went serious suddenly. “There’s … there’s going to be panic,” he said. “People are going to think it’s the end of the world. If they want it to be, it will be. We … have no way to tell them it isn’t. And …” The lights went out, except for his battery- and generator-powered emergency systems. “... they’re about to shut down the power grid.”

“What’s this about, anyway?” asked Paula. “Does this have anything to do with … you know, the stuff that’s been happening with us?”

Pat and Jess explained.

“What?” asked Tamara. “These aliens experiment on us and then think they can … just wipe us out by trying to blow away our atmosphere?”

“Not only do they think that, they can,” said Pat. “Or they could. I don’t think they can anymore, at least not for now.”

“I think I stopped them before they got to the point where it would even have affected Mars,” said Jess.

Pat added, “And Earth has a magnetic field, while Mars doesn’t. So we’ll be OK. But it’ll be a rough few days. It’ll get here in a couple days, then it’ll …” He got a strange look in his eyes. “It’ll only take about 24 hours to pass.” He shook his head and looked normal again. “But I don’t know how long it’ll take NASA to give the all-clear. They might have to start out by making astronomical observations, visually. Like, with telescopes. The old-fashioned way.”

“So you sent everybody else the message you sent me?” Tamara asked Jess.

“Yeah.”

“More of our friends might show up here,” Tamara said.

“Well, they’re welcome to,” said Pat, “but I don’t have a lot of food or anything. Then there’s plumbing. I don’t know why they’d shut that off, although the water system does rely on electricity. But there is a bathroom with a shower; that’ll work here just as well as it’ll work anywhere else.”

“Too bad nobody got the power to create electricity,” said Paula.

Pat replied, “Beth … can create light. That’s electromagnetic. She might be able to either directly induce an electric current or beam enough light on a solar panel to generate power.”

Jess had a realization. “I could probably just make the whole thing go away … but … I don’t think I should.”

“What?” asked Paula. “Why?”

“Because … people know how things are supposed to work, and that wouldn’t be how,” said Jess. “It’s got to be predictable. Or people question science, dismiss scientists’ warnings about impending disasters in the future, maybe even stop funding science …”

Pat said, “Yikes, you’re right. I can’t see how that’s going to end well. As it is, people get a few days’ reminder that the Earth is fragile and the universe is dangerous, but unless there are riots there won’t be … oh no there are going to be riots aren’t there? People are terrible.”

“Darn it, that’s the same reason why I can’t be seen flying around,” Paula said.

“I could fly around, I guess, if I turned into something that can fly,” said Tamara. “Something nobody would think twice about seeing, anyway. Like some kind of bird that we see all the time around here. Like … OMG what kind of birds do we even have around here? I suddenly have no idea!”

“Well, we could sit here in the dark, or we can go outside,” said Pat. “I guess we’ll have to take the stairs, though.”

They agreed, so they all went up the stairs and out onto the loading dock, where Patrick locked the doors and they all sort of instinctively looked up at the sky. In the distance they could hear many cars honking their horns somewhere, but this warehouse and its small parking lot were far from the busiest parts of town. Four vehicles were in the lot: Pat’s truck, Jess’ car, Paula’s car, and Tamara’s car. Paula had not, it turned out, flown here under her own power.

“Maybe if we all got together, we could do something,” said Tamara. “Make things better for the people we can help.”

“We have to think carefully,” Jess said. “Anything we do, it has to be something that nobody ever knows who did it.”

Paula added, “Which means we have to get everybody here and talk to them before they get the idea to reveal what they can do in order to help people.”

“Oh no!” said Jess. “We’ve got to tell them! But …” She checked her phone. There was no signal. They’d shut down the towers to protect them. “We can’t …”

“Is it a good idea to try to drive somewhere?” Pat asked himself. “Oh. Nope, nope nope nope. There’s a huge jam in the middle of town, and it’s getting worse every minute. Everybody has to get home or to the office or to the store right now.”

“It was starting to get like that as I drove here,” said Tamara.

“I have … um … some news,” said Paula. “I was driving here and saw a snarl of traffic ahead – way ahead. I really really didn’t want to get stuck in that for hours. I really really wanted to be here. … And then I was. I have no idea how I did that.”

“What?” asked Pat. “Did you … somehow fold space, or dimension-jump, or whatever we want to call that?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Paula with a shrug. “But … hey, I brought my car with me.”

“Can you do it again?” asked Jess. “What if you went to Robert and Joyce’s house and picked them up … the quick way?”

“I … can try to do that,” said Paula. “If they’re home. Uh …”

“Jess, I’ve got a weird feeling that this will work better if you go along,” said Pat.

“Maybe I can sort of convince the universe to let Paula do it, you mean?” Jess asked. “OK, I’ll try …”

“OK, you’ve got shotgun then,” said Paula, unlocking her car. They got in. Jess listened to the music of Paula’s car, and not to its stereo system either.

“Paula, your car is in terrible shape,” said Jess.

Paula sighed and started the engine, but it started like new. “Yeah, I know, it’s … wait. What happened to the crack in the windshield? And the worn patch in the carpet?”

“Sorry,” said Jess. “I want this to go well, so I guess that means I sort of fixed everything.”

“Sorry?” asked Paula. “You have no idea how much money you just saved me. Or maybe you do. Now that I think about it, I don’t know why I even just started the engine. I’m gonna visualize Robert’s house and go there, and just assume Joyce is over there.”

“And hope nobody’s watching when we just appear out of nowhere,” said Jess. “Actually … what if I just help you … blend into the music … maybe it’s a good thing you started the car … just drive slowly in a straight line …”

So Paula pulled out of the parking spot and drove slowly toward the parking lot exit, thinking about being on the street in front of Robert’s house. Next to her, Jess closed her eyes and reached out, touching Paula on the shoulder …

… and they were about a block away, the car sun-dappled by light coming through the trees, driving up to Robert’s house and pulling into the driveway. “Whoa, that was so smooth,” Paula said. “Is that what you do? Make what the rest of us do work better?”

“I guess it’s one thing,” said Jess, opening her eyes. “I can sort of … make things happen. I’m not good at it yet. I’m trying to get better.”

“I know you can, Jess,” said Paula, getting out of the car. “I know you can do it.”

They went up to Robert’s house and rang the doorbell. Robert actually lived here with three roommates; they shared rent. But it was Robert who answered. “Oh, hey, Joyce, it’s Paula and Jess!” Joyce was suddenly standing beside Robert, smiling at them.

“Hey Rob, Joyce,” Paula said. “We’re kinda getting together at Patrick’s. Want to come over? We’re gonna talk about … stuff. I kinda learned a new trick and, uh, took a shortcut here.”

Jess added, “You know the stuff about the sun and the power grid? It’s kinda about that.”

“I figured, what with the message you sent,” said Joyce. “I guess you can’t exactly talk all about it. Not here.”

“Yeah,” said Jess.

“OK, we’ll come,” Joyce said. “But let me gather a few things first. Won’t take a moment.” She was true to her word. Backpacks stuffed with edibles and travel cases appeared as if by magic next to Robert at the doorway as he stood there.

“You do know that I can just make anything we need, right?” asked Robert.

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be our stuff then, would it?” Joyce replied. “Besides, you still haven’t got the hang of complicated stuff like electronics.”

Robert picked up his bags. “Paula, are you driving?” he asked.

“... Kind of?” Paula replied. She opened the trunk so they could put their bags in, then they all got in, and this time Jess put her hand on Paula’s shoulder from the start.

“OK, just … picture your spot in Patrick’s parking lot,” said Jess. Paula concentrated fiercely, and … their surroundings changed.

“Whoa, that was different!” said Tamara. “When you left, you kind of just … faded away … but this time it was just like boom, here you are! Whoa, hi Joyce! Hi Patrick!”

“Wow,” said Paula. “Paula’s express taxi service. When you really have to be there right away, absolutely literally. Flying’s still better, though.”

“I wonder how big a vehicle you could teleport,” Patrick said.

“With Jess helping,” said Paula, “I’m thinking aircraft carrier. Or that’s what it feels like, anyway.”

Jess smiled modestly. “Thanks, Paula.”

“Patrick, your place is shielded, right?” Robert asked, holding his and Joyce’s bags.

“Yeah, it is – let me guess, you want to put your expensive electronics inside a Faraday cage,” replied Patrick.

Robert replied, “That’s pretty much it. Also worried about looters.”

“You’re a big guy who can conjure a very real looking gun or an actual sharp working sword with a thought,” said Patrick.

“Yes,” said Robert, “but I can’t be everywhere at once, not like Joyce can.”

“OK, how about Dave next?” asked Tamara. “I’m pretty sure I know where Anne is. Then there’s the question of Beth. I have no idea where she is this time of day.”

They got Dave there by going to his apartment and Anne by visiting her dorm, where she was outside because the air conditioning was now off. Pat just suddenly knew where Beth was, so they “drove” to the performing arts building on campus, where Beth had been when she’d gotten the news, so she hadn’t decided what to do yet.

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The sky came alive with waves and waves of color and lights as the massive CME, for want of a better term, hit the Earth’s magnetic field – except for the uncharged particles, which slammed right on into the atmosphere unimpeded. From their vantage on Patrick’s warehouse’s loading dock, they saw the fires caused by electrical items that people had been too ignorant to shut down. It was too late to try to save whatever the items were; if the EMP overload didn’t take it out, the massive fire that it sparked did.

“What do we do?” asked Jess, panicked. “There are no fire departments in the entire world right now! People’s houses are going to burn down, and people are going to die, and it’s all because of these alien jerks who thought they could just wipe out the whole world, but I guess I helped, because they’re only killing some of the humans and not all of the humans …”

“Maybe there’s something we can do,” said Patrick, “but I have to think …”

Wave after massive wave of energy danced across the sky in one of the most energetic and colorful aurorae that Earth had witnessed in modern times. When night fell, the darkness was alive with many colors as the sky seemingly caught fire.

They stood in total amazement as many of the street lights appeared to come on. “What?” asked Tamara. “I thought the power was out!”

Patrick explained, “Yeah, it’s not that they’re connected to a live grid, but they’re still connected to wires … anything with wires is having random currents surging through them, caused by the severe ionization of the atmosphere.”

Flatscreens displayed washes of many colors and flashes of incoherent light, although their circuitry wasn’t damaged due to their being shut down; the energy transference was accomplished by induction and didn’t reach the critical ion overload that an EMP would have created, which was so destructive to electrical devices.

Patrick was overjoyed that he had taken the time to shield his new research lab with all the high dollar equipment. “I’m glad I thought to shield the place,” he said. “Just think of all that expensive stuff destroyed! Of course, that’s exactly what I was thinking … I just got it and don’t want it damaged.”

He knew that a continuous, unbroken conductive material was essential for an electrical current to flow, and if the current flowed within a cage of wires instead, it wouldn’t flow within his sensitive equipment. A metal mesh with openings smaller than 1/10th of the wavelength of the frequencies he wanted to shield against was a good option. He had used steel, copper, or aluminum mesh, as the need had demanded.

Pat had also utilized solid metal sheets, ensuring good electrical contact at seams and door edges, which was crucial to insure no stray electrical charges penetrated. He’d also used Faraday fabric, a specialized fabric woven with conductive materials like copper or other metals, in some of the more difficult areas to insure a good electrical seal.

For a building-sized cage, he’d had to construct it from scratch and had even adapted a modular system to make it easier to construct and maintain. This had involved creating a framework, attaching all the conductive materials, carefully sealing all seams and penetrations with Faraday fabric to ensure a continuous conductive path.

Patrick had taken special heed to any penetrations in the cage, such as for doors, windows, or electrical wiring, and he’d carefully sealed them with Faraday fabric to maintain shielding effectiveness and to stop any leakage.

Now, the grounding connections needed to help dissipate static charges and ensure the cage was connected to the earth showed massive signs of extremely high energy. The obvious proof was their arcing and smoldering, as the tremendous energy going to ground testified. Throughout the entire research lab, all the high-dollar equipment within the cage was shielded and protected.

“I don’t think it’s possible to Faraday shield the whole Earth,” said Patrick. “And there are already houses on fire all over the world, so it would be too late even if that were possible. I wonder what … wait.” He paused and thought. “Wait. It was daytime. We should have seen columns of smoke from houses on fire all over the city. No fire departments, because no fire trucks can start right now, and no dispatchers … why didn’t we see houses burning down?” His eyes seemed to unfocus as he went silent for a moment.

“Patrick?” asked Beth. “Are we OK, dear?”

“I think he’s using his ability,” said Jess. “It’s like … he can see things, or kind of like hear things, going on. And … he’s right, isn’t he? We should be seeing more houses on fire. We saw some fires, but … nothing big. Why is that?”

Patrick suddenly spoke. “Somebody’s … helping!” he said. “We saw small fires but not big ones. That’s because somehow, someone is protecting us. The ones that are small enough that nobody will be hurt aren’t big enough to warrant their attention, but whoever they are, they can tell the difference! How is this happening? Who’s doing this?”

“And … can we do this?” asked Joyce. “It’s night … it’s less likely for people to see us if we use our abilities.”

“I think I might know who’s doing this,” said Jess, “but if I’m right, it’s just one person, and they’re not going to be able to keep it up forever. They need to sleep like you and me.”

“Can we … help them?” asked Anne.

“If we somehow knew where the worst scenarios were,” said Dave, “we could focus our attention there.”

Patrick got a strange look in his eyes. “I … might know how to do that,” he said. “I’m going to try something. Jess, hold my hand.”

Jess immediately blushed. “O-OK,” she stammered. Some of their friends looked at each other with a slight smile or a raised eyebrow. But she held Patrick’s hand and closed her eyes. “I’m helping you, Pat …”

“I can see it,” he said. “I can see where people might be in trouble soon if nothing changes … the problem is that it’s night here … where it’s day and the Earth is turned toward the Sun is where the particles are slamming into the atmosphere and the worst of it is right now.”

“And that’s on the other side of the Earth,” Paula continued. “I don’t know if I can go that far …”

Jess opened her eyes and went to Paula. “I know you can,” she said, putting a hand on Paula’s shoulder. Paula gasped as she felt some kind of surge of energy.

“I feel like … like I could fly to the Moon!” said Paula. “I’m not sure how useful that would be right now, but that’s how I feel. How are you doing that, Jess?”

“It’s something about … what gives us these abilities,” Jess said. “I can kind of … make suggestions to it. And we want to do something good, which helps.”

“What do we need?” asked Robert, standing up.

“What do I need to be?” asked Dave.

“Same,” said Tamara.

“What can I do?” asked Beth.

“I’m ready,” said Anne.

“I’m there,” said Joyce.

Patrick said, “I’m seeing so much tragedy everywhere … whoever it is, they can’t do everything. I don’t think anybody could. As I speak people are still dying everywhere. Life support systems in hospitals are running on generators, but only in places where they’re shielded … yes! Robert, you saw what I was doing when I shielded this building … can you make shielding around a hospital in the Philippines? It’s about to get slammed badly …”

“Tell me where, and I’ll get him there,” said Paula.

“Uhhh, how do we do that?” Patrick asked. But Jess held his hand and Paula’s hand and just somehow … connected their minds.

“I see it!” said Paula. “Robert, come here.”

“Robert, you can do this,” said Jess, touching his arm, and he gasped as if she’d just stung him like a bee.

“Let’s go!” Paula said, taking Robert’s hand and suddenly vanishing.

In the Philippines people were sheltering in place, except for the occasional looters who were attempting to break into stores and the police who were chasing after them on foot. But that was rare, considering the looters were also on foot and had no phones or cars. But in one hospital that had been built cheaply and without any kind of electromagnetic shielding, doctors and nurses were striving to keep patients alive with the little electricity that their generator could provide … but the dawn was coming, meaning that the Earth was about to turn them toward the rush of particles from the Sun, blowing their generator and the sensitive life-support equipment. At that point, even if there was power, the equipment would be dead, and the patients would be too.

“I … somehow see what needs to be done,” said Robert, the moment the two of them appeared across the weirdly quiet street from the hospital.

“Jess must have hooked you up with Patrick too,” Paula said.

Robert stretched out his hands toward the hospital building. “I probably don’t have to gesture,” he said, “but I’m gonna do it.”

And within the building’s framework, a layer of metal meshes and sheets appeared, where no one could see it, protecting their generator, protecting their delicate medical equipment, and grounding out the currents that would have been induced in all the building’s wiring, which was all isolated from the local power grid but was still connected throughout the building. But now all that wiring was inside a shielded cage. Those people would live for now.

“It’s done,” said Robert.

“Awesome, let’s go home,” Paula replied, taking his arm, and the two vanished again.

“He did it!” said Paula to the others after reappearing outside Patrick’s lab.

“She did it,” Robert said. “That building was the exact one I saw in my mind. It’s shielded now, just like this place.”

“We did it,” said Jess. “That … was amazing. We just saved some lives! I feel … a lot better! And while you were gone …”

“Yeah, we fixed a lot of things,” Patrick said. “There are so many buildings and houses where people didn’t disconnect their electricity. Sometimes people probably just don’t know how. But … it was so remarkably easy. I just … checked. All over the world. I’m kind of embarrassed at how easy it was.”

Jess agreed. “Patrick saw it, and I did it … that seems to be kind of how our abilities work together. Maybe someday we won’t need to do that, but it’s how it works for now. I … it’s weird to say, but I turned off the power on a whole lot of people. But … they were people whose houses would have burned down if I hadn’t. I just … heard it.”

Then Jess heard a voice. It was a voice she’d heard before … several times, in fact. She finally recognized it as the wise, serene voice of Dr. Seven Stars. “Thank you so much, Jess,” Elaine’s voice said in Jess’ head. “There’s so much more to do, but … with you and your friends, there are so many who can be saved from this.”

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On another planet, twelve individuals dressed in white bodysuits with integral gloves and boots were panicking around their super-advanced sterilizer equipment operations panel. All the indicators were in the red, and all power indications were zero.

The Head Administrator walked in amid the chaos and panic. He looked around and shouted above the cacophony, “People! We will have order!” He banged his fist loudly on the desk in front of him. The room took notice and all became silent. “Just what in Jepheechu’s Creek is going on?”

One of the techs stood and faced the Admin, stating, “Sir, we have a containment breach in Experiment 990.101.”

The Admin shrugged, “So? Hit it with the sterilization protocol. That’ll end it.”

The tech replied, “We tried that. This has gone beyond a simple containment breach … this is a full-scale contamination.”

One of the other techs pointed to the control panel for the decon equipment and said, “According to this, the species we’re experimenting on have become wielders and users. Rather efficient ones, I might add. All readings show the device no longer exists. It’s … just gone.”

One of the smaller techs spoke up and said, “It wasn’t but a few days ago one of those dangerous creatures manifested here.” He waved his arm as the other techs nodded affirmatively. “That’s why we enabled the sterilization protocol, only to find they had disabled it somehow.”

The Admin’s eyes grew large with concern. “What steps have you taken to eradicate the infection before it contaminates their whole galaxy?”

The lead tech stood and said, “Sir, with all due respect, they wield the power far more efficiently than we. They also have several manifestations we have never been able to acquire. I’m not exactly sure we can stop it from spreading. They have a far better understanding of the power than we ever had.”

The Admin’s face took on one of severe worry. “I need to contact the Universal Council. Seems you idiots have created a monster that just might prove to be the end of us all.”

A few minutes later, the Admin stood before a door that was almost a legend. Very few people had ever been granted an audience, and none so quickly in any remembered history. He looked around for a minute before approaching the door.

He entered grimly as it slowly swung open and admitted him, then closed behind him. He saw the ringed dais with the eight elected Council Members and the ruler, Gent Drahlum, who sat in the middle seat to make nine. The many more members of the ruling bodies sat in concentric ringed seats rising up behind the ruler’s dias.

The ruler banged his mallet loudly, “This council will come to order.” Silence ruled. “Come before us this day with extremely grave news is the Administrator of our power acquisition program 990.101. The Administrator will now explain.” The Admin did so.

Gent Drahlum stood and looked at the Admin angrily. “And just what … do you propose to do about it before they destroy us all?”

“I … have no suggestions,” said the Admin. “This is unprecedented. The only hint of a suggestion I have is from some of our oldest experimental procedures … there is a very old report that there was simply nothing they could do but hopefully find a place to hide where no one would look.”

One of the provincial governors stood and exclaimed, “My province is the closest one to the galaxy in question! These creatures are in a state of rapid ascension! Will they ascend before we do? Will they pose a threat to my constituents?”

Before Gent Drahlum could reestablish order, another one stood up. “And why has the ascension project not seen any progress in thirteen kilochrons? Generations have died of natural causes, preventably!”

Before the Admin could protest that his office wasn’t in charge of that project, another provincial governor stood up. “Mastery of the Universal Power is the basis for our entire way of life! We know of no life forms who have surpassed us in proficiency … except for this upstart backwater civilization, if that is even the word, that has surpassed us in mere centichrons?”

“Experiment 990.101 is dangerous and must be terminated immediately!” said another. “The Administrator and all personnel associated with it must be prosecuted for negligence!”

Gent Drahlum had started banging their gavel and had not stopped. It just got louder and louder, and now it was nearly deafening. “Order! All will get to speak, but there must be order!”

As the body that arrogantly called itself the Universal Council debated, argued, and deliberated, the people of Earth, whom they had tried to obliterate, were struggling to survive. For the phenomenon they called the Universal Power was not in fact a power at all, and that was why they were struggling to make progress. They did not understand it, not truly. And, as is often the case, those who did understand were the ones who were in the worst shape.

Robert was getting exhausted. “I dunno,” he said. “That last building needed a lot of shielding … it felt like it took a lot out of me.”

Patrick thought for a moment, then suggested, “What if you transmuted shielding material out of something else? Like its insulation, or even the nearby air or water?”

“I … hadn’t thought of that,” Robert said. “Maybe even the wall board itself.”

“Meanwhile, it’s not as if the weather has stopped happening,” Patrick said. “There’s a hurricane bearing down on the coast of Bangladesh.”

“Cyclone,” corrected Anne.

“Right, they’re cyclones in the Indian Ocean,” Patrick acknowledged. “But with no satellites online and no ground stations to receive data from them anyway, I guess I’m the only one who can see where it’s going.”

“Oh my G … no ambulances, no emergency vehicles of any kind …” said Dave. “I don’t suppose any of us knows how to turn a hurricane … err cyclone … aside …”

“I don’t … think so?” replied Jess. “I bet there’s a way, but darned if I know how.”

“Can we … cool water?” asked Patrick. “Hurricanes get their energy from warm ocean water. But it would have to be done on such a monstrously massive scale that I don’t see a way to do that.”

Nobody had the ability to transfer energy to that extent. “Can I … try something?” Dave asked. “Paula, you’d have to take me there.”

“What? Where?” Paula asked.

“Somewhere within the cyclone,” Dave said.

“You can’t fly!” said Paula.

“I can if I turn into air, water, stuff like that,” replied Dave. “There’s lots of that flying around there.”

“Dave, don’t get yourself killed,” said Patrick.

“I shouldn’t,” said Dave. “I’ve turned entirely into water and back. I’m not sure how that works, but it does.”

“Paula, can you stay there and watch?” asked Jess. “In case … something goes wrong?”

“I’m not sure what I’d do if it did, but sure,” said Paula.

“OK then,” said Patrick as Jess touched both his shoulder and Paula’s, linking their minds momentarily so Paula knew from Patrick where on Earth the storm was.

“Dave …” said Jess, touching Dave’s shoulder. “Please come back to us.”

“Wow!” Dave said at what felt like an energy surge. “I fully intend to come back!”

So Paula grabbed Dave’s hand. “Now, whatever you’re gonna do, I can’t hold you up like this in the air, so do it fast.” And they both vanished.

They appeared in the eye of the storm, close to the eyewall, high up in the air. “Whoa!” said Dave as he started to fall and Paula didn’t. Then Dave … vanished.

“Hope you’re still with us, dude,” Paula said, looking around.

Dave had transformed into air and was approaching the eyewall. Now, with the help Jess had given him, he thought he could do it. He became more and more air. His body was the size of the storm itself. No, bigger than that. He felt like a giant, his feet on the ocean floor and his head above the storm.

Now he was ice, absorbing heat from air and water and melting, then he was ice again, taking yet more heat and melting again. He could feel the energy he was taking from the water and wind, and he used that energy to power himself. He strode with the storm as it approached land, stealing away its energy.

Paula flew along with the storm’s eye but noticed the eye structure breaking down as the storm became less organized. Its winds were decreasing, and she’d seen several waterspouts earlier out there but didn’t see any anymore. She thought she saw a giant figure made out of ice and snow out there, but was that somehow Dave, or was that a figment of her imagination? She assumed it was Dave, though, and followed along after. It was getting pretty cold, so she moved around to keep warm.

By the time the storm reached land, it had ceased to be even a tropical storm. It was a mild but widespread snowstorm. The news articles would be wondering about a huge snowstorm that hit Bangladesh, the first in history, but nobody could publish them yet.

“Paulaaaaa …” said a voice that seemed to come from above her and fall through the air past her. She looked around.

“Caaaaatch …” said the voice again, falling past.

She put out her arms, and … a tiny Dave landed in her arms, like a scale-model version of him, about a foot tall. “Hi!” he said in a tiny voice. “I imagine you’d like to get out of the cold! Wanna go home?”

“L-love to,” Paula shivered, and they were home. Dave hopped out of Paula’s grasp and was back to his normal size before hitting the ground.

The others gasped, watching this. “You can change size?” asked Beth.

“I just … kind of realized that if I can transmute my body into anything, I can make it any size … or temperature,” Dave replied.

Patrick’s mouth was still open in awe. “I was watching the whole thing,” he said. “The amount of energy you absorbed … that’s a lot of H-bombs’ worth … also this is a large-scale contradiction of thermodynamics …”

Jess added, “... but you just saved the lives of a lot of people by preventing a hurricane. Maybe a big snowstorm will cause some problems, but it’ll melt quickly, and a lot of it just fell into the sea, according to Patrick.”

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Patrick had managed to set up generators to power his equipment that vented their exhaust to the outside, so his personal research facility had turned into a major kind of operation with all the high dollar microscopes, and the brand new energy wave / frequency monitors they had just gotten and modified to look for some, as of yet, undiscovered frequency hidden within the music variations each clearly heard and could identify. The going was hard as they sifted through many graphs and difficult to understand displays.

The last nine hours had been very rough on them. They had struggled hard to stay one step ahead of the massive energy waves that were striking the sunny side of the planet. For every hospital or critical infrastructure item they managed to save, they had lost two or three others to the population’s sheer stupidity … and the death toll steadily climbed as mankind proved more and more how ignorant they truly were. But now the wave of dense solar particles was starting to slacken off.

Then Jess heard a voice in her mind. “My goodness, you’ve all done such amazing work,” came the voice of Elaine. “I’ve had some rest, so I can take over for you, but wow, I didn’t expect such an effort, especially from such young people who’ve only just learned about the song.”

“It’s … it’s you!” Jess said.

“It’s who?” asked Patrick, looking around.

“Sorry!” said Jess. Patrick looked confused.

“You can communicate with me silently using the song,” said Elaine. “But you’ve done such good work! And I can tell you’ve all grown considerably during the experience.”

“But we shouldn’t have had to,” said Jess. “These aliens, they tried to wipe out all life on Earth! They’re terrible!”

“They’re completely missing the point of the song,” said Elaine. “They think it gives them power, and they wish to use this power to ascend, to cast off their physical bodies and live forever as immortal, omnipotent energy beings.”

“How do you know that?” Jess asked.

“I can hear it in everything they do,” Elaine replied. “But they can’t ascend because they don’t understand. Ascending is understanding. Instead of forcing the universe to do what they want, they need to understand what the universe wants, and they don’t seem interested in that right now. They accelerated your progress using their stones in hopes of getting some hint about how to increase their power. Instead, things happened that they didn’t understand, and instead of trying to understand, they succumbed to fear and tried to destroy us all. They’re never going to ascend at this rate.”

“Dr. Seven Stars,” asked Jess, “why haven’t you ascended?”

“Oh – well, I suppose I could,” replied Elaine. “But people still need me. In time there will be more people who understand as much as I do and can take over from me. In the meantime … I’ve got people to save. Maybe not as many as you managed to.”

“What, really?”

“Well, there’s only one of me. But the fact is, one does what one can. What one can’t do, one can’t do. Part of understanding is acceptance. Acceptance that you can’t always prevent death, but also acceptance that death is a part of life. As long as you’re doing your best, the rest is outside your control.”

“If only we didn’t have to do this,” Jess said. “If only … wait … aargh!”

“Did you just get an idea?” asked Elaine.

“What if I …” Jess explained her idea.

“I … am amazed I never thought of that,” Elaine replied. “But at first it would have seemed too magical, and then I think I was too focused on saving people who were in trouble right then. I think it’s time now. Go ahead, dear. Talk to your friends. See what they think.”

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Jess suddenly stood up with her fists clenched and stomped her foot in frustration, “Oooo, I’m so stupid!” and there was even an undertone of disgust.

The rest turned and looked at Jess in total amazement.

Dave said, “Wait just a darn minute there, girl … there’s no way you or anyone else is going to convince any of us you’re stupid.”

Jess replied with disgust obvious in her tone, “Oh, yea? Listen to this … it’s gonna really boil your noodle.” Jess unclenched her fists and pointed to Patrick’s large monitor, which was showing the most recent particle densities. She took a deep breath and focused her mind. “Just … stop.”

Out in space, the wave of solar particles assaulting Earth’s atmosphere, which was really a tubelike stream with the same diameter as the Earth, thrown by the aliens’ device, simply stopped moving and began to disperse into space. Jess had just simply stopped the mass of solar plasma from moving. Now orbital mechanics were taking over, and the particles assumed their own orbits around the Sun. But what everyone watching Patrick’s monitor saw was a red aura around the image of the Earth turning orange, then yellow, then green.

“Whaaaaat?” asked Patrick in sheer and total amazement. The others stared at the screen in astonishment too. The damage being caused by the massive energy waves instantly stopped.

After blinking at the screen for a moment, Pat snapped his fingers, “I get it. The expected event has already happened; the rest is ... unnecessary. Let the eggheads explain the aftermath.”

“Yeah, “ Jess whimpered, “but think of all those who died who didn’t have to because I hadn’t been thinking in that way.”

“Now, wait,” said Patrick. “You couldn’t have done that before because it would’ve contradicted the data that scientists already had. Now … well, all their satellites and receivers are offline. They have no data. The only reason I have anything is because I’m inputting the data myself, using the music we hear.”

“I still could’ve done that as soon as they took the satellites offline!” complained Jess.

Dave’s face took on a strange expression, “Pat, you said you had either been to or had a strong psychic event with those aliens. Right?”

Pat replied, “Yeah, I suppose you could call it that.”

He pointed to the image of the cloud of gradually dispersing matter on the screen. “Why allow something as pretty as all that go to waste and not give it as a gift?”

Paula said, “Oh, I get it. We all link up and transpose that energy mass to our not so friendly friends and let them handle it. After all, they did create the darn thing.”

“Yeaaaa,” said Jess with a huge smile, “With it suddenly appearing right on top of them, they should get a huge bang out of it.”

Everyone looked at Jess and made a face, then at the same time, “Eeeewww, that was so corny.” Then everyone burst out laughing.

They made plans to send the particle wave to the other planet and the exact technique they were going to use to do it. By this time, they had learned how to use their basic powers almost professionally, well enough that they’d started trying different aspects to attempt to broaden their abilities.

“I have a question,” asked Anne, who had been silent during this discussion. That wasn’t unusual; Anne didn’t usually speak unless she had something important to say.

“What?” asked Jess. “What is it, Anne?”

“Is this right?”

Paula replied, “Hey, they tried to blow away our atmosphere!” She turned to Pat. “That’s what they tried to do, right?”

“More or less,” said Pat, nodding.

“But they couldn’t,” Anne replied.

“Well, they could have,” said Jess.

“No, they couldn’t,” replied Anne, “because of us.”

“Well, yeah, but if it weren’t for us, there’d be no atmosphere now,” Robert replied.

Anne countered, “But if it weren’t for us, they’d never have had any reason to do anything.”

“True,” said Pat, “they picked us to experiment on. If they hadn’t, none of this would’ve happened. They sort of set themselves up for failure.”

“Patrick?” asked Jess in a worried tone of voice. “I just thought of something we haven’t been thinking of.”

“What’s that?”

“When we touched the stones, we heard their voices,” Jess said. “The experimenters. Did it sound to you like they knew we could hear them?”

“Maybe?” Pat replied.

“No, not at all,” said Tamara. “They were talking to each other, or themselves.”

The rest agreed that the experimenters had never sounded as if they had known their subjects could hear them.

“So why could we hear them?” asked Jess. “It wasn’t their intent. Was it accidental? But if they’ve been doing this for a long time, long enough that Mars was one of their failures, surely they’re good enough at this that such a huge accident can’t happen.”

“Was it someone else?” wondered Dave.

“What if it was the music itself?” Anne wondered.

Jess’ eyes widened. “The music itself … can that happen?”

Suddenly Jess heard a voice. It was Elaine again. “Yes, it can,” she said. “You heard two voices. The other was mine. But I think the song itself was connecting you with the experimenters. The song doesn’t separate. It connects.”

“The song doesn’t separate …” said Jess aloud. “It connects …”

“So, what,” asked Paula, “we shouldn’t be trying to retaliate? We should what, try to figure out what they want and give it to them?”

“They want to ascend,” said Jess. “They want to leave their material bodies behind and transcend this universe in favor of a higher existence.”

“I hardly think they should be rewarded in such a way for what they’ve done,” said Pat.

“No,” said Jess, “that’s the wrong way to think about it. The music rewards us for understanding it. They’re not trying to understand it – well, maybe sometime in the distant past they used to, but they sure aren’t trying now. They’re trying to force it to do what they want. They think it’s a power. It isn’t. It’s … more like learning.”

“You’re saying,” said Beth, “that when they realize they’re doing it wrong, that’s when they’ll get their reward? Or … I guess what I mean is, the aliens who get it, they’re the ones who will ascend. Or maybe some of them have?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Jess. “And I don’t know whether any of them have or not. Probably not their leaders, though. Their leaders have the complete wrong idea.”

“Can we talk to them?” asked Beth.

“Hmm,” said Patrick, looking across the room at the experimental apparatus that held the five stones.

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While they were doing that, the rest of the world was taking a deep breath now that the massive wave of particles had dispersed. Scientists were cautiously making measurements using simple instruments, so they could learn whether it was safe to turn on the more complicated and delicate ones.

Was it time to take the satellites out of hibernation mode – at least the ones that had had a safety mode like that? The ones that didn’t had had their circuits fried. But fortunately, the larger, more expensive satellites were fine and were eventually brought out of safety mode.

Slowly the world came out of its communications blackout and started to assess the damage. Fortunately for Jess, Patrick, and her friends, there had been no planes in the air, no working phones or cameras, and for the most part no eyewitnesses to the apparent miracles they’d performed – if anyone had seen, they’d been few and far between, and they hadn’t been able to take pictures that would have been the only proof of the fantastic things they had seen.

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Far away, in a star system so far from Earth that its light might never manage to complete the voyage, the Admin and his entire research crew were being held under armed guard. Each of their bindings were special, as they produced a discordant energy wave that nullified any attempt to use any of the powers their project 990.101 had allowed them to manifest.

The entire enclave was in a huge, argumentative, extremely energetic discussion over what to do with this excessively serious containment breach. In the many centuries they had been conducting these experiments, no test subjects had ever manifested greater powers then they, and none had ever survived Decon, especially by removing the very device required to cause it.

Fear was palatable as the ruling beings were shown the many manifestations of the power that all of them wished they could get, and had no understanding of how to do it or why they had yet to manifest them. The arguments became more and more heated, and accusations and finger pointing became the rule.

Then, amid the chaos, a very young person tentatively stood up. They were Ahm Sonaa, who still wore the pink and white robes of a Sohjornear learner, a beginning student, a mere unpaid intern in the project. “If … if I could … there’s something I have to say that could be very important.”

Gent Drahlum banged his gavel loudly. “Order in the council chambers! There will be silence!” Immediately all arguments stopped, because the last person who had ignored their order for silence was now in a solitary cell. Silence ruled. “And now, what would someone as young as you still in the pink of beginnings have to tell us?”

Ahm Sonaa asked, “Do … do I have the council’s permission to speak freely? What I have to say is not only radical, but slightly degrading … but this does not diminish its importance.”

There was a quick murmur of agreement throughout the chamber. The ruler sat back in his regal chair and replied, “By all means, speak your mind. But as you do, remember that many radical ideas carry severe consequences.”

The young student spoke in a quavering voice, “I … I think that I may have learned something about ascension … but if it’s true, almost everything that enhancement project 990.101 has discovered is wrong.”

A wave of loud argumentative disagreements filled the huge chamber for a moment until Gent Drahlum banged his gavel once again and brought silence back. The ruler stood and said in a very belittling tone, “And how can one who wears the robes of an entry-level initiate have anything to say about the techniques we have learned over the many eons that cause the powers to manafest?”

Ahm Sonaa got up and stood on their chair. “What if … it isn’t a power like we’ve thought all these years? What if it’s more than that? What if It’s … total creation-wide harmonic? Everything in total balance?”

Gent Drahlum pointed at Ahm Sonaa and shouted, “Blasphemer! Someone as lowly as you dares to question …”

The ruler stopped, because Ahm Sonaa was simply standing on their chair, spreading their arms out. A soft blue glow surrounded the young student’s body. It spread until their entire form glowed with a pulsating blue. Their voice echoed more loudly than the ruler’s throughout the chamber, saying, “There are no answers, only questions.”

After a bright flash of blue light, the robes Ahm Sonaa had worn lay on the ground with the other articles of clothing and items they had carried with them. The student had vanished. This was the very thing program 990.101 had promised so long ago, but somehow had never quite managed to decipher how it was done.

Gent Drahlum banged their gavel once again. “Do I have to have everyone arrested to bring order to these proceedings? Because make no mistake, I shall do so unless there is order!” Silence again reigned. Many people stared, gulping nervously.

Gent Drahlum smiled, but there was no good humor in that smile. “Now then, one at a time. That is all I ask. The chair recognizes Selev Pol, Administrator of Project 990.101. You have something to say?”

“I … I do, Your Wisdom,” said the Admin. “We did not expect an incident such as this during these proceedings, so we did not have our full scanning equipment up and running – not to mention the fact that we are all under arrest – but handheld readings indicate that what we have just seen is a true ascension.”

“Yet we all know that no one has ascended since Master Yulom Sen, over 19 kilochrons in the past,” said Gent Drahlum. “Do the readings agree?”

“They do, Your Wisdom,” the Admin confirmed. “I have sent them to your terminal for your own examination. Ahm Sonaa was a beginning student, it is true, but it is also true that they ascended in the same way that Master Yulom Sen did, so long ago.”

“Astounding,” said the ruler. “Do you have an explanation for this?”

“N-not at present, Your Wisdom,” said Admin Selev Pol. “So many things about recent finds are unprecedented. More study is required …”

“Do we have time for more study?” asked Gent Drahlum. “The chair recognizes Undren Rotara, governor of Germanium Province.”

“Thank you, Your Wisdom,” said the governor. “Seeing that my province is closest to the galaxy containing the, er, planet in question, I need to know whether there is any evidence that the containment failure poses a threat. I must know whether I need to tell my constituents that they need to evacuate, hide, flee, or whatever other course of action is required to ensure their survival. What are the experimental subjects doing?”

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What they were doing was looking on as Pat jury-rigged a new apparatus to insert the stones in, one that would attune a communication device to the stones’ location of origin. He was using his insight to build it, while Jess was using her influence to transmute crystals, wires, chips, and other components into microcircuitry that was unlike anything Earth had ever seen before. The friends had all had a decent night’s sleep in their own homes, but they’d all requested that Paula bring them back the next day, which she had. She hadn’t used her car this time.

“You realize that I don’t know the first thing about circuits or microchips,” Jess said. “I’m a history major.”

“I know,” Pat said, adjusting a laser as Jess stared at a circuit board. “But I also know that what you just did was exactly what we needed. All you have to do is do that again.”

“Well I was just thinking that the stones have something about them connecting them to whoever made them and wherever they did that,” said Jess.

“Where is irrelevant,” said Pat. “There’s no where in the universe. Where is relative. It’s who and what was nearby.”

“So … we need to send a signal to … that place, where those people live,” Jess said, her eyes focusing on a place far away … and the circuit board began to change. It became less rectangular, more translucent, and less flat; the chips and other components on it changing shape and transmuting into other materials … the result was a warped crystalline shape with other shapes attached to it, many of them glowing just like the stones. But, as it turned out, it fit exactly into the previous board – or the thing that she’d turned the previous board into.

“What is even happening?” asked Robert.

“I was going to write a book about this,” said Anne, “but no one would believe it. And now I don’t know what I’d even be writing about this part.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t know how to explain this either,” said Patrick. “Maybe eventually I will. If we were going to make a machine to talk to the farthest stars, how would we do it? Well, we don’t know, because as far as we human know it’s impossible. But it must be possible for science that we haven’t discovered, because that’s what’s happening here. The song is putting us in touch with the universe, which knows its rules better than we humans do.”

“The song is the universe …” said Jess, doing the same thing to another former circuit board. Patrick picked up the result and slid it perfectly into the first one, alongside the previous one.

Once there was a main component and five smaller ones, Patrick inserted the stones into the receptacles in those five smaller parts, and started the lasers, which entered the device in precise places at precise angles. The whole thing lit up, and it flooded the room with an image, a three-dimensional image of a place not on Earth. But it looked like a council chamber – specifically it looked like a table with a chair behind it.

“What are we looking at?” asked Joyce.

“It looks like a table and a chair,” Robert said, “but do they use tables and chairs?”

“Are they even humanoid?” asked Dave.

“What’s on the chair?” asked Tamara. “Are they someone’s clothes? Did somebody just strip naked? Are those things lying around their … jewelry? Personal effects?”

Pat’s eyes were closed. “I see,” he said. “I see now. In the group of scientists that were experimenting on us there was one who was more advanced. They are the ones who altered the stones so that we could hear their voices.”

“And now they’re dead?” asked Paula. “They vaporized them for disobedience? That’s awful!”

“No,” said Pat. “They … I can see it. They transcended their body. They were the most advanced of all of them. They did it in front of all their peers to show them the right answer. Or … the right question. Now they’re … well, another kind of being, and all the others want to know how they did it.”

“I was wondering why we heard the voices in English,” said Anne. “That one meant for us to understand.”

“Is this device transmitting, or only receiving?” asked Jess.

“Only receiving, for now … I think,” said Pat. “Can we look around? Or expand the view?” He touched some of the strange bars and knobs that extended from the device. The view rotated, expanded, and contracted. After a few moments he got the hang of it. It was as if they were in the room. They saw all the beings in the room. They heard a debate, but they didn’t understand the language … until Pat found a way to somehow make that work too. At that point they could understand.

The aliens were humanoid in appearance but had deep indigo skin with jewel-like color tones beneath it. One alien said, “I’m saying that we simply have no way to know what their intentions are – ignore us? Destroy us? Anything in between? We have no information at all.”

“Well, I move that the project should be reactivated, with the priority being to obtain exactly that information,” said another being, seated distantly from where the camera’s vantage point stood, looking up at the alien in charge of the proceedings.

“Confirm,” said another alien.

“Very well,” said the being in charge. “See now, this is orderly. Isn’t this better? And nobody’s getting thrown in a cell. So a proposal has been made and confirmed; is there any debate, or shall we put it to a vote? The chair recognizes Sylwik Naz of Indium Province.”

“We’re watching alien parliamentary procedure?” asked Tamara.

The selected alien stood up. “Why should we trust this project to do anything?” they asked. “They’ve already proven their incompetence by allowing a containment breach to occur.”

Other aliens pointed out that one of the project’s personnel, albeit the youngest and least experienced, had somehow managed to ascend for the first time in a very long time, so the project had to be doing something right. Also, the project did contain the foremost experts on what they were calling the Universal Power.

“Universal Power?” asked Jess. “That’s what they think it is?”

“Where are these guys?” asked Paula. “Our galaxy or some other one?”

“From what I can tell,” said Pat, “they’re super far away from here. I think their provinces each span multiple galaxies, so they’re a big deal. But none of them are from this galaxy. That one there, the one who’s talking now, they’re from a group of galaxies that’s nearest to us, but it’s still a long way off, I think.”

“But they think we’re a threat of some kind?” asked Tamara, in an incredulous tone of voice.

“Because they think they’re so advanced,” said Jess, “but we can do things they can’t. And yet one who was a beginning student did the impossible. It’s because they completely misunderstand.”

Paula sighed. “If we could show these guys how to ascend, or transcend, or whatever, would they go away and leave us alone?” she asked.

“I don’t know if we know how to do that,” Jess said. “But if they learned to ascend, or whatever you want to call it, that would mean they’d also learn something fundamental about being one with the universe, so they’d have to fundamentally change their … paradigm? Is that the word?”

“Basically they’d have to stop being jerks in order to ascend, right?” Tamara asked.

“Yeah, basically,” said Jess with a giggle.

“And as long as they keep on being jerks, they can’t ascend.”

“Pretty much.”

“But as long as they’re jerks and we’re not, we’ve got them beat.”

“I think that’s pretty much right too,” said Jess.

“Why do I suddenly like this universe now?” Beth interrupted.

“It’s kind of the way science has always worked, really,” said Pat. “It isn’t really about building weapons. It’s about learning how the laws of nature work. ‘Course, sometimes weapons are the driving force behind it.”

“Can we talk to them?” asked Anne.

“Uh … we’d have to alter the device some,” said Pat, “but I’m pretty sure Jess can do that. Once we know what we want to say.”

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It had taken many hours of constant reimagining and recreating circuitry, building apparatus, and heavy concentration. Pat and Jess were mostly the ones focusing on it, though occasionally Jess would stop and stare into space for reasons only Jess knew: she was asking advice from Elaine.

They all finally cheered as the very last of the newly created circuits were in place and the system turned on properly. What they didn’t expect was the large wall of white light that magically surrounded them … and several of the aliens in those weird white suits appeared amongst them. They were in the midst of a conversation that was somehow being translated, likely via the cosmic music. “But what does it even mean? ‘There are no answers, only questions?’” asked one.

Another of the aliens replied, “From where I stand, that means …” They stopped. They looked around. They saw the humans. They stared.

From the very best Pat and the rest could tell, the only reality was within the brightly glowing energy walls. They couldn’t see outside, but Pat knew that this was merely a very solid-looking image. They were on Earth, the aliens were … on their planet or space station or wherever, and for the moment they were communicating in real time.

The aliens stood rapidly, knocking over the chairs they were sitting in. One of them pointed. Their first few words were just questions. “Who are you? Where are we? How did you manage this?”

Pat said, “From where we’re standing, you have a serious problem. We didn’t appreciate what you did to our world – or what you tried to do.” Pat looked around at the rest of his friends, “And apparently, at the moment, we outnumber you.”

The faces of the aliens in white took on a look of extreme fear as they huddled together. “Please … don’t hurt us … we’ll tell you everything.”

Jess said, “Stop acting like a spineless fool. I mean, after all, you thought you were nasty enough to kill off several billion intelligent life forms without a thought.” She almost sneered at them, “Now look at you, sniveling cowards wetting their pants in fear.”

The group all laughed, while the men in white trembled in total fear. One of them said in a whiney cracking voice, “Wh … what are you going to do with us? We … we never even saw this kind of power manifested before.”

Paula said with a snap, “And just what gave you the right to try and kill us? From what we’ve learned of what you call the Power, it isn’t a power at all, but a Universal Harmony.”

One of the aliens let their partner go and stood up with a strange expression. “I’ve heard that before, and not so long ago.”

The other alien looked at the first and asked, “When did you hear such trivial nonsense before?”

The first replied, “Not less than 50 millichrons ago, when the least and lowliest of us actually ascended right before the ruling council. You know, the thing no one has been able to accomplish since the very beginning.”

Jess smiled. “Perhaps there’s a chance you may save yourselves after all,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“First of all,” said Jess, “I want you to meet us – just a few of the people you were willing to exterminate without any moral compunctions whatsoever.”

“Now, wait one minute,” one of the aliens tried to interrupt. “We filled out all the ethical procedure forms –” But another one stopped them before they went farther.

Jess remarked, “I could ask whether your concept of consciousness or sentience includes the ability to kill you where you stand, but wouldn’t that mean that a supernova or black hole was automatically a sentient being? No, it just means that when you run into someone with more of what you call power, you become afraid to classify them in any way they don’t like. And that means that truth has taken a back seat to fear. And once truth is gone, everything else is gone too: compassion, trust, even civilization itself.”

“Ah, you are a Pleionist,” one of the aliens said, “an outmoded philosophy of the –” Again, another one stopped them.

Jess sighed. “What we want to offer is an exchange. You agree to leave us alone, and we’ll help you.”

“W-wait,” said one of the aliens. “What … what do you get out of it?”

“We get left alone,” Jess replied. “Weren’t you listening?”

There were introductions. The aliens were of course the Admin, Selev Pol, and other scientists involved in the project, which had been given a reprieve as long as they focused on the ascension of Ahm Sonaa and how it had happened.

The one who had been trying to understand Ahm Sonaa’s words was a newly-minted scientist named Iri Leroa, while others were Pir, Henu, Yirim, and Vek. They didn’t seem to have a concept of gender, and there really wasn’t an opportunity to go into how their reproduction worked.

“So of course our question must be how Ahm Sonaa, a beginning initiate in the sciences, managed to ascend when we have been studying this for many generations without success,” Selev explained.

Jess took a deep breath. “And what was so surprising about that?” she asked, trying to get them to reach the answer themselves.

“The fact that Ahm was so young,” Pir interjected. “They hadn’t even begun to study the intricacies of the Power. They could barely move a chair with it.”

Iri replied, “Perhaps that is how.”

Yirim said, “You think, then, that we have assumptions that are standing in our way, that we must abandon these assumptions in order to find the answer?”

Henu added, “But that implies that we must find which assumptions are correct, and which are not. We cannot assume that absolutely everything we know is wrong.”

“Can’t we?” asked Vek. “Should we not call every piece of knowledge we’ve attained over the eons into question? We must purge our textbook, figuratively speaking, of anything that is not factual. If our edifice is built upon sand, it cannot stand.”

The aliens debated for a while and called into question various of their assumptions about the nature of reality and the thing they called the Power, which seemed able to override everything else, at least to a point. Jess, Patrick, and their friends were getting bored, even though they knew this debate would decide the future of many worlds, including Earth.

Just as Iri was saying, “So what we’ve decided, then, is that the term ‘Power’ is a misnomer,” there was a bright surge of blue light, and the figure of Ahm Sonaa reappeared among them, though translucent and still suffused with a blue light.

“You are beginning to see,” they said with a serene smile.

“Ahm!” exclaimed Selev. “Have you been watching this whole time?”

“With some sadness,” Ahm replied. “I had feared there was no hope for us. But perhaps there is after all. And these … humans may yet save us, even though we sadly tried to destroy them – just think, we almost destroyed our only hope. For they seem to understand, at least more than most of us do.”

“How?” asked Iri. “I think I almost see. But … if it is harmony rather than mastery, then how do we exert our will upon the universe? How indeed do we cause anything rather than drifting aimlessly like grahk weed in the ocean?”

Jess suggested, “But isn’t your will also part of the universe?”

Ahm smiled at Jess. “You see,” they said. “Or perhaps … you hear.”

“But if my will is part of the universe …” Iri began, “then it is not separate, and what I desire is really what the universe desires for me …” Iri’s body began to glow blue at their core. Everyone else gasped, human and alien, except for Ahm, and Jess. “By the core of Hamar!” they said. “Not yet! For I must show others the way.” The blue glow subsided, but there remained a slight blue shimmer deep in Iri’s eyes.

“Iri …” said Selev. “Among us here, you are the youngest. Perhaps … it is because you are the least tied down by a lifetime of wrong thinking.”

“But the cure for an incorrect conclusion is so simple,” said Iri. “Replace the incorrect hypothesis with the correct one.”

“But …”

“I understand now,” said Iri to the humans. “You wish to find your own path. You wish your people to have their own future. And in exchange … you are showing us how to move on to the next stage, so that someday you may follow, if you choose.”

“Of course!” Selev said. “Because if we transcend our bodies, there’s nothing left for us here, in this world. Until all of our people have transcended, there will still be reason to stay, to teach, but once we have all stepped beyond … this limited life means nothing anymore. I just can’t believe … that this was the only key we were missing for so long.”

By the time the day had ended, all six of the aliens had a blue shimmer within their eyes, and Ahm had smiled and vanished again. “I’ll see you soon,” they said.

“We have a report to make,” Selev said to the humans. “Thank you. We will not trouble your people any further … at least, not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Farewell, Selev, Iri …” said Jess, saying goodbye to all the aliens. Pat and some of the others said a few words of farewell too.

And then, once goodbyes were done, Pat turned the transmitter off, and they were back in his lab. Of course, they’d never really left.

“Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they show up with their news,” said Tamara. “Or whatever they have instead of flies. I could probably do that, actually.”

Beth said, “I’m inspired. I just don’t know how to put this into words without, you know, lighting up the entire block. Or the whole world. I feel like I could do that now. But then there’d be no night anywhere.”

“Jess,” said Pat, “you’re … glowing.”

Jess looked down, and the center of her body was glowing blue. “No! Not yet! It isn’t time!” The blue glow subsided for now. “I still have a life to live!”

“OK, so do we all have that to look forward to?” asked Joyce. “Because turning into blue light is a lot better than an eventual death by cancer or car crash or … well, anything, really.”

“I think it’s … not death,” said Jess, “but … a step into a new world. But still … there’s so much left to do here.”

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Gent Drahlum had called the main research team for Experiment 990.101 into the council chamber to give their report. Too many rumors had begun and they wanted the bottom line. Selev Pol, the team’s Admin, stood ready to respond. Both Gent Drahlum and Selev Pol knew that ostensibly, the team had been sent to find out whether Earth and the humans were a threat, but they also both knew that everyone in the chamber wanted to know about Ahm Sonaa and how they had ascended, and how they could do it too. But something Selev Pol knew that Gent Drahlum did not was that their contact with this unusual group of young humans had been transformative, to put it mildly.

However, one of the scientists, Vek Yigon, had become truly annoyed at the ignorance of the Council Leader, Gent Drahlum, whose questioning dripped with ignorant misinformation and, worse, an obvious attempt to obfuscate any new data.

The scientist stood in haughty arrogance and shouted, “Why do you call yourself intelligent? Do you not know irrefutable proof when you see it? It is obvious that what we have been calling a manipulative power is in truth a true harmony, an understanding. It has never been a power!”

Gent Drahlum, looking livid with rage, stood and pointed over his podium. He was just about to say something when the individual sitting to his left quickly leaped up and whispered something in his ear. Gent Drahlum looked at this individual for an instant longer, then nodded his head before he sat back in his seat.

Gent Drahlum said apologetically, “Forgive my momentary display of temper. I sometimes forget things that are right in front of me and need reminding from time to time. If you would be so kind as to elucidate us on the new data you have acquired for ascension in project 990.101.”

The young scientist replied in a chiding tone, “Quite certainly. I’m not very sure it will penetrate that thick armor of ignorance and lack of education you all wear, but I will try.” There was a momentary round of loud angry murmurs throughout the chamber before Gent Drahlum glanced around in warning and silence reigned once again. “When it began, kilochrons ago, Experiment 990.101 was on the right track. As you know, one of the team members ascended right in front of everyone there, back at the beginning. But what did we do? We mistook it for a path to power – dare I say a promise of godhood. This turned the project’s paradigm sharply away from a search for the truth. Science does not look for a foregone conclusion – it looks for evidence to understand what is. I’m not sure who planted the seeds of misdirection nor why the tree was allowed to grow and mature for so long, but alas, ignorance is blind and stupid. The basic mistake we have made in our assumptions is that the Universal Harmony is a manipulatable power.”

A huge roar of many dissenting voices protested loudly until Gent Drahlum banged them to silence once again.

With a severely sneering tone, Gent asked, “With that being said, just how is one supposed to use it, if it cannot be manipulated? And how is it that many of us clearly do just that every day?” He reached out and levitated a glass of refreshing alya juice from a nearby table to his hand and took a sip.

Vek laughed. “You’re a fool. We’re all fools. You don’t even know what you just did. You think that you commanded the universe and it complied. But no – you asked the universe, and it cooperated with you. But to do more, to humbly ask the universe to cooperate on something of true greatness, would be beyond your meager abilities, I’m positive – beyond your very comprehension.”

At this the entire chamber exploded with loud dissenting angry voices and major disagreements. Gent Drahlum sprang from his chair and pointed at the young scientist, “ You dare to speak to me in such a manner …?”

Selev Pol sighed and shook his head sadly. Vek was younger and hot-blooded, but allowing him to speak first and rile the council up had been part of their plan. He didn’t interfere as Vek interrupted Gent Drahlum and shouted back, “I do, you dumb fool! You are so ignorant that you shouldn’t be allowed to rule! Here’s proof that it’s you and the rest who call themselves leaders who are the actual problem.”

Gent Drahlum shouted hysterically as he pointed to Vek, “Kill him!”

With this, the rest of the ascension team moved away from Vek. Gent Drahlum thought it was to avoid being burned to a crisp after he had given the order to kill the blasphemer.

The real reason was far more dramatic, as the young scientist held his arms out and began to glow ever more brightly blue. From within himself came a huge bright blue flash, and all that was left of Vek were the robes he had been wearing and other items he had been carrying. None of the council had yet noticed the blue glow that had lived within the rest of the team’s eyes since their meeting with the humans.

Instantly, silence ruled the chambers as once again they were witness to a true ascension, another one they couldn’t deny and had absolutely no idea how to perform. To many of the assembled leaders it had now become impossible to ignore that what the research team had discovered was in fact not only radical, but an entirely new understanding of the Universal Harmony, as the research team had begun calling the power.

Gent Drahlum stood and stared in absolute astonishment. The leader fumbled for their chair with one hand, steadying themselves with their other, and slowly sat back down. Over the next few minutes the other council members sat back down, none of them saying a word. At last, one of them pressed the button on their desk that indicated they wished to speak.

Gent Drahlum saw this request register on the screen before them and said, “The … the chair recognizes Sylwik Naz of Indium Province.”

“We … we wish to know … we have so many questions,” said Sylwik Naz, “but we wish to know whether the research team, which has clearly discovered something, has learned whether the latest research subjects pose a threat.”

Selev Pol stepped forward. Gent Drahlum merely gestured for him to answer the question, not saying anything. “We do not believe they do,” said Selev. “We have actually communicated with them, and it is from this collaboration that we believe we have gleaned the breakthrough that we have.”

“You … you have actually communicated with your experimental subjects?” asked Sylwik. “This is … very unscientific, is it not? Forgive me, for I am not a scientist, but I had thought that subjects were to remain unaware of the experiment, to avoid tainting the data with expectations.”

“That is the case when the experiment is in progress,” said Selev, “but it has been over for some time. After the experiment, the protocols are … erm, different.”

“You mean you typically destroy the subjects,” said Sylwik. “And, as we know, you were unable to do so in this case.”

“Yes,” said Selev. “And now we know why. They have come to understand the Universal Harmony better than we have. And this is simply because we have been laboring under a crippling misconception for kilochrons.” He spoke in a humble tone, as if unable to believe how stupid he himself had been. “I have no idea why we weren’t destroyed by our experimental subjects long ago. No – that isn’t quite correct. I know why. It is because a better understanding of the Universal Harmony leads to a disinclination to destroy.”

Gent Drahlum cut in. “You’re saying that acquiring more power comes with the price of less desire to use it.”

“You’re almost there, Excellency, but not quite,” said Selev. “Acquiring more understanding comes with the realization that it is not a power at all. It is a unity with the universe, a cooperation with the forces that bind everything together and make everything happen, from the delicate dance of dark matter to the transformative flash of a supernova.”

“But … it seems like a power,” said Gent.

“If I may?” asked Iri Leroa, now the youngest member of the team. Gent and Selev nodded. “An artist picks up a stylus and begins to work.” Iri was known to be an amateur artist in their spare time and took out a three-dimensional stylus, beginning to draw a hologram in the air. “Would you say that the artist exerts control over what they create? Would you say they have power over it?”

Gent drew in a breath. “I have watched many artists at work and see what you mean,” the leader said. “All of them have said, in one way or another, that there is a … collaboration between themselves and the work they create.”

“Yes,” said Iri. “If I merely draw a circle, then yes, of course that is my will made manifest.” They drew a circle in the air. “But once it becomes part of a larger work, something worthy of being called art, I am no longer exerting power over what is made. I am part of it.” Iri had made the circle part of a three-dimensional drawing of a garden, surrounding themselves with Haule and Ranaroa flowers.

“So even if we do something that one might call great,” said Selev to Gent, “such as using what we have been calling the Power to assemble a starship capable of traversing intergalactic space, that is like … the circle Iri just drew. What the Harmony is truly capable of goes so far beyond that as to make the beginnings meaningless.”

Gent stood up again, astonished. “You mean … everything we have done … everything our civilization has accomplished … is all merely a beginning? Child’s play?”

Iri replied, “I would say rather that … we have our true next stage of growth ahead of us.” And Iri began to glow blue, but did not vanish, remaining there amid their art as if part of it. The holographic art also glowed and became a real garden of flowers, right there in the council chamber. “And it is what we make of it.”

Gent asked, “Wait – are all of you –”

“We have all already ascended, all of us,” said Selev, also glowing blue now. “We merely remain here among you because we wish to help show the rest of our people the way. Make of that what you will.”

Gent sat back down, saying nothing as they took this in. After a long moment they said, “The chair proposes the establishment of an ascension education program, led by Selev Pol and the former Experiment 990.101 team. Funding shall be made available for any citizen to attend whatever course sessions the team shall choose to teach. Is there a confirming motion?”

Gent’s screen lit up with confirmations.

“Discussion? … No? … Then, all in favor.” The screen lit up with affirmative votes. Gent turned to Selev. “It appears you and your team have a new and different task.”

Ahm and Vek both reappeared with the team, in a semblance of their former bodies, glowing blue. Selev replied, “We accept, Excellency. We will show all of our people how to progress to the next stage in our evolution.”

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Pat, Jess, and their friends had been watching this, but Pat turned it off at this point. “Looks like they’re gonna be learning how to take the next step, or become ascended masters or whatever.”

“I’m not sure it’s going to be as easy as all that,” said Jess.

“It’ll take time, for sure,” said Pat.

“Time in which they’ll be leaving us alone, though!” said Dave.

“I like that idea!” Paula said.

“How is, well, Earth doing?” asked Joyce.

“Let’s see if the news services are back online yet,” said Pat, turning on the TV. It connected to the Internet, so there was an Internet signal to connect to. “That’s a good sign,” he said. He gave the remote to the nearest person, who turned out to be Anne. Anne raised an eyebrow at this.

Anne steered the TV to a British independent streaming news service. She didn’t explain, but she didn’t have to. This way, it would be in English but not US-centric. They wanted to know what was going on all over the world.

“... aftermath of the unprecedented solar event continues to unfold,” said the news reader. “Reports are still coming in from our correspondents in nearly every nation of the world. Casualties continue to be lower than experts’ estimates before the event. To help us explain this, we have with us Dr. Yvonne Duchenne, professor in astrophysics at Oxford. Dr. Duchenne?”

“Thank you, Stephen,” said the professor. “Keep in mind, please, that the data are still incomplete, but at this point the scientific community’s conclusion is merely that we … were lucky. The event was not as severe as our predictions indicated it might be. Future solar events of greater severity could still occur, so we should not abandon any readiness projects for such things, but at the moment it appears that this event has passed, and the human race has endured.”

“There are isolated reports of miraculous occurrences,” said the news reader, “of unprepared homes that began to catch fire but then the flames merely sputtered out, or of hospitals full of patients on life support whose electrical generators were expected to be disrupted by the solar activity but which continued to function uninterrupted. What do you make of these?”

“I have read many such stories,” the professor replied, “and more of them keep coming, but in none of these cases is there anything more than an eyewitness report. No photographs or video were taken; no hard evidence exists. Fire is an unpredictable thing, as any firefighter will tell you. In each hospital case such as what you mention, it was later discovered that the building was simply better shielded than the staff had previously thought. This speaks more to foresight on the part of the planning or construction crew than to any miracle or other supernatural occurrence.”

“What of those who claim to have seen people mysteriously appear, take some sort of action, and then disappear?” asked the news reader.

“It has been a chaotic few days,” said the professor. “People have been panicking and trying to find a place to take shelter all over the world. I would much rather focus on science than some sort of … paranormal speculation. I won’t attempt to tell you not to contact so-called experts in paranormal subjects, but that simply isn’t my field of study, or truly a field of study at all.”

“Very well, then, Professor,” said the news reader, “can you explain what happened, astrophysically?”

“I believe so,” said Dr. Duchenne. “Although the cause of these solar events remains not completely understood, the surface of our Sun does undergo cataclysmic upheavals – in fact, it is constantly in a state of turmoil, and particles are always coming our way, some charged, some neutral. There’s an average state of activity, but that means there are times of lesser and greater particle flow …”

Tamara said, “Looks like they’re dealing with it pretty much normally, and nobody’s going to be coming looking for us.”

“There are stories being told,” said Pat. “But there are also stories about UFOs, ghosts, and angels going around.”

“How do you know that?” asked Robert. “Oh wait, right.”

“One story about a giant made of clouds off the coast of Bangladesh,” Patrick added. “The fisherman’s wife thinks he saw things when he got hit on the head.”

“Oh, er,” said Dave.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The Earth had survived, and human civilization hadn’t been knocked back to the Stone Age. The worldwide damage was incredible, though.

But a truly amazing thing began from all this, with all the peoples of the Earth coming together for mutual aid, comfort, and rebuilding. This started a new movement that some were calling Altruistic Humanity. It was a truly amazing thing to watch spread, since historically mankind had been attempting to wipe himself off the planet. There were, of course, opponents to this – ultra-wealthy people, most of them white men, who tried to call altruism a disease that would wipe out humanity. But for now, at least, the vast majority of humanity wasn’t listening to them. As a result, they said they were being silenced, but this was obviously a lie, as they never quit talking.

The girls had taken Jess on what they were calling a girls’ day out. No matter how Jess had protested, she was after all a girl now, and the others wanted to show her what a girl in the wild was. They wouldn't listen and insisted Jess come anyway … which she did, under slightly cute protest. So, led by Tamara, Jess went with Paula, Joyce, Beth, and even the normally reticent Anne, on a journey of shopping, spa treatment, and fun.

As for the guys, since it was the weekend and they didn’t really have anything in particular to do, they all gathered around Patrick’s gaming center. By this time it had evolved into something amazing. It was a virtual reality gaming platform to an amazing degree. He had cobbled together bits of every system that existed and some parts of his own invention. It was compatible with all software. There was none other quite like it in the world.

Patrick said as he slipped into the gaming suit and gloves, “It’s easy. You plug this suit into the wired port or use wireless ... it all works the same.” He put a large pair of goggles on his face as he stepped onto the gaming platform and turned on the system. “The only difference is that if you use wired, you can’t run the battery down. This mat is called the gaming platform. This wargame is depicted in 3-D real time. Damage is felt by feedback into the suit. It kinda tickles.”

With this, he pushed the enable button. None of the others could see what Patrick saw as he cavorted, dodged, and tumbled all over the large platform’s surface. After about 10 minutes of this, a holographic window appeared that said VICTORY and gave the EOM status. Patrick left the platform while removing the gloves and unzipping the suit. “I love this. It’s almost like being there for real.”

The others tried it one at a time, and were amazed that Patrick actually had their favorite games in this 3-D VR format. No one paid attention to the time, but time must indeed have passed, because the girls returned with Jess and many armloads of purchases, which they promptly took to a spare room with Jess in tow.

Dave commented, “Darn. looks like they bought the store.” The other guys laughed.

Robert said, “Really? To me it looked like they cut their day kinda short.” More laughter.

About that time, the guys saw Jess with the other girls behind her as she slowly descended the stairs back to the gaming room. The soft blue romper she had on was skin tight and left nothing to the imagination. Jess was an extremely beautiful and shapely young woman, and this entrance left the other guys speechless.

Jess walked over in a really adorably sexy way, wrapped her arms around Patrick’s neck, and gave him a soft and passionate kiss. Her Dream Angel perfume delicately invaded Pat’s mind. By this time, Patrick was almost totally mindless anyway.

“Whoa …” said Dave. “I didn’t know that was happening. Did you know about this?” He turned to Robert.

“Well, yeah, it was kinda obvious, especially over the past couple of days,” Robert said. He paused. They were still kissing. “You two … are gonna come up for air at some point, right? Or do we have to call an ambulance?” Joyce stared daggers at him to make him shut up, but Paula was trying to stifle a giggle behind her hand.

“Right then, relationship well and truly under way,” said Beth with a grin. “I shipped it way long ago, by the way.”

Jess and Patrick finally broke the kiss. Pat blinked and looked the happiest he’d seemed in months. Jess smiled and said, “This girl thing has its perks.”

Everyone looked at everyone else for a quiet moment, which was surprisingly broken by Anne. “We helped save the world and have superhuman abilities now,” she said. “It feels crazy to say that, but it’s true. Everything has changed so radically so quickly that I doubt we’ve really stopped to think. What do we do now?”

“It seems weird to think of going back to school,” said Jess. “Once they get things organized enough to have classes back up and running again, that is.”

Elaine’s voice in her head said, “But that’s exactly what you have to do. The world goes back to normal if people go back to their routine. A few things will change, but most things are the same, and we’ll need people with college degrees. People with links to the song may need education more than anyone else.”

Jess added audibly, “But I guess it’s important for us to finish our education.”

“Let’s stay together, though,” said Tamara. “We’re an incredible team.”

“I see all these reports of people needing help on the news and wanting to rush off and help everyone,” said Joyce. “But … then hundreds of people come and help them. It’s fantastic. And I’m just one person, even if I could be there in minutes.”

Paula added, “I could be there even faster. But we need to look for problems that people with ordinary abilities can’t solve. And we can’t exactly make our presence known. Not yet.”

“Maybe someday,” said Dave.

“But until then, there’s still a lot to do,” said Jess, holding Patrick’s hand.

============================== The End (for now) ==============================