Fornever In Blue Genes: A Wish The Heart Makes free porn video

A Wish the Heart Makes: Fornever in Blue Genes by Tigger Copyright 2000. All rights reserved. Fictionmania and Nifty may archive this story. Anyone else, ask me first. From Walt Disney's "Cinderella": "A dream is a wish your heart makes When you're fast asleep. In dreams you lose your heartaches Whatever you wish for, you keep. Have faith in your dreams and someday Your rainbow will come smiling through. No matter how your heart is grieving If you keep on believing the dream that you wish will come true." From "Forever in Blue Jeans" Written by Neil Diamond and Richard Bennett "Money talks, But it don't sing and dance And it don't walk. And long as I can have you here with me I'd much rather be Forever in blue jeans. Honey's sweet, But it ain't nothin' next to baby's treat. And if you pardon me, I'd like to say, We'll do okay Forever in blue jeans." Prologue: ". . .e's coming out of it, Doctor. We will need you here - stat!" The voice that spoke was soft, intense and controlled. The "On my way, Nurse," response had the digital purity that no real human voice could possess. Both speakers' tones were just barely above whispers. Yet both resounded in his head like low order explosive detonations. His eyes opened slowly against lashes sticky from sleep, and then winced back tightly shut against the sudden, almost unbearably bright light. Where the hell was he? It was the smell and the stark, unrelieved white he'd seen in that short instant his eyes had been open that tipped him off. *A hospital? OMIGOD! I made it! I'm alive!* "Easy, Matthew. Let the sedation wear off completely before you try moving about too much." That voice! He recognized that voice. Slowly he turned toward the voice and reopened his eyes. "Robert." His mouth slammed shut on that one word. His voice! What in god's name had happened to his voice? After more than half a century, he knew the sound of his own voice and that was *not* his voice! Had he sustained some injury to his throat requiring a larynx reconstruction? Slewing his head around, he searched for and found what he was looking for. A mirror. For ten, infinitely long seconds, his groggy mind refused to accept what his eyes saw in its mocking, silvered depths. Then, finally, there had been no other choice. And then, he heard that "not-my-voice" again, yelling for someone. . . something. The only answer to the call was a strange, scalliony taste in the back of his mouth, and the world went black once more. Chapter 1. The End of the Beginning. It had actually *worked* - there in his mirror was absolute, incontrovertible proof that thirty years of blood and sweat, research and study, success and failure, had finally born fruit. The feeling of triumph and vindication should have been nearly orgasmic. The problem was that he hadn't expected to be the first test subject for the process. Even when circumstances had made it his only chance at life, he'd certainly never anticipated . . . *this*. "Are you all right?" a quiet voice asked from the other side of the bed. Awkwardly, he turned to face the man who had just spoken. Dr. Robert West was a short man, in fact, much shorter than Matthew had been. Was he still the shorter of the pair, Matthew wondered? From his prone position in bed, it was difficult to tell. For a brief moment, uncertainty lined Robert's normally cherubic face. As well it might, Matthew's mind snarled angrily. Bob West had been his best friend and colleague for almost 25 years, and for him to have been even an unwitting party to this . . . this debacle was simply unbelievable. The patient's name was or perhaps more accurately *had been* Matthew Sorenson, but that did not seem important now. Nothing so mundane as a mere name was important compared to the stark reality that THE Project had been tested, very successfully, on its own creator. Robert West was a physician and a geneticist - a brilliant one - a man whose own special dream had meshed and kept pace with Matthew Sorenson's for most of their adult lives. He was sixty something years old, a bit paunchy these days and more than just a little absent minded, except when he was focused on *THE* (for Total Human Engineering) Project. It was that last characteristic that had permitted whoever was behind this heinous act to use him in their plottings. THE Project was an outgrowth of the Human Genome Project started in the last decade of the previous century. The genome effort had ultimately required the use of more computing power than had existed cumulatively in the entire world before that time. Completed about 35 years ago, the Human Genome Project had developed the human DNA signature database, including documentation of its genetic implications. Matthew Sorenson had been a graduate student at M.I.T. at the time the database had finally been published, studying semidigital bio-networks. Dr. Robert West had just joined the Medical School faculty and was working with Matt and his thesis advisor on a way to use bio-cybernetics as a cure for spinal injuries. Out of that backdrop had sprung Matt's project of a lifetime - the systematic and non-destructive reprogramming of the human DNA molecule within the cell, or more correctly, within *all* of an individual's cells. Bob West had joined the quest. Their initial goal had been challenging enough on its own merits - to find tools to cure and eliminate all genetically transmitted diseases at their source, and to use genetic reengineering to improve resistance to other diseases. Hemophilia and sickle cell anemia fell first, followed by a host of other such diseases and infirmities. All could now be corrected in the womb, relatively cheaply when compared to the cost of a lifetime of post natal treatment. Even cancer eventually fell victim to their skills, provided that the disease was discovered early enough that their new treatments could still genetically turn off the cancer's uncontrolled, wildfire cellular reproduction. Then, five years ago there had been a breakthrough in computing technology that would change forever the way science and engineering approached the physical world. Before that breakthrough, the scope of genetic reprogramming was computationally limited to only a few gene sites on only one or two chromosomes at a time. Remarkably, that had been enough. Most genetically-vectored diseases were remedied once one or two protein chains had been corrected or enhanced. There had been more than enough computational power to control that type of genetic modification. However, what was economically and even technologically feasible before the breakthrough had been completely inadequate to the task of making any substantial changes in the human organism as a whole. Inadequate, that is, until some genius finally reconciled the seemingly insurmountable conflicts between the theories of quantum mechanics and of complex structures. This work, given the unfortunate name of quantum chaos theory by the press, changed everything. Computing structures and system designs truly changed overnight. Matthew had personally done a great deal of the actual original theoretical work. The end result of Matthew's researches was that the area formerly blurred by Hiesenburg's Uncertainty Principle became an easily detectable hard line. The ability to store and order data in really minute bits was no longer limited as it once had been. Computational power seemed to grow orders of magnitude with each passing day. When it had first been proclaimed "complete", the staggeringly huge Genome Project DataBase (now simply called the GPD) and its five completely redundant backup copies had consumed almost 1% of the data storage capacity available to humanity at the time. With the advent of the First Generation QuantCha (pronounced "quant - kay") machines and data structures, all of that information fit onto something as small, portable and common in the 21st Century as floppy disks had been in the late Twentieth Century. Improvement in computational speed had been just as dramatic. Much of this new power was immediately focused on trying to find a way around Einstein's still prevalent General Theory of Relativity, and thus find a means to travel faster than light. The stars still beckoned, and once again, humankind wanted to answer that siren call to boldly go where no human had gone before. But Matthew Sorenson had heard a different song, had dreamt another dream - genetically re-engineering as nearly "perfect" a human being as was "humanly" possible. Of course, this was not a widely popular idea. Over the course of Robert's and his incredibly successful and beneficial work on genetic cures, the pair had been regularly harassed by various groups for "tinkering with things beyond mortal ken". With that response for fixing little glitches in the genetic program, the outcry they might expect to their wholesale "revision" work did not bear thinking about. So, they had sold their old company and started all over again, but kept the new company's true purpose a closely guarded secret. The huge payoff from the sale had been invested to start up a new company - BioCybernetics. Supposedly a research firm for developing new bio-material- based computers, the new company was really a front for Robert and Matthew's real goal: developing technologies intended to re-engineer a living human being. Only four people - the medical genius, Robert West, Matthew Soreson himself, the company's legal eagle, Adam Jacobs, and their chief of security, Catherine Donovan - knew the entire picture. Everyone else working on the tightly compartmented Project only knew their little piece of the puzzle along with some cover story that explained why they were doing that work. The spinoffs of those puzzle pieces helped keep up appearances, helped keep the multi-media tabloids off their personal and corporate backs, while helping to pay the bills. And what bills they had, because tinkering of this type was not cheap. And now, they had succeeded. Nerves still on overload, Matt looked into the mirror again, just barely stopping himself from reaching out a hesitant hand to touch the person who looked back at him. Marshaling his considerable will power, Matt tried to clear his vision, tried to make sure the image was still unchanged because he still could not (or perhaps did not really want to) believe what had happened to him. The reflection stubbornly refused to change. No fifty-five year old, two meter tall (6'6"), slightly overweight 120 kilogram (260 lbs) male with gray eyes and rapidly thinning dark brown hair liberally shot with gray looked back into Matthew's eyes. Of course, he'd expected to be different when, or rather *if* he woke up from the nightmare his life had become. Certain changes had been absolutely required, given the circumstances, if he was going to survive that disaster. He'd even been ready (hell, HAPPY) to face the changes that would have been evidenced in his mirror if the few personal requests he'd slipped in had worked, but *nothing* had prepared him for what he saw in that mirror the first time. No, the image in the mirror was more than a quarter of meter shorter, massed out at about 60 kilos tops, had blue eyes and auburn hair, and appeared to be about 25 years old, plus or minus five years. And, oh by the way, that reflected image was female. Spectacularly, dramatically female. Matt pinched himself one last time to make sure that he really was not dreaming some drug induced nightmare, and yelped. He wasn't. It might very well be a nightmare, but he was definitely awake and living it. He, or rather *she* was all homo sapiens-female, complete with the "right" internal plumbing, at least as far as she'd been able to discern from the secretive exploration of what was "down there" she'd done earlier with "her" finely boned and slender fingers. A coughing sound broke through his near fugue. Blushing furiously at being caught checking herself out, Matt gave himself a stern mental shake back to the present before turning his face back Bob once again, "As all right as I can be expected to be," Matthew responded, recalling the question his friend had asked him however many moments ago. "But I think I'm still in shock." He nodded at that. "Even though we succeeded beyond my most optimistic projections, I expected you'd have that reaction. That's why I have you mildly sedated with a depression block. Come, Matthew, let me help you to a more comfortable seat. Nurse!" Slowly, Matt sat up and let the doctor and nurse each take one of his, um, her thin little arms. They didn't have any trouble practically carrying her to a nearby easy chair. Even seated, his new body felt very strange. His sense of balance was way off. Mass distribution was all wrong. Body parts were not where they were supposed to be. Hell, some body parts were gone and some new ones added. The unfamiliar weight high on his chest was particularly disconcerting. He felt like the slightest ill considered movement, even in the chair, might cause him to overbalance and fall face-first onto the floor. Carefully, thinking consciously of each minor movement, he eased the unfamiliar body further back into the chair. "Thank you, Robert." That "not-my-voice" was a low, husky alto. If he'd still been a male, those rich, sultry tones would have definitely caught Matthew Sorenson's interest. Now, there was an interesting thought. He voiced it cautiously. "Am I still Matthew?" "What the hell does that mean?" Bob asked incredulously. Taking a deep breath, Matt gathered resources to withstand the blow he fully expected to come next. "Am . . . I . . . still . . . Matthew Sorenson?" Each syllable clipped off, and spat out individually. The question left Robert momentarily nonplused, then he recovered. "Oh, you mean legally," he smiled for the first time since the surprise scene following the reawakening. "Reasonable question, since we didn't have any time to discuss the legal niceties when you arrived back on earth. To answer your question, yes, you are. There is absolutely no doubt about that, legally or otherwise." Skepticism shown so clearly on Matt's face that Robert moved on quickly. "Yes, well, once I started decoding the program file you had under personal security lock and saw the physical characteristics that you supposedly wanted now that you had to become the first test subject, I called Adam Jacobs back and conferred with him." Matt nodded, understanding. Adam served as Matthew Sorenson's personal lawyer in addition to being the company's lawyer. "Since your expressed wishes were," Bob stopped as he reconsidered what he'd say. "Ummm, since we had so little time to do the optimizations and viability checks to ensure your program would work, I gave all the official documents over to Adam. He has assured me that everything that was needed was done to assure your continued control of the company and that your . . . transition was fully and completely documented. Legally, there is no question - you are as you were - Matthew Eric Sorenson and the majority owner of BioCybernetics, Inc. At least, according to Adam and the best brains in our legal department." Frowning, Matthew struggled to digest all that. "But why did you do this? This is NOT what we discussed during my rather hasty return from the Moonbase. It certainly isn't what I put in my personal "wish" file. All I wanted was to be a little shorter, a lot lighter, have a killer metabolism and no male pattern baldness. Everything else was to remain essentially the same. I damn sure didn't want to end up a GIRL, for god's sake!" "I know that now, Matthew," Robert said with quiet dignity. "But I only had what was in your DNA secured wishfile to go by until you woke up and told me that this was not your desires. I admit that, at the time, I was greatly surprised at what was in your wish file, but there wasn't a helluva lot of time to waste at that point, and I couldn't very well ask you. So we trusted your computer security system and did what your file said you wanted." Then, another thought came to mind and the beautiful face pierced Robert with as steel-sharp a gaze as he'd ever gotten from Matthew. "Hell, Robert, more to the point, how could that file pass muster well enough for you to even consider attempting something like this? I thought we agreed on psychological testing, documented credentials and oversight when and if we ever attempted a gender change." Raw emotion seemed to make the very air about Matthew shimmer. "Dammit, Bob, how did you get my approval as CEO to proceed with a sex change? I never okayed any of this." It was too much, too fast. Matthew swayed in his chair, and overbalanced just as he'd feared earlier, but Bob moved surprisingly quickly and caught him easily. "As to all that, my old friend, I think you should talk to Adam." Nodding in agreement, Matthew tried to stand, only to be stopped by Robert. "Later. You should talk to Adam, later. Your body and mind are exhausted. The transition drained you and now you are still reeling under the shock. You need to rest." A pro forma protest was cut off with the imperious wave of a physician's hand as Bob and the nurse helped Matthew back into the large hospital-style bed. "No, I'll watch over you. Somebody's used me to betray you. It won't happen again. Sleep, now, and face tomorrow when tomorrow comes." An icy coldness froze the skin of his arm and a strange, scallion-like taste built up in the back of his mouth. The hypo-sprayer that Bob had evidently been hiding in his pocket, now rested against that strange, smooth skin. The drug took hold, and his strange, frighteningly new world once again receded into the blackness as one thought played over and over in Matthew's still numbed brain. *How did this all happen . . . to . . . meeeeeee?* Chapter 2: Perchance to Dream - A Flashback Matthew Sorenson roused to the sound of the designed-to-be- annoying electronic tones of his alarm clock. It took him a few moments and a couple of bone cracking stretches to recognize his surroundings - the special guest quarters at the Earth Federation Moon Installation. Slowly his sleep drowsed mind became clear, then he jumped out of bed to go to the attached bathroom, and nearly launched himself into the ceiling in the moon's one-sixth earth gravity. *No wonder my dream-self is half a foot shorter and fifty kilo's lighter,* he thought as he barely avoided bouncing his head off the crown molding. *At least here I feel lighter and can move more easily. Too bad I'll pay for it when I get back to Terra.* Still bemusedly pleased over the feeling of his body weighing so much less, he began to shave and promptly felt his good mood evaporate. Shaving was much the same as always, a waste of time. The face in the mirror might have looked better with a beard covering part of it, but beards were incompatible with too many types of emergency equipment. So he saw all of what he had always thought of as his "Neanderthal" face. Heavy brow ridge. Massive jaw. Potato nose. He'd often joked with the rest of the project team that his wish-list face was a lot better looking than the one he wore now. Hell, in his wish list body he didn't even have to shave. He'd told them that, too. That unpleasant task complete, Matt decided against breakfast. He'd be back in earth-normal gravity all too soon, and didn't need the extra calories. Besides, last night he'd come up with an idea he was just burning to try on the problem that had been vexing him, and a whole lot of other folks. Matt had been on the moon for the better part of three weeks trying to fix the installation's computer systems. The systems' controls were based on Matt's early research into biocybernetic direct user interfaces, but something was corrupting any commands directed to the computer through the interface. The first level of backup systems had easily maintained the life support systems, but every operational aspect of the moon installation had been disrupted for more than a month. The moon installation provided the earth with a clean, environmentally benign (at least benign for earth) source of refined metals, particularly steel, cobalt and the platinum group metals. Raw solar energy, unfiltered by an atmosphere, was collected over vast power farms near the base and then used to anaerobically refine the raw ore pulled from the meteor-pocked crust of the lunar landscape. The refined ingots of exceptionally high quality metals were then launched using a superconducting railgun to earth, where the pilotless transport drones would enter the atmosphere and parachute softly down for recovery and distribution. Except that all of that, from power management to the aiming of the railgun, required the massive computing power of the main installation computer. Luna-based and then home company technicians and engineers had tried without success to rectify the problem all the while earthside manufacturers' inventories of those scarce metals dwindled steadily, finally reaching the point where something simply *had* to be done. That *something* had been to offer Matt an incredible amount of money to go to the moon and fix the problem, whatever it was. His initial reaction had been to decline the offer - the moon being a very harsh mistress, but the money he'd been promised had been unbelievable and something he could reinvest into his own company. Besides, there was something akin to pride of authorship at stake here. Matt had designed these systems, and to the best of his understanding, this type of failure was impossible. The bio-feedback systems built into these modern computers (another of Matt's inventions) should have at least called for help before something like this could have happened. Matt would have denied it to his grave, but this had become personal, and he was going to find and fix the problem if it was the last thing he did on this earth . . .errr . . . moon. However, thus far, Matt had not had any more success at isolating the problem than the company's engineers had, but today, he wanted to try a new idea that occurred to him just before he'd fallen asleep. *Not that my idea is likely to amount to anything. It's generally supposed that it is impossible for unapproved programming to attack the logic and inner workings of a QuantCha machine, but no one ever proved that. We just assumed that putting that much computing power into self protection and internal redundancy checks would preclude anything like those invasive attacks that often terrorized users of old Twentieth Century computers. Viruses they called them - like the disease carriers Bob and I fought. Something else, too,* he mused to himself, *what other name did they call those things? Trojan something . . . Trojan Worm? No, that isn't it.* He was still half muttering to himself when, forgetting the gravity again, Matt started to stride into the main operations room and instead ended up nearly bounding across the room into the wall. He was saved only by the quick action of one of the locals who managed to grab him, in flight, while holding his own body anchored to one of the panels. "'Morning, Gerry, and thanks," Matt said sheepishly to the department head as he settled more sedately to the floor than he deserved. Then he handed a storage card to the frazzled looking engineer. "On that card is a program I wrote last night. I want you to do a cold start on the main system but boot it off that card instead of the operating system, okay?" Too discouraged to feel hope anymore, the shorter man nodded. "Okay, just let me copy this into the main core and then . . . " "NO!" Matt had yelled, bringing the man up short and drawing the attention of everyone else in the center. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "But I don't want to do it that way. That card is read-only, and I want to start the machine off that card directly from the card reader." *He's losing it,* Gerry thought glumly. *He's designed the bloody thing, and he can't tell us what's wrong so he's grasping at straws. Oh, well.* Putting his thoughts aside, he said, "All right, Matt. It will take a few moments." The restart went smoothly enough and, moments later, sheets of plasfilm were spewing from the main printer into Matt's hands. After asking for another restart, this time from the main core, Matt strode over to the troubleshooting console and called up a display and then sat down, looking back and forth between the display and the hard copy in his hand. "Dammit, that's it. I don't know how it was done, and I'm not sure I even believe it, but there it is." "What?!?!" the now excited engineer asked, pushing in to look. Matt pointed to two numbers, one on the plas-sheet and the other on the screen. "My program took a snapshot of what was in the core and how big it was without giving the core any warning. That," he said pointing to the plasfilm, "is what the snapshot says the size of the self protection program is in gigamegs, and that number," this time pointing to the screen, "is what the main computer is reporting as the program size." "But . . . but . . . but, they're different," Gerry protested. "Aren't they," Matthew agreed. "Somehow, someone has managed to do the impossible - they've infected a QuantCha machine with some type of computer virus or worm by attacking the computer at its weakest point - its self protection systems." "Stars above. We got a maintenance update to the core software just a week or so before the problems started. I'm going to go reinstall the old system and see if that fixes the problem." It didn't. The virus in the self protection system had somehow protected itself. Matt had then used his snapshot program to study the rogue program as it disrupted the base operations. Finally, a solution had occurred to him. "The code is relatively small and centralized, Gerry. The reason we can't remove it from the core is because the vector isn't just resident in the core. It hides in the biologic part of the user interface to control itself. Once you restart the system and connect the biological part of the user interface, you automatically reinfect the machine. Lord above, the virus infects the tissue that makes up the user interface. It really is like a bloody infection. Amazing." "Well, that's all well and good, Matt, and I'm sure it's all very interesting, but I have a problem. I can't operate that machine without the biological user interface. Only direct mind to computer linkages are complex enough to effectively interact with the machine," Gerry complained. "In other words, what the hell do we do next?" Matt thought for a few moments, reviewing in his mind what he remembered of that design. He and Robert had been the ones who had finally managed to couple the human/computer direct interface via the biologic network, but a lot of that had been Bob's work. Then, he had an idea. "I think I can, if I connect directly with the computer, biologically isolate that control system so that it can be excised, almost like surgery. You can then, while the control system is isolated and being removed, reset the system so that once the biologics heal, the system should be clean." "It's worth a try, Matt. You sure you can do that in a corrupted bio-network?" "Only one way to find out. Get your people, Gerry, and let's have a go at it." Very quickly, the staff needed to remove the infected part of the biological interface and to reinstall the core operating software were on station. Matt put on the helmet that connected his mind to the bio- network and felt the momentary disorientation as the sensors of the base-wide computer system began feeding his brain. Working quickly, he set up a biological program that would box in the section of the network hiding the virus while at the same time disconnecting the bio-network from the main computer. That way, the virus would not be able to "hide" elsewhere in the system. He made one last quick check of his program, then took a deep breath. "Here goes, people," he warned, and then implemented the program. Almost instantaneously, a bolt of shear, unadulterated electric agony knifed into his head. Screaming in pain, Matt tried to pull the helmet off his head, but his hands did not seem to move right and his fingers did not seem to be able to sense contact. And then the world went utterly black. ~-----------~ The sudden light burned at his eyes and made his head pound. Matt tried to block the light with his hands, but found he could not move them. For a moment, he thought he was restrained, but then realized that not only could he not move his hands, he could not feel them, either. Nor any of his other extremities. He could barely seem to breathe. "Easy, Dr. Sorenson," a quiet male voice ordered. Matt's eyes resisted opening, and he couldn't seem to move his head to look up in the direction of the voice. "Whooo . . . where . . . ?" he managed to croak out. A man of indeterminate years in a white lab coat with the still prevalent stethoscope moved into Matt's line of sight. "My name is Dr. Castleton. You were injured during the attempt to restore the main base computers. Actually, you were attacked." "A . . . tack . . . da?" Matt rasped out, turning the word into three distinct syllables. "Attacked," the doctor affirmed. "Evidently, that little nasty was designed to protect itself by attacking anything connected to the network if it was itself attacked. You were connected and the electrical feedback it generated went coursing into your brain though the hundreds of electrodes in that helmet. Much like a sudden synaptic short circuit over the entire surface of your brain." "Fix - ed?" Matt asked, still trying to force his mouth and tongue to obey his orders. "Evidently. You won, at least, Doctor. Your little trap was well enough crafted that it still isolated the virus so it could be excised. Unfortunately, by isolating the main core as you did, you made it necessary that you remain connected. Anyway, main computer function is back, which is one reason you are awake again. I am using a bio-network on you right now to allow the main computer to assist you in communicating." "What's . . . wrong . . . with . . . me?" "A very great deal, I'm afraid. Your brain was badly damaged. Basically, all nervous controls for the voluntary functions of your body have been cut off from your brain. You are only able to speak now because the computer is assisting you with that, and we don't have the computing power necessary to do more than that for you. Worse, you medulla was also damaged. You are slowly losing involuntary muscle control. In short, in about a week, without the computer's assistance, your heart will stop beating, your lungs will stop breathing and you will simply die." "Nothing you can do here?" The doctor shook his head. "We can keep you alive, help you to communicate, but that is about it. The nearest thing I could compare your condition to is an advanced case of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. Your body is simply shutting down around what still is a working mind." "Time enough to get to earth?" Matt got out, slowly getting the hang of communicating with the computer's assistance. "Yes, if we left now. They'd have to set up similar arrangements for you and you'd have to make the trip without support so we would sedate you to minimize the strain, but yes, you still have time to get to Earth." "Need to link with my company. Robert West or Adam Jacobs. Now. Immediate priority." Nodding, the doctor went off to make the necessary arrangements. A person in this condition deserved at least the solace of being in familiar surroundings with his friends. ~----------~ The connection had a fair amount of static, which screeched in Sorensen's ears in a feedback squeal that was all too reminiscent of the attack that had so nearly killed him. Still, he knew that if he didn't confirm what was in the wish file, they'd question it. The changes were pretty dramatic. But dammit, the risk was high in any event. He might as well get what he wanted. No more male pattern baldness. No more ducking to get through doorways. No more pot belly, with an end to the struggle between metabolism and appetite. And younger. That alone made the risk worthwhile. "Bob, . . . you there?" Long pause. "Yes, Matthew, what's the problem?" "Bad accident, maybe deliberate. Get details from Castleton." "They're coming in on the data link now. Oh my God!" "Pretty bad," Sorenson agreed. "Need new body." Even the transmission lag couldn't account for the silence that followed. Finally, West spoke. "I assume you're talking about THE Project." "Yes." "You know as well as I do how risky that is," West warned. Sorenson's mechanical voice sounded implacable, only the slow pace of the words telling of his struggle to communicate. "Try or . . . living death . . . until first power outage ends living part . . . for real." "Very well. We have your GPD code on file. We'll be ready." "NO!" Sorenson said, even the flat tones conveying a sense of urgency. "Don't want . . . this body. New code. Wish file." "All right, Matt," came Robert's placating voice, after another delay noticeably longer than what mere light speed limitations dictated. "I assume your wish-file is under bio- scan lock, just as all of ours are." "You, Adam and Cat, touch . . . plate together . . . access file. Final password is "rebirth". Already genetic hex- code." Sorenson's words had seemed to come a bit easier, so Dr. West tried again to counsel caution. "You know the difficulties increase with more significant modifications to the current gene code." "Do it!" Sorenson ordered, excitement breaking his concentration and thereby slurring his words. There was a long pause was on his end, as he tried to regain his strength after the effort to convey his determination through the tenuous link. "Want hair. Small waist. Better looking. Not tall anymore. Always felt like freak in this body. Other changes, too. Younger. Do it right this time. All in file." "Those changes sound pretty radical. Are you sure you want to do this?" "Very sure, more besides. Been thinking about it for long time." The fatigue that Sorenson had been holding at bay by pure strength of will dragged at him like a creature from some deep sea. With his last energy he tried to make sure his words were clear as he said, "Do it, Robert, please. You'll be surprised, but it's what I've always wanted." Dr. West's answer went unheard as Sorenson slipped back into unconsciousness. ~------------~ Matt awoke momentarily, surprised to see a very worried Bob looking down at him. "Matt . . . I need to know. Are you sure you want to attempt something so drastic?" The effort needed to speak seemed orders of magnitude harder than it had on the moon. Poor programming, his mind whispered. He finally forced his lips to respond, wishing he could smile away his friend's obvious concern. "Dras-tic? Good. Short-er . . . Plenty . . . hair. Thin waist? New face. Not ugly freak. Dras-tic? Com-pared . . . to what, Bob? Do it! Gotta . . . look bet-ter . . . prove to . . . " And then, he could speak no more. Interlude: From a Dream Darkly Matt came to suddenly, the dream that replayed his last moments of manhood still vivid in his mind. Reflexively, he brought his hands up to his eyes so that he could see them move; so he could *feel* them move, and two things became immediately apparent. The hands in front of his eyes were the delicate, well formed hands of a young woman. That had NOT been a dream. The second anomaly was that his hands, or rather his wrists, were no longer unadorned. Shiny metallic bands had been fitted tightly to his wrists. Matthew still found it almost impossible to use feminine pronouns and adjectives when thinking of him/herself. "I'll just have to work on it," he/she thought. "I'm certainly a woman until *I* can figure out a way to change myself back." Matt turned his attention back to his wrists. The bracelets seemed to be a single, seamlessly-smooth piece of metal, skin tight to the wrists. No clasp or catch was even visible. They were about four centimeters wide, (maybe an inch and a half), yet so thin that it was difficult to distinguish where metal ended and skin began. A quick inventory proved that his wristbands were not alone. Similar bands had been affixed to his ankles and thighs, and a matching belt gleamed around his incredibly slim waist. These items were not intended as Matthew's first feminine fashion statement, not that he would even dream of wearing them voluntarily. *Robert must have ordered them put on me after administering the hypo-spray sedative,* he mused when he finally realized what the bands were. These devices were actually the latest in medical restraint devices. A touch of a control, or even a single code word spoken aloud by an authorized voice, and the wrist bands would slam into the belt while the ankle and thigh bands would lock together. Upon realizing that Matthew's . . . makeover had not been his own idea or to his liking, Doctor West had evidently decided to take no chances that his patient and long time friend might do something rash. "Well, might as well start getting ready for my first day as a female," Matthew muttered to himself. "I have a feeling this isn't going to get any better by waiting." Just then, a pretty, blonde haired nurse appeared. "I see you're awake, dearie," she said with a smile. "Well, the doctor tells me you're to have visitors soon, so let's get you out of that bed and get you ready to meet the world, shall we?" Chapter 3: Views from the Other Side. Forty-five rather embarrassing minutes later, a very uncomfortable Matthew found himself hosting, or rather, hostessing a breakfast meeting with Robert West and Adam Jacobs in attendance. Adam had arrived within a half hour of the sedative wearing off. The breakfast had been Robert's idea - he figured that Matt's new stomach needed to start dealing with food instead of nutrient sprays. The 'party' had been the nurse's idea. "Well, if you're going to be a girl, dear," she'd told him, confirming she was aware of his gender change, "then you don't want to let visitors, especially male visitors, see you with your hair a mess and your teeth green." Nurse Therese (call me Teri) Richards was short, with an impressive figure and an arresting face highlighted by beautiful blue eyes. Even doped up with a strong emotion blocking agent, Matt had noticed that and would have had an appreciative, male physiological response to her blatant femininity if there had still been anything between his legs to respond with. "I wonder what she would look like in a bathing suit - or out of one for that matter," he mused to himself when she was out of earshot. Teri must have been a military nurse before joining up with BioCybernetics. Before Matt could get out a word of complaint, he found him . . . dammit, . . . *her*self decked out in a pretty nightgown and peignoir, and had gotten her (long!!!) hair ruthlessly brushed and her teeth thoroughly whitened. Teri'd even managed to sneak some make up on to her stunned patient's face and to spritz her with some lightly floral perfume. Matt did manage to recover sufficiently in time to draw the line at wearing the open toed, high heeled bedroom slippers she tried to slip onto Matt's feet. Not much of a victory over that force of nature in a very nicely fitting nurse's uniform, but it was something with which to salve his injured pride. The mirror then provided yet another shock. "God, but I'm lovely." And then the still male-thinking brain responded like a male brain is usually configured to respond in the presence of a sexually attractive female - desire and sexual awareness flared inside Matt. He, that is the "he" that his mind still told him he was, wanted himself, or rather *herself*, that is. He just did not want this her to be him. God, but that was confusing to think about, and Matt was going to have to live it. "Confusing" was a rank understatement. In the untold days since he had lost consciousness at the moon port until she had awoken in this sterile room, she had lost his identity, his most basic concept of self. Whoever that was in her mirror, it was not the "he" whom Matt had spent 56 years thinking of as "ME". Nor was it the "he" Matt had expected to see in the mirror if the experiment had actually been successful. It was like he'd died and been suddenly reincarnated, fully grown and aware of his past life, but with no memory of *her* new life. Adam had been stunned when Teri had helped Matt back into the main room. Even Robert had been surprised. For her part, Matt had still been much too bemused by the highly unusual pampering to have done much more than make idle pleasantries when they sat down to eat. That soon passed, however, and she had begun to focus on what had been done. "Okay, guys," she finally said. "Explain to me why I'm a female and not the somewhat smaller version of myself -- my MALE self -- that I personally programmed into that file." Robert coughed. "Well, Matthew, therein lies part of the problem. You see, with the exception of modifications made by the optimization program per the directions you left behind in your wish-file, you ARE what was in the Wish File that Adam, Cat and I opened the day you left the Moon." "Robert, I beg to differ! For the most part, all my wish file contained was a somewhat shorter version of me. I wanted a much faster metabolism and to be spared male pattern baldness, but I still wanted to be me . . . I mean, a male. What the hell happened?" "Well, maybe I should tell you what happened on our end. It all began with that first high priority call from Castleton . . ." Interlude: Reminiscences of a Disaster - A Flashback "Jacobs," a sleep-drunk Adam answered the call before he realized it was coming in on the circuit reserved for use only by the company's leadership. Since Matt was off-planet, that meant it had to be either Bob or Cat, and Bob rarely used the damn thing. Adam had been wrong. "Adam? Bob here. Something's gone drastically wrong at the Moon Base. Matt has been hurt very badly, and is only being kept alive because of extraordinary intervention. I need you here at his office right now. I need Cat, too." "Call her," Adam ordered as he reached for his clothes. "I'll pick her up on my way in. Do we need to activate the security force?" "No, not yet. At least, not until Matt gets earthside. He's launching from the moon as we speak. Should be here in about 80 hours. Don't plan on going home anytime soon, Adam. This is going to be hairy." "Right. 20 minutes, Bob. See you then." ~--------------~ "Okay," Cat Donovan said in the quiet tone of voice that was all the more frightening for its rarity. "So you're certain that a THE Project treatment is the only way he can live a full life again?" Catherine Brenda Donovan, formerly Captain Donovan, United States Marine Corps, and now Chief of Security, BioCybernetics Corp. was definitely *not* happy. More accurately and bluntly stated, she was thoroughly pissed off. Matthew Sorenson was one of her few male friends, and at that precise moment, she was helpless to do anything substantive to help him. Cat Donovan *hated* feeling helpless, and she damned well was going to find whoever had done this to her friend. She was tall, powerfully built and competent in far too many ways of bringing pain and death to her fellow humans to be taken lightly. More importantly, at that particular moment in time she was dangerously angry with the cold, rational fury of the professional warrior. *Someone did this to Matt,* her mind whispered, *and that someone is going to pay - big time!* Bob nodded gravely. "Castleton did his work well. I have full brain scans and neural path continuity check results. Unless we can re-engineer his whole body, he will be a living mind in a dead body for as long as we can artificially sustain him. Knowing Matt, I am confident that he would soon opt for self-termination rather than continue such a bleak existance." "So," Cat said, a suspicious hitch in her voice, "what do we do now?" Pointing to the touch plate on Matt's desk, Bob smiled wearily, "We prepare the treatment. Step one is finding out what are Matt's wishes. For that, I need both of you." "All right," Cat growled. "Let's do it. Then, I'm going to start setting up security for his arrival at the spaceport and for his subsequent transfer here. This smells funny, guys, and I don't want anything more happening to that man." She placed her thumb upon the sensor plate on Matt's desk. *She wants there to be a conspiracy so that she will have someone to fight,* Adam mused. *It is much harder for her to accept this as a random, malicious act because she can't fight that. Well, so be it, there isn't much for her to do here once we've opened Matt's file.* "And I'll go make sure the documentation trail is clean so that there are no questions about Matt's identity after . . . whatever happens." A short, dapper little man, Adam still remembered the day that Matt Sorenson had chosen the relatively inexperienced young Adam Jacobs, Esquire, over several older, better known and socially-placed attorneys to head up the legal division of his new corporation. Over time, real friendship had grown between the short statured lawyer and the physically large computer scientist. If Cat was right, and there was something more behind this, Adam Jacobs would damn well make sure whoever did this to his friend would not gain by their crime. *There won't be any questions about who you really are that I can't answer, my friend. I swear it,* he thought fiercely as he put his print next to Cat's. "Right," Bob said as he placed his thumb on the plate next to Cat's and Adam's. "Computer. Open Filename: Sorenson Wish- File. Password: Rebirth." ~--------------~ "You're kidding me, right? Matt Sorenson? Cripes, Bobby, I went to pleasure resorts with him in the early days. The man is as male-heterosexual as I am. Hell, he caught more girls at that place than I did. Why would he want to be a woman??!?" "You've read the file," Robert said quietly. "All the justification and background documentation is there, Adam." "Look, I know he's always, well, you know . . . " Adam ran a frustrated hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "Look, I know he's always complained about his size and lack of looks, but to do something like this? Look, it's a wish thing, Bob. He was just playing with some silly fantasies some dark and lonely night and forgot to erase them from that file there." "Does that sound like Matt Sorenson to you?" Bob challenged. When Adam couldn't answer, he continued. "He told us where the file was, Adam." "But what about the survival stuff? Didn't you tell me that this course of action is unsafe?" "Yes, in general, but I am checking into those probabilities as they relate to Matt's specific genetic makeup. I have those tissue samples I took from each of us a few months ago. I'm doing clinical testing on some of Matt's." "And if it doesn't work?" "I will also generate a non-gender changing treatment that will be ready in case of an unacceptably low survival probability with the gender changing treatment. In the meantime, I will conduct optimization studies to comply with his stated wishes." "But you will insist on a very high survival probability, right? As in 100 percent?" "He's my friend, too, Adam," Robert said with austere dignity. "Sorry, Bob, I know that. Well, guess I better make like a lawyer and make sure we do this perfectly," Adam said with a sigh before a thought hit him. "What about Cat?" "We comply with Matthew's stated wishes whenever it does not affect his chance of survival. He doesn't want her interfering and you know as well as I do that she would try. Let her worry about setting up her security plan and let it go at that." ~---------------~ The sleek, hypersonic space-transport shut down its engines and rolled to a stop near the smaller airship that was waiting with its own engines hot. Four med-techs raced across the tarmac pushing what looked like a cross between a bed and a combat tank towards the bigger ship. Six other men rushed down the spaceship's loading ramp carrying a life support litter. With skilled efficiency, the man in the litter was transferred to the bed and then wheeled to the load hoist of the smaller airship. They were airborne less than ten seconds after the hoist had melded into the smooth lines of the fuselage. Bob and the other doctor worked feverishly to hook up the bio- network. "Damn, he's further gone that we thought," Bob swore. "We need his go ahead, Bob. That was the agreement. Because of the inherent risk of the gender transition, he personally has to approve the use of any treatment with that type of re- engineering," Adam said. *Hopefully, he won't say anything and we can forget the whole idea.* Matt awoke momentarily, surprised to see a very worried Bob looking down at him. "Matt . . . I need to know. Are you sure you want to attempt something so drastic?" The effort seemed to drain yet more life out of their friend, and for just a moment, Adam thought he was not going to be able to answer. Only he did. "Dras-tic? Good. Short-er . . . Plenty . . . hair. Thin waist? New face. Not ugly freak. Dras- tic? Com-pared . . . to what, Bob? Do it! Gotta . . . look bet-ter . . . prove to . . . " Adam could only stare at his now comatose friend, willing him to say something more. When he didn't, he rounded on Bob. "Cripes, West, what the hell did he mean to say? What do we do now?" The strain of more than three days concentrated effort on far too little sleep and far too much stimulant burned in Robert's eyes. "I think we both know what he meant to say, Adam. As for what we are going to *do*? We're going to save his life *and* give him the life he's asked us for at least twice. Any other questions?" When Adam could only shake his head, Bob nodded wearily. "I know. I feel it, too. Sorry for jumping down your throat. Come on, we're starting to descend. We've both got work to do, my friend. Let's get to it." Chapter 4: The Legal and Not-So-Legal Niceties. "And that," Bob said with a touch of finality, "was that. Adam wanted to argue some more, but there really wasn't all that much time. We had to make a decision and go with it. We decided to follow what we *thought* were your stated wishes. "My stated wishes??" Matt spluttered. "My god, Bob, that makes so little sense as to be ludicrous. Lord above, all I wanted was what any middle-aged overweight male wants - to be young, thin and handsome." "Matthew . . . " Robert started only to be ignored completely. "How could you have done this to me?" he asked dazedly, reaching his hand up to touch his flawless cheek. "But you said you wanted a new face - more times than I can remember counting," Adam interjected. "Sure, my old mug was ugly. That doesn't mean I wanted to be a woman." "You said, quite specifically in our short talk before you left the moon," Bob retorted, "that you wanted to have a new face, be shorter, have lots of hair, and a small waist. And more things besides, you said. Fine, with that as a starting point, *THEN* we find this wish-file that has all that, and more besides. What were we supposed to think, Matthew? Especially since you're such a fanatic on security, yet you told us to trust that file completely." Stalled by the uncomfortable logic of Bob's argument, Matt retreated for a moment. "What did Cat have to say about all of this?" "Nothing," Adam said firmly. "After she did her part to open the file, anyway. She was heavily involved in making sure that all the security was setup for your transfer to here. She knew we had to change you, but until Bob had decoded the wish file, even we didn't know that the fake wish form was female. Besides, the first instruction we read after we got into your sealed file was that, if it was possible, we were to keep her out of the details of your transition. You wanted to surprise her." "Guess everyone was surprised - especially me. Not that Cat was ever very involved in the lab end of things, but please tell me why in hell did you even think that I would say that? That alone should have given it away. Why would such a 'fanatic on security' want his personally handpicked Chief of Security kept out of anything to do with THE Project? Particularly when it affects *ME*?" Both men looked down, and then steadfastly avoided Matthew's eyes. Finally, Adam coughed and said hesitantly, "Um, well, you told us why in the file. You said," Adam's voice cracked like a teenaged boy going through puberty. Matthew gave his friend a 'c'mon' gesture with his hands. Adam coughed again and then spoke more quickly. "I mean, the file said, that you were so desperately in love with Cat that if you ever had a legitimate reason to take the risk of a new body form, you wanted to become her ideal woman." "I WHAAAAAT?!?!?" Matthew screeched in tones that would have done justice to a heroine from an old Grade B horror movie. "The file said that you knew she would never accept you as a man, so you would get her to accept you as a woman. But that if she ever knew you'd done it for her, her response wouldn't be genuine, it would be guilt, or gratitude, or something other than the true love you wanted from her. Anyway, she was not to know anything about the specifics of the new body." "Right, like that would have stopped her." "Well, that was a very busy time around here, Matt, all of us going in a dozen directions at once. She never even asked what you'd look like after the transition. I honestly don't think she cared about anything other than having her friend alive and healthy when we were done. All she ever wanted to know, and she wanted to know it about every ten minutes, was if you were still doing alive." "Just how the hell could you two just accept that pile of manure? How could you have worked with me for ten years in one case and over twenty five years in the other and believe that garbage?" Robert's guilt had his emotions already on edge and his famous temper finally blew. "Oh, come off it, Matthew. Lie to yourself all you want to, but give us some credit for knowing you. You've been more than halfway in love with that woman since she walked into your office to interview for the job. Cripes, the first time you saw her in her combat jumpsuit you almost gave yourself whiplash. The only two people here who know both of you who *don't* know how you feel about her are the two of you." Matthew wanted to dispute it, but both of his friends wore looks of such supreme surety that he knew it would do no good. Sure, he was really fond of Cat, but love? It had never crossed his mind he assured himself smugly. Cat didn't LIKE guys . . . at least, not in THAT way. *But maybe I would have a chance with her, now,* a faint voice in the back of his now feminine head whispered temptingly. Grimly, he forced that unworthy thought back into the depths of his mind. "Well, you're both wrong. So if that is your justification, we can put that in the trash where it belongs and get to the more important question before us." "And that is?" Adam asked silkily, his own patience starting to slip. "Okay, I guess I understand how I got this way. Now, how soon can we change me back?" "I thought you knew that, Matthew," Adam blurted out before Robert could respond. "We can't. The change isn't reversible. 100% failure rate in the clonal tests." "What?" Matt shouted, lurching to his feet, his beautiful face white with shock. "Nurse," Dr. West called quickly. The manacles snapped together and Matthew found himself falling helplessly forward, to be caught in the arms of her doctor. A hypospray whispered behind his ear, and then the world once again melted away. Interlude: The Leader Speaks: A single chair had been placed in the otherwise empty and pitch-black room. As if a switch had been thrown, the room suddenly filled with an eerie half light. Into that dim greyness, localized shimmering light coalesced in the chair, and then in various positions in front of the chair. Slowly, the blots of light shifted into the form of transparent, female human bodies that exhibited neither faces nor any other distinguishing features. The body seated in the lone chair spoke first. "Have all the traces back to us been destroyed?" "Yes," responded another body, its voice lightly feminine yet oddly separate from its physical location. "Per our contingency planning, the electronic files self-erased, and our special polymer sheets, the ones that mimicked the supposedly indestructible ones, vaporized as planned when they were not recoated in the stabilization compound." "Very well, Admin. So, there should be no long term repercussions to the Organization?" "Other than failure, of course," another feminine voice cut in snidely. "I could do nothing about that, Freuda," the voice that had answered to the name 'Admin' retorted. "As quickly as the plan was laid on, it is amazing that we got as far with it as we did." "Yes," said the first voice. "It was a shame that we did not anticipate that Sorenson might be called in to consult on the Moon Base test of our bionic virus. We might have had more time to adequately plan our attempted takeover of BioCybernetics." "At least that test was successful, Leader," the voice answering to 'Freuda' said. "Not so. My sources tell me that even now several major organizations, including the Laboratory for Applied Biotechnology at MIT have found a way to do what Sorenson accomplished without exposing anyone to our viral bioelectric synaptic counterattack. The bionic virus is no longer of any value to the cause." There was a quiet general murmur of dismay in the room that did not seem to be associated with any specific light body. The seated figure raised a hand for silence. There was a short delay of perhaps two or three seconds before all conversation ceased. "It occurs to me, Admin, that you have not yet answered my first question. Can we expect any repercussions to the Organization?" "I was forced to flee rather precipitously, Leader, when Jacobs arrived with irrefutable evidence that would deflect our thrust, but I did do everything I was told to do in the contingency plan." "Insufficient answer, Admin. We will adjourn for twenty four hours while Admin reviews her actions so that she can make a more . . . complete report. You are all dismissed." Instantly, the light bodies winked out of sight, and then the room was once again black and empty. Chapter 5: Past the Point of No Return Both men were at Matthew's bedside when the fairly strong sedative wore off. Unlike old, Twentieth Century drugs, when this compound wore off, it wore off suddenly and completely. Thus, Matthew was completely alert when the beautiful blue eyes flickered open. Alert enough to realize something was not quite normal. Even for what now passed for normal in his life. "More drugs, Robert?" he asked querulously. "An emotion block, Matt. I want you calm so we can get through this all at once. Then, once you've had time to assimilate what we have to tell you, you can deal with the emotional upheaval gradually as the drug wears off." "That bad?" Matt asked, wry humor in his new voice. "You tell me," Bob replied. "You remember why I had to sedate you?" A slight frown furrowed the porcelain-smooth forehead and then just a quickly cleared. "Adam said that I was stuck like this. That you cannot reverse the transition." "Adam," Robert said in heavy tones and a stern look to the other man, "should know enough to keep his mouth shut when he isn't arguing points of law." "Well, since I am not having a bad case of vapors, you might as well give me the whole story. Why can't you just undo what you did? You've got my GPD record - you told me so. I mean, I'd be ugly again, but . . . " "Two reasons, Matt," Robert said quietly. "First, your GPD record has been erased from every databank we have. Completely. We don't know how, especially since those redundant copies were under separate security codes, but right now, I do not have reliable access to the person who was Matthew Eric Sorenson. I have some tissue samples, but those will take time to analyze and map." Matthew considered that for a moment and sighed. "Okay, file that for the moment. You said there was a second reason I can't go back to being at least male again." Robert sagged wearily onto Matt's hospital bed and laid a hand on his friend's oddly slender shoulder. "The plain and simple truth is that, so far, not one tissue experiment that successfully completed a viable male to female transition has survived an attempt to reverse the process." "Not even one success to prove the rule, Bob?" Matthew asked, the block keeping all emotion out of his voice. "100% non-viable, Matt. At least 150 different tissue cultures, all from different donors," Robert affirmed. "During the live cell testing, every time we tried to reverse a successful and viable male to female transition, the DNA structure itself just decomposed - totally disintegrated. Electron microscopy has shown us that the double helix literally unzipped into single strands. Those strands, no longer having the cross coupling bonds between the single strands to stabilize them, then broke down completely in the presence of the enzymes we used to control and facilitate the process." "Why?" Matt asked quietly, dimly aware that he'd be having kittens if it wasn't for the drug coursing through his system. "Matt, we've been working on the problem for several months and basically have no idea." "What about the computer models based on the GPD? Don't they help at all?" "Matt, for all the good they are doing us, we might as well not have them. Look," Bob said seriously, "to this point, our ability to model this transition has been a huge disappointment from both a prediction and an experimental perspective. Okay, here's the deal. The models predict that male to female transitions have essentially the same survivability as female to male. Hell, the same as any really complex transition without a gender change. If we don't intervene and fix certain known fatal gene sets, any of those transitions survive in about seventy percent of the model runs." "And when you intervene and change the gene sets before the main transition?" "As near 100% viability as makes no difference to anyone but a statistician with severe anal retention problems. However, the laboratory experiments with real human tissue samples give us completely different results. Except in the case of transitions involving no gender change - in those cases the model is dead on." "But not for gender changers," Matt said quietly. Bob nodded sadly. "Precisely. Oddly enough, based on our statistical data, the generation of a second "X" chromosome from a male's "Y" was the riskiest transition of all. Which it shouldn't be - duplicating an existing chromosome is technically easy. However, if there is any fault on it, you no longer have a spare on the other chromosome to provide viable information. That's worse t