Exodus: A Postlude To Genesis free porn video

Conceived as a sequel to the Great Shift story "Genesis" by Morpheus. Based on characters and events created by Morpheus. This may be archived/posted anywhere: Just give credit where credit is due, thanks! Exodus: A Postlude to Genesis By Pretzelgirl "A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation." -- Friedrich Nietzsche "Dammit, Rhonda let's talk about this!" shouted Lazlo, rising from his chair. The red, tear-stained face of the woman before him twisted in contortions of ire. "Just get out of here!" she yelled. "I can't deal with your selfish, half-assed excuse for 'love' right now!" "Jesus, Rhonda," Lazlo began. "I didn't say that I didn't love you -- just that sometimes I wish that I didn't. Y'know, I have a career too and..." "JUST LEAVE!" screeched Rhonda. "I need some fucking space to think right now." The two emotional combatants eyed each other silently. Lazlo refused to budge. "Please, Lazlo," said Rhonda more calmly. "I think we both have a lot to think over. And I have a very busy day tomorrow. Please." Wordlessly, Lazlo Giago left his girlfriend's apartment and promptly headed for the nearest bar. * * * The morning light suddenly flashed into Lazlo's eyes painfully. It had gone from a dim, amber glow leaking through venetian blinds into the blazing, garish radiance of morning come too early in southwest America. And it had happened in a dazzling flash that gave him a hell of a migraine. Lazlo Giago fell to the floor. The first thing that struck him funny about this was the fact he hadn't been standing to begin with. Wasn't he lying in bed? Yet here he was, crumpled up on a hard, cold floor. The world was too bright, too loud, too cold. He knew this wasn't his bedroom. But where ... how? "Jesus Christ," he muttered, rubbing the palms of his hands into his eyes. "Did I have that much to drink last night? Where the hell am I?" His voice didn't sound right, but it was hard to be certain. All around him, a cacaphony of shrieks and yells and screams filled the corridor. Blinking, he stumbled to his knees and tried to comprehend his new surroundings. His knees were cold. Screaming teenagers around him seemed to be in a frenzied panic. Some sat on the floor crying, in a state of catatonic shock. Others wailed and screamed, tearing madly through the halls. It looked like a high school, but it sounded and felt like a lunatic asylum. Lazlo felt his face grimace, as his head shook in an involuntary paroxysm of nausea. He fought hard not to vomit. His insides turned upside down with fear and an urge to panic. "Fuck, it's the end of the world and I'm still drunk," he muttered. Again, his voice didn't sound quite right. Come to think of it, he didn't really feel that drunk. Not even a mild hangover. Certainly, he felt nauseous and unsteady. But he'd woken up in worse places than this. He was well acquainted with "the demon liquor," and recognized nothing familiar in this latest post-binge sensation. Something was very different about this. He opened his mouth again: "La, la, la." Then it hit him. His voice really was all wrong. Too squeaky and light. Immature and high-pitched. Clumsily, he climbed to his feet. Too short. And his arms and legs felt considerably weaker. His torso felt smaller and more frail. His center of gravity seemed shifted imperceptibly. Suddenly he knew: he was a girl. Not even a woman -- he was a girl. The bare knees, that would be a skirt. He glanced down, and sure enough a white-and-black cheerleader skirt enveloped his waist, hugging tight, tanned, teenage thighs. Lazlo's mind instantly snapped into "alert mode," and he quickly assessed his new situation. White tennis shoes (damn they're small), short white ankle socks, the skirt -- it's awfully short and looks pleated, a shirt of some kind -- white, black, a bit of blue trim. Some lettering across the chest: reading it upside down, what was it? ... D- N-H-S ... his old alma mater? "Great. I'm in the body of a cheerleader at Del Norte High School," he thought. "At least I know where I am -- Albuquerque." Around him, frenzied teenagers continued to panic and wail. "But why am I like this?" he thought. He swiveled his head, taking in the scenes of chaos around him and feeling the odd sensation of shoulder-length hair brushing along the back of his neck. He fought to block out the distraction. "Whatever happened to me happened to everyone else here," he mused. "And if I'm not me ... if all these other people are not themselves ... then we've got a serious problem." "Dammit, this would've been so much easier to digest if I hadn't had all that whiskey last night," he thought. "Of course, all that alcohol isn't technically in this strange girl's bloodstream. And yet, somehow my mind is still addled. Whatever's going on, I'm not going to be another victim. They're going to need people to straighten this out, and lucky for everyone affected by this catastrophe, emergency response happens to be my specialty." Dashing out the door, Lazlo suddenly found himself one of the many figures racing madly at top speed for no discernible purpose. He thought of Rhonda and longed to call her, but there wasn't time. And his new body didn't seem to have a cell phone handy. Hell, this uniform didn't even seem to have pockets. Goosebumps ran across his skin in the fresh morning air. He felt unusually exposed in the scant cheerleading blouse and skirt. Didn't these girls get embarrassed -- or at least cold -- from wearing these things? Lazlo ran through a quiet, asphalt parking lot before stopping at the street curb wondering what to do next. As if reading his thoughts, a glossy-yellow Honda hatchback pulled over to the side of the road and stopped in front of him. The driver, a middle-aged man with a mustache, seemed visibly upset. Lazlo yanked open the door and pulled the man out of the car. "This is an emergency," he yelled at the confused man. "I'm with the Center for Civil Force Protection and need to commandeer this vehicle." The man, now sitting on the boulevard staring up at the petite teenage girl who had just hijacked his car, blinked but said nothing. Lazlo fiercely drove through an obstacle course of traffic. No one was moving, but stopped cars and smoldering wreckage dotted the roadways. Surprisingly, few emergency vehicles were out. He imagined the police, the sheriff's office, the paramedics had all been affected just like he had. Who do you call for help when the 9-1-1 people themselves are screwed over? Lazlo sped around the stalled, damaged, and destroyed vehicles, making his way to Sandia National Laboratories. His motives were twofold: in the event of any disaster, Sandia would be the place for him to report. And Sandia was also where Rhonda worked ... where he'd met her ... where he hoped to god she'd be now. After an eternity, he reached the gates. Nervously, he noticed no one stood to check him for identification. His stolen car passed easily through security checkpoints, and once on foot, Lazlo waltzed right through the front doors. The bitter, metallic taste of fear filled his mouth. He fought back an urge to burst into tears. Was he pushing this young girl's body too hard? "Rhonda!" he shouted, running madly through the maze-like corridors of the massive government facility. Unlike the rest of the world, Sandia seemed eerily quiet ... either untouched by disaster, or so badly hit that it now stood abandoned. "Rhonda!" he shouted again urgently, fighting the panic welling in his throat. In the distance, an armed marine rounded the corner and waved for Lazlo to approach. "What's your name?" the guarded demanded with calm, quiet confidence, his hands resting businesslike on a weapon at the ready, but not pointed at Lazlo. "I-I'm Lazlo Giago," stammered the cheerleader. "I'm with the DOE Center for Civil Force Protection..." "Good enough for me," said the guard. "No one's in their right mind. Literally. Don't worry about it. We'll sort it out later. You've got two options, Miss Giago: you can join me and a couple others on perimeter watch, or you can head into conference room 'B2' with the powers that be. They need you -- and I need you. It's up to you. What's your specialty?" Powers-that-be? Rhonda wasn't a bigwig, but she wouldn't be on guard duty here. As a young research scientist, she'd be in the conference room. "I guess right now I'm too small and weak to be much use on guard duty," Lazlo squealed with a bit too much emotion. If this turned out to be permanent, he'd have to learn to control this body's young, excitable adrenaline rushes. "I'll be in the conference room." The guard nodded curtly and stalked off matter-of-fact to roam the corridors for intruders. Pulling open the door to conference room 'B2,' Lazlo beheld a sea of unfamiliar eyes upon him. A motley collection of random faces sat around an impressive oak table. Their serious, somber gazes eyed him urgently, asking questions without words. He quickly introduced himself, "I'm Lazlo Giago, on-assignment with the energy department's Center for Civil Force Protection." A smart looking woman with short, blond hair and the uniform of an air force technical sergeant nodded curtly at him, gesturing towards an empty chair. Lazlo quickly took his place at the conference table. "Lazlo, is that really you?" asked a scratchy, deep unfamiliar voice. He looked up and saw a grossly overweight hulk of a man standing near the head of the table. He had dark, greasy hair and a scuzzy growth of unkempt stubble on his face. He wore a dirty, pizza-stained t-shirt with old-English lettering that spelled out, "Dungeon Master." "It's me," the man said softly. "I'm Rhonda." Lazlo felt his heart shatter into a thousand tiny shards. The world had just ended, he had no clue why it had happened, and all he could think of was that he'd never again have the chance to say he was sorry ... to kiss her lips ... to run a hand through her soft, red hair ... to be with Rhonda. The REAL Rhonda, not this monstrous freak that she'd become. Rhonda's immense body shifted weight nervously from one foot to the next for a moment, before she spoke again. "We've all changed," she said in a gravely, baritone. "I was just trying to brief everyone on what I think has happened. I've got a theory. It's just a theory, but it's all we have to go on so far." "I'm all ears," Lazlo said softly, absent mindedly brushing back his hair with a free hand. "As I was saying," Rhonda's sluggish body continued. "I was an intern on Project Powerhouse with Doctor Jensen. If we can contact him, I know he'd have a better picture of what's happened. From what I understand, Project Powerhouse dealt with unfamiliar technology ... technology with a track-record of exerting strange influences over people's minds. It was all top secret, but I guess that's moot now. A test was scheduled for this morning, just when this whole madness unfolded. That's too much coincidence for me. If Doctor Jensen's power core did this, there's no telling what other things might yet happen. The core is incredibly resilient, having already survived several big blasts. It has potential danger... beyond imagination." Abruptly, the conference room phone rang interrupting Rhonda. A ditzy looking blond woman in a halter top and hot pants got up answered, nodded several times, and said, "Thank you" before hanging up. All eyes were on her as the bimbo's body spoke. "That was the Otero County sheriff's office," she said. "We're their emergency contact for the Henley-Malaclypse facility southwest of Alamogordo. The sheriff's department is reporting a massive crater around the base of that lab. It's a big, gaping hole about three miles wide. They'd like to do some air recon, to help determine if we've been bombed or something. But all air traffic is grounded right now. There've been too many crashes. Too many agencies are failing to answer. They'd like us to help ... I don't know ... investigate and handle this." Rhonda's unshaven, flabby jaw dropped. "No," she said quietly. "Doctor Jensen ... Doctor March ... Sam Crebitz, they're all...? They're ... dead?" "I'm afraid ... that is, I imagine so," answered the woman quietly. "Unless that lab could've survived an explosion capable of producing a three mile wide crater." "What does this mean for us?" asked Lazlo. "I mean for your theory. If the lab blew sky-high, then ... well, I guess your theory was right?" "I should add," continued the blond woman. "Sheriff's deputies report there's heavy radiation still coming from the crater. That's why they're calling us. Someone has to contain that mess. Pronto. They don't know who to turn to. The only emergency staff on-hand right now appears to be ... well ... the people in this room." "Damn!" exclaimed Rhonda in a gruff voice. "If there's radiation pulsating then ... I was right. There may be further energy waves building up to ... well, possibly another explosion, or even a series of explosions. The power core had been periodically shedding excess energy in strange waves of 'mental energy' like this for the past who- knows-how-long. It's never been this strong, this wide-sweeping. By all reports, this last energy shedding affected the whole globe. I'm sure now that Doctor Jensen's machine caused this ... this great shift of everyone's bodies. And unless we can contain the core, that shedding radiation could continue to randomize bodies." The blond woman in the air force sergeant's uniform stood up and addressed the group. "That settles it," she said in a businesslike voice. "An emergency response team has to go in and contain that core. Doctor Phelps, if you can get down there can you stop the radiation pulses?" Rhonda nodded silently. "Good," the blond sergeant continued. "Phelps, you have to go. I'll take volunteers for the rest of the initial team. Soon as we can put together a follow-up team of experts, we will. But now, I'll take anyone willing to be a first-responder." Instantly Lazlo stood up. "I'm going," he said with quiet confidence. His short, bare legs suddenly felt very cold, and he resisted an impulse to shiver. No reason to be afraid. This was his job. And maybe a chance to patch things up with Rhonda. Christ, it must be these female hormones making him all sentimental now. No time for that. While Lazlo struggled to remain stoney-faced, the rest of the emergency response team volunteered one by one. In the body of a pimply-faced teenage boy, Major Tim Kent of the 377th Air Base Wing ... in the body of a slightly overweight, middle-aged Latina woman, Adam Hillner from the New Mexico Office of Emergency Services and Security ... in the body of a hairy, brawny brute in jeans and an undershirt, Norm Wright from the National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory ... and in the body of a thin, elderly man, David Greenbaum from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of Incident Response Operations. They were it. All that stood between the current status quo of a disaster past and a catastrophe yet to come. After the briefest of introductions, the team headed straight for the nearest motor pool and quickly left by humm-vee on a cross-country trip headed straight for the blast site. Lazlo and Rhonda took the trip in stoic silence, though the rest of the team joked nervously with one another about the day's events. It wasn't long before the countryside grew impossible for the humm-vee to traverse. The rock, debris, and pockmark cratering caused by the explosion had devastated the countryside. "We're clearly on track though," said Rhonda. "My Geiger counter continues to register radiation pulses from dead ahead." "We go on foot," said Major Kent, who had tentatively assumed leadership of the group. "I can make out what I'm guessing is the edge of the crater out there." After a fifteen-minute hike across the rugged terrain, the winded group stumbled across an old Navajo man sitting in silence on the scorched desert soil. "Hello sir," said Major Kent, his teenage boy's voice cracking mid- word. "We're with the government and have to ask you to clear this area. There's dangerous radiation..." The old man started sobbing. Immediately, Rhonda was bent down with her flabby arms wrapped around the old Navajo's shoulders. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Did you get shifted, too? No one is their right bodies. It's all right. We're here to help." "I ... we ... it," the old man stumbled for words, fighting back a wave of tears. "We're not this man. We're... we're Mrs. Ricardo's second grade class. We had a field trip here, to the desert. Then ... something blew up ... and now we're all mushed into this old man's body. All of us. It's crowded and noisy in here, and our bones hurt. We're scared." "Is that possible?" asked the fat, female body Adam Hillner inhabited. "That multiple people could be 'shifted' into a single form?" "Anything's possible," answered Rhonda. "I wasn't a three-hundred pound man this morning, and I'll bet you didn't start the day off wearing leopard print stretch-pants Mister Hillner." "But, we haven't heard reports of anything like this," replied Hillner's latina body. "All indications are that people were only shifted on a one-to-one basis. This ... mashing together of psyches is a new phenomenae entirely." "Agreed," said Rhonda. "I can only speculate that ... weirdness like this is endemic only to ground zero, to those closest to the blast sight. At least I hope and pray no one else in the world got ... scrambled this way. It seems particularly cruel." "Um ... Rhonda," began Lazlo. "I don't mean to interrupt, but what're we going to do to help these ... kids? We can't leave them like this." "I don't know what we can do," Rhonda answered glumly. "We have to press on and get that power core contained." "But we can't just..." "Hold on," Rhonda interrupted, checking her suddenly squealing Geiger counter. "There's a sudden build-up of radiation. I'm not sure why, but I don't like the looks of..." Without warning, a hot blast of yellow wind flattened the team to the desert ground. The searing heat of the sour dry air rushing past them so suddenly caught the team unawares. Rhonda and Lazlo were the first to their feet. "What was that?" asked Lazlo. "Another shift," answered Hillner's middle-aged woman's body. "I'm no longer me." Rhonda and the other team members frowned. "Mister Hillner, what do you mean?" she asked. The old Navajo man answered. "The pressure is better," he said with a sigh. "I think half of me went into you." "Right," Hillner answered with a nod. "I'm me ... but also you. Or some of you." "So people are still shifting?" Lazlo asked, frowning in confusion. "Looks that way," Rhonda answered glumly. "Though my readings would suggest that wasn't another great shift ... just a lesser shift, probably localized in the immediate vicinity of the crater. I doubt if it affected anyone other than us." "That's a relief," said Major Kent. "Not really," continued Rhonda. "That core is undergoing quantum fusion, and unless we contain it soon, these mini-shifts are going to continue. While the current waves are localized, the core must be contained before it implodes. If that happens, the energy and heat released would melt the core straight through to the gravitational center of the Earth. Obviously little hope would remain of retrieving it then ... and humanity might just have to learn to live permanently with periodic personality swaps whenever the core happens to shed enough energy to reach the earth's crust." "Then we press on," Major Kent announced. "Hillner, can you make it with us?" "No," answered Hillner's body softly. "We'll guide the rest of our class back out of here. Now that I'm part of 'Us' we have a leading voice to guide us back home." Hillner gently took the old Navajo's hand and silently began leading him away from the crater. The team resolutely trudged forward, deeper into the desert wasteland and towards the looming crater. Major Kent and David Greenbaum made small-talk, speculating light- heartedly about what might have happened to various movie stars, professional athletes, and rock stars. While Rhonda spoke aloud to no one in particular, theorizing various high-energy physics scenarios, Lazlo's mind wandered. He worried about his friends, his family, the rest of the world. Utter chaos must have been bestowed on a mind- bogglingly catastrophic scale. What would people do? How were people coping? But as he walked, feeling lighter and strangely more comfortable in his younger, feminine body, he also began to selfishly worry over Rhonda. Despite everything that had happened today (and yesterday), he still had feelings for her. Feelings that had become bizarrely complex given current events. He wanted to apologize for last night, but knew this was neither the time nor place for a mea culpa. More than anything, he wished for a moment of peace and reflection -- an opportunity to sit down and talk things over with her. But Rhonda was in "science mode." And to be fair, Lazlo ought to be in "crisis mode" himself. The fate of the human race might depend on them. Funny, Lazlo thought, how there never seems to be enough time when you really need time. Until today, there'd been all the time in the world. Now he wondered, worried, whether there'd be time ever again for a heart-to-heart with Rhonda. Now he wondered whether there would even be anything left to call civilization tomorrow. Watching his tiny, female feet plod rhythmically forward in the hot, dry dust, Lazlo began to take notice of something odd. While traipsing through the desert, one might come across a creature or two, but Lazlo knew not to expect a plethora of animal life. Yet just in the past five or ten minutes, he had spotted almost a half-dozen different scorpions scurrying about busily in the terrain around them. Lazlo stopped in his tracks and carefully squinted at the ground around him. The rest of the team took a few more steps, then paused, turning about and looking at him in confusion. "Lazlo?" asked Rhonda. "What's the hold ... oh my god." Rhonda's eyes widened and her unshaven jaw dropped in horror. Behind the team, a swarm of hundreds of small scorpions was forming. The tiny beasts scampered from across the rocky terrain, coalescing into a great conglomeration just a few feet from where Lazlo stood frozen in his tracks. "Lazlo, get back," whispered Rhonda. "No," he answered with a hushed voice. "Wait. Watch them. They're up to something." While the team watched in silent horror, the swarm of scorpions began rearranging themselves. No longer a disorganized mass, the tiny critters were aligning themselves into geometric shapes. Patterns started forming across the desert landscape, patterns spelled out by the hideous bodies of the many scurrying beasts. "They're ... they're forming letters!" gasped Rhonda. Lazlo nodded quietly, watching the fierce creatures perform with the precision of a marching band. A heavy, dark lump weighed in Lazlo's young throat as he watched the patterns coalesce into letters ... words. H - E - L - P "Oh God," stammered Lazlo. "This shift ... did it? ... I mean, is it possible some people have wound up as ... No ... No ... How horrible! That's inconceivable!" "I doubt many were affected this way," said Rhonda. "We should have heard reports otherwise. Like I said, I imagine the really bizarre changes are bound to be localized to ground zero. If mindless arthropods and human beings are switching places very often, then this nightmare world we're trapped in just entered a whole new degree of magnitude." "I hope you're right," said Lazlo. "I think if that were me ... I don't know if I could go on like that. I just wonder what poor soul wound up being scrambled into all the little bodies of... of ... a swarm of scorpions." As if in response to Lazlo's question, the swarm swiftly rearranged itself again. C-R-E-B-I-T-Z "No," gasped Rhonda. "Doctor Crebitz? Is ... is that really you? Lazlo, I worked with this man. He was an integral part of Project Powerhouse. He didn't deserve this fate. We have to do something! We have to help him!" The scorpions continued writing in the sand. H-A-R-D T-O T-H-I-N-K H-E-L-P M-E "What can we do for him?" asked Rhonda urgently. Major Kent, silent up until now, finally spoke. "There's nothing we can do," he said with as much sad gravity as his squeaky, teenage boy voice could muster. "Remember people. We've got a mission. Unless we get that core contained, and I mean soon, the world could start falling apart all over again." "He's right," said Lazlo. "I know it's hard to see a friend and colleague suffer like this, Rhonda. But we must press on." "I agree," said David Greenbaum. "But before we go, perhaps we can ... or should ... well, could we put poor Doctor Crebitz out of his misery? Like Lazlo said, I'm not sure I could go on like that. Could we ... do something to him? For him?" "No," said Rhonda. "But..." "You don't understand," said Rhonda more urgently. "Not him, there's another power spike. I'm detecting another of the lesser shifts. There's nothing we can do ... for Doctor Crebitz or for ourselves. Just ... brace yourselves. It's coming." Again, a hot blast of yellow wind forced the team to the ground. This time, the piercing sound of human screams echoed along with the blasting wind. It was over as suddenly as it had began. Major Kent was the first to his feet. "I'm still me," he announced, patting his thin, adolescent body. "Everyone?" Rhonda rose to her chubby, masculine feet and helped Lazlo to rise to his lean, tanned female legs. "Still me," said Lazlo, reluctantly looking down at his increasingly dirty cheerleading skirt. Rhonda had rushed over to the prone body of Norm Wright motionless on the desert ground. "He's dead!" she cried. "No pulse, no breathing." Rhonda bent over Wright's brawny, hairy, lifeless body and tried CPR. "Where are the scorpions?" asked Lazlo. "Will you forget that and help me!" shouted Rhonda. "No, he's right," said Major Kent. "The entire swarm is gone. That last swap must've scrambled Wright ... and whatever was left of Crebitz. I don't think there's anything left to resuscitate. That's just an empty shell you're working on." Still, the remnants of the team stood by for several minutes as Rhonda alone desperately tried to bring life back to the lifeless. Finally, in complete silence, she stood up, hung her head low, and the remnants of the Emergency Response Team quietly moved on. The further they traveled, the steeper their descent into the crater became. The rocky, pitted wasteland was eerily silent. The team members no longer dared to joke or make small talk. Rhonda no longer mused aloud about theorhetical physics. The silence was stuffy, hot, and suffocating. Suddenly, a tiny, shrill voice snapped out of nowhere, echoing through the frozen badlands. "Don't move!" shrieked the small, high-pitched voice. Lazlo turned and saw a young girl -- she couldn't have been older than eight or nine at best. Lurking behind a rocky outcropping, she shouldered an immense hunting rifle pointed squarely at Lazlo's chest. The girl had strawberry blond hair swept back in a pair of braided pigtails. Her face was smudged with dirt and two teeth were missing from the angry snarl on her mouth. She wore a faded, yellow sun dress, a pair of plastic, pink flip-flops, and a crazed, menacing frown. "Easy," said Lazlo. "We're not here to hurt anyone." As he took a hesitant step towards the young girl, she repeated her command. "I says don't move!" she barked. Lazlo froze. Rhonda gestured furtively off to the sides, and Lazlo shifted his eyes to the left and right. He spotted more of them. It looked like a family ... and it looked like they had surrounded the team without ever being spotted. A meek looking red-faced man with a long, brown beard approached from the left. A pock-faced teenage boy clutching a battered, naked Barbie doll clung to the man's side. From the right, a tired looking pregnant woman in a faded, gingham dress waddled clumsily towards the team, another hunting rifle held awkwardly in her hands. The team stood still, waiting for the little girl with the pigtails to make the next move. "Identify yourself as friend or foe," she said. "We are part of a rescue team," answered Rhonda. "There's been a terrible, world wide disaster..." "I know," snapped the girl. "I've been prophesying it for years. But nobody been listening to me. They cast me out from my church -- defrocked and in disgrace. And so here, in the desert, I raised my family in the good, righteous, strict, God-fearing ways of the Bible. We studies Revelation and know by heart all the seven signs of evil. We knew this day was a-coming. Nobody listens to me, but I knows ... and I raised my family for this moment ... waiting for this day, all the painful, long time." "There was ... an accident," said Rhonda slowly. "This weren't no accident," the girl answered, shaking her head. "This here's the beginning of the end. This here is the first of the seven plagues. The bowls of God's wrath, poured out upon mankind. We are being marked by foul and evil sores upon the souls of every son of Adam, every daughter of Eve with sin on their wicked hands. God and Satan is doing battle on this here Earth. And our very souls are their playthings. Look how they tug our spirits from our bodies, getting 'em all mixed up in the meanwhile. Just as it has all been written. Just as I been prophesying. And now there's just one thing left to do ... before the rapture begins. Before Judgment day commences." "Look, we're here to help," said Rhonda. "Then swear your allegiance to God," said the girl. "And you can come with us. We're descending down into this here pit ... this portal to hell ... this gateway to the realm of that donkey faced lord of darkness. And down there, in this wicked hole the earth has awakened, we expect to do battle with Satan hisself, once we done reached the bottom." "No," said Rhonda. "There's ... there's no devil at the bottom of this crater. What's down there is a very dangerous, extremely unstable form of radiation in the shape of..." "How do you know what's down there?" the girl asked suspiciously, now pointing the gun in Rhonda's direction. "We're not your enemies," Rhonda said urgently. "We're from a government lab..." "Gov'ment?!" shouted the girl. "Then you is allied with Satan! The gov'ment is nothing but a wicked, sinful church of secular satanism! You is allied with the beast of ten horns and seven heads. You are with the dragon! And your blasphemy cannot be permitted to beset us and distract us from our sacred mission, not now on the edge of the plains of Meggido." The girl ferociously started drawing a bead on Rhonda's heart. "Wait!" cried Lazlo, tripping over his words in a hurried haste to try and save Rhonda's life. "We ... we're not really with the government. That is ... we ... we're actually spies! We're secretly bringing the government down from within. To hasten ... judgment day and the rapture, w-w-we infiltrated the government and ... our cause is with you ... men of godly ways... " At that moment, the Geiger counter began furiously clicking. "Oh no," breathed Rhonda. "There's another wave coming -- about to wash over..." "Quiet!" snapped the girl. "No more lies! I can't trust none of you with your stories. You all been in league with the father of lies. Jeb, we'd best cut 'em all down where they stand." The pregnant woman on the right raised her rifle and prepared to fire. At that moment, all hell did break loose. A ripple of hot, bright yellow energy washed over the passion play drama and its all characters. Guns were fired, flesh was wounded, blood was spilled, bodies were flattened to the rocky ground, and minds were once again scrambled in the blistering, desert wind. Rhonda was the first to rise. "Is everyone all right?" Rhonda looked down and found herself still in the same overweight, slovenly, male body she'd inhabited all morning. Damn ... but still ... something felt different this time. No time to analyze. She checked the rest of the team. Major Kent's body lay lifeless against a rocky outcropping of the crater. A bloody shotgun wound to the skull meant nobody currently inhabited that form. Greenbaum's body was bleeding from a wound to an arm, but he still seemed to be breathing. Rhonda couldn't tell if the wound was from one of the rifles or from being bashed against a jagged rock during the last energy wave. "Rhonda!" cried Lazlo, staggering to his still young, teenage feet. "Are you all right?" Lazlo was still in the cheerleader's body, though one of his lean, tanned legs appeared to be badly scraped. Rhonda wondered if that last blast was really a swap. Had it done anything at all, other than knock them all off their feet? "I'm fine," Rhonda said. "Get the guns." She had already scooped up one of the rifles, and Lazlo now scrambled to do the same. "Wait," said the little girl with the pigtails, rising to her feet. "I'm ... I'm Dave Greenbaum," she said. "Lazlo, get a gun on the others," ordered Rhonda. Lazlo had already trained his rifle on the mass of bodies huddling around Greenbaum's earlier form. The thin, elderly male body was gripping the bleeding wound in his arm and struggling to stand. The pregnant woman and teenage boy helped to steady him. "We ... need ... help," said Greenbaum's earlier body. "Who are you?" demanded Rhonda. "We're ... we're ... Jeb and Pa and ... some of Daisy," stammered the old man's body. "I think they're all mind scrambled," said Greenbaum, in the little girl's body. "Like what happened to Doctor Crebitz. Or the old Navajo man." "What about the rest of you?" asked Rhonda. The bearded man stood, half-crouching and drooling, but silent. The teenage boy merely nodded his head affirmatively. The pregnant woman struggled to answer. "We ... me ... also ... half," she said. "Too many voices ... too many voices ... too much!" "Greenbaum, can you take one of the rifles and escort them out of here?" asked Rhonda. "They've been subjected to too many of these lesser shifts. It's taking a toll on their sanity. Get them out of the crater ... and to a hospital." Greenbaum nodded wordlessly, taking a rifle into his tiny, feminine hands. He gently herded the scrambled family into a group and helped them start the steep, treacherous ascent out of the crater and back to whatever remained of civilization. "C'mon," said Rhonda to Lazlo. "We've still got an energy core to find ... and contain." Lazlo picked up the Geiger counter in one hand, held on to a rifle in the other, and followed after Rhonda. The two progressed deeper, down into the pit. "Say, Rhonda," asked Lazlo. "I was just thinking. Why do you suppose we didn't get swapped?" "I think we did," Rhonda replied softly. "What?" said Lazlo. "No, I mean this last time. Not ... well, obviously we got swapped this morning. I don't usually make it a habit to wear cheerleader skirts!" Lazlo forced a weak chuckle and gestured at the dirty pleated skirt he still wore around his waist. It was badly scuffed. He supposed when and if they ever got out of this mess, he'd have to find something else to wear. He idly wondered if this girl often wore skirts or dresses or mostly shorts and pants. "That's not what I mean," said Rhonda. "Look at yourself -- deep, down inside yourself. You're not totally you ... are you? You're changing." "I ... I don't know what you mean," said Lazlo. "It's happening to me too," Rhonda said. "You're the one carrying the Geiger counter now. I'm the one taking charge and barking orders now. I feel more masculine now. And I suspect you feel a bit more feminine ... and maybe a bit more scientific?" "That's just silly," said Lazlo. "Maybe we're only adjusting to our new genders," shrugged Rhonda. "But after that last wave, I could really sympathize with what happened to that poor family. They're each ... I dunno ... an amalgam, a mixed-up combination of little fractions of each individual meshed together and then brutally -- randomly -- subdivided and deposited back into physical bodies." Lazlo furrowed his tiny, cute nose in an anxious frown. "It's happening to us, as well," Rhonda continued. "I just pray to god that you wound up with the part of my mind that studied high-energy physics. Because honestly ... I don't think I understand the science of this thing the way I did when we started this trek. I don't know if I can stop it. I'm not sure if I know how to contain the core anymore." "Well maybe," said Lazlo. "Perhaps I ... do kinda remember some things differently now. But I still feel like me. I'm still just plain old Lazlo, with ... I guess a little new insight." "It's more than that," said Rhonda with a smirk. "You're plain old Lazlo, but in the body of a teenage girl and with the equivalent knowledge of a doctorate in nuclear physics. Face it, neither of is the same as we used to be. It's just hitting us more subtly. Merging little bits and pieces of psyches together with each wave." Lazlo frowned. He knew Rhonda was right. And it worried him, that the proper operation of the containment unit was now his responsibility. It worried him that it might be up to him alone, in this weak, teenage body, to neutralize the excess beta decay and magnetically seal the lepton core before electron degeneracy pressure forced out another quantum shell of energy to be shed. And suddenly Lazlo realized it worried him that he somehow understood these thoughts. Rhonda was right -- he wasn't plain old Lazlo anymore. And it also worried him that he remembered last night's argument from a ... different perspective. He'd been a jerk. He'd been so insistent about being right, he'd neglected the importance of being nice. He and Rhonda weren't dating so he could win fights. They were dating because they loved one another. He loved her ... or him ... or whatever. Why couldn't he ... or she ... or whoever have seen that, understood that, and just been there to be supportive. Not just to be technically correct. Love wasn't about winning arguments. To love was ... to forgive. To really and truly love, not just to lust after someone or suffer a silly schoolgirl crush on some older, unreachable boy. Love was being understanding, empathic, sensing one another's needs and ... surrendering a little part of oneself in order to make the other person happy. Wasn't that what real, mature, grown-up love was? If that wasn't love ... well, that was what Lazlo now wanted, both for himself and Rhonda. "Rhonda, I'd like to apologize," said Lazlo. "For last night..." "Don't," Rhonda said with a smile. "There are some things that ... well, you don't need to say the words anymore. I understand. I think I 'get you' a lot better than you think." "Thanks," said Lazlo. "I guess we really don't have the luxury of time to sort these things out right now anyhow." "Maybe not," said Rhonda. "But even if we did ... well ... I don't think you need to apologize for anything. I understand you better than before. And I understand myself better, too. Lazlo, if we get out of this -- and there's still a world to live in afterwards -- I think maybe we should take things ... to the next level." "I'd like that," said Lazlo, with a blush. "But again. We don't really have the time." "It's okay," said Rhonda. "Just thought you should know how I feel. In case one or both of us doesn't make it out of here." "I know," smiled Lazlo. "And I feel the same about you. I feel ... I feel like I always did knew where you stood now, too." The pair descended to the bottom of the pit without further words, their silence only broken by the increasingly incessant chirping of the Geiger counter. It translated the radioactive fury around them into equally angry electronic sounds -- a dramatic orchestral piece that reached crescendo at they reach the nadir of the pit. There, at the precise geometric bottom center of the crater, sat the energy sphere --still glowing with a dazzling, golden light and perched in a mini-crater of its own. The air around it hummed with a melodic, electric buzz. Lazlo and Rhonda exchanged urgent glances. Rhonda shrugged her heavy, hairy masculine shoulders helplessly. So Lazlo sprang into action. He took the heavy, metal case Rhonda had been carrying and snapped it open. Somehow Lazlo knew what it was. It had been designed by Sarah March -- a person Lazlo had never met, but felt instinctively was a person Rhonda had respected and held in great esteem. He paused for a moment, wondering what had become of her and some of the others. Drawing in as heavy a sigh as his small, teenage lungs could muster, Lazlo set aside his worries and griefs and fears. He got to work. The unknown radiation was still flowing. He calculated both he and Rhonda would have nasty sunburns from all this. But hopefully nothing worse. Still, it would be wise to undergo thorough decontamination and physical examinations as soon as this ended. If it ever did. It would be the height of foolishness though to touch the energy sphere with unshielded hands. He withdrew from the containment case two massive, thick work gloves. They looked like oven mitts designed for an ogre. Oversize and heavily padded with a shiny, metallic fabric, they swallowed up Lazlo's tiny, tanned hands and pink nailpolish coated fingers. Lazlo uttered a brief prayer to a God he hoped differed from the vengeful deity that brain-scrambled family of zealots had sought to serve. If there were a merciful, forgiving supreme being in the universe, Lazlo needed His help now. Then he lifted the sphere. Gingerly, with excessive caution and a breathless sense of awe and wonder, Lazlo Giago with the arms of a teenage cheerleader, lifted the energy core. Its pulsing, soft, gold glow hypnotized him, mesmerizing him with its incredible, obscene degree of power. The raw, majestic enormity of the thing dwarfed everything he knew and understood. Truly, this thing was an artifact of great power -- a magical device of such potency, such force, such might that to seal it away seemed profane. "Now," said Rhonda with an urgent hush. "Before it throws more energy at us." With nothing more than Rhonda's encouragement, Lazlo snapped away from his trance and rushed the sphere over to the heavy, lead-lined containment box. He dropped the glowing orb into the box and quickly flipped a switch on the side. Within the box, circuits now tripped and activated a complex series of electromagnets and specially tuned electron emitters that sought to restablize the pulsing globe. Rhonda smiled as Lazlo latched shut the box's heavy, lead-lined exterior. She walked over and kissed him gently on his soft, smooth cheek. Her kiss was heavy, scratchy, and masculine. Lazlo blushed. * * * The hike out of the crater seemed to go by much faster than their earlier descent, if only because no great unexpected obstacles appeared in Lazlo and Rhonda's path. They walked together, simply enjoying the desert sun, the energy core containment unit carried between them -- each held a handle and managed to support the now heavy unit with no great trouble. They spoke little as they hiked up out of the pit. Exiting the crater, Rhonda and Lazlo encountered a bustling hive of activity. Sheriff's deputies and FEMA officials cordoned off the perimeter of the crater with an endless sea of barricades, sandbags, and emergency "do not cross" tape stretching as far as the eye could see. National guardsmen in trucks and jeeps scuttled about just beyond the barricades. As Rhonda and Lazlo approached the final several yards, a squadron of agents in black suits rushed down to meet them. The agents all appeared to have been swapped. One was now a young black man with cornrows and gold-capped teeth. One was a girl about Lazlo's new age, but sporting a neon pink mohawk and several piercings in her nose, eyebrow, and mouth. The two of them swooped in and took the containment unit from Lazlo and Rhonda. As they cautiously rushed it over to the back of a military truck, a third agent shook hands with Lazlo and Rhonda. "I'm Special Agent Kevin Kaufman," said the plump hispanic girl. She looked to be barely out of her teens, and was squeezed into a dark men's suit that was slightly too tall and too thin for her current pleasantly, padded physique. Her heavy, ripe breasts strained against the mens dress shirt she wore. "Thanks for your service," she said. "I understand you may have helped prevent an even worse disaster than what we've already faced today." "What about the sphere?" asked Lazlo. "What sphere?" responded Agent Kaufman, a blank look on her face. "The energy sphere," said Rhonda. "The one we just risked our necks to pull out of that damned pit!" "It doesn't exist," said Kaufman. "Never did, I'm afraid. I have no knowledge of it. And I suspect neither do you." "B-b-but..." stammered Lazlo. "If such a sphere did exist," continued Kaufman. "It would be the single most dangerous object known to mankind. Terrorists would be after it. Corrupt government officials would want to control it. Perhaps even some foolish scientists would conduct dangerous experiments on it. No, it's a very good thing for us all that it doesn't exist ... does it?" Rhonda and Lazlo exchanged frowns. "Don't be that way," said Kaufman. "You're both still heroes. You risked your necks delving down into that crater trying to find survivors and save people. Which you did. And I suspect you'll both be awarded some pretty fancy medals for all this. But whatever caused today's great shift was completely obliterated in the ensuing explosion. It's a mystery that will never be solved. The explosion left behind no physical evidence. Zero." "I ... I guess that's best," said Rhonda with a frown. "It really doesn't matter," said Lazlo. "What matters is that we're safe. All of us. And you and me. And we can ... well, I guess we can get a second chance at some things." "You two are delerious, but should be fine," said Kaufman. He raised his voice to a shout. "Medic! I need you to get these two into a bus! Check them for radiation burns!" A group of national guardsmen snapped into action and swarmed about Rhonda and Lazlo, scooping them each up into stretchers and whisking them towards a drab green truck emblazoned with the red cross insignia. As the soldiers hefted the two into the truck, Lazlo turned to Rhonda's stretcher and said suddenly, out of the blue: "Rhonda, Will you marry me?" Rhonda smiled and nodded yes. - The End - If you liked this or hated this, please leave a comment. If you enjoyed this, please read and comment on my other stories. Thanks!