A Mistake To Remember Chapter 8 free porn video

Chapter 8 When we came downstairs the kids had their luggage on wheels and were ready to go. Diana was there, too, and her face relaxed when she saw me. "I was worried for you," she said. "The council --" "I'll tell you all about it as soon as we're alone, but right now I want to get the hell out of Dodge." David brought the car around, and we left as soon as we loaded it. The traffic to the airport was unusually light, probably because people were going nuts after the announcement. The kids had so many questions that I couldn't answer yet, and some, I wouldn't answer. With David in the car, I didn't want to talk about their school, or who their friends were, or what they planned to do when they made it back home. It creeped me out to think of how much the family already knew about them. David paid our fares to Denver, first class. I protested not at all; I figured it was the absolute least the bastards could do for kidnapping us. When all was settled, I took Diana aside and told her why the council was so angry with me. She looked at me strangely when I finished. "You erased the biology from the hard drives and the tubes? That was farsighted of you," she said faintly. There it was again, that family first attitude so ingrained in everyone. "Diana, assume for the moment that the family still had the biology tech. Would they be using it to help mankind, or would they be developing new drugs to control people or selling parts of it to the highest bidder? I think I behaved responsibly, all things considered. Tell me something, when your boyfriend called you after the announcement, would you say that he was happy with his new life span?" "My boyfriend," she said, stumbling a fraction on the word, "wants me to celebrate with him at the sports bar tonight. I understand what you're saying. I can't say that I disagree with what you did with it, but you didn't have the right to destroy the family data and keep it for yourselves. It didn't belong to you." "They can sue me. It's done and you're going to have to choose which side you're on. The kids are too important to have divided loyalties." She balled up her fist under my chin, as if she were about to send me to the moon. "I would never do anything to hurt the children!" "All right, I'm sorry I asked! Then let's do this now; let's tell the kids who you are. Let them know they have a father-turned-mother." I took her hand and started off, but she dug in her heels.. "My God," she said, her face turning a lighter shade of pale. "What's wrong? Larissa and Karen will accept you. I know it." "It's ... everything is moving so fast. I've been pushing myself. The first time I had sex it nearly destroyed me." "So? You liked it much better the next time, and from the look on your face this morning, you enjoyed it even more, unless -- is Derrick treating you right?" She shook her head violently, making her hair, now nearly to her shoulders, dance from side to side. "Derrick is a nice guy. He may not be refined, but he really cares for me. When I can relax and let my body take over, I like what he does. It's just that sometimes.... Charlene, don't you understand? He's my damn boyfriend. This man took over when I wasn't looking and made me his girlfriend. Me!" "You know, I've heard that happens sometimes when a guy really likes a girl." "You don't understand. Occasionally, I still feel like I should be the man, and then this ... primitive calls me Honey, and pulls me to him because he wants to, and then I feel soft ... and nice, and he ... he ...." I took her by the shoulders, making her look at me. "You're having an anxiety attack, but this shall pass. Your boyfriend aside, what has that to do with Larissa and Karen? I thought you wanted to be a part of their lives." "I do, but as a mother? I think of what the word means -- what you went through to have them -- and then I ... I...." "They're teenagers; they don't need to be breast fed! Be yourself and it will be fine. If you want to wait until later to tell them who you are, that's up to you, but I think that the time to tell them is now, while they're right here." I held out my hand. "Come, on. We'll do it together." After a short hesitation, she nodded her head. When we made it back to the terminal, Diana was shaking again, but that didn't stop me. I had a feeling that it had to be now. Diana was beginning to backslide. I said, "Larissa, Karen, this is your father. We were involved in the project some years ago to produce the trees." Diana finished it as we had planned: "It was an accident in the lab. A machine fell on me. To save my life, they had to put me in the pod, and I came out looking like this. That's all I'm authorized to tell you, except that I'm your father. Your mother and I were once married." Karen looked at us like we doing the crazy adult thing, tricking the young to amuse themselves at their expense, until our faces convinced her otherwise. Larissa stared. "No way! This is too weird," she said. David, who had always been straight with them, backed the story up, saying, "Diana used to be a guy named Leonard, and they were married," which settled it. I backed off to give them space. Larissa saw how nervous Diana was and hugged her. Diana bit her lip, her visage in agony. She would rather have held Larissa as her father, but she had her daughter in her arms, and Larissa finally knew who she was. Larissa looked up at her, as sweet as she had ever been. "Are you my mom, now, too?" she asked. Diana looked at me in tears. She was aware of what her answer would mean, an ending to her past, and a new beginning. I nodded, willing her to go for it. "That's right, I'm your mom, too, Larissa, and yours, Karen," she said, waving my youngest to her. She hugged them together, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to feel the moment. I left them alone. Diana would be good to them, and the kids would help guide her with their expectations. Someday, I was sure, Diana would marry, and I imagined a time when we would sit on the porch together and talk about our kids. Someday, she would think of Leonard as who she used to be, as I did when I thought of Charlie, and on that day, the circle would be complete. By the time we were ready to board the plane, Diana was on the verge of tears -- again. "Ready to produce a pair of your own?" I asked her. She laughed like one insane. "Please, I just got used to kissing, and I still have a long way to go with this man-woman relationship 'thing'." "I know you can do it. Be nice to Derrick. I think he's one of the good guys." "I will." She sighed. "You've been a good friend to me, always there when I needed you, and the kids -- they like me as I am. I'll work at it. Charlene; I am getting better, and ... I'll make it." "I know you will. I'll give you a call as soon as I get settled, and we'll work something out." "I'd like that very much." Diana took my hand in hers in the old way, when she had been Leonard, as if she were going kiss the back of my palm. "You know," she said with a wry grimace, "Sometimes, I still hate you." "Yeah, I know." She reached for me and gave me a parting hug. "I'll see you later, Charlene. Soon." *** The flight back was a party. Younger adults discussed long-term investments and reflected on what they might do for the next hundred years or so. Many spontaneously broke out in laughter, shouted for joy, and pounded the back of the seat in front of them at random intervals. The stewardesses weren't immune: one pretty brunette of around thirty, staggered up and down the aisle, zonked on those little bottles of flight booze, giggling and flashing the old Spock sign. "Live long and prosper!" she said. Others refused to believe the news, and others still, the older folks, sixty and up, sat stone silent. Those younger avoided them, not knowing what to say. The human race had just divided by age, where a thirty year-old construction worker now "out ranked" a fifty year-old billionaire. We deplaned in Denver, caught a shuttle to Boulder, and then took a taxi back home. My Acura was still under the same oak tree, in need of a bath. The porch needed sweeping. I unlocked the door and we went inside. Professor Price was in the living room with two dangerous-looking men in black fatigues I didn't recognize. The professor came to his feet. "Connie, are you and the children all right?" he said. He looked so worn and weary. Seeing him again, and hearing my familiar, adopted name from his lips was better than any homecoming I could have imagined. I was finally home, back where I belonged. "We're all fine, Professor." "That's wonderful news," he said. He greeted the kids, and they exchanged some of the usual back and forth, but I could tell he needed to talk to me, so I soon sent them upstairs to unpack. "Shall we go outside, away from ears that might hear too much?" he said when they were gone. He opened the front door for me, and followed me through to the old oak, where I began my story. I tried to be thorough and efficient, and he let me tell it at my own pace, but he halted my narrative when I told him about being drugged in front of the council. "Good Lord," he muttered. His normally soft brown eyes turned cold, and his back stiffened with fury. "They actually did that." "Fortunately, it came to nothing." I explained the rest of it: my peculiar history with Diana, how she rescued us, and our lives at the estate. "Professor, I was never so relieved in my life to see you at the sports bar -- well, other than when Diana stopped Henrietta from making me a zombie. I am extremely grateful. Your presence, and your protection, gave me all the confidence I needed to carry on." He shrugged, embarrassed at the praise. "I had to make sure that you were safe," he said matter-of-factly. "Many men would have found an excuse not to do what you did. It must have been terribly difficult to arrange." He cleared his throat before he spoke again. "You were missed, Connie." The Professor took his wedding vows seriously. "You were missed," was as close as he would come to telling me what he felt. Before the silence became uncomfortable, I went on to finish up with our last day in their hands, their reaction to trees and the scene in council chambers. "The Atlantean Mafia," he mused, settling on his own term for the family. I thought it a fairly accurate description. "What do you think they're going to do?" "Their first priority has always been to protect themselves. Sergei froze Henrietta in place when he told her that it 'didn't matter.' My first thought was that it was a roundabout way of telling her to relax, that she would be able to kill me someday." "Which could only be done safely without fear of retaliation." "Yes, but I can't be sure of what he meant. Sergei also might have been saying it just to get Henrietta to shut up -- she can be very annoying when she gets riled -- or maybe it was a dig at me to keep my blood pressure in the stratosphere. The thing is, except for Henrietta, I don't get the feeling that it's that personal with them. They aren't happy with me, but I was family for a while. They understand why I did what I did, and in time I'm sure they'll see the advantages of being a part of a world where they won't have to hide their age anymore. Their main beef is that they've always thought of themselves as superior beings. It has to stick in their craws that I managed to get away from them with the kids and put the family under a hammer. Well, boo freakin' hoo; I think they need to be worried about getting hammered!" "I agree. The threat of exposure must remain in place in case they decide not to behave themselves. I suppose safety to them might be anything from simply dispersing into the world with new identities to taking over a small nation and making themselves impregnable." "They would do something, but I have no idea what they'd try." "They would find it convenient to use the drug, whatever they do," he said after a moment's reflection. "It's what they've always done to get out of trouble." "Then they are already at a severe disadvantage, although they don't know it yet. Their resources are limited. They would have to plan who to drug carefully. Logically, this would mean the men and women who hold influence and power. Governments around the world, including this one, have designated a 'fair' policy to avoid a mad rush to the limited number of pods available. They are choosing to give priority to the oldest first, and then run backwards. Not so coincidentally, the men and women in power will be the first in the pods, and most of them are already inside or will be in the next wave. If the family is waiting for them to come out to use them and drug them, they'll be disappointed. "We don't have to sit on the sidelines, however. You send them a message telling them that we have found a way to detect the drug. Whatever they're up to, they'd have to be even more cautious. With any luck, by the time they figure out it's bunk, it will be too late; humanity will be immune to it." I imagined with glee the rage of a certain beautiful blonde when she discovered that. "Clever. I'll do that as soon as I go inside. Professor, what happened while I was gone?" "We went underground, but you already know that. The rest went off according to those key points we discussed before you went on vacation. The trees were spread and planted, the governments were notified, and the word went out to all corners of the world. The team moved almost two months ago to its new location. This is your packet." He handed me a manila envelope. I gave the inside a quick look. It was the expected stack of official documents, credit cards, a driver's licence and other ID. "Anything I should know about as your assistant?" "A few items." He listed a few changes and technical breakthroughs. One smacked me between the eyes. "Wait, Professor. Back up. That was the main problem with the XX to XY tree. Dr. Menendez solved that? That's fantastic!" "It's only a promising approach at this time, but privately, I think he did. The female to male tree could be ready in under ten years, far sooner than we thought." He winced. "Of course, with your history, you would be exited about that." I snickered. The loon was actually thinking that I might want to be a man again. "I'm not interested in using it, I was thinking of someone else." I put that one on the back burner until I had a chance to think it through. "Is everyone in the pods now, Professor?" "Everyone on the team who hasn't been through it already is in the first wave, except me." I didn't have to ask; he had waited for me. He hadn't delegated my safety to someone else, he had made personally sure that I was all right. The two months out of the pod had cost him three years of his life. I wouldn't shed tears about it in front of him, nor would I mention it, because he wouldn't want me to. If I had asked why he hadn't assigned the task to another, he would have said that it was his responsibility, and that it hadn't been wasted, another had taken his place. But that brought up a question. His wife wouldn't have cared for him staying behind. "Professor, how is Evaliina? Is she in a pod already?" "My wife is in a pod now, but she won't be waiting for me when I emerge. She is leaving me, Connie. With two hundred years of youth, she doesn't wish to be the wife of a workaholic professor any longer, and I can't say that I blame her. I imagine that this scenario will be played out a billion times in the next year or so. A sign of the age." If it wasn't nice to be happy about it, then so be it. As he said, it was a sign of the age, and men and women would adjust their lives according to new rules. I liked Evaliina, and I wished her happiness -- elsewhere. "You are going into a pod soon, aren't you?" "Immediately after we finish here. I'll help you pack, but we should leave as soon as possible, you to move to your new location, and me to have my broken-down body re-molded into the Adonis I was always meant to be." I'd searched for pictures of him on the Internet and found his online high school yearbook. He broke his knee in his senior year, which began his physical decline, but his basketball team pictures showed a healthy, smiling young man, strong and confident. When he came out, he'd look twenty-three, looking a year younger than I. If he ever tried to pull the father-daughter on me again, I would laugh in his face. "It has to be said, Professor. I'm sorry for causing all these problems. I should have been more careful." He smiled. "Nonsense. This could have happened at any time. You were magnificent, you know, a one-woman wrecking ball. I believe that what you've done has effectively boxed-in the family, although they won't realize it for some time." I flushed at his praise. Had I really done anything that most others in my situation wouldn't have? I looked towards the house out of embarrassment. The kids would want to strangle me for making them pack again just after we unpacked. They wouldn't want to hear that they would lose all their school friends and have to change their names and appearance. On the other hand, they might forgive me a little after I told them that their new home was in Hawaii. There were a couple of details I had to wrap up before I went inside. One was a decision already half-made. I would not tell Diana that there was a female to male tree on the way. I wouldn't stop encouraging her from becoming more feminine. During the next decade, or until she was happy being who she was, I would do everything I could to see that she enjoyed being female, and watch her become the woman I saw emerging. It wasn't altruism, although I thought the world would be a better place with Diana in it. I liked Diana a lot more than I liked Leonard. I wouldn't pretend that it was anything else than what it was: ~A man is supposed to save his wife. You failed me when the chips were down, Leonard, and therefore you shouldn't be a man.~ Besides, I was still pissed off at being forced to go down on him. "Professor, one more thing before we pack." He turned around and looked at me. "Yes?" "Just this." I reached up, grabbed him, and kissed him full on the mouth, sending him all the gratitude, appreciation, and everything I'd built up for him over the years, all the accumulated emotions I'd never been able to express to him until then. He protested a bit, but he was a man, so he didn't protest too hard. I left him gasping for breath. "My goodness, Connie!" "That is something to keep your mind occupied when you go into the pod, and, by the way, I plan to be there when you get out." His warm brown eyes sparkled. "Connie, I'll be naked when I get out, and slimy -- not a good first impression." "They can hose you down first. Anyway, I'm a biologist; naked men mean nothing to me. Want to see my degree?" "No. Still," he said, "if you insist on seeing me naked, then you should call me Steven." "Oh, yes, Steven," I said, and it was very right that I should kiss him again. *** Twenty years passed. The Halloween party this year was at Donna and George's Manhattan apartment. The door recognized us and opened. Steven took my hand and together, we stepped through into a nightmarish scene: A mirror-globe spun in the center of the room, spreading garish colors to the furthest corners; stomach-turning images of people jerking like discombobulated dolls; pounding beats that numbed the mind; and screeching that set one's teeth on edge. The walls seemed to melt around us, a paean to bad drugs, I supposed. Donna had once told me that she hated disco; I hadn't known how much until now. Fortunately for all the guests, the colors around us swirled away, and the discotheque of horror twisted into smoky torches in granite alcoves, manacles in the walls, and high, barred stone windows that opened to ghostly moonlight. Our hosts had kept an eye on the door from the corner and waded through the crowd of devils, sluts, animals, and warriors to greet us. "Charlene!" "Donna? You're looking fantastic." I wouldn't have recognized her without her distinctive cry. She looked like a Chinese 1930s nightclub singer in her red and gold cheongsam and that old-time hairstyle with the big black comb. Part of this impression was reinforced because she was Chinese. Apparently, she'd made a few genetic modifications this time through the pod. "And what's this ... this loopy crown with wires stickin' up, and the arm membranes? I like the dress, but what in the friggin --" "I am Vulnavia," I said in a portentous voice, "and that," I pointed to my other half, occupied with her husband, George, "is Dr. Phibes." Donna looked inward for a split second. "That takes me back. Hah! At least I was born when that movie came out. Come on, have a drink. I haven't seen you in years. You really should get out more. Whatever you're doin' must keep you busy." "I help Steven in the lab -- boring stuff, really, not like your dance studio. Nice set-up, by the way." She canted her eyebrow, a new look for her since she'd turned Chinese. "Are you changing the subject already?" She raised her hands. "All right, if you want to keep playing mystery lady, then I can take a hint. Yeah, George and I were lucky. About the time you ran off, the family took a dump, and now it's in the toilet, but you'd know that." "Not really. I try to stay as far away from them as I can. The only one I've seen since I left is Diana, and she hasn't been around that much lately. I'm surprised that you invited me to this shindig after what the family said about me." "Your official name in the family is still 'Crap,' but the women have always been mushrooms. They only get to hear the council's side. I don't know why you threw Henry and your old man into the pod and took off with the kids. Diana never would talk about it. She was pissed at you, but not as much as she should have been, if you know what I mean, so I figure that you must have had cause." "I had my reasons, but I cut a deal. I stay mum and they let me alone. Oh, hell, that was long ago. Donna, I've missed you. Let's talk about you and the last twenty years." Her story was many others of that time. After the "Big Day" came the "Big Recession" followed by the "Turnaround" when most people realized that they needed more than a long life span to pay the bills, and as the country became youthful, they returned to work with a vengeance. The priorities changed, of course. Nursing homes, social security, and much of the welfare system collapsed, to be replaced by higher education and lifetime skills, such as dancing. With the studio, Donna finally had her dream, and she was as busy as she wanted to be. More guests arrived, and Donna had to leave. "Charlene, mix for chrissakes, and there's someone here who wants to see you." It didn't take much to find her; as soon as Donna left, she came out of a corner and stared right at me. Evalyn was recognizable as a much younger version of herself, in a 1940s era skirt and blouse, those nutty seamed stockings of the age, and clunky shoes. She hadn't made herself drop-dead gorgeous, not surprising, since she had always thought herself as the solid type. It was good to see her again, but I could have wished that she'd been smiling. The family had never allowed me to go back and see her. It would have spoiled their story that I had been a spiteful bitch kidnapper. So much time had passed now, even if I could explain to Evalyn why I'd made her son a woman and stolen her grandkids, I wasn't sure if it would cause more trouble than it was worth. Hoisting the hem of my Vulnavia dress, I weaved around a pirate and dodged a walking sausage dancing with a beer, finally arriving before my ex-mother-in-law. I gave her my friendliest smile. "Hello, Evalyn. It's very nice to see you again." She offered me her briefest nod. "Charlene, or whatever you're calling yourself nowadays." "Charlene is fine." I was damned if I knew where to go from there. "Well, how is everything?" I asked her, probably grinning like a low- grade moron. "Here, look at this. Tell me what it is." She handed me a few pictures. They showed Diana and me together at the estate, smiling, sometimes in a hug, and sometimes with the kids. "I found them the other day with some articles Diana left behind when she married Derrick. I've already spoken with her about this." I handed them back to her. "They're not fake. I wish I could tell you more than that, but I can't." "Damn you; damn everyone for these secrets! Diana admitted to me that she had been visiting Larissa and Karen for years, and she never once told me about it. The council knew. Victor knew, but he wouldn't tell me. My own grandchildren! None of this makes sense. Charlene, I have to know: what the fuck happened?" That word coming from her mouth was like a bomb going off. About that time the hologram changed the theme again, shifting from the shackles of the dungeon and the moans of the damned, to a graveyard under the full moon complete with fog and spooky spirits. Evalyn put her hands on her hips, waiting for my answer, and I noticed what was missing on her finger. "You and Victor split up?" "He moved out of our house five years ago. A lot of us have been going our own ways since the Big Day." I decided the hell with it; there were some things I could let her know without violating my agreement -- too much. I pulled out my data pad from a hidden pocket and brought up the pictures of Larissa and Karen. I gave it to her and let her "oh!" and "ah!" through her granddaughters' lives for a while. "I'll give you a copy of everything before I go. I'll tell you everything I can. I had to leave with the kids, but I can't tell you why; that's the deal I made with the council. Those pictures Diana took were during the time the family, ah, temporarily borrowed us from the rest of society. You already know that Diana has been visiting the kids. The kids are safe, but they have no idea who or what the family is, nor shall they, unless they need to know." "Oh, Charlene," she cried, "so many break-ups, threats, deals, secrets, and worse: so much has changed in the last several years." It occurred to me that there was a lot about the family I don't know, and that maybe I should. "Evalyn, what is going on inside the family?" From what she told me, a hell of a lot. When the drugs stopped affecting the women, about half the couples eventually broke up. The council's hold on the family wasn't what it was, but it still held considerable power. Henrietta had become a man again as soon as the female to male tree was ready, which was no surprise -- however, the last of it was: "Brigitte disappeared in a boating incident off the coast. I'm certain that Henry killed her," she said, as grim as the holographic tombstone at her side. "How do you know for sure?" I had known Henry's wife fairly well. She was a dignified handsome woman, and had been a part of the family since before Columbus was born. "You don't live to be six hundred without being careful, and she was. Even if she hadn't worn her life jacket, which she would have, I've seen her swim for miles in the pool." "But why would Henry kill her?" "Brigitte once tried to help Henrietta accept her feminine side. Henrietta responded by beating her half to death with a metal rod. After that, everyone kept their distance. When Henrietta became a man again, it didn't change him inside. His bitterness with the experience warped. him. Brigitte is loyal to a fault, but even she couldn't take it after a while. Henry, however, is not the kind of man to let his wife leave, especially if the reason had anything to do with Henrietta -- it would have made him seem even less of a man, you see. He invited her on the boat. She accepted his offer because of their history, but she told me that she was going to leave him as soon as they returned. She never came back, and Henry couldn't or wouldn't give us a reasonable explanation." Naturally, it was out of the question that anyone in the family would call the police. "What happened to Henry?" "The council voted to remove him from power, but he's still free. The rest of the council are willing to let him die a natural death in about twenty years." "But he's a murderer!" "Charlene," she said, putting her hand on my forearm, "I think they are sympathetic. Most think that Henry is more of a madman than a fiend, damaged after being forced to become a woman." A hollow-eyed spectre whooshed between us, tittering like a madman. "The last time I saw Henry, he was Henrietta and trying to gouge my eyeballs. I expect that he's still angry with me? Does he talk about me at all?" Evalyn's stone-cold stare made it seem like an idiotic question. "Great. Just great. Hold a moment, I'm going to get my husband." "But --" she lunged for me and grabbed my arm as I began to turn away. "Wait! What are you --" "It's all right," I said, gently disconnecting us. "He's known about the family for decades, a fact the council is aware of, and he has good reason to never say a word." I found him with a matched pair of green lizards, and brought him back. "Steven, this is Evalyn, my ex-mother-in-law. She already knows about Diana and the kids." Steven batted an eye, but that was all. He beamed and extended his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Evalyn. I've heard many good things about you. I'm grateful to you for helping my wife through some very difficult times. Diana is part of our family, too, and Larissa and Karen are very fond of her." Evalyn reached out her hand slowly and completed the handshake. "Ah, thank you." She darted a horrified glance at me. The rule for thousands of years, burned into every family member was never to discuss the family with outsiders. I gave Steven the gist of the situation with Henry. He listened, and came to the same conclusion I had: "This could be extremely dangerous to you, personally, and possibly to the children. I, for one, am not willing to let you be under the gun until this lunatic dies. Who is first on the council?" he asked me. "That would likely still be Sergei," I said. "Do you think he's a reasonable man?" "He's a jerk, but he's rational. I think it's safe to say that he puts the family first," I replied. "Evalyn, do you concur? How influential is he on the council?" "Uh, yes, he's a family man first. The others listen to him." "Then we'll deal through him. Darling, a moment, please." I followed him as he found a quiet corner away from the holographic green goblins and hairy trolls with bludgeons that had just entered the party to mix with the guests. "How much does she know about the team?" "Nothing." He nodded, as if that settled it. "I'm thinking of the reducer." The reductor was an offshoot of an idea to reset cell degeneration to zero. If that could be done every seven hundred years or so, a man or woman could "refresh" their genetically hard-wired cell entropy, effectively making them immortal. Adult cellular regeneration was a long way off. The reducer was a primitive first step in that direction, but Steven thought that in its present state, it made a good alternative to the death sentence. It rolled back cells' degeneration mechanism backwards, all right, but the side effect was the complete reduction of the body. "Steven, it's drastic. I don't know if they'll go for that." "Think of it as a social compromise." I wasn't convinced, but if he thought it was worth a shot, he might be right. The council was a lot about perception and saving face. "All right. Evalyn can set up a meeting with Sergei. I'll see what he says." He shook his head. "You mean, 'We'll see what he says'." "It won't work. They'd never bargain with an outsider. I'll be as safe there as I would be here, and safer in the long run if this works. If I don't come back, you can pull the Old Testament on these guys, but I can't see them doing anything to me for asking." He didn't like it, but in the end, he relented, as I knew he would, and Evalyn agreed to talk to Sergei. *** A week later I returned to Atlanta to a certain address in mid-morning. A black Volvo with young-looking David at the wheel pulled up at the curb and the door opened. David motioned me inside. I climbed in the front seat and we took off. "Good to see you again, Charlene," he said. "And you as well, David. Have you gone soft? I saw no wands, and no full cavity searches?" "Not unless you want one. You already know who and where we are." "And of course, you know where we are," I said, hoping to find out if they knew about us. He just smiled. "Always a barrel of monkeys when you come to town." He pulled into a driveway in an exclusive part of the suburbs. Sergei's house was an expensive three-story, set behind a line of trees. I opened the car door myself. David spoke to his jacket, and then gestured towards the front door. I climbed the steps, and Sergei opened the door himself. "Come in," he said, with none of the arrogance I remembered from the last time. "Thank you for seeing me, Sergei." "Never a problem for you, Charlene." He showed me a seat on an old- fashioned "L" shaped sofa, and took the other side. "You were vague about what you wanted. You had a favor to ask?" "Not at all. In fact, I'm doing you a favor." "Really." He got up for a moment and poured some coffee, raising the pot to offer me some. I declined. "Why is it whenever I think of you, I think about Greeks bearing gifts?" He shook his head slowly. "Go ahead, tell me why you're here." "You can't allow Henry to be walking around like this. He's a crazy murderer. If he should decide to come after me, he might succeed, and if he kills me, the family will be exposed." Sergei chuckled and produced an expansive grin. "I had a feeling that was it. It's only right that you should feel threatened, since you were the one who made him what he is." I stared at him. "That is not true! Diana and I made it as women just fine without killing anyone." "That's the one problem I have with looking in my mid-twenties again: everyone forgets that I'm almost seven hundred years old. Remember who the experts are. The change in sex affects everyone differntly. If you don't know what you're doing, the results can be disastrous." "Be that as it may, Henry killed Brigitte after he became a man again. There was no excuse for that." "Ah, yes. Excuses, equivalence, morality, psychology -- 'soft' science. I'm a pragmatist. I deal with consequences and demonstrable cause and effect. We can play this game all day. Let's get straight to the essence. I'll agree that Henry might be a danger to you, and you agree that Henry went crazy when you made him Henrietta." "But ... Oh, forget it. That's probably true. I had my reasons, and I think Henry was half-crazy to begin with, but I suppose I pushed him over the line. So what?" "See how easy that was? Now, the way I see it, what we have here is a family problem. When Henry killed Brigitte, it put us in quite a quandary. Normally, all things being equal, we might have killed him, but he had extenuating circumstances. Through no fault of his own, Henry was driven insane by another member of the family." "Now, wait a minute." "You already agreed. Not only that, you made him a woman unnecessarily. You could have gagged them both and escaped." I'd run through the sequence dozens of time and came to the same conclusion. "In hindsight, but I didn't know that at the time. Not that it matters to the situation at hand. Henry --" "It matters!" he said, like snapping it a whip. "When justice and a man's life hang in the balance, you look at everything!" He grinned abruptly. "Relax. You were likely scared out of your mind at the time. We don't hold you totally responsible, just some. Still, the fact is that you had his fate in your hands and you screwed up. You can't just say now, 'Oh well, I guess I didn't think it through.'" He leaned forward, close to my face. "We also took into account that he has about twenty years left. He's a pariah, now. The women hate him, but he's harmless -- to us." I was reasonably certain that I witnessed insanity. "Let me get this straight," I said slowly. "You want him to threaten me?" "As we've established, you have some culpability. There's a chance he could come after you and a slim chance he might succeed. If you worry about him until he dies, that would be justice in the judgment of the council. You have no cause to complain, you know. If we'd followed the legal process, nothing would have changed. The DA would have had to conclude that Brigitte simply fell overboard. The case would never have been prosecuted and Henry would have been free anyway." "Oh, please! Let's cut through this hypothetical nonsense. He's a threat to me and therefore a threat to you." "Yeah? Well, we wash our hands of him. He doesn't live with us anymore and is out of our control. If he does manage to get to you, then it won't be the family's fault. A threat? If you're careful, you can avoid him by taking a long vacation. Enjoy some remote island paradise somewhere. You can sit on your butt and sip Tequilas until he dies." Stupid moral dilemmas! Would Steven be willing to expose the family as vengeance if saving me was as easy as that? It didn't matter, I was damned if I was going to hide for twenty years. "All right, if that's the way you're going to be, I came here with a proposal. We have a device called the reducer. It turns back the clock on a human being, reducing them to their earliest state, resetting the cellular memory." He gave me a peculiar look. "This reducer, it makes a person a baby?" "It goes further, all the way to the point just after initial fertilization. It's dramatic, but it still preserves the original life." "Interesting," he said, raising an eyebrow. "The chance to live again vs. the total destruction of one's identity. A philosophical argument could be made either way." "You know, you're losing women right and left. If you want any peace with the ones that are still here, you'd better do something. Letting wife killers go free won't cut it." "I'm not saying that your offer doesn't have its attractions, but consider this: to maintain the family honor, the child would have to be raised within the family, with dignity. One of the family women would have to give birth to someone they despise. I can't ask any of them to make that sacrifice." "A host mother --" He shook his head. "No, you do it." "What the Hell?" The idea of squeezing out that bastard made my stomach think I was at sea. "I like you, Charlene, but make that baby, or take your chances with Henry." "Oh for...!" I went outside and called Steven. "Well?" Sergei said when I returned. "He said it was up to me. I'll do it on two conditions." He laughed. "Greeks bearing gifts, like I said. Go ahead." "You call off your dogs -- all of them. I want no more threats, tails - - anything." "We weren't threatening you. The rest -- done. Next?" "I need a new story for the women. Say that Henry was going to kill me or something and I had to escape because of him. I'm tired of them hating me." "We can do that after you're pregnant." There would be no hesitation, no looking back. "All right," I said. I held out my hand and we shook on it. And it was done. *** It was civilized, in the family way. I set up the equipment in a room at the estate. When Henry returned to his place, two guards were waiting for him. They drugged him then moved him into the room. I did the honors, starting the process on Henry's body, returning in a week when Henry was reduced. I made some special adjustments to what was left of Henry, and a family doctor finished the job by putting the fetus in me. Years later, the family invited Steven and me to their Halloween party. We mixed together among the period pieces, the last of the descendants of Atlantis. In a century, all those on the council would likely be dead, and the memories of those cruel decisions that fortunately never came to pass would die with them. To the rest, Atlantis would become a fascinating family history, a secret history going back thousands of years, but little more. We brought Kelly, our eighteen year-old daughter. She was a stunner, virtually the younger version of a woman who had lived thirty years before, named Henrietta. The family recognized her, of course, but no one said a word -- she was so obviously a different person. Kelly was passionate where Henrietta had raged, and quiet thoughtfulness replaced the depression and hate. Sergei, who had been put out when he had learned that I had produced a girl instead of the expected boy, watched her for a time, then came to my side and shook my hand. "You did it right," he said. "You really put your stamp on old Henry. A fitting revenge." "You think so? Kelly has Henry's genes, they're just rearranged to be Henrietta, who was also Henry. I raised Kelly right. I told her where she came from as soon as she could understand, and then I let her know that it meant nothing to me, that she was mine, and that I love her as much as Larissa and Karen. She's a beautiful, smart girl with a bright future. Does that look like revenge to you?" "Oh, it was revenge, all right, but I don't hold it against you. Continuing with this theme, you've always held out that you were made a woman in error." "Held out? You must have seen the vid. I woke up furious. I never even thought of becoming a woman before." "The tests were thorough, and they weren't all about desire. You showed a high aptitude for femininity, and you have the right kind of empathy. You may not have been attracted to the idea at that time, but ultimately you weren't repulsed by it. Compared to Henrietta, who wanted to kill you for making her a woman, and Diana, who never would have managed the feat without your inspired assistance, you adapted to it like a tadpole in a pond." He grinned. "By the way, that's a very attractive outfit you're wearing. Who is your character?" "Callisto, from the old Xena series." "A real ball-busting hell-raiser. It suits you. I'd like to dance with you later if your husband permits." "I'm sure that he would leave it up to me." "Then I'll see you later, Charlene, to ask you personally." He bowed slightly, and then kissed my hand like a courtier. He may have been closing in on seven hundred, but he looked twenty- five. Like most Mengstroms, he was handsome. The touch of his lips tingled all the way up my arm. ~Well, damn.~ The End