Genderwave: The Astronauts free porn video

When the Genderwave swept around the world, it turned every man on Earth into a woman and every woman into a man. But not everyone was on Earth when this happened. In orbit high above the planet were seven men and women who would return to a world utterly transformed. GENDERWAVE: THE ASTRONAUTS by BobH (c) 2023 - Prologue - The motel lay just outside the sleepy town of Citrusville, some fifty miles from the Cape, and had seen better days. Not that such things mattered to Ray Washington. All he cared about was that the bedclothes were clean and the bed sturdy enough for his purpose, that purpose being banging Rachel, the pale-skinned young redhead who was now reclining on said bed. She was enjoying a post-coital cigarette, watching appreciatively as he limbered up and did stretching exercises which, not coincidentally, showed off how toned and ripped he was. Ray had always enjoyed preening in front of pretty women. "So you really *are* an astronaut and you'll really be heading into space on the shuttle in two days?" she said. "That wasn't just a come-on to get me to go to bed with you?" "Nope, I *am* an astronaut and I'm one hundred percent gonna blast off into orbit the day after tomorrow. When I leave here I'm heading straight for the Cape." "What are the rest of the crew like?" "Beats me. I've only met them briefly a couple of times." "Really? How come?" "Because I'm substituting for the mission specialist with my same skills and for his first reserve. Both of them took ill. Hell of a coincidence, but great news for me." Rachel got up from the bed and came over to him. She looked to be about 19 years old. Ray usually went for older women with more meat on their bones, and her being the same height as him was a little disconcerting, but she had been a great fuck. She laid a hand on his shoulder, Ray felt the cold metal of the ring she was wearing touch his skin.... and then he slumped to the floor, unconscious. The woman looked down at him, smiled, then retrieved her cellphone from the bedside table and called a number. "You can come in now," she said. Twenty seconds later a pair of young men in business suits arrived in the room. Neither had any distinguishing features at all, nothing that would make either stand out in a crowd in any way. They were both average-looking, but average in a way that seemed almost to be a distillation of averageness. It was more like they were generic, as if they were what you would find inside if supermarkets stocked blank white boxes labelled 'businessman'. You could pass them in the street and forget them an instant after you set eyes on them, all of which was intentional. They immediately got to work, sliding Ray Washington's unconscious form into a body bag. "Don't forget to take some of his blood, Mr Jones," said Rachel. "You know how much we'll need." "Yes, ma'am," replied one of the men. "Mr Smith and I already have that arranged." Rachel smiled again. Everything was going according to plan. - 1 - The light streaming into the shuttle orbiter began to turn orange as it hit the atmosphere, before reaching a deep salmon colour, the result of the ionisation of the air running over the surface of the craft at hypersonic speeds. Anyone viewing the rear of the shuttle would also have seen the big shock waves that hit the tail as the air came off the wings and the nose. Having taken this ride before, Mission Commander Nathan Winters smiled. He knew that this at least was actually normal, hearing only a slight buzz as they came down from supersonic to subsonic speed. This was Winters' third shuttle mission, and his first as Mission Commander. His pilot was Qing Yuan Zhang - Colonel, USAF. Just like Winters, only he was now retired from the service. They had known each other more than two decades, but this was the first time they had been in space together. The five Mission Specialists were husband and wife team Joe and Carole Branson, Jill Reilly, Mark Stoker, and Ray Washington. Winters, Jill Reilly, and the Bransons were all married with children, the others all unmarried and childless. In Qing Yuan's case, this was because she had put career ahead of family, and Mark Stoker was gay, though discreet enough this had never caused any real problems with NASA. Ray Washington was black, quiet, intense, the youngest member of the crew - Winters had never really managed to get a satisfactory 'read' on him. Not one for small talk he had been all business the entire mission. These were the people Winters had shared his life with for the past ten days. The launch had been only an hour or so after dawn, yet the Florida sun was already brutal as it bounced off that vast expanse of bone-white concrete and in through the windows of the vehicle carrying the seven astronauts across to the launch pad. Winters was hardly new to this but the butterflies in his stomach had been no less than on his first mission. Not that he had let it show. As Mission Commander of the Space Shuttle Olympia this time out it had been his job to inspire confidence in his crew and he had personally briefed the newbies on what to expect based on his own experiences. He glanced around him at them now, all in their space suits and securely strapped back in their seats, proud of what they had accomplished. Ordinarily they would now be going their separate ways, but then this was a mission that fate had rendered anything but ordinary. They had had a lot of tasks to get through, and it had at first been a pretty routine mission, as unremarkable as a shuttle mission ever can be. It had not stayed that way. Beside him now Qing Yuan made some adjustments, keeping the nose high to dissipate any drag, and Winters took a moment to run an appreciative eye over her. Tall for an Asian woman, she still had the same slender figure he'd admired when they first met as young military graduates over twenty years ago, at which point he was already married with a toddler son. While not as conventionally beautiful as, say, Jill Reilly with her classic features and fashion model figure, Qing was still an attractive woman. Winters used to wonder why she had never married or had any relationship that had lasted more than a few months and assumed she had just never found the right man. Now he knew why. Thanks to the situation the crew had found themselves in, a situation that would have seemed incredible just days ago, they all did. Now that the mission was almost over, he couldn't help reflecting on how it had began, ten days earlier on Thursday June 17th, 2004.... "What's it like," asked Carl Mathers, "going up in Olympia?" Colonel Nathan Winters was career military (retd.) and not a fan of the public relations aspect of his position as a space shuttle commander but he grudgingly accepted its necessity. "The scariest part of any spaceflight occurs just before take-off," he told the sandy-haired young reporter, "the tension, the anticipation, starts when you get out of the bus at Kennedy Space Center Pad 39B and stare up at those huge rocket engines, filled with highly explosive fuel. Then you take the elevator up a hundred and fifty feet and walk across the short walkway leading into the shuttle itself. A couple of technicians help strap you in, but when the door seals, you and your crewmates are on your own. There's an hour or so where you're lying on your back, while all over the launch site, technicians are running around getting last minute checks done before the final countdown - there's a launch window of only five-to-ten minutes and you dare not miss it. Six seconds before lift-off, the liquid rocket engines ignite and you feel a slight shudder. At zero, you lift off. The noise and vibration are almost indescribable. But it doesn't matter, because you're on your way into the heavens. On your way into outer space." "And when you got into orbit?" asked Mathers, clearly fascinated. "The difference between the g-forces pinning you to your seat during the ascent and the gentle pressure of the restraining harness stopping you from drifting out of that same seat after you've achieved orbit could not be greater. Unsurprisingly, the latter is far more pleasant to experience than the former. Not that there's much time to contemplate such things. No sooner did we achieve orbital insertion on our last flight - at a height of 122 nautical miles and an inclination of 51.6 degrees - than we had to run through a series of systems checks with Mission Control back in Houston. But catching sight of the moon coming into view around the edge of the planet below still made me pause and gaze at it wistfully. 'I know what you're thinking,' Jay Fernandez said to me, 'How does that quote of Gene Cernan's go again?' 'Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon,' I replied, 'and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. It's been far too long.' And he was right. It has been. I always thought I'd walk on the moon one day, but I guess that's never going to happen now.' 'You never know,' he said to me, 'anything might happen.'" "You've mentioned in other interviews that you're dedicating this mission to the memory of your sister...." "I am, yes. Sandra worked at NASA as a flight controller and would've been part of the team in the mission operations control room if cancer hadn't taken her from us. I'll say a prayer for her when we launch." It had been almost two years but Sandra's loss was still raw. She had been my wife Mary's best friend since college - in fact it was she who introduced us. We both still miss her terribly. "Was she married?" "No," I replied, "she wasn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get prepped for the launch." That was then, this was now. Their return to Earth was not a flight so much as a controlled fall, but though quieter and longer than the launch (an hour as against eight minutes) it had the potential to be every bit as dangerous. Until the Challenger disaster these missions had been regarded as entirely routine. January 26th, 1986 had changed all that. Then the problem had been the shuttle; now, on Saturday 26th June, 2004 - GW+4 - the problem was the Earth itself. The world they were now returning to was not the same one they had left. - 2 - "Is it all work on board, or do you get some downtime?" asked Carl Mathers. It was Day Two of the mission and reporters were being allowed to interview the crew via a video uplink. Once again Nathan Winters found himself talking to Mathers. "Of course we do," said Winters. "After the initial tasks had been completed along with the mandatory exercise routines, I got to enjoy my first period of downtime since the launch with Carole Branson. She and I were at the head of the initial meal rotation." "What's the food like?" "Meals for astronauts might have improved since the 1960s and the days of food in a toothpaste tube but, nutritionally balanced or not, they're still nothing to write home about. But at least the break meant we got to talk about something Carole had been wanting to discuss." "Mission related?" "No, personal. My son Todd had taken her daughter Donna to their prom earlier this month. He'd told me he was going to ask her. I don't think I've ever seen him so nervous." "Donna is the eldest of Joe and Carole Branson's two daughters," said Mathers, checking his notes. "That's right, and Todd is the youngest of my two sons. We and the Bransons are next door neighbours back in Florida. Carole thought it was sweet, the captain of the school football team being so nervous. Todd's pretty fearless most of the time, too, but he should take a leaf from his older brother's book when it comes to girls. Danny could sweet talk the birds from the trees. Carole also asked me if my wife Mary and I were getting used to the idea we'll soon be grandparents yet, what with Danny's wife Susan about to give birth any day now." On doctor's orders Susan was resting up at home, which was why she and Danny hadn't been there at the launch to see him off. "When's she due?" "Within the week, according to her doctor. And we're delighted at the prospect. We'll be the most doting grandparents you've ever seen. Danny and Susan told us the child's gender - mainly so that I would know in advance what colour to paint the nursery. And I have to tell you, I'm really looking forward to holding in my arms the grandson who'll carry my family name into the next generation." "Interesting. What else did you discuss?" "I asked her if she was nervous about the EVA schedule for our third day. She admitted she was, but that mostly she was looking forward to it. Joe had been on a spacewalk before, had talked her through it, and assured her it was a blast. Which it is, though actually working on the satellites is hard work. It takes so much longer to perform any task in space than it does back on Earth." "That's why you're there. Satellite maintenance." "There's the usual package of scientific experiments to conduct, but the primary mission goal is the repair and servicing of two communications satellites. We service the first in situ on day three, and pull the other into the shuttle for more extensive work three days later. Now if you don't mind, I need to get some shut-eye." The lack of gravity in the shuttle made sleeping hard. Lying down when there was no 'down' was not possible so normal sleeping patterns were disrupted by the lack of feedback from the body's posture during cycles of rest and activity. In order not to float around while asleep you had to strap yourself to a seat, wall, or bulkhead. Before doing so, Winters took out the photo of his family he kept in the breast pocket of his uniform and studied it. It showed Danny and Susan on their wedding day, the beautiful bride and her handsome groom. Next to Danny stood Todd, his best man, and behind them him and Mary, the proud parents. When Todd asked out the Branson girl Mary tried to insist they be chaperoned, He'd been able to talk her out of it because as the man he was the head of the household and so she now deferred to him in most things, a recent development he wasn't entirely happy about. Mary had always been more religious than him but after Sandra's death she had joined a hardline fundamentalist church and allowed them to instil some very old-fashioned ideas in her. He still loved his wife but he was worried about the toll this shift might ultimately take on their marriage. Sighing, he tucked the photo back in his breast pocket and began the mental routine that would help him actually get to sleep. This usually took longer than he wanted it to, but this time he was asleep in minutes. - 3 - The orbiter landed on the high desert of Edwards AFB ten seconds later than scheduled according to the onboard chronometers, jolting the crew forward against their restraining harnesses as the rear parachute deployed, rapidly reducing forward momentum. As the craft slowly came to a halt, they loosened their harnesses and removed their helmets. "I wonder what this place was really like back when it was called Muroc?" said Winters, as a way of breaking the silence that followed. "I suppose we've all read the books about that time, even talked to some of the original Mercury Seven who started out as test pilots there if we're lucky, but nothing can truly recapture those days." "Always sounded pretty primitive to me," sniffed Jill Reilly, "and a macho boy's club, too. I'll take modern conveniences and attitudes over that any time." Small talk, thought Winters, so much easier than discussing the only thing that all of them had on their minds, but they still had a few tasks to perform. "You know what we have to do next," he said. "We have our new orders. Mark?" Medical matters being his purview, Mark Stoker handed out the blood sampling kits. Each of them then rolled up a sleeve, dabbed the injection point with alcohol, and took a blood sample. Removing the syringe from their arm, they then replaced the needle with a cap, and handed it back to Mark, who wrote their names on the labels before sealing all seven in a canister for later delivery to the ground medical team. As was standard procedure, there would now be a wait on the runway of several hours to allow the orbiter to cool. A small fleet of vehicles was already racing towards them, teams deploying to the front and rear of the orbiter to test for presence of hydrogen, monomethylhydrazine, hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide and ammonia, while others would attach purge and vent lines to remove toxic gases from fuel lines and the cargo bay. The cabin however remained as it was with its occupants sealed inside. During that period any stool and urine samples they generated were added to those already collected. When it had cooled and the other vehicles were done with it, the orbiter was towed into Hangar 43, where the next phase of the operation would begin. "Time to put our helmets back on," said Winters, which they duly did, checking each others oxygen supplies as they had been trained to do. They would stay that in their suits until the air inside could be pumped out and captured for analysis. This was not normal procedure but, uniquely, the air in the cabin was from the only air that still existed from the world as it used to be and so NASA scientists wanted to preserve it. After this had been done air from outside would be allowed into the shuttle cabin. Then and only then would they finally be allowed to disembark and driven to the building where, they had been assured, family members were waiting to welcome them back to Earth. What should be a joyous reunion was filling Winters with apprehension, as he was sure it was the others, everyone of whom would be wondering if they would recognise any of those family members. - 4 - "What the hell was *that*?" asked Joe Branson, raising his eyes from the cargo bay where he was making sure everything was ready for tomorrow's satellite capture and gazing up at the Earth above him. "Say again, Olympia," came the voice of Jay 'Ferdy' Ferdinand in his helmet. A fellow member of the astronaut corps and former shuttle crewmember, Ferdy was their capcom at Mission Control in Houston for this mission. "A flash of intense light from the planet," said Joe, "just as we passed over the outer Hawaiian islands. Almost as if someone fired a laser at us." It was Day Five of the mission, June 21st, 2004; 4pm in Houston, noon in Hawaii. "We're didn't register anything here Olympia, but we'll investigate and get back to you." "Roger, Houston." Olympia's crew of seven people lived and worked while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth roughly every ninety minutes, which meant that in twenty four hours it would make sixteen orbits and see sixteen sunrises and sunsets. Joe Branson was just finishing checking out the mechanical arm in the cargo bay when, a shade under ninety minutes later there was a second flash of intense light from the planet, followed three minutes after that by another as they once again passed over Hawaii. "What's going on down there, Houston?" demanded Joe Branson, exasperated. "We're trying to confirm the reports coming in, Joe," came Ferdy's voice. "We'll brief the entire crew when you're back inside." 'Confirm the reports'? Joe didn't like the sound of that. Something was definitely happening, and it was probably something big. It was an hour later, when the crew had all gathered around the video screen as requested, that Ferdy broke it to them. "The reports reaching New Zealand from the first small islands to be affected weren't believed," he said, licking his lips, "so they weren't prepared when it swept over them, but Australian TV then had enough warning to prepare." "Prepare for what?" said Winters. "What was it that swept over them?" "I think it's best you see for yourselves," replied Ferdy. "This is a feed we captured from one of the Australian TV networks." An image of a news reporter appeared in his place. According to the strapline displayed at the bottom of the screen this was someone named Bruce Keene. Keene was standing on the coast, microphone in hand, gesturing out to sea. "Here it comes," said Keene, calmly, as what looked like nothing more than a wall of heat haze appeared over the horizon, "and there's nowhere you can hide from it. It's moving too fast to outrun - about one thousand miles per hour at the equator - and according to reports from New Zealand, it passes through walls as if they aren't there. It's coming ashore just about ...now!" As the wall of haze hit him, so the tall, short-haired Bruce Keene in his business suit and tie was replaced by a shorter, long haired woman in a skirt suit. She was immaculately coiffed and made-up, her jewellery understated and tasteful. The name at the bottom of the screen now read: Kylie Mason. To the naked eye, the change looked instantaneous. "What the fuck?!" said Mark Stoker, the only one of them not too stunned to speak, using language they never used aboard. "That was..." began the woman, pausing as she first heard her unfamiliar voice, then staring down at herself, and at the long painted nails at the end of her slender hands, in obvious amazement. She shook herself briefly, regaining her composure with admirable swiftness. There would be time to take stock later; for now she had a news report to deliver. "What some are calling the Genderwave has started to move across Australia. As you have just seen, its effect is nothing short of miraculous. Whether this is the work of God or of man is not yet known. What we do know is that if the Genderwave continues around the world at its current rate, then by this time tomorrow it will have transformed everyone on the planet. What this will mean for the world as a whole, and how it will affect individual countries, we can for now only speculate. This is Bruce Keene...what? I'm sorry. They're telling me through my earpiece that the name you're seeing on your screens has changed. So I guess this is Kylie Mason, returning you to the studio." - 5 - "Our daughters are going to become *sons*?!" said Carole Branson, breaking the shocked silence as the video ended. "Mine will become daughters," said Winters, "and my wife a man!" "Oh jeez, Nate," she said, "that's going to make things harder for you, and for Jill." "Not necessarily," replied Jill Reilly. "Oh, that's right!" said Mark Stoker, snapping his fingers. "Before marrying your Mark you had a girlfriend." "You did?" said Qing Yuan, as surprised by this revelation as the rest of us. "It's not something I share with everyone, but yes, I did. If Mark - or whatever she'll be calling herself - still wants me afterwards then we'll stay together." All eyes then turned to Nathan Winters. No one said anything but he knew what they were thinking. "This has come as a big shock to us all and I haven't had time to think what it'll mean for me and Mary," he said. "Some of those women becoming men will be gay, which means a whole new dating pool for me," said Stoker, "but you're one of the most heterosexual men I've ever met, Nate, and I know that Mary's church deeply disapproves of gay relationships." As his words sank in so Winters realized he was right. How could his marriage possibly survive this? "We need to see our families again before this happens to them," said Joe Branson. "Agreed," said his wife. "I'll get Ferdy to arrange it. Now enough chit-chat," said Winters, brusquely. "Regardless of what's happening down there we still have tasks to perform up here. How are you getting on with setting up that high-speed camera Ray? Houston wants us to get the best footage we can when we pass over the Genderwave the next few times." "Ready to go," said Ray Washington, "though I'm not convinced it's going to tell us anything." Over the next couple hours it became clear what was happening, but not why. The Genderwave had sprung into existence along a line stretching from pole to pole down through the Bering Strait at noon local time. It immediately started heading west, leaving behind a standing wall of the same 'heat haze'. Passing through either of these switched your gender, and passing back through did not restore it. The moving wall crossed the international dateline soon after, heading off on its own at a speed that matched that of the rotation of the Earth. Which meant that it was arriving everywhere around noon their time on Tuesday 22nd of June. It reached Australia three hours after setting out and would reach Houston approximately sixteen hours after that. And since it appeared to stretch all the way to the top of the atmosphere the only people out of all the world's teeming billions going to be unaffected by it were the seven of them. That evening the crew members got to speak to family members, private conversations in which tears were shed, saying goodbye to the loved ones they had known and apprehensive about what those loved ones were about to become. "It's a difficult thing to wrap my head around, Dad," said his son Danny during Winters's time with the video uplink. "Not only are Susan and I going to switch genders but I'll be the one carrying our child, the one who gets to give birth to him - or her now, I suppose - in a few days. I've got to admit I'm a little scared at the prospect. Susan always expected to get pregnant one day and has had months to prepare herself for the birth, but I've only had hours. Since there are only a few days to go I thought about suggesting we insist she get an emergency C- section right now, but then I realised how selfish that would be. No, like it or not I'm going to have to do this. I was going to say I decided to take it like a man, but under the circumstances...." "What about you, Todd?" asked Winters his other son. "How are you holding up?" "Me and the other guys have been joking about it but we're all pretty nervous. Is it weird that I hope female me is hot?" "Todd!" said his mother. "It's OK, Mary," chuckled Winters, "and no, I don't think it's odd at all. I'd probably feel the same way if I was you." "Your father and I need to talk in private now, boys," said Mary, ushering them away. "OK, Mom," they said, dutifully departing. "Even you have to acknowledge that is happening is the Lord's will," said Mary when they had gone, "the most astonishing and undeniable demonstration of His power since the age of miracles. And we must all accept the fates He has allotted us." "So what does this mean for us?" "I'm truly sorry, Nathan, but when the Godwave has carried out its holy task we'll both be men," she replied. "After that there can be no 'us'." Would there still be if he was down there and so got transformed too, he later wondered? Mary would then be the man of the house and her word would be final. She would expect him to submit to her will in all things, to stay home, keep house, and be a dutiful and obedient little wife. They were still just young enough that she would almost certainly also demand that he bear more children to give them the large family favoured by her church. Under those circumstances would he even *want* the marriage to survive? - 6 - "So far as we can determine the Genderwave is only a few molecules thick," Ferdy was explaining, "so the fact that you see a flash of light when you pass over it speaks to the immense energies within it. Which makes sense. Rewriting reality the way it's doing is power on a level we can't truly conceive of. Our belief is that when the moving Genderwave finishes circling the globe and meets up with the stationary one again they'll cancel each other out, so we need you to collect as much data from up there as you can before that happens." "How is the public back home handling knowing that in a few hours time they'll switch genders?" asked Winters. It was now 10am in Houston, two hours before the Genderwave was due to sweep through Mission Control. "Many have taken to their churches and are praying while many more, knowing it's their last opportunity to do so in their birth genders, are believed to be holed up together having sex. Then there are those who are completely losing their minds over this and causing civil unrest." "And you? How are you holding up, Ferdy?" "Since there's nothing I can do to prevent it happening I've made my peace with it," he said. "Two hours from now Gina becomes a guy, I become his wife, and our sons and daughter become our daughters and son. If I'd been born a girl my parents would've named me Jennifer, and my mother-in-law's maiden name was Cruz. So you're looking at the future Mrs Jenny Cruz." Faced with Ferdy's familiar beetle-browed and luxuriously mustachioed mug Winters found this impossible to visualise. "While you guys are not going to be physically transformed," Ferdy continued, "the changes in your families means you'll all now have different surnames. Thanks to transformed footage about you that was transmitted to us here in Houston from countries already affected by the Genderwave we now know what these are, but we won't be sharing that information with you just yet." "Why not?" "Because we have reason to believe it could cause tension among you up there, which we want to avoid. So the decision has been taken to hold this back until shortly before your return." "And you agree with that assessment?" "I do. You'd have time to brood over it if we told you now, which is an unnecessary distraction we can't risk, but you'll have time to digest it while being too busy to dwell on it when you're returning to Earth. You'll need to keep this to yourself until then, Nate." "Of course, Ferdy." Winters had a hard time imagining a name change causing tension, but he understood that even hinting there was an issue would not be good for crew morale and they still had another five days together up here. Tomorrow, after the Genderwave had done its thing, they had a satellite to capture and bring into the cargo bay for repairs that would take several of those days to complete. "I intend to be on the video uplink with you when the Genderwave gets here, so make sure everyone is watching," said Ferdy. "Your families, like most people who can, have elected to experience their transformations in private." For the next two hours the crew went about their allotted tasks. Winters gathered them around the video screen a couple of minutes before the Genderwave was due to arrive in Houston. "Well, I guess this is it," said Fergy, sounding apprehensive. "Nervous?" asked Winters. "Most nervous I've ever been." "More nervous than when you were strapped in during your shuttle mission as the seconds to launch counted down?" "Much more. That was a journey I expected to return from, whereas this is a one-way trip." Then the Genderwave was upon him. There was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment of haziness and then the Ferdy they had known was a woman they didn't recognise. She had long, dark hair, her face was lightly made-up, her eyebrows plucked, and she was wearing hoop earrings and a coral- coloured blouse. "That was..." she said, pausing on hearing her now higher voice for the first time, "...that was unbelievable!" She ran a slender finger over her top lip and shook her head. "I've had a thick moustache since I was old enough to grow one," she said. "I feel naked without it." Glancing down at herself, she boggling at the generously proportioned breasts pushing against the fabric of her blouse. "*Those* are going to take some getting used to," she said, giving a low whistle, "as is wearing the bra I can feel supporting them." "You look make a very attractive woman, Ferdy," said Jill Reilly, encouragingly. "Thanks, I think. OK so I'm signing off now. You'll understand that I want to find a mirror, and then I have to go home and meet my... my husband. God, it feels so weird saying that!" The video screen went blank and the crew looked at each other, no one saying anything. Being up here they were missing out on experiencing the biggest event in human history. He couldn't help wondering if any of them regretted that. - 7 - The air inside the orbiter having all been pumped out and captured for analysis, fresh air from outside had finally been allowed into the shuttle cabin. When they were given the green light, the crew gratefully removed their helmets and took in their first lungful of the air of this brave new world. Disembarking a few minutes later, they crossed the floor of Hanger 43 to the bus waiting to take them to the building where their family members awaited them. As the bus pulled away, Nathan Winters thought back to shortly before they left orbit, and to the video Ferdy had shown them. "This is an excerpt from the interview you gave Carl Mathers before lift-off, Nate," she had said, "only now Mathers is Carla Smith. I'll let it speak for itself." He remembered the interview well, only now instead of 'Winters' the name tag on his uniform read 'Sanderson', his mother's maiden name. Instinctively he glanced down to reassure himself that here in the orbiter his tag remained unchanged. Carla Smith looked nothing like Carl Mathers, which was disconcerting, but not as disconcerting as what followed. "You've mentioned in other interviews that you're dedicating this mission to the memory of your sister...." she said. "I am, yes. Sandra worked at NASA as a flight controller and would've been part of the team in the mission operations control room if cancer hadn't taken her from us. I'll say a prayer for her when we launch." "Was she married?" "Yes," he replied, "she was. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get prepped for the launch." That had been a surprise, but the real bombshell lay in what came next. "This is Colonel Sanderson's third shuttle mission" said Carla Smith, turning to camera, "and his first as Mission Commander. The five Mission Specialists are husband and wife team Joe and Carole Morrisey, Jill Henning, Mark Jones, and Ray Callum. The pilot on this mission is Sanderson's wife of twenty years, Qing Yuan, making this the first shuttle crew to include two married couples." All eyes had turned to Qing Yuan then, but she wouldn't meet their gaze. That was when Winters knew why she had never married or had any relationship that had lasted more than a few months. He always assumed she had just never found the right man. It turned out she had, but he was already married. All this time and he never knew, never suspected. In the reception building he and the others got off the bus and were ushered into separate rooms for private reunions. Winters had expected to meet his family there, instead he was confronted by only a besuited, shaven-headed man half a head taller than him and with a dark, neatly trimmed van dyke beard. "Mary..?" he said, hesitantly. "It's Michael now, Nathan," came the reply, "after the archangel." "Where are the kids?" "Kendra who was Dan went into labour an hour ago and is currently in hospital with her husband David who was Susan by her side." "And Todd? Where's Todd?" "Jessica who was Todd is at home where she's been taking instruction in how to conduct herself responsibly and how to present herself in public as a respectable young lady. I won't have a daughter of mine being thought of as 'loose'. Given the circumstances I thought it best not to have you meet her until we could have it take place in a properly mediated space." There was so little emotion or warmth in his voice that Winters's head was whirling. How could this man be his wife Mary? "I'm his father," he said, trying to control his anger, "and I have every right to see her without any 'mediation'." "Actually you don't. I am my daughters' father now. As for who their mother was...." He took a photo from his wallet. "David and Kendra's wedding," he said, handing it across, "the photo of the bride and her immediate family." It was the first time Nathan had seen what her eldest now-daughter looked like. She was pretty, and looked as beautiful in her wedding dress as every bride does on her big day. To her left was a younger girl, her maid of honour. This must be his other now-daughter. Behind them stood the bride's proud parents, Michael and.... "Sandra," he said. "In this reality my sister was their mother. So that makes me...." "Their uncle, yes, which is why you're not in the photo." "What happened to you?" said Nathan, shaking his head. "Why are you being like this? How can you be the same person who pledged we'd be together 'til death us do part'?" "Leaving aside the whole idea of two men being together like... *that*," said Michael, shuddering, "death did part us." "Huh? What are you talking about?" "What others call the Genderwave was God's work. What else could it be? It was his judgment on us, as it was foretold." "You're saying this was *judgment day*?!" "I am, and so are the elders of my church. They have delared that we were not transformed but died and were instantly resurrected in new flesh. This was not exactly the way the bible had led us to expect it would happen, but then God moves in mysterious ways. Mary Winters died and was reborn as Michael Rankin. We are all now who the Lord has decided we must be. I will not and cannot go against His word." Mary's already strong religious conviction had been magnified a hundredfold by the Genderwave, a global miracle that she had personally experienced. She was now Michael, ironclad in his belief, and there would be no moving him on this. "I will go to court to assert my parental rights if I have to," said Winters. "That won't get you anywhere. While you were still in space the question of memory versus the documents that now exist and the huge implications when it comes to property and contract law was already being debated. If, say, someone else was now living in the house you lived in yesterday, how would you prove it was once yours if all the paperwork and legal documents say otherwise? If it went to court you would lose because your memories would only constitute hearsay, but documents represent hard fact. For the courts to take any other view would be to invite chaos given the many millions of legal documents out there. The same will apply to birth and marriage records. This is still a Christian country so the courts will not risk trying to overturn what God hath wrought." As Michael said it so Winters realized the awful truth that he was probably right. The Genderwave might be a natural phenomenon, or aliens, or even a science experiment gone wrong, but most Americans would believe it was caused by God. "But take heart, Nathan," added Michael, "for in His mercy and His infinite wisdom He has made it so that you and Qing Yuan have now been married for twenty years. I always knew she felt that way about you." "You did?" "Yes. Sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, I'd catch her looking at you in a way that spoke volumes. She's been carrying a torch for you for years." "Yet you never said anything." "Why would I? What wife would risk telling her husband that another woman was interested in him? Men being men that would be an invitation for him to stray." There was nothing more to be said after that so Nathan turned and left the room. Outside he found Qing Yuan waiting for him. "Jill and Erin Kelly, her husband as was, have already gone," she said, "Jill introduced us as if we'd never met before, which in a way I suppose we never had. She was trying to get her head around their altered circumstances. It seems the biological father of their kids is Erin's sister, now her brother, who was their sperm donor and that they were always a gay couple in this altered reality. By the way they were smiling and holding hands I think it's going to work out between them, just as Jill hoped it would. I'm so glad for them." "Me too. It's a new world," said Winters, "and we seven are the only survivors from the old one, so we need to stick together. And you and I need to talk, Qing." "Yes, Nate," she replied, giving a hopeful little smile, "we really do." - Epilogue - "Yes!!!" cried Belinda Croker as Ray Washington, who was still using his original surname, came inside her, filling the condom he was wearing with his seed. He held her as her orgasms subsided and her wild-eyed look faded to one of satisfaction. "That was amazing!" she said, as Ray slid out of her. "I never dreamed that having a man inside me would feel that goood!" "First time as a woman?" said Ray, removing the condom and tying a knot in it before dropping it over the side of the bed. "Yeah. I mean, just like almost everyone else after the Genderwave did its number on them, I was checking out my new equipment and figuring out how to pleasure myself within the hour, but it didn't prepare me for *this*." "Glad to have been of service," said Ray, grinning. "You can service me anytime, baby," purred Belinda, stroking his arm. "You're all man, and then some, one of only four in the whole world who always has been." "Why thank you, ma'am. Now what say we both freshen up, change into something fancy, and I meet you downstairs in the restaurant for dinner?" "Sounds good to me," she said, pulling his head down for a long, lingering kiss. Sighing, Belinda then got up, plucked her clothing from where it lay strewn around the floor, and quickly got dressed. She paused at the door and blew Ray a kiss. "See you soon, sweetie!" she said. When she had gone, Ray picked up the discarded condom, carefully wrapping it in a tissue. The ejaculate within looked and smelled authentic but was an entirely artificial simulation of the real thing, something he couldn't risk anyone discovering. He smiled down at his cock, an amazing feat of engineering that looked and felt real and which even enabled its wielder to experience an orgasm. A prototype of the latest model, it had just been given a strenuous workout and performed admirably. Stashing the condom in his baggage, Ray Washington padded over to the window and gazed at Central Park, the jewel of Manhattan, which lay across the street from the hotel. He was apparently naked, but not really. Turning from the window, he blinked rapidly three times and a menu appeared in the corner of his vision. Using eye movement to scroll down this, he stopped at the option labelled UNSEAL AND RELEASE and once again blinked rapidly three times. In response a hitherto undetectable seal running from the base of his skull to his anus opened up and the bodysuit he was wearing began pulling away from the skin beneath, becoming baggy as air was sucked in and over his real flesh. Reaching behind him, a hand grabbing each side of the opening, 'Ray' pulled the pseudo-flesh of the bodysuit over his head, freeing the real head beneath, tugged it down over his shoulders, past his waist, and on to the ground. Far from being the ripped young African-American astronaut everyone had taken him for over the past three weeks he was now revealed to be the white woman the real Ray Washington had known only as Rachel. Stepping out of the discarded bodysuit now pooled at her feet, Rachel shook out her long red hair, went over to the closet, and retrieved a shoulder bag she had stashed there that contained a set of female clothing. After getting dressed she brushed her hair, put on make-up, and slipped her feet into a pair of three inch heels. Returning to where the bodysuit lay, she nodded approvingly. It had automatically expelled all the air from within it and compressed itself into something the size and shape of a large book. She put this in the shoulder bag then headed out. Poor Belinda Croker would not be getting her dinner date after all. Once outside the hotel, Rachel walked half a block to the Ditko Building - she had chosen the hotel for its proximity - and took an elevator to the thirteenth floor where her subordinates awaited her. Both young women were dressed in business-appropriate skirt-suits. Neither had any distinguishing features at all, nothing that would make either stand out in a crowd in any way. Where they had been average- looking as men both were now pretty, but only averagely so. Just like the body suits they had been wearing before, these new ones were designed that way. "Hello, ma'am," said Miss Jones. "Miss Jones," said Rachel, acknowledging the greeting with a small nod of her head. "How are you and Miss Smith adjusting to passing for female?" Miss Smith gave a little shrug. "We're managing. We accepted that taking refuge on home Earth with Raymond Washington while the Genderwave passed meant that we'd have to wear female bodysuits on our return in place of our male ones." "When we realised this Earth was about to experience a Genderwave Event we had to move quickly," said Rachel. "We needed to get someone above the Genderwave when it circled the world so Raymond Washington was the obvious choice for me to replace. He was second reserve for his position on the shuttle and was largely unfamiliar to the rest of the crew so they were less likely to realize I was an imposter that the original specialist and his first reserve. Good work taking them off the board, by the way. Oh and the small reservoir of Washington's blood in the bodysuit worked perfectly, moving to the injection site whenever a needle was used to extract some." "Did everything go to plan up there?" asked Miss Jones. "Perfectly. The sub-dermal equipment in my bodysuit recorded all the telemetry on the crew I needed, and my additional observations of how they reacted to the event as it unfolded will prove invaluable." "Do you think it'll bring us any closer to understanding what causes Genderwaves?" "I hope so, but we'll see. All we know so far is that they always appear at noon local time, and that they either spring into existence going from pole to pole down through the Bering Strait or to the west of Iceland. These are the two lines that cross the least land and most water, which is probably significant though we don't know why. We've witnessed Genderwave Events on an Earth during its Victorian period, on another in the middle of World War II, and on yet another in the 1950s. Which means if we haven't got what we need during this one, there's always the next." When an Earth experiences a Genderwave that starts to the west of Iceland the first capital it sweeps over is Rio de Janeiro with it arriving in Boston, New York, and DC, two hours later. Word has started to get out by then but most people haven't heard about it and many of those who have think it's a hoax. Needless to say there was widespread panic when it hit them. That's what had happened on Earth 17G when it experienced a Genderwave Event in the 1950s. Rachel handed Ray Washington's cellphone and hotel room card-key to Smith and Jones. "Make sure to place these on his person," she said. Miss Smith hurried off with them. "We'll move Ray Washington over to Central Park under cover of an invisibility shield," said Miss Jones. "We'll remove the stasis from him and ten minutes from now he'll wake up on a park bench with his most recent memory being of his time with you in Citrusville." "Good. He'll be stunned to find himself in New York, but if all goes to plan he'll make his way to the hotel, and should encounter Belinda Croker there. He'll be confused, having no memory of her, will contact NASA, and doctors will conclude he's suffered a form of memory loss." "We've prepared the gate. You can leave Earth-37 for home Earth whenever you're ready." "It's Earth-37G now." "Of course, Ms Questor. I should have remembered that." "Yes, you should have." It was standard procedure to add a G to the designation of an Earth after they had witnessed it experiencing a Genderwave Event. "Now I must be going," said Rachel Questor. "Being on this Earth for its Genderwave was interesting, but it's going to be good to get home." ******** The End. ******** Notes: This will be my final tale set during the Genderwave of 2004, but not necessarily my last Genderwave tale. We shall see. Those Earths where the G-wave arrived in Victorian times, WW2, and the 1950s all have their possibilities, as do new stories set in a non date- specified present where a new G-wave starts to the west of Iceland. That one would sweep over the east coast of the US three hours after starting out across South America. Let's say it takes half that time for reports from there to be verified and believed, that would give east coasters only ninety minutes or so to prepare, and even in this age of cell phones and social media there would still be many people who didn't hear the news before the G-wave hit. (In the case of the Earth where it appeared in the 1950s they would have had little to no warning, international communications then being what they were.) Oh, and this time Australia and New Zealand have lots of advance warning, of course. As explained in my recent TEA WITH THE GODS - a tale which ties together more of my main sequence stories than any other to date - Genderwaves are global events powerful enough to cause a divergence in the timeline, resulting in an Earth where it happened and one where it didn't. It remains to be seen whether in this multiverse they are in fact the biggest cause of divergences. My Genderwave stories in chronological reading order: 1) GENDERWAVE: FIRST REPORTS (2004) 2) GENDERWAVE: THE PRIVATE EYE (2022) 3) GENDERWAVE: THE ANALYST (2005) 4) GENDERWAVE: RAMIFICATIONS (2004) 5) GENDERWAVE: THE ASTRONAUTS (2023) If you're curious as to who those people were who kidnapped Ray Washington, these will provide some answers: 1) FINDING JANINE (2003) 2) MANY WORLDS INC: SWITCH WORLD (2005) You'll learn more about Rachel Questor in a future tale.