Sapphire's Place - Valerie Hope's " Music of Change "

Music of Change #3:

We Could Be Heroes

By Valerie Hope

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing, nothing will drive them away
We can beat them - just for one day
We can be us - just for one day

I, I can remember
Standing by the wall
And the guns, shot above our heads
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall
And the shame was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we can be heroes, just for one day

We can be heroes
We can be heroes
We can be heroes
Just for one day
We can be heroes

We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay
But we could be safer, just for one day
Oh, just for one day

Danny Royal was almost too tired to support the weight of his own body; only by gritted teeth and force of will was he able at all to force himself to put one foot in front of the other. The heat was like a solid thing, hitting him like ocean waves and making his eyes sting and squint. Each breath seared his lungs and made him want to collapse.

He stumbled out of the flickering orange and yellow world that had almost trapped him and into the cool, wet night. The hiss and roar of the pumper trucks and the hoses and the angry spitting of the fire he and his teammates were fighting dominated the nights, and the rhythmic flashing of the red-and-blues replaced the chaotic world of yellows and whites which had tried to keep him trapped and kill him.

He sank to his knees as his brother firefighters and the EMTs rushed forward to take the burden from his shoulder - a fifty-year old man who'd collapsed from smoke inhalation on the fourth floor. He'd be all right - some pretty severe burns from falling debris, but nothing requiring major reconstruction.

One of the EMTs slipped an oxygen mask over Danny's face - he'd almost been ready to rotate out of the detail to change his own tank when he'd found the man and the length of time it had taken him to get the man outside had completely depleted his air supply. Danny felt the telltale numbness in the fingers and toes and the pounding but euphoric headache which meant smoke inhalation. He'd been lucky - a few minutes more in there and he'd be the one being pulled out of the burning apartments.

His Lieutenant, Kyle Brady, trotted up to him, pushing his A-Tac goggles onto his forehead. He regarded Danny with a wry, disbelieving smile as his friend and subordinate unceremoniously began coughing his guts up on the sidewalk.

"Dammit, Danny, you know better than that," Kyle said, but still gently. "That knee-jerk hero bullshit is going to get you killed someday. What the hell were zou trying to prove?"

Danny wiped his lips and tried to staunch his coughing fit. "I wasn't trying to prove anything, Lieutenant. I saw somebody who was going to die if I didn't help him, so I helped him."

Kyle shook his head. "You're an idiot, Danny. You had a perfectly good radio. Three other men on that floor with adequate air. But you had to jump in and try to get your name in the paper. I don't have room for glory-hounds on my watch, understood?"

Danny could only cough and nod. "I wasn't..."

"Save it," Kyle interrupted. "Just don't pull that shit again. Now get your act together. We have to get that roof extinguished or it's going to collapse. I need every man I can get right now."

Danny sat forward, taking a cup of water from the EMT, who patted his helmet and moved away to tend to other, more serious cases. He couldn't seem to get the commanders to understand why he did the things he did. It wasn't for glory. It wasn't even for recognition. Danny didn't know what it was that drove him to do the things he did. He looked down at the Maltese Cross on his fire department patch. The ancient symbol of firefighters, passed down from the Knights of St. John on the island of Malta. During the Crusades, the Islamic forces in the holy land would shower the invading Christians with naptha and then toss torches onto the massed people below the walls. The knights who risked their lives to save their comrades from fiery death were given the Maltese Cross. The first firefighters.

Why had those knights done what they did? Why did any firefighter lay down his life for others and pit himself against one of the primal forces of the earth? You didn't ask - you just did it because it needed doing.

At least, that's what Danny thought.

* * *

"Again," Danny bade the bartender, waving towards his empty glass. The bartender, a young-looking guy probably putting himself through college, narrowed his eyes a little and moved closer.

"How you getting home tonight, fella?" the younger man asked.

Danny's speech slurred a little as he gestured towards the door. "I live a couple blocks away. I'm walking."

"You sure you haven't had enough?" the bartender asked pointedly.

"I saved a man's life today," Danny said. "Saved his fucking life. And what did I get for it? I got bitched at. Yelled at. See? I can still remember it. So I guess I haven't had enough."

The bartender looked a little confused, but topped off Danny's glass with bourbon. Danny fished in his pocket for a few more bills when a soft, long-nailed hand closed over his.

"This one's on me," a sultry, breathy voice said. Danny turned his head slowly - turning it quickly made him a little queasy - to regard the woman who'd slid silently into the seat next to him at the bar. Danny could tell that it wasn't even the liquor saying that this woman was gorgeous. As tall as he was, tanned, redheaded and breathtakingly sexual and beautiful. She wore "club clothes," a skintight blue tie-dye dress with strategic keyhole cutouts that exposed tantalizing glimpses of tanned thigh, flat belly or beautifully rounded breast. She favored him with a dazzling smile of chalk-white, even teeth.

"I'm Jenna," she told him.

Danny took a moment to collect his bourbon-soaked thoughts. "I'm Danny."

Jenna extended an exquisitely manicured hand. "Pleased to meet you, Danny."

He tried to arrange himself into what was a more pleasant pattern, with little success. Seeing that his hair and clothes were a hopeless mess and his current lack of motor skills wasn't helping matters, he finally apologized with an abashed "Sorry. I'm really drunk."

"So I noticed," Jenna said with warm humor. "And I was thinking to myself, 'Jenna, why is this really handsome, together-looking guy drinking himself sick on a Wednesday night instead of going home to a beautiful woman who loves him?'"

Danny's eyes narrowed. "Look. I just met you, so I don't really..."

Jenna held up a hand. "Sorry. Sometimes I come on too strong. My bad."

"So this is a come-on?" Danny asked suggestively.

Jenna chuckled. "Sorry, there, sport. You're not really my type. I'm a businesswoman. I keep my eye out for people who might benefit from some the services I provide and try to see if I can help them. You look like one of those people."

Danny sat back. "You're a hooker?"

Jenna snorted. "Do I come across like a hooker, Danny?"

He shook his head. "That wasn't very nice, was it?"

Jenna patted the back of his hand. "No, it wasn't. Apology accepted," she said with another of those bewitching smiles. "I represent a company whose interests are in people who need a break. You look like one of those people to me."

Danny's face clouded. "I have a break, thank you very much." He punctuated it by shooting his bourbon in a single gulp and gesturing to the bartender for another.

"Wanna talk about it?" Jenna asked.

"What's to talk about?" Danny growled. "I did something I thought was right, but my superiors didn't. So they suspended me for six weeks so I can learn my lesson."

"You saved a man's life?" Jenna said. "That's what you told the bartender."

Danny nodded hazily. "He was trapped and unconscious and I brought him out," Danny said. "But I put myself at risk and almost collapsed. But there was no one else to do it. My lieutenant thinks I'm a glory-hound, and he doesn't listen when I say I'm not in it for the glory. I'm just trying to help people. I don't think about it. I just do it. I can't help doing what I think is right."

"What are you planning to do for the next six weeks, then?"

"Sit around. Get drunk a lot, probably."

Jenna slid a blue envelope across the bar towards him. "If you're interested, I have something better for you to do. Just go to the address on the invitation anytime during the week and they'll give you the works."

Danny looked at the envelope with bleary eyes. "What is it?" he slurred.

"A new lease on life, if you let it be," Jenna said mysteriously. She leaned forward, kissed his cheek fondly and left the bar.

* * *

Danny awoke late, groggy and sore-headed. After several huge glasses of water and a hot shower, he was something approximating human once more. Holding down his gorge at the thought of breakfast, he set about wandering from one room of his apartment to another in a random manner, searching for what it was he did when he was younger and had nothing to do.

In the late afternoon, after a very unpalatable ten minutes of daytime television and a short-lived cleaning frenzy, he sat in utter boredom, wadding up bits of junk mail and shooting them at the trashcan.

"I may have just won a million dollars - two points," he said. "Free long distance - two points. Make up to $4000 a month working from home - clank! Invitation for one..."

He looked at the blue envelope he'd been about to crumple. "Invitation for one to Corporate Rewards downtown facility."

Reading on, it seemed a sort of day spa-turned-executive retreat with all the luxury amenities a getaway could offer. Gym, heated pool, massage, steam rooms. He flipped the card over, looking for the catch, the barrage of fine print saying he had to look at property somewhere or buy a certain amount of something, but there didn't seem to be any verbiage of that sort. It actually looked legitimate.

Dialing the number - not without wondering how much longer he'd have phone service given his suspension with no pay - he waited shortly to be answered by a bright-sounding, happy soprano voice. "Corporate Rewards, this is Heather."

"Uh, yeah," Danny said. "I have an invitation here from your company..."

"Invitation number?" Heather said. Far too chipper to be talking to a man with a hangover like his.

Danny read off the number printed on the card and listened for the sounds of fingers on a keyboard or similar computer ambience, but for all the world it sounded like this woman was standing in a crowded restaurant. He could dimly hear the sounds of silverware scraping and a game of some sort on a television, mugs clinking and people talking. Strange.

"Mr. Royal?" she asked.

"You mean this invitation is real? I don't really remember getting it, and I know I haven't paid for it."

"It's real, Mr. Royal. Redeemable anytime. And you didn't pay for it. It was a gift from someone who wanted to do something nice for you."

"Who?" Danny asked.

"Well, that would spoil the surprise," she answered merrily.

"Don't take this question the wrong way," Danny said, "but is there any chance that I could meet anyone here?"

"You mean women," Heather declared, sounding amused. "Yes, we have an extensive female clientele." Now Danny knew he wasn't imagining things. He definitely heard someone call out "order up" in the background.

"Are you in a restaurant?" Danny asked.

"Yes," Heather said. "I'm working right now, but I have the calls from the front desk routed to my mobile phone sometimes."

"Oh," Danny said. "So, can I come by and look at this place?"

"Any time," Heather told him. "Just bring your ID and your invitation."

* * *

The next morning Danny pulled his little light truck to a stop in the covered parking lot beside the Corporate Rewards building. It was very upscale - so much so that Danny immediately felt underdressed, scruffy and altogether inadequate - but he straightened his shirt, smoothed out what wrinkles he could out of his khakis and tried to do the best he could with his hair, grabbed his little blue envelope and went inside.

The lobby was done in pink granite and polished wood - imposingly corporate. The Corporate Rewards logo was picked out in shiny brass on the receptionist's desk, where a statuesque blonde waited, doing some here-and-there "busy" work as she manned the silent phones. Danny cleared his throat to let her know he was coming.

"Hi," the blonde said cheerfully. "Daniel Royal?"

Danny tried to look away from the clear blue eyes but couldn't. "Um, yeah. Danny. Call me Danny," he half-mumbled, growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. He got the distinct sense he didn't belong here.

"I'm Heather. We spoke on the phone yesterday. I'm glad you decided to give us a try," she said, giving him a hundred-watt smile. "Do you have your ID and invitation?"

Danny passed them across sheepishly and tried to make himself small while she checked his identification. Finally, with a smile, she passed them back across the counter and came around the edge to take him by the arm gently.

"You look nervous," she said.

"Uh. Just kinda out of my element, I guess," he replied. "A little overwhelmed."

Heather led him gently through a large set of double doors and into a luxurious waiting room. Scandalously expensive furniture and art, tastefully appointed, bedecked the paneled walls. Heather seated him in a comfortable chair with a magazine and a steaming cup of imported coffee.

"Joshua will be with you shortly," she told him, patting his hand affectionately. "Just relax, Danny. I know you're really going to like it here."

"Hope so," Danny said.

"How about this?" Heather said, a playfully measuring look in her gorgeous eyes. "You don't like it, I'll buy you dinner. But if you do, then the check is on you."

Danny gave the lopsided smile which, unbeknownst to him, was the most devilishly attractive thing about him and said, "You're on."

She winked at him merrily and left. Danny reclined into the chair and tried to concentrate on the magazine he'd selected, but the music playing just above audibly in the room was very enticing, and very relaxing. It made Danny think of happy times when he was a boy, when his mom and dad were alive. The liquor bender, and the stress of the suspension, plus his nerves in even coming to this place must have gotten the better of him, because he found himself snapping awake when a deep, friendly voice said, "Mr. Royal?"

Danny tried not to look too shocked as he jerked awake and fought to get his bearings. He had no idea how long he might have been asleep. He only hoped that he hadn't been snoring or drooling.

"Yeah, that's me. Danny."

"I'm Joshua," the tall, sandy-haired man said warmly. "I'm here to kinda show you around the place and get you started. You ready?"

Danny raked a hand through his baby-fine hair. "Yeah, sure. What is this place, anyway? I couldn't really find out a whole lot about it."

"We're pretty exclusive, which is why we only issue invitations," Joshua said. "We're a retreat more than anything else. We cater to people who've reached the end of their rope and try to give them a fresh perspective. The goal is that your life is better when you leave than it was when you got here, and I think we do a pretty decent job of it."

"How'd you get my name? This doesn't seem like something the fire department would spring for, to be honest. They're more the $25 gift certificate type."

Joshua laughed, a throaty and booming affair which provoked a similar chuckle from Danny. "No. The man you saved. Richard Kennedy. He wanted to do something to say 'thank you,' but because of the unfortunate things that happened at the department had no way to get in touch with you personally. He contracted us to issue you the invitation."

"Nice of him," Danny said, "but he didn't have to thank me."

"I think that's why he wanted to, friend," Joshua said. "The ones who don't want thanks are usually the ones most deserving of gratitude."

Danny smirked. "Y'think?"

Joshua said. "I do. You should meet my boss sometime."

Joshua led Danny through a door and into a large, open atrium full of healthy-looking tropical plants and small trees. A hundred different scents came to Danny on the breeze, making him breathe deeply trying to get every one of them. The music was here, too, stronger somehow without being louder.

Danny just stood there, inhaling all the wonderful fragrances, letting it all wash over him. The music seemed to enter him somehow, like his heart was beating in time to it and the air he was breathing was somehow carrying the music into his blood and his bones.

"How do you feel, Danny?" Joshua asked, but Danny couldn't tell where the music stopped and the voice began, or if they were actually the same thing.

"Terrible," Danny said, his voice a dreamy murmur.

"I'm sorry," Joshua said sadly. "I wish you felt better."

"I don't know if I can," Danny said.

"Why not?"

"Nobody gets it. Nobody understands."

"Talk to me, Daniel. I want to understand, if you'll help me."

Danny sighed deeply. "I try. I try and try and try, but I don't seem to get it across. I just want to help. I just want someone who's in danger, someone who's hurt to have a part of me. That somehow, the breaths he's breathing and the beats his heart is making are because I was there."

"Don't you think that happens already?"

"Then why did they suspend me? Am I that hard to understand?"

"Selfish people don't always understand unselfishness," the voice explained. "That makes your work harder."

"How?" Danny asked.

"You have to show them that your reasons are pure," the voice said.

"I do," Danny protested.

"It's the way you do it, Daniel," the voice went on patiently. "You can't just force it down people's throats. You can't demand that they accept it. You have to get them used to the idea. You can't make them look, you have to make them see."

"But they're so damned blind sometimes," Danny said, near tears.

"Tell me something, Danny. Was there ever a person in your life that you just knew was unselfish? That you just believed, down in your soul, was doing everything they did because it was the right thing to do, not for some personal gain?"

Danny nodded. "My parents," he said.

"Anyone else?" the voice asked.

"There was this one EMT I met, a long time ago. I don't really remember, but I think her name was Alice something. She was at a big five-alarmer on Patton Avenue, about seven years ago."

"Tell me about this girl," the voice said.

"She was like an angel. Everyone she touched was somehow healed, and it didn't matter whether they were a grown man with 3rd degree burns on 70% of his body or a little kid with a stubbed toe. She treated them all like they were the most important people on the planet. It was like she loved them all."

"Perhaps she did."

"No way to ever know," Danny went on, his face betraying pain. "She... died. She'd been called to a gang fight downtown to tend the injured. Some kid shot her down, like she was some kind of animal. But she died trying to save a twenty-year-old kid with a machine gun, trying to bring him back."

"You sound as if she meant a lot to you."

Tears crept unashamedly down Danny's face. "She's why I do what I do," he said hoarsely. "My whole life since that fire, I've been trying to live my life like she did, but I can't seem to get it right. Instead of helping, I just seem to piss people off instead."

"What do you think is missing, Daniel?"

Danny thought a moment. "I don't know. I'm so different than she was. I'm what you see, here. She was different. Gentle and sweet and caring and compassionate."

"Was she beautiful?" the voice asked him.

"Yeah," Danny said. "Sometimes, it was hard to look at her, she was so beautiful."

"What about physically?" the voice asked.

"She was okay, I guess," Danny said. "That wasn't what I was looking at, though."

"Tell me something, then, Daniel," the voice said. "If her outside could look like her inside, how would she look to you?"

Danny smiled wistfully. "I wouldn't change those big green eyes for all the world," he said, "but I think she'd be tall and athletic - healthy looking. That shiny, soft-looking hair like in the commercials, a real light brown. One of those big, happy smiles that's all teeth and brightness, and a sweet mouth. Not too skinny, but not fat. Always dressed to look good and one of those girls who's sexy as hell but doesn't know it - she's just having fun."

"She sounds wonderful," the voice said.

"She is," Danny said. The look on his face said that he was looking at her deeply, drinking in her every move and gesture, every little nuance that made her herself. "She's the most wonderful woman in the world."

"Hold on to that picture in your mind, Daniel," the voice bade him. "Keep her close to you. Don't let her get away from you - you're going to need her."

"I already need her," Danny said wistfully.

"I know you do," the voice said warmly. "We're going to help you find her."

* * *

The fire department was blissfully quiet for once, as the personnel on call were dozing in the midday heat and going about the minor upkeep tasks that kept the station shipshape. Lieutenant Kyle Brady and Captain Del Rutledge were going over paperwork in the upstairs administrative office, trying to keep their records up-to-date.

"Do you think we did the right thing, Cap?" Kyle asked suddenly. "About Danny. He's a good kid. Maybe we were too hard on him."

Rutledge shook his head. "He's a liability until he learns some control, Kyle. You know it as well as I do. We have to lay down the law early on, let him know what he can or can't get away with, or you're going to have a loose cannon on the deck. We did the right thing. It's tough to swallow sometimes, but I think Danny Royal will be a better firefighter because of it. And he's much more likely to stay alive next time."

"I guess so," Kyle said, raking a hand through his thinning brown hair. "But there's this part of me that wants to be just like him. That's the hard part."

Rutledge chuckled. "I know, kid. It's a part of me, too. Everybody wants to rush in to the rescue and save everybody like that. But you know you can't trust luck, or fate, or any of that kind of horseshit. You have to do the job the way the job needs doing or you'll end up getting people killed."

Kyle sighed. "You're right, Cap. I know you're right."

"Command isn't pretty, Lieutenant," Rutledge said.

"Sure as hell ain't," Kyle seconded.

Outside, the tunes on Mike Zimmerman's boom box took on a different tone from the classic rock he'd been listening to earlier as he coiled hoses downstairs in the truck bay. It was a strange, atonal music that seemed somehow organic and alive. Their conversation dwindled off as they slowly found themselves absorbed into the music, the soothing tones leaching down their veins and arteries like blood.

A voice rose from the music, deep and lush, more a part of the music itself than a lyric.

"I'd like to discuss an employee of yours named Daniel Royal."

* * *

Danny half-awoke, feeling groggy and heavy but incredibly well-rested and serene. The stress and anger of the past few days seemed to have melted away, leaving only a sense of well-being and contentment behind it.

He was in a lounge chair next to a garden pool with a waterfall, stripped down to his skin and covered with a light blanket against the almost-imperceptible chill in the room. There was a tray of refreshments beside him and several magazines. The incredible music was here as well, louder somehow without seeming to have increased in volume.

Danny was ravenous to say the least, so he quickly built himself a sandwich out of the cold cuts and bread laid out on the tray. He munched at it slowly, pouring himself a small glass of white wine (which was strange - he was ordinarily a beer man, but somehow the wine seemed both more fitting and tastier as well). Wondering what was coming next in the long string of wonders that was Corporate Rewards, he settled back with a magazine and waited.

It wasn't until he'd finished his fifth article in the second magazine that it occurred to him that he was acting strangely. For one thing, he'd barely finished half the sandwich, which would have normally been only an appetizer. For another, he'd been idly playing with his hair while he read, which was odd because he never played with his hair, and it was now long enough to twist around his index finger, where he customarily wore it cut very short. The third thing had been the magazines he'd selected to read - he'd thumbed through Vogue and Cosmopolitan instead of things like Sports Illustrated and Car and Driver. And he'd actually been interested in the articles, and remembered clearly thinking to himself how 'cute' some of the outfits in the ads had been.

He shook his head roughly to clear it, running a hand through his long and shaggy hair. It was soft as rabbit's fur, which was a plus, but he never wore it this long. Had he really let himself slide so far since he'd been suspended? He was struck with an overwhelming urge to look in a mirror, but he was able to beat it down with some effort.

Confused, he wandered away from the little grotto where he'd awoken and found his way into a small but very well-appointed gym. Now this was more like it! Danny liked his workouts and keeping himself in good shape. Pulling on a little one-piece exercise tank, he fell to his workout with a vengeance, tearing into the cardiovascular and coming off the treadmill and the stairmaster feeling better than he had ever felt before - his CV must be coming along really nicely. But the numbers on his weight-training were sad. Half of what he could normally lift, if that. He must have really let himself slide.

But there was no better time than now to reverse that trend, Danny thought to himself. Running a hand over his face, he determined that a shave wouldn't be necessary, but a shower and some quality time with a comb would be first, and there had to be someplace in this spa where a man could go to get his hair trimmed. He stepped out of his workout togs and went into the large and spotlessly clean shower room behind the gym.

The warm water over his naked skin felt differently than it ever had before - it was almost decadent. He found himself wishing he could soak in it, which was odd indeed because he'd never been one for baths. Letting the warm caress of the shower wash over him for a few moments, he turned then to the huge array of bath products which the spa had set out for him to use. The ever-present music was working with the warmth and the steam and the water to relax him, to bring his mind back to the pleasant, thoughtless torpor he'd known all morning. Picking up a bottle of sea-kelp protein shampoo with chamomile and papaya extract (a far cry from his normal bottle of Pert), he lathered it into his thick, soft hair and followed it up with a leave-in conditioning treatment which was supposed to make his hair lush, shiny and soft as well as repairing any split ends or breakage that he'd had. He rubbed the thick cream into his hair and fitted the little plastic shower cap over his hair, then began to idly look through the other products that he found provided.

"You seem happy," the voice said, rising suddenly from the music.

"I am," Danny hummed, lathering himself with the aloe body wash and the scrubber he'd found in the shower. "This feels great."

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," the voice said. "We like it when you feel good."

"Better than good. Wonderful," Danny corrected.

"Tell me something, Daniel," the voice said. "Can you think of anything that would make you feel better still? Anything we can do to help you?"

Danny thought for a minute or so. "Hmm," he said. "Some little things, I guess."

"Like what?"

"I like the music," he said. "It makes my skin tingle, like the water."

"The water feels good?"

"Mmmm," Danny said. "My skin seems so much more sensitive than normal. The water is incredible. I could stay like this forever."

"And the hair on your body, that doesn't interfere?"

"I guess... maybe..."

The voice seemed a little impatient. "Really, Daniel. Is that symbol of your precious manhood worth more to you than feeling good? Isn't that a little immature?"

Danny thought a moment. "I guess I didn't think about it like that," he said. "But now that you mention it, no. It's not worth it."

He grabbed a bottle of depilatory and scanned the directions quickly, then stepped from underneath the water flow and smeared the pungent pink cream all over his body - chest, arms, legs, underarms, even near his pubic hair (which the bottle warned him to be careful about), waiting a few minutes until his skin began to itch and tingle before rinsing it off with a washcloth. Huge patches of hair fell away painlessly with every swipe and the water, now caressing his bare skin, was incredible. Danny finished his job and just luxuriated, eyes closed and hands wandering around his body, caressing gently.

"Better?" the voice asked.

"Oh, God," Danny said. "Incredible."

"Did you have any idea?" the voice asked.

"No," he breathed, floating in a cloud of pure pleasure.

"It's very simple, Daniel. The key to it is something you're not very accustomed to."

"What's that?" Danny asked, suddenly interested. Anything that could make him feel like he felt now, all the time, was worth some concentration.

"Softness. Softness is the key."

"Softness?" Danny asked.

"Exactly," the voice said. "With no hair, your skin is soft. Everything feels better when you're soft and smooth. The water from a shower, the clothes you wear, the breeze against your skin. Softness is the key."

"That sounds awfully simple."

"Test it," the voice said. "See the green bottle? That's lanolin and aloe body lotion. Put some on your arms and rub it in really good."

Danny, interested and amused, complied readily. The lotion rubbed into his skin easily, and the softness and sensitivity of the skin along his arms was intensified further still. It was like someone had amplified his sense of touch.

"Now, Daniel, imagine what you could feel if you met softness with softness. Imagine something like silk or satin against your skin the way it is now."

Danny couldn't suppress a moan at the thought, even as he was covering his hairless body with the lotion. He almost let the touch become sexual, but stopped himself as he realized with a shock that he'd been wearing the conditioner and shower cap for nearly ten minutes longer than prescribed on the bottle. He took the cap off in a hurry and rinsed his hair, which now fell in a thick, wet coil across his shoulder. It easily reached his shoulderblades and was, even with the water soaking into it, clearly several shades lighter than his natural color.

"Shit," Danny said, trying to wring it out.

"Is it such a disaster, Daniel, really?" the voice asked. "Don't you like the way it feels?"

Danny couldn't keep from caressing the soft coil over his shoulder. "I do," he admitted. "It just came as kind of a shock, that's all. But it is nice. And awfully soft."

"See what I mean?" the voice asked.

"I do," Danny replied. "Wonder if there's a silk robe out there that would fit me."

* * *

Dr. Karl Renfro wondered for a moment if he'd been remiss somehow, if maybe he'd thrown Joshua into the 'deep end of the pool' by not supervising his first beginning-to-end transformation. But the young man was as talented and fine a mind as Renfro had ever met in his long lifetime - so much so that Karl Renfro seriously suspected that the young doctor would easily surpass him in time. If ever there was a young man who could unravel the secrets of the Music of Change, it was Joshua Little.

Renfro walked the halls of his research facility, behind the Corporate Rewards facilities, reminiscing about his discovery of the Music of Change while trying to make inroads into a theory of Unified Mentality, much like Einstein's Grand Unified Field Theory. Renfro had long suspected that the mind's 'separate' parts were only facets of a greater gem, and it was in his research into the actual physical structure of brainwaves and brain emissions that he stumbled across the tonalities and frequencies that made up the Music. With the help of a very talented musician and a dear friend, an elderly Cheyenne shaman, he'd laid the foundations of the first Music.

The musician, Pedro Hernandez, had passed away years before, in a tragic plane crash which had cost the lives of nearly half of the philharmonic orchestra he'd been a part of, and Matthew Proudwing had succumbed to acute pneumonia only two years prior. Renfro hoped to see both of these men's names immortalized somehow, as vital organs in the evolution of the Music, which the doctor fervently hoped would someday change the world. The power of the Music was awesome, as mighty a vehicle for true, spiritual and physical healing as was penicillin in its day. Renfro relished the feeling of standing on the cusp of revolution. Only a few more transformations, inner healings and outer adjustments, and the Music would be ready for the world to know about. Every man and woman on the planet could become the person they most wanted to be, through the untapped potential in their own minds. The world would undergo a total revitalization, and Karl Renfro would have been a substantial part of it.

He considered his life well-lived. If only his poor Sarah would have lived to see it...

He opened the door to his office and paused - there was a faint tickling in the back of the doctor's mind, a stirring of instincts tavght to him in the jungles of Vietnam, before he'd become a doctor and dedicated himself to the healing of the fragile human mind. He reached out for the light switch tenuously, keeping himself behind the door.

"I wouldn't," a dark-sounding voice said to him from behind his desk. "Step into the room and keep your hands where I can see them, Doctor."

Renfro complied. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir," he said smoothly. "You know my name, but I don't know your own."

"And it will remain that way, Doctor," the voice said with a trace of a western European accent. Spanish? Italian?

Renfro clicked the door shut behind him and stood stock-still. "You mean to kill me?"

"I do," the voice said calmly. "I'm sorry."

A shadow detached itself from the other shadows behind his desk, vaguely man-shaped and pointing something at Renfro that glinted dully in the ambient light. A pistol.

"May I ask you why, sir?" Renfro said, his voice smooth and confident, from years and years of working with suicidal and homicidal patients.

"It's nothing personal, Doctor," the voice said, its accent now clearly Italian. From the northwest, near the Alps. Milan, perhaps, or Turin. "I have been contracted to see that you don't proceed any further with your work."

"By whom?" Renfro asked.

"That isn't for you to know."

"Killed by shadows," Renfro said, "with no names."

"Rather melodramatic, but it will suffice. I am terribly sorry, Doctor. You have my greatest respect."

"Thank you," Renfro said. There was no talking a contract killer out of this - there was no homicidal reasoning behind it. He was only 'doing his job' in his own eyes, much like a garbage collector or taxi driver. "Could I impose upon you to make it quick, sir?"

The shadowy man seemed amused. "Of course," he said.

Renfro backed against the wall, giving in to his fright. His hands clutched the walls beside him, as if he could somehow dig his way through them and into the hallway outside.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," he said in a quavering voice.

"Stay still; it will be ended soon," the man said.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, beside the still waters..."

The shadowy man thumbed back the hammer with a soft click. He took careful aim...

And was almost ready to pull the trigger when Renfro's hand found the little switch on the wall, almost behind his bookcase.

The room was bathed in purplish light and a thundering sound filled both men, shaking them to their marrow but refusing to let them collapse to the floor. Part of Renfro wanted to claw at his ears, to somehow block out the tumult. But it slowly took on shape, a form and a perceptibility. It became the Music somehow.

"What?" the shadowy man asked - revealed in the light to be a contract man who had processed several sets of identity papers for Renfro's patients. Arturo LaPaglia.

"The Music, Mr. LaPaglia," Renfro shouted to him over the crashing discordance.

"What is it doing to us?" the would-be assassin screamed back.

"Whatever it deems necessary," Renfro said, quivering at the power of his own creation. The Music burrowed through his flesh and into his soul, shaking him to his core while at the same time ferreting out his every pain and failure like shards of glass pulled from a wound. "A kinder fate than you had in store for me, Mr. LaPaglia."

"How can you call this kind?" Arturo screamed, the pistol dropping from nerveless, sweating fingers.

"Because we will both live," Renfro answered. "As what, only our hearts can know right now. But we will live."

The Music soared and drove them both to their knees.

* * *

Danny Royal had never felt better in his life. The next room had been a large dance floor. When he'd first entered, he hadn't known what he was expected to do in a large empty room with mirrored walls, but the music had somehow infused its way down his legs and arms and he began to move.

At first he felt silly. But as the music encouraged him, he found a deeper sense of self and purpose in the dance that he'd never even considered before. There was something there, hidden deep in the fusion of music and movement, that called to him. Pulled him deeper into himself, made him look at what he had been and what he was becoming.

"Are you happy, Daniel?" the voice asked, but Danny wasn't sure if the voice was coming from the music or somewhere deep inside his head and heart.

"I want to be. So badly," Danny said.

"What stops you?"

"Ugliness," Danny answered. "Misunderstanding. Somehow it's not right for me to be the way I am, even if I'm the way I am for all the right reasons."

"You can fling yourself against it body and soul, Daniel, but you may never find a way through these walls before you're broken into a million pieces."

"Then I'll just have to break," Danny said with trembling courage.

"You're in a burning building, Daniel, and you have a door which is held shut by debris or air pressure and you can't get through," the voice said. "You know there's someone on the other side of that door that needs your help. How do you find them? Do you immediately begin smashing through that wall?"

"Of course not," Danny said. "The first thing is to try and find another door."

"Good advice," the voice said amusedly.

"So what is the other door to understanding, then?" Danny asked. "How do I get people to understand me when I can't seem to make them through my actions?"

"Have you considered that it's not the actions that are at fault?"

"What do you mean?" Danny asked, still dancing.

"Do you remember grade school, Daniel?"

"More or less."

"What did the boys act like back then, Daniel?"

Danny smirked. "We were all a bunch of monkeys," he said. "We fucked around and messed things up and strutted around trying to impress everybody, especially girls."

"And were the girls impressed?"

"Not often," Danny said. "They seemed more interested in what was genuine."

"I think you just answered your own question," the voice said.

"What? That I'm misunderstood because I'm a boy? That everybody thinks I'm doing the things I do because I'm trying to impress everybody?"

"Think about it. Alice and you both did the same things for the same reasons. Why was Alice accepted for it when you weren't?"

"Because... because..."

"Say it, Daniel, it's all right. It needs saying."

"Because she was a woman."

"So you see your solution, Daniel, don't you?" the voice asked.

"That I would be accepted and understood if I was a woman?" Danny said, scarcely believing his own words. On the one hand, it sounded like sour grapes, just sexist griping about the grass being greener. But on the other - it was so simple but so compelling...

"Do you really think that's true?" Danny asked the voice.

"In a lot of ways, yes," the voice said. "Why don't you try it and see?"

"Try what?"

"Being a woman," the voice said.

"What, you mean wear a dress and makeup?"

"There's a lot more to being a woman than that, Daniel," the voice said sternly. "You think it's any less difficult to be a woman than a man? That's it's just clothes and going in a different restroom when nature calls? You should know better than that."

"I do," Danny said apologetically. "It just seems strange to imagine being a woman."

"Don't imagine," the voice corrected. "You can't just imagine it. You have to live it."

"How do I do that?" Danny asked.

"It all starts with you, Daniel," the voice said. "It begins by your wanting to be understood, and accepted. It begins with your wanting to be a woman."

"I want to be understood," Danny said, almost crying. "I want to be accepted for what I am. I want... I want..."

"Say it, Danny. There's nothing wrong with it," the voice coaxed.

"I want... to be..."

"There's no weakness in it," the voice urged. "All you have to do is want it."

Danny's mind was a wash of images - the consummate beauty and grace of the female form, the little nuances of movement and expression, the breathtaking nameless essence that was a woman just sitting idle. Every motion, every curve, every tiny little imperfection served to create the whole, and the whole was beautiful. It was desirable. It was what it was, and that - in and of itself - is accepted and even expected to work towards the common good. The mother in all women seemed to make actions such as Danny's selfless and devoid of self-serving intent.

"I want to be a woman," Danny breathed. "I want to be a beautiful woman."

The dance carried him along, the music burning along his skin like a lover's touch. As his arms extended, their muscles compacted and slimmed, becoming long and lissome instead of bulky and imposing. The hard angles of his body slowly relaxed into sinuous curves, filling out and becoming one with the glorious softness which Danny had experienced in the shower. The fingers lengthened and the nails extended, overhanging his fingertips with a lovely length. The waist tucked in deeply while the hips flared - but the dance carried him well, compensating for the changing center of gravity. Now-dainty feet slithered and pirouetted across the parquet floor, propelled by long, well-formed legs. A slender, well-muscled back covered with a lush curtain of dark ash blonde hair over a derrihre that was a rounded bubble of feminine perfection. Even the hard edges of her abdominal 'six-pack' was somehow soft and feminine, the swell of her ribcage prominent but not bony above it, and overhung with large, tight breasts which rode high on her chest like a teenager's... a little on the large side for her torso, but not grotesquely so, in the pleasant neighborhood of a 36D. A long swan's neck and a very angular, aquiline face with narrow cheekbones, a softly rounded chin and a very long, slender 'Bridget Fonda' nose. High arched brows and over-large, warm eyes the color of a sparkling emerald. A thin-lipped but expressive mouth, seemingly ready at a moment's notice to split into a wide, toothy, nose-wrinkling grin. Her teeth were white, even and straight. Her hair fell in luminous layers, with a gentle natural wave which made her look as if she spent hours on in when in reality it was only a few minutes with a blow-dryer.

Danny pirouetted to a stop and looked carefully in the mirrors on every wall, staring in awe at the green-eyed beauty that looked back at her. Long-nailed hands reached up carefully, touching the porcelain face in fragile disbelief, stroking the long slender arms, the full and inviting breasts with the large, proud pink nipples, down the flat stomach and over the little thatch of blonde curls which formed a slender delta between her thighs.

"I don't believe it," she breathed in a charmingly nasal soprano. "It can't be real."

"You made it real," the voice said. "You, Daniel."

"I'm beautiful," she whispered.

"You are. Inside and out. Are you happy?" the voice asked.

"I... I don't know what I am."

"Think, Daniel. Do you feel right, inside? Do you feel like that dreadful rift has closed and you're complete inside?"

Tears leaked unashamedly out of the large green eyes, clinging to long cheek-brushing lashes before falling down the smooth, unblemished cheeks. "I do," she sobbed.

"Is there anything missing?"

"I don't know who this woman is," Danny said.

"That, my dear, is simple. She is Danielle Renie Royal, firefighter. She's the same face you've seen in the mirror since childhood, you just haven't seen her with the proper eyes."

"Danielle Renie Royal," she repeated.

"The rest of the information you'll have to fill out yourself," the voice said to the beautiful blonde staring transfixed into the mirror, tracing her every contour with long, feminine fingers. "But you have a lifetime for that, Danielle. A whole lifetime."

Danielle laughed richly, a tinkling affair that was half-giggle and half-bellylaugh. "I sure as hell do," she said, wiping her eyes. "And I can't wait to get started."

* * *

After choosing an outfit for the ride home - a long black skirt with a slit up one side, calf-high black suede boots with black hose, a tight burgundy knit sweater with no sleeves and a turtleneck, a lovely silver chain with an abstract pendant, matching earrings and a tailored black leather coat, Joshua put Danielle - a very lovely girl, to say the least - in her little Mazda truck. He'd made a mental note to look into the physiological effects of the Music on the new transformees - there was an almost 100% incidence of smoking among them. Perhaps it was some chemical imbalance in the body left from the transformation, but Joshua tended to suspect that it was an elevated interest in pleasure (even above that of personal health) and the socialized glamour which was associated with sexy women and cigarettes, whether it was Mae West or Sharon Stone. Or maybe it was a 'bad girl' thing, a throw back to the attitude of the man who became the woman. It really didn't matter to Joshua. He was known to sneak a smoke with friends from time to time, and really didn't see the harm in it. And if it made them feel happy, or sexy, or even just a little 'bad,' then all the more for the better.

He knocked on Dr. Renfro's door softly, hoping the older man was there to share in his first real victory. There was noise aplenty coming through the door, but no answer. He tried the knob, and the automated security system buzzed loudly. The door display blinked red and displayed "Omega Protocol Enacted. Room Sealed."

"Omega?" Joshua said breathlessly, knowing the doomsday scenario that the doctor kept in place just in case their work was discovered by those who might exploit it. He tugged frantically on the door, swiping his passcard over and over and trying to key in his manual override.

Finally the door clicked open. Joshua nearly stumbled in, flipping on the lights with one hand as he yelled, "Karl!"

There were no signs of a struggle. Only two young women on the floor, swimming in the remains of the clothes they'd worn before the transformation. A gorgeous Mediterranean beauty, no more than nineteen, lay farthest from the door with a silenced 9mm pistol in one long-nailed hand.

The other girl, nearest the door, lay peacefully in a veritable puddle of an expensive suit, her long honey-gold locks spilling around her china-doll face like a cascade of precious metal. Joshua knelt beside her, shaking her small form slightly, but still enough to make the positively enormous breasts on her chest jiggle back and forth seductively.

"Doctor Renfro?" Joshua asked as the sapphire eyes opened slowly and focused between the longest set of eyelashes he'd ever seen.

"Josh?" the girl giggled in a bubbly cheerleader soprano with a hint of a giggle. "What's up, cutie?"

"Are you all right, doctor?" Joshua asked, rocking back on his heels.

The girl pursed her bee-stung lips in a moue which nearly raised Joshua's blood pressure. She ran a caressing, sultry hand - tipped with elegantly long fingernails - across the upper surface of one large breast as she replied, "Do I look all right?"

"You look... I mean..."

She giggled. "I'm okay, Josh. Better than okay. I'm, like, perfect."

Joshua pointed to the other girl, who lay in a senseless heap not far away. "Who is... I mean, who was she?"

"Somebody that came to kill me," Dr. Renfro said vacantly, twirling a strand of her lush honey-blonde hair around one finger. "Some Italian dude. Don't remember his name."

"I should take you down to observation, Doctor. You might be injured."

"Sure, whatever," the Doctor said, hopping up. "D'you, like, have some clothes I can put on? I look stupid in this suit."

"Sure," Joshua said, moving to the doctor's phone to call security and to inform Heather and Jenna. "Just let me call security to come collect this other young woman."

"Cool," Dr. Renfro said, moving towards the picture-encrusted wall, still twirling her hair around one finger. Even in the oversized suit, which barely stayed on her slender frame, she moved with all the sensuous grace of an exotic dancer, with an exaggerated sway in her hips which almost caused Joshua to misdial the phone.

"I totally can't believe I used to look like that," she said, tapping the frame of a picture which showed Dr. Renfro and Joshua in the lab. "You look cute, though."

"Uh... thanks. Look. Dr. Renfro..."

"Karla," the girl corrected.

"Karla," Joshua said. "Security will be here in a moment. I should take you down to the exam rooms and make sure everything's okay with you."

"Cool," Karla said, taking Joshua's arm as he led her out into the hallway. She almost seemed to be dancing a little, the way Joshua remembered the cheerleaders in junior high doing as they walked.

"Everything's going to work out," Joshua said, more to himself than to the girl.

"I know," Karla said happily. She turned to Joshua in shock, a small gasp escaping her sensuous mouth. "Dude. Do you have a cigarette?"

* * *

"It could only have been Arturo," Jenna said, looking at the two young women blissfully trying on clothes in one of the reassignment booths in Corporate Rewards. "You said he came to kill Dr. Renfro?"

"Yes," Joshua said, rubbing grit from his sleep-deprived eyes.

"Can you change him back, Joshua?" Heather asked.

"No," Joshua replied. "The key to the whole process is that the subject has to want to be changed. Look at her. She's never been so happy in her life."

Heather sighed. "Who knew the Doctor would be so flighty?"

"He was under tremendous stress and responsibility," Joshua said. "It makes sense that his ideal life would be free of such commitments and demands. In escaping those demands, he formed himself subconsciously into the queen of all airheads."

"I'm still having difficulty thinking of that bimbo as the Doctor," Heather said. "I mean, I caught her outside the secure facility three hours ago blowing one of the guards."

"Sexual freedom," Joshua said. "It all makes sense. But I can't reverse it."

"Can you at least find a way to contact Dr. Renfro?" Jenna asked. "Just some way to talk to the man, if he still exists inside Karla? Or even Arturo, if he can be found inside this girl Alexis."

"I'm working on it," Joshua said tiredly. "It's difficult. The Music does what the Music does, and we can only hope to graft our desires and direction to it. We can't control it, only guide it. I have to find a way to work what we want to happen into the fabric of the Music itself, and it's like trying to direct a thunderstorm by gesturing at it."

Jenna rubbed his aching shoulders tenderly. "You'll get it, Joshua. The Doctor had faith in you."

"And in the meantime, we're going to figure out who the hell Arturo was working for," Heather added.

"How are you going to do that?" Joshua asked.

"We just got word from Danielle Royal," Heather said. "We told her basically what happened, about the stolen passcard and a few of the circumstances behind it. She told us that she knows some people who can help us investigate. They're coming tomorrow to interview some of the people on the staff."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah," Heather said, "she's being decorated for valor in two weeks, she's buying a new car - a convertible - and she signed up to pose for the Fireman's Calendar."

Joshua mustered a weak smile. "Good," he said. "At least some good has come of this."

"Nothing but," Heather said. "Even if the Doctor is lost to us, at least I can look at Karla and know a part of him is very, very happy."

Joshua nodded. "Which is another reason why I don't want to disturb him. He earned his life as Karla. Who are we to try and take that away from him?"

No one had an answer. They could only stare at the two gorgeous girls digging through the racks of clothes and putting on makeup on the other side of the two-way mirror.

The End of Part Three