A Whateley Academy Tale

Jade 6-d – Dreams and Awakening

By Babs Yerunkle

 

42: The Truth about Jade

November 20, Monday evening, 8:15 PM

“Whoa, hold on here!” Billie said, eyeing her chalk-white duplicate.  “I think one of me is enough.”

Jinn-Tennyo threw back the hood of her cloak and announced in Billie’s voice, “That’s right!  One of us is enough, imposter!”

“Stop it, stop it, time out!” Toni shouted, moving up to Jinn.  “You don’t really believe you’re Billie, do you?  I mean, look at yourself!  You don’t even have a body!  Well, not for real.”

Scowling with Billie’s scowl and talking with Billie’s irritated rasp, Jinn said, “Way to spoil the classic mood, sempai!  Don’t you know that when this sort of thing happens, the unwitting duplicate always has to fight the original!  It’s in the rulebook or something.”

Billie pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Couldn’t we just arm wrestle?  I really don’t think we should trash the room.”

Jinn took up a matching stance, mimicking Billie’s floating position, body language, and movements with disturbing accuracy.  “Yer on, oneesan!  Uh, I mean, duplicate imposter!”

The two Tennyos clasped hands – one flesh and blood (even if it was exotic blood), the other a surface outlined in chalk dust.  With the first flex of her arms, the real Tennyo flipped her ghostly duplicate up and over, to splat against the wall.

“Ooookay,” Jinn admitted.  “I guess I didn’t get your strength.  How about the zap-stuff?  How do you make the sword?”

“Our room, remember?” Billie reminded her.  “Let’s forget about the sword.  Maybe just a little glow.”  She held up her hand, which was suddenly outlined in crimson, like St. Elmo’s Fire.  “Try this.  This should be relatively safe.”

“Right,” Jinn agreed eagerly.  “Uh, how?”

“You just… I don’t know.  Push some energy into your hand.  Not too much, just a teeny flicker.”

Jinn held out her hand and concentrated.  “Is it working?  Cause I’m not getting that weird ripple effect that you’re making.”

Jade smacked herself in the face, realizing that Jinn couldn’t see the light.  “Her hand is glowing,” she explained to her other self.

“Oh.  Am I glowing?”

“No.”

“Well, what other powers do you have, oneesan?”

Billie was obviously feeling a bit less worried now.  “Let’s see, I can fly…”

“Check,” Jinn responded in the same voice.

“…I can ignore gravity…”

“Check.”

“…walk on the ceiling and stuff…”

“Check.”

“…I’m stunningly attractive…”

“Check.”

The other girls gave a bit of a double take at this, but Billie continued blithely on.

“…I can see in the dark…”

“Check.”

“…I have mind control powers…”

“Che—What?  You don’t have mind control powers!”

“Just testing if you’re paying attention.  Hmm, what else?  I have caustic semi-explosive blood…”

“Nope.  No blood.”

“…and I can do energy blasts and the sword.”

“Nope.  That was a bust.”

Toni, at least, had been paying attention.  “Okay, so to summarize, nothing has changed!”

“How can you say that?” Jade demanded.  “Look at me!”  She gestured at Jinn while she said that.  “I look completely different!  I sound different!  How am I supposed to go to school tomorrow?”

Chou finally spoke up.  “Can you change back?”

Jinn paused.  “Good question.”  She closed her eyes, and after a moment, her entire body seemed to shake.  But there was no change.  She dropped off her black cloak and clothing, as her chalk body suddenly spun into a tornado-like vortex.  She compressed down to a small blot of compressed black and white dust, then expanded back into a person again.  But still, she looked like a ghostly duplicate of Tennyo.

“Do you mind?” Billie shouted.  “That’s my body!  I’d rather not be flashing my boobs to everyone who walks by.”

“What a grouch,” Jade complained.  “It’s not like you don’t waltz around the room in the buff yourself.”

Nikki took a quick look out the door, and upon spotting Hank, Jamie, and others drawn out by the commotion, she kicked the door closed.

“Okay, let’s think this out,” Sara suggested.  “I know that Jinn is supposed to be Jade’s Body Image Template.  If the machine copied Billie’s BIT over the top of Jinn, it should have overwritten her the BIT, making a Jinn a physical copy of Billie – or as close as you could manage.  Which is exactly what we’ve seen.  So what’s the problem, and why would you think you could change back?”

“But how am I going to show up for class tomorrow?”

Toni shrugged.  “Hey, it’s Whateley.”

“But you’ve changed your BIT before,” Billie reminded both her roommates.

“Of course,” Jinn and Jade responded together.  Jade continued alone, “I used self-hypnosis to convince myself I should look older.  That was part of what proved that Jinn was my BIT.”

“Give me a try.”  Floating in the air, Jinn folded her feet into a full lotus, and assumed a triangular meditation pose.

“Oh, geez,” Billie protested.  “Get a loincloth!”

“No good,” Jinn announced.  “You do it.”  She flew down to her clothes to retrieve a small, black velvet pouch.  Swirling into a miniature tornado again, her powder swirled back into the pouch.  The pouch then dropped into Jade’s hand as Jinn vanished.

Jade sat down on her bed, and seemed to nervously play with her hands while she concentrated and mumbled to herself.  After a minute, she summoned Jinn up again.  The velvet pouch rose into the air and then erupted into a fog of white and black dust which then coalesced into … Billie.  A naked Billie, once more.

“This is interesting,” Sara said.  “Maybe it was different for the rest of you, but I arrived late on the scene.  I accepted your whole explanation of Jinn at face value, and never considered it too closely.  Not until now.  But it doesn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?” Jade and Jinn both asked.  It was unexpected to hear Jade speaking in synch with Billie, which is what it sounded like now.

Sara walked to Jade’s bed and picked up the toy lion.  “Hey, didn’t this used to be tan?”

“That’s Kimba,” Jade explained.  “The real one.  Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba.”

“Oh.”  The pale Goth girl glanced at her own skin, the white lion, and the chalk-white figure of Jinn.  “I like it.”

Under her breath, Toni muttered that the place needed more color.

“The point is this,” Sara continued.  “If Jinn is just an animated BIT, how can she animate the toy lion?  How does she inhabit things like the blanket, or other objects?”

“Well I just—”  Jade stopped with her mouth open.  “—I just do it.”

Sara held out the lion toy.  “Okay.  Just do it.  Only take the chalk powder with you, when you charge the lion.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

A moment later, the toy Kimba was animated and standing on the bed, coated in a thick layer of chalk dust.  “How’s this?” he squeaked.

“Ah ha!”  Sara sounded vindicated.

“What?”

“Jinn, ‘drop’ the toy, but keep the chalk dust.”

“If you say so.”

The stuffed toy slumped to the bed, while the chalk outline slowly pulled away from it.  “How’s this?” it squeaked in repetition.

“Now that was weird,” Nikki said.  “It looked like astral projection for toys.”

“Oh,” Toni said in sudden realization.  “I get it.”

Sara smirked.  “Uh huh.  Now, you’re holding that shape entirely on your own.  Why do you look like Kimba?  Why don’t you look like Billie?”

The lion paused in consternation.  After a moment, it closed its eyes and contracted to a point.  An instant later, the chalk cloud expanded back outward, assuming Billie’s shape again.  “Bingo.”  Her voice was Billie’s as well.

“And can you go back?” Sara asked, casually.

‘Billie’ closed her eyes and contracted into a point.  This time the cloud expanded back into a small toy lion.  “It works,” the lion squeaked.

“And can you go back to being Jade?”

This time the cloud didn’t contract into a point, it just smoothly flowed.  It expanded and stretched until a naked white 17-year-old Jade stood in front of them.  “I did it!”  She spoke in her own voice, and seemed surprised at herself.

“But how did you know?” Jade asked.

Sara shrugged.  “Like I said, the whole ‘BIT projection’ explanation was interesting, but it didn’t quite fit the abilities you displayed.  You told me that when Jinn ‘grew up’ she ripped through the costume she was wearing at the time.  So why didn’t the lion toy get ripped?  And to be honest, it was mostly a lucky guess.”

Jinn was dressing again, but Jade continued to follow the thread of discussion.  “So I’m still not sure if I get it.  What does this mean?  That I’ve got Billie’s BIT, and mine, and a toy lion?  Toys don’t have BITs.”

“No, no, no,” Sara stated authoritatively.  “They’ve been telling you that you were some sort of repressed exemplar, and that Jinn was your BIT.  Don’t you see?  That theory was wrong.  You weren’t a repressed exemplar at all.”

“But the BIT-slicer worked – at least partly.”

Sara nodded.  “Of course it did.  Because you’re actually a repressed shapeshifter.”

43: UnderUnder wear

November 20, Monday evening, Midnight

One of Jade’s great advantages was that she had enough time.  Most people talked about how they never had enough hours in the day, but she had more than enough.  And there was always one of her that was free to just think about things.  It was starting to affect her behavior, since, as Jade (physical Jade), she often didn’t bother to think deeply about things.  Jade’s job was to be alert and react quickly and properly.  Jann could watch and think.

Right now she was Jamie the SpySpeck, but maybe she should think of herself as Jann, since she was busy thinking, and that was usually Jann’s job.

After curfew, the students were supposed to be asleep in their beds.  The cottage was locked down.  Those restrictions couldn’t contain a SpySpeck, though, and she drifted under doors and out a crack in the sunroom.  Moments later she was floating in the air, high above a quiet and sleepy campus.

Her self-image had taken a major shock, and she’d been holding off thinking about it.  It was time to face the issue.

She was a girl.  She wanted that.  She needed it to be true.

When she’d first come to Whateley, it had been greatly comforting to learn that she was an exemplar.  If her BIT was female, then she was meant to be female.  It was just something that was.  There was a mystery about why she didn’t change to match her bit, but that would be solved in time.  She knew what she wanted, and she knew what was meant to be, and they were the same.

But a shapeshifter?  She could be anything or nothing.  What did it matter?  Was that why she hadn’t aged, was it a shapeshifting power?  Had she subconsciously frozen her body shape?  And when she was fully trained, would she be able to change gender as easily as she could now shift between her own shapes and Billie’s form?

That was wrong.

She didn’t want to be a boy.  She didn’t mind that other people were boys, but for her own identity she needed to be a girl – always and forever.

Was that very freedom something that scared her?  Is that why she couldn’t use her powers?

It was something to think about, but fortunately, she had the time.

There was one other issue that she’d been avoiding.

When she’d accepted Sharisha’s dare and the invitation to the hot tub party, she’d been hoping the BIT-slicer would work and that she’d be going as a girl.  It sounded like the BIT-slicer might still work, but not in time for the party.  And she had every reason to believe that Sharisha and her friends would be scrutinizing her closely for any oddities.  Her “tuck” was good enough for the gym showers, but she was careful to keep herself covered whenever possible, and to keep in motion when she was in the showers.  The hot tub would be entirely different.

It was a shame that she couldn’t go as Jinn.  Experimenting with shapechanging had shown that she could shift between her seventeen year old body and her eleven year old body, or anything in between.  With the plastic skin from costume lab, she could recreate herself as Jade, only female.

But the girls in Poe knew her tricks.  They were sure to spot that, weren’t they?  And if they did, not only would it blow the cover she’d created for Jinn, it would make the questions about Jade a hundred times worse.

And then she got the idea…

*****

The bell rang for the end of costume class, but Jinn didn’t leave.  She stayed into the lab room, pre-arranged and pre-reserved.  She attended the simmering pot of plastic flesh.

A moment later, Jade came into the room and cast Jann into the pot of plastic skin.

There wasn’t enough to do a whole-body casting, but she didn’t need that.  She watched as Jann pushed the material around to where they needed it.

Like a manikin, a set of hips formed in mid-air.  Just the first inch or two of thigh was visible.

“That spot right there has the pink tinting,” Jade said.  “See it?”

The material difference was barely visible to Jinn, but she saw the plastic shift and move and the material shifted itself around.  The floating hips spread their legs wide, giving plenty of exposure and air to the area they were concentrating on.

“You got the glue?” Jade asked.

“We’ve got the two-hour, twelve-hour, and permanent.”  She reminded herself.  “Which?”

“You think the collection tube will work?”

Jinn nodded to reassure herself.  Even if the tube failed, or the glue failed, she could hold everything with telekinesis.

“Permanent, then.”  Jade quickly locked the door and then, lifting her skirt, she stepped out of her panties.  “Let’s do it now!”

“The plastic’s still hot.  We could get burned.”

Jade rolled her eyes, but the glow of emotions on her face was even more evocative.  Impatience, desperation, need, anticipation.  They quickly assembled the needed pieces, which Jinn trimmed the plastic hip flesh carefully with scissors and threaded the urethral tube in place.  Then, Jade squatted with knees wide, Jann cast into the different parts, and Jinn supervised as everything came together.

Jinn watched the collection cuff as it wrapped and glued itself tight around her body’s boy-part.  Then the tuck, with more glue to hold everything in place, permanently.  Then the final cosmetic, as the plastic prosthetic smoothed itself into place over her now female-appearing crotch.  Jinn took a brush and painted still-liquid plastic over the joint between the prosthetic and her body’s flesh.  She couldn’t miss the red glows of pain coming from her body’s flesh, as she did so.

“Hurt?”

“A bit.  How do I look?”

“Stay like that for a second while you dry.”

Jade was in about the most obscene pose imaginable, squatting with her knees so far apart.

“Don’t know what it looks like in color,” Jinn admitted, “but you look perfect.”

“Really?  Hand me the mirror!” Jade demanded eagerly.

*****

November 21, Tuesday evening, 6:30 PM

James was prompt for the rendezvous outside the cafeteria.  The dinner crowd was still flowing in and out.  They all avoided him, of course.  When Jade arrived, he mentally classed her attitude as something between proud and defiant.

As she came up, Jade stopped.  She didn’t come into his “uncomfortable zone.”  No one ever did, if they could help it.  James wanted to ask her about Jinn’s unbelievable comment of the previous day, but he didn’t know how to start.

In silent, mutual agreement, they stepped around the corner and out of sight.  After glancing around, Jade held out a small white plastic box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

“Okay, absorb her from this, then charge her back, okay.  For as long as you can, okay?  And whatever images you see – I don’t care!  You don’t know what it’s like, and I’m going to do whatever I have to become what I was meant to be!  I kept your secret, and you’ve kept mine until now, so I’m trusting you, okay?”

He wasn’t going to get a better opening than that.  “Is it true, then?  You’re not trying to turn into a boy?”

She suddenly looked utterly dumbfounded.  “Why would I want to stay a boy?  Wait, you thought I was a girl, trying to turn into—?”

He nodded.

For a moment, she didn’t seem to know how to react.  Her mouth squirmed around as if unsure whether to laugh or cry.  Then she thrust out the box.  “Here!  Do your thing, okay?”

James reached out to grab the box.  This was so unusual.  He usually tried so hard not to absorb things.  Now he was going to do it on purpose.  He touched the box and – it was different.  Very different.  Usually the spiritual contact with immediate, too close, too intimate.  This was close, yet far.  There was a barrier in the way, like the paper wall of an oriental house.  A barrier he could see and feel, but with the least pressure he had ripped through it and taken the spirit inside like a vicious brute takes a helpless maiden.  He hated that about himself.

But she came to him willingly, flowing into him and filling him in a complete reversal of his previous tone.  She filled him, and he accepted her within him.  And the images flowed fluidly between them –

– a monster with her wings wrapped tight around her shoulders lay in a box that was as large as a coffin and as small as a fist – a Whateley Academy business card, and on the back was written “Melodious Silvertongue, class of ‘87.” – a machine held her, sending jolts of power through her body as she spun – a glimpse of the Halloween attack, as a huge figure in powered armor raced toward her – a slightly plump black girl yelling terrible things into her face: “What’s a boy doing wearing skirts like that?  Are you a pervert or some sort of diaper sissy?” – a strange symbol at the end of a tunnel, associated with utter terror – having a fantasy about a slim girl named Lily – a hairy fist punched her face and she felt great satisfaction as her face snapped shut like a bear trap – a naked man sitting on the edge of the bed telling her, “you are without a doubt the best fuck I have ever had” – she reached with a paintbrush toward Jade’s utterly exposed privates, as if to apply some sort of cosmetic down there –

Reeling under the onslaught of images, James thrust the spirit back into the box, with all the force he could muster.

“You good?” Jade asked innocently, apparently unaware of the disturbingly powerful and personal images he’d just seen.  But apparently she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to the box, which lifted into the air and bobbed momentarily, before abruptly vanishing.

“Thank you so much!”  Jade swung open her arms to hug him, but James stepped back.

“Uh, yeah.”  He wasn’t sure he could stand another blast of images like the last one.  Not so soon.  “I … I hope things work out for you.”

As the girl practically bounced away, he was left more confused than ever.  He’d seen the images.  He’d felt the memories.  So how could she possibly think she was a boy?

*****

Jinn … no, she was Lazuli in this body.  She maneuvered the small box through the network of old pneumatic tubes.  It was amazing, some of the stuff that riddled the underground.  The end of the tube exited in the base of the statue, exactly as promised.  She slid upward, through the sole of the foot, and traveled up the inside of the hollow leg.

She was inside a hollow stone shell.  Now came the tricky part.

Thuban’s tiny box was the key.  She didn’t know whether it was magic or technology or something even stranger.  Perhaps it didn’t matter.  The box worked, that was the important thing.  The outside was no larger than a pack of cigarettes, while the inside was as large as a small closet.  It wasn’t spacious, particularly for her gargoyle body, but fortunately she wasn’t subject to muscle cramps.

The magic (or whatever) happened at the opening to the box.  On the inside, things were small.  On the outside, they were large.  And just at the mouth of the “cigarette pack” was where the change happened.  There was a field there, a surface or something.  Matter passed though that zone like light went through a lens.  Stretching an arm up out of the closet caused that arm to return to its real size and weight, expanding like light through a magnifying glass.  The effect was perfectly smooth.  Looking from the inside only, she wouldn’t have even realized that she wasn’t floating up through a large hatch.  Looking from the outside, she saw the arm suddenly appearing, almost from nothing.  But looking from the inside and outside simultaneously, she could see the boundary layer, where the change occurred.

As she clambered out of her holding box, she looked around.  She was inside a small hollow cavern.  It was strangely contoured, and she heard the echo of explosions and shouting, although somewhat muffled.

Fortunately, she knew where she was.  This was a statue of her.  That is, a hollow status of Lazuli.  It was standing in the back of the theater, and the action scene that was currently playing should cover any noise she might make.  Her job was to slip into place inside the statue, and wait for her cue.

Even with the shrinkifying box, it was a trick.  Her wings were the main issue – slipping them into place required some genuine concentration.  Fortunately, she was able to switch to object mode, tugging at pulling at each corner of her body separately, until she just fit.

After that, she sit there and listened, awaiting her cue.

Her hearing was muffled inside her stony shell, but she heard the movie end, and shortly after that she heard Thuban as he came closer.

“…might appreciate a bit of a novelty.  As you will sssee, thisss work is obviously inspired by the ssshow we were just watching.  Of course, this is nothing but a prop.  This certainly isn’t a real gargoyle – if those even exist.  But perhapsss with the magic of hope, and Hollywood, and perhaps a bit of our own Whateley touch, we might imagine that this lifelessss ssstatue is just a bit more.  I present, for the adornment of the Faction Three Theater, our new mascot: Lazuli.”

She felt a slight vibration, and there was a sound, as if a cloth was being pulled off of a statue.

There was scattered applause.

“Do you all approve of our massscot?”

There were generally positive murmurs.

“Then letsss ask Lazuli to join usss.  Lazuli: awaken!”

And that was her cue.  She flexed her wings first, cracking the fake stony covering.  Flexing her shoulders and legs spread the cracks, and then one mighty heave broke the covering free, spraying bits of grit in a wide circle around her.  She stretched her arms and wings wide and pressed the “roar” effect button on her voice box, simulating that she had just awakened.  Then, belatedly looking around, she allowed herself to notice the debris-covered crowd around her.

“Oops,” she said.  “Sorry about that, but it serves you right, standing so close to someone who’s waking up.”

The emotions were mixed in the crowd around her.  Some were blasé, having expected something of the sort.  Most displayed a certain amount of surprise.  One even blazed with incandescent joy and hope.

She snapped wide her wings and fanned them for a moment, blowing loose the last of the debris, then used the loft to hop off the pedestal and drop to the ground.  Once her elongated feet were planted, she furled her wings and wrapped the wings around herself like a leathery cloak.

“Have I been gone long?  This doesn’t look like Salem.  Those uptight humans aren’t still running wild, are they?”

Thuban stepped up.  “Things have changed considerably.  But these people are the important and influential ones that you’ll need to meet.  Allow me to begin the introductions.”

“Wow,” she said appreciatively, “not a bad looking bunch, either!”

*****

She was thankful for her fine memory.  She’d need it, to even have a hope of keeping the faces and names straight.  The wider variety of physical forms didn’t always help, either.  Some of the Faction Three kids had easy-to-remember code name, like Armadillo, but others preferred to use their real names.

She’d gathered an initial crowd after her entrance, and after that she had circulated around, doing her best to fulfill what she thought of as Thuban’s goal – getting the girls and guys to mix it up a bit.

At the moment, she had a trio of girls around her – Jana, Sted, and Tool.  The girls were apparently drawn together because they were all shapeshifters of a sort. The first two girls were both human-horse hybrids; Jana was a traditional centaur wearing an incongruously normal T-shirt on her upper human half, while Sted was a pony-girl, roughly humanoid but with equine legs, feet and hooves.  Sted’s halter, shorts, and hoof-boots seemed designed to emphasize her differences, rather than concealing them.  Tool was odder than either of her two companions.  She almost looked like a “Jawa” from Star Wars, hunched over within her hooded robe.  And whatever her body was like within the robe, it seemed to be in a fairly low level of shifting and alterations, since the robe’s few openings displayed hands, tentacles, or claws at various points, and the facial opening allowed the occasional glimpse of eyestalks.  Once, Jinn-Lazuli got a full glimpse into the hood, and saw her own face reflected within (or rather, the face of Lazuli).

“Okay, what’s really going on?”  Tool demanded.  “I know you didn’t go to sleep during the Salem witch trials.”

“Really?  How do you know that?”

“It’s just that Thuban was so cagey.  He hinted that you were… I don’t know…”

“What?”

“Well, a prop or something.  A fake.  Not real.”

Jinn-as-Lazuli did her best to laugh.  “Oh, come on.  Feel my hand!  It’s real, isn’t it?  I’m as real as any of the other gargoyles you’ve heard of.”  She let her voice get a bit more serious.  “But does it really matter?  What if I was a fake?  A moment ago I was talking to those two boys over there.  There were convinced that I was a ‘ro-bot,’ which I understand is some sort of clockwork soldier.  So?  What if I was?  What’s more important, what’s inside of me, or the way I look on the outside?”

“True,” nodded Jana.

She couldn’t see Tool’s face, to spot a smile, but there was a glow of pleasure from inside the hood.  Jinn assumed it was in reaction to her backward cliché.

She chatted with the trio a bit longer, interested that Jana claimed not to be a shifter, despite being a centaur.

“No, I’m not an exemplar or anything,” the girl said, confusing the issue further.  “I’m just a centaur today.”

“Okay…”  She wanted to follow up, but the Tool girl had been grilling her almost non-stop, so when another boy moved past them, she turned to him in relief.  The trio of girls backed off.

“Hi there!” she greeted enthusiastically.  “I’m Lazuli!”

“Skinner,” he mumbled back.

“Nice name,” she agreed.  “Does it mean anything?”

He stared back with distrust.  “You’re kidding, right?  You don’t need to mock me.”

“Uh… I don’t?”

She could see his emotions swirl down from anger to suspicious puzzlement.

“Are you serious?” he finally asked.  “You really don’t get it?”

“Sorry,” she confessed.

With a malicious tinge to his aura, he thrust a hand out.  “Okay, I forgive you.  Shake on it.”

She shrugged.  He didn’t seem to have the “feel” of an avatar.  Even if he was one, she thought she was solidly anchored to the gargoyle-body.  It would take an avatar Hercules as powerful as James to pull her out of this body.

“Okay.”

As soon as their hands touched, she felt something unusual.  Not the avatar-pull she’d been guarding against.  This was sort of a pressure in her hand, but different.  it was almost a burning sensation.  She realized that her spirit form didn’t have the reflexes to yank away, not like her real body had.

“Hey!  That’s pain!  I mean, I’m feeling real pain!”  Her voice was excited, rather than outraged.

The reaction seemed to confuse Skinner, who also seemed surprised that she hadn’t dropped her grip.  Abruptly, the pain faded.

“Awww,” she said, “I was actually feeling that!”

“Okay,” he admitted.  “You’re pretty different.  So, you have problems feeling things?”

She hadn’t spilled her secrets for Tool, she wasn’t going to do it for this guy, either.  “Uh, sort of.  Figures, doesn’t it?  Stone skin and all.  Is that why they call you Skinner?  You burn people’s skin?”

“Well, it’s mostly because of my transparent skin,” he admitted.  “That’s what freaks most people out.  I hardly ever get close enough to show off the touch power.”

“Oh.”  She suddenly understood.  Her spirit-vision gave her mostly shapes and densities.  She had no way of knowing that his skin was transparent to visual sight.  But it was a shame that she couldn’t get something out of his touch powers.  “Yeah, I guess most people wouldn’t be all that eager for it.  So what do you do?  My hand doesn’t look like it was harmed.”

“It goes with the clear skin,” he explained.  “Hyper-extended nerve endings.  I can connect to your peripheral nerves to feel whatever you feel, or reverse the effect, to force a sense of touch onto other people.”

“Interesting!  Can you do anything besides that burning feeling?”

He shrugged.  “I can’t do anything very complicated.  It’s not like I can really do tactile illusions, but I can do burning, simple pain, pressure, warmth, cold, stuff like that.”

Jinn nodded.  “Combined with some hand-to-hand skills, that might be pretty good for stunning or disabling someone.”  Her eyes widened.  “Hey, you can do pain, can you do … pleasure?”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve gotten a chance to test that, is it?  Why, do you want to kiss me and find out?”

She’d wanted a chance to be more flirtatious, and she doubted that a better opportunity would ever come along.

“Sure!” she announced.

The actual doing of it proved more awkward, though.  As she approached and reached for the boy, her wings lifted out, making her larger and more intimidating.  Skinner backed away slightly.  Then, when Jinn put her hands (talons, really) on his shoulders, he didn’t seem to know what to do.  So she pulled him forward, and tried to press her mouth up to his.

She wasn’t an experienced kisser.  In fact, she’d only really kissed once before.  As their lips pressed together, she was briefly disappointed to feel only the pressure.  She would have felt as much kissing a statue.  Then, something tingled at the surface of her lips.  Like a spot of ink dropping into clear water, it began with a single point, then rapidly expanded across the surface of her body.  Her lips felt his.  The softness of his lips, the texture of them, the human warmth held within, the pulse of his heartbeat – and her own.  Like a wave it washed over her, bringing her entire body to life.

She never noticed his hand touching her bare midriff, but as it moved up to stroke the outside of her halter, she expected his magic not to work.  After all, there was leather between his hand and her delicate flesh.  But she felt the touch on her breast as if his skin was stroking hers directly.  Her nipple, both her nipples, tightened with painful urgency.  The skin of her belly tingled with the need of his strokes, the tip of her tail sparked with delight, the socket where her wings seated was stroked and massaged in just the right way, there was the strangest tightening (or was it a loosening?) from inside her hips, phantom goose bumps ran up her arms, and her hair seemed to be standing on end.

The symphony of unexpected sensations was completely overwhelming.  Not realizing that she’d let go, she toppled backward.  She would have fallen on her butt, if not for her tail providing an unanticipated support, and her wings unfurling to brake her fall.

“Oh … my … GOD.”

“What’d I do?”  Skinner cried miserably.  “Are you okay?”

Jinn looked up, still feeling after-tingles and touches in places that weren’t even real, like the skin of her leathery wings.  She noticed Skinner looking fearful, and Thuban turning in their direction with an angry and alarmed expression.

“Whoa, whoa, settle down!”  With a wing flap, she pulled herself back to her feet and placed her taloned hands (somewhat cautiously) on Skinner’s shoulders.  “Stay right here.  Don’t move, don’t do anything!”

Turning around, she saw Jana the centaur girl.  Jinn almost ran to her.

“Jana!  Come here!  I need you to test something out, right now!”  She grabbed the half-girl and pulled her close.  “I need you to kiss this boy to test something out.”

Jana pulled back, looking at her like she was crazy.  “Kiss him?  Are you serious?  What’s going on?”

“Just do it!  Just for a minute!  Please?”

The horse-girl reluctantly allowed herself to be dragged over to Skinner.  By now, Thuban had arrived, as well as a slowly gathering crowd.  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Just a little test,” Jinn explained.  “Everyone, please give us room.”  She turned to Skinner and spoke in a low, confidential whisper.  “Okay, this is my friend Jana.  I want you to kiss her, the way you did me.  Only maybe, not so much oomph.  At least, not to start with.  Work up to it.”

Skinner had a look of mixed terror and desperate hope, as he awkwardly approached the centaur girl.  “Uh, hi, I’m Skinner.  Is it … uh … okay if I, I don’t know, kiss you?”

Jana looked equally embarrassed by the growing crowd.  “I guess.”  She awkwardly held her arms halfway out, as if unsure what to do.

Skinner stepped forward and clumsily touched his lips to hers.  For a moment there was no reaction, then Jana began to wrap her arms more tightly around the boy, while his hands began to roam upward under the centaur’s t-shirt.  As everyone watched, shivers seemed to wrack Jana’s body, and then her hair stood up in a wave that started at the nape of her neck, jumped to her bare back and traveled down her horse-half spine, and ended in her tail which flicked straight out and then began flicking up and down in a spasmodic pattern.  Hooves clattering on the hard floor, the centaur stumbled backward before collapsing on her rump.

Jinn stuck her head in close to Jana’s.  She’d intended to be confidential, but hadn’t reckoned on a half-dozen busybody girls joining the impromptu conference.

“So was it good?”  Jinn-Lazuli demanded.

The centaur’s eyes were still dazed.  “Good doesn’t even begin…”

“Tingly everywhere?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Felt it in the chest?”

“I didn’t know nipples got that hard!”

“Moisture problems down below?”

“Is it that obvious?”

One of the other girls broke in at that.  “No way!  Skinner?”

“Don’t believe us?” Jinn challenged.  “Try him.”

The mass movement of girls to surround Skinner wasn’t quite a stampede, but it did effectively cut him off from being able to talk to any other males.  After a few minutes, and many stunned and helpless girls, Jinn gathered the wobbly survivors together in a quick huddle.

“You all felt it?” she asked, unnecessarily.

“God, yes!”

“What a power!”

“Almost makes up for the freaky looks.”

“You know,” one of the girls casually mentioned, “it would be a crime against womankind if that boy doesn’t get laid tonight.  Just as a scientific experiment, of course.”

Jinn watched the auras of all the girls in the circle bloom in embarrassment and intrigue, as they contemplated the implications.  If they’d experienced a short kiss, what would it be like to have his entire skin in contact with theirs – in the most intimate fashion?

“I think we need some rules, girls,” Jinn interrupted.  “Whoever does this better be doing it as the real thing.  I mean, boyfriend, real relationship, hand-in-hand in public on the way to classes, kissing in public, the whole bit.  Agreed?”

Around her, the girls all looked at one another, assessing the competition.

“What about you?” one of them asked.  “You were first.”

Jinn grinned back.  “Nice as he is, he’s a bit too ordinary for me.  I prefer my men to be a touch more exotic.”

“Girl, the touch don’t get any more exotic than what that boy’s got.”

“That’s for sure!”

“So are you really out of the running?”

Jinn sighed.  “You heard my introduction.  I’m not really … real.  Not like this.  I’m just the icebreaker, not competition.”

“Good enough for me!”  And in moments, the huddle vanished.

Jinn stood looking after them, with more than a touch of bemusement.  In truth, her mind was a wild whirl of thoughts.  Out of the blue, she’d found a boy who could make her a woman.  She might have a completely artificial body, but Skinner had just shown her that he could make it feel real.  And although it would have no chance of getting her pregnant, the experience would undoubtedly change her in a permanent way.

But… she was too young.  Even if the BIT slicer changed her real body, she didn’t see herself going all the way until… when?  Not for a few years, at least.  Of course, if she were a real girl, who knew how she might be tempted?  Skinner’s kiss had been very… interesting.  But she wanted a chance to treasure her virginity, before she finally gave it to someone.  And when she did give it up, it wasn’t going to be to some boy that was just a good kisser.  It was going to be to her True Love.  The person who would cherish her, curl with her in bed, hold her when she was scared and help hold her high when she was inspired.  The person who would put her children into her, and become a parent with her.   And she sure wasn’t ready for that yet!  No matter how good a kisser he was.

“Are you sure you’re only fourteen, Jade?  That thought is rather mature for such a young girl.”

Startled, she looked to the side to see an incongruously normal man, standing there in linen slacks, a smoking jacket, and wearing an ascot at his neck.  There was something else odd about him.  It took her a moment before she realized that he was in color, while everything else, aside from auras, was black and white.

“Pardon me.  I forgot about your vision.”  Immediately his image changed to match the rest of the world – a black and white image, with a colored aura appearing a moment later.

“How—?”

“Telepathic projection,” the man explained.  “None of the others is noticing us right now, and even if they did I’m projecting my words directly into your brain.  Well, your spirit, I suppose, in your case.”

“You’re a telepath?”  And behind that question was the immediate fear, Does he know my secret?

“Yes, and yes.  The whole ‘Jared’ thing in the past?  You shouldn’t worry about that too much.  I’m no precog, but this is Whateley.  I’m sure you’ll find a solution that works for you.”

Emotions in her spirit-form didn’t have quite the toxic spike that they sometimes held when she was in her physical body.  Even so, hearing someone casually taking in public about “the whole ‘Jared’ thing” was enough to brown out her vision in anxiety.

The man continued on as if she wasn’t in a total emotion meltdown.  “But I really wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself, and to give you a pat on the back for your little discovery and performance back there.  Up until a few minutes ago, Skinner was a perpetual blight on the emotional landscape.  Glance over at him and I think you’ll see how he’s lightening up.”

Jinn looked without turning her head, glancing at the complex aura of the boy.  There were strands of many different elements – wonder, anxiety, happiness.  It was difficult to pay full attention, in the throes of her anxiety.

“If what I see in the surface thoughts of you and the other girls is true, our depressed loner is about to become the most popular stud on campus.  Or at least, the most popular man in the Faction Three crowd.  I think we’re witnessing a classic Frog Prince moment.  You even triggered it with a kiss.”

“I thought telepaths kept themselves from reading other people’s minds.”  She tried to keep the resentment out of her voice.

The man beside her nodded.  “True, true.  And I do my best.  It’s just that my powers are several orders of magnitude above any other human, and even when I hold myself back it’s impossible not to hear the surface thoughts of nearly everyone around me.  Or around my projection.”

He looked at her again.  “You can calm down, you know.  I told you, no one can eavesdrop on what I’m saying to you, although they might hear your replies.  And although I may know your darkest secret, I’m not going to reveal it to anyone.  Besides, compared to the secrets that some people here are hiding, yours is innocent enough to be quite endearing.”

Jinn began to walk toward one of the more deserted corners, away from the crowd around Skinner, and steering clear of the small clusters of people.  “Look, I don’t even know your name!  Who are you, and what do you plan to do with this knowledge?”

He gave her a disarming smile.  “I’m sorry, I never really introduced myself.  They call me Fubar.  A rather rude acronym, and a bit too accurate.  ‘Gross structural deformity’ doesn’t begin to cover my case.  I couldn’t survive outside the sealed environment tank that’s installed in the Hawthorne sub-basement.  I haven’t physically moved from the site for nearly two decades.”

Jinn suddenly remembered.  “Oh, yeah!  Toni Sensei told me about you.  Twenty years, and you’re still a student?”

He gave a tolerant smile.  “Hardly.  I’m the senior instructor in telepathy and kinetics.  I also consult with several police and international intelligence agencies, although for anything other than a phone call, they need to travel up here.  I have a small office set up a bit outside of Berlin, just at the edge of my range.  But I didn’t come to talk about me.”

Jinn said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

Fubar sighed.  “The only reason I revealed my knowledge about your secret was so that you could relax and talk to me.”

“I’m perfectly happy playing the role I’ve chosen,” she informed him tightly.  “Bringing up a person’s greatest fear isn’t the best way to relax them.”

“Sometimes it is,” he said.  “For many of the Faction Three crowd, what they want is to be accepted despite their differences.  And let me add that the role that you’re comfortable in, Jinn, isn’t the role you’re playing now, is it Lazuli?”

She exhaled in resignation.  “What’s the use?  So many people know my secret now, I wonder if it’s even worth trying to keep it a secret?  Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I’d be better off just revealing the truth.”

Fubar suddenly took on an extremely concerned look.  “No, I wouldn’t go that far.  If I might show you a memory…?”  He held his hand out in offering.

Not sure what was going on, Jinn reached out her clawed gargoyle hand in acceptance.  The moment she touched his hand, reality vanished, and she was in the memory.

…

It was as if she was an insubstantial observer, and the scene was happening now, right in front of her.

Two heroic figures fought against a demonic monster.  They were in the center of campus, but some notable buildings were missing.  She realized that she must be seeing a memory from decades in the past.

The boy looked like a blond exemplar, wearing a skintight white costume with a black seven-pointed star on his chest.  The girl’s costume was stunning – a strapless silver leotard with matching silver choker, a black mini-vest that teased more than concealed, black elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots, and twin black belts that draped her hips in an X pattern.

Jinn suddenly knew exactly what she was seeing.  It was Jan Stilton, and the date was 1987.  It was an episode they’d discussed at length yesterday at the Day of Remembrance, and she didn’t want to see it in person.

“Greg – Force-bolt – we have to put this monster down now, before it reaches the gas truck!” the girl shouted.

Jinn looked up to see a toppled tanker truck, a few hundred feet away.  She knew from Stan and Morrie that even nowadays, fuel deliveries were major security events.

“I’m trying, Paragon!”  Shoving both hands forward, the boy shot out a crimson beam.  It hit the monster like a pile driver, but that only pushed the creature closer to the tanker.

“Greg, no!  I’ve got no choice, I have to use my frenzy attack!”

“Don’t do it, Jan!  You’ll be helpless afterward!”

But the girl didn’t listen to him.  She paused for a second, as if summoning all her power.  A blue glow seemed to coalesce around her, then she suddenly shot forward like a bullet.

Whatever power she had summoned, she now attacked like a speedster, striking with fists that hit like sledgehammers.  She moved so fast that it was almost as if there were a dozen of her, striking and kicking at the demon-thing, attacking it from every direction at once.  The monster was overwhelmed and toppled onto the ground, face first, unconscious.

The girl didn’t last much longer.  She collapsed onto the on top of the monster, only barely clinging to consciousness.  The blue field around her winked out, then another affect came over her.  Her skin rippled and moved, like a sack filled with fighting cats.  A moment later, the transformation finished, leaving an androgynous boy awkwardly dressed in a girl’s silver leotard.  He looked nervously up at the other fighter.

“Uh… Greg?  I meant to tell you.  The transformation isn’t quite permanent yet, but in a year, two at most—”

“You’re a GUY?”

“Not much, these days.  Soon even that will be gone.  Which was why I was so depressed when we first met…”

The blond exemplar still stared at him in shock.  “You’re a boy, and I kissed you?”

The exhausted boy in the silver leotard could barely move.  “I wanted to tell you, Greg…”

“You LIED to me!  How could you do this to me?”

“Greg, no, you have to listen to me—”

“Noooo!”

And with a look of hatred and disgust, the blond boy shoved both his hands forward, shooting out a crimson beam.  The other boy, exhausted and helpless, didn’t even try to resist, as a hole a foot in diameter was blown through the center of his chest.

…

Jinn blinked slowly, returning from the telepathically shared memory.

After a brief pause, Fubar said, “The lesson I took from that was to be as honest as possible in my relations with other people.  I try to be clear that the ‘me’ people are meeting is not the real me, it’s only a projection.  If I’m upfront about it, I hope that I cut down on later misunderstandings.”

Jinn shook her head.  “But you were just telling me not to reveal—”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Fubar began to pace around her, pensively.  “Yes, but there are secrets, and then there are secrets.  Everyone at Poe has a secret to conceal.  The system here has been designed to give you a community, Poe Cottage, that knows that secret and still supports you.  At the same time, most Poe residents choose, perhaps correctly, to keep the details of their sexuality a secret from the campus at large.  I’m not a big fan of life in the closet – living in a literal closet myself – but I recognize that sometimes accommodations must be made for an imperfect world.”

Jinn rubbed her temple in irritation.  “So… I don’t get it.  What are you trying to tell me?”

“Well, there are secrets, and then there are secrets, as I said.  You, in particular, seem to be burying yourself under a pile of secrets that grows ever deeper.  Your sexuality.  The fact that Jinn, Jann, et cetera, are all really you.  The fact that you’re not a devisor at all, and that you’re lying about your real powers.  The fact that Lazuli is not whom she appears to be, and is someone that much of Faction Three is already dimly aware of.  The fact that you’re not here as a real member of Faction Three, but as a paid escort, with a specific role to fill.”

That last line angered her, but it was hard to deny.  “Look, I owe—” she almost said Thuban’s name out loud, before remembering that her half of the conversation might be overheard “—I owe someone.  And I pay off my debts!”

Fubar nodded to that.  He turned to leave, but gave one last piece of advice first.  “I’m not saying that all secrets are bad.  Some are well accepted, particularly things like the ‘secret identity’ and exact details about your powers.  But try not to bury yourself too deep, alright?  Don’t lose track of who and what you really are.  That’s all I’m saying.”

With that, he turned and headed back toward the main crowd.

Jinn was left to consider the disturbing incident, and his odd advice.

44: In hot water

November 21, Tuesday evening, 6:30 PM

Jade told Billie, honestly enough, that she’d be doing some study with Lily and was meeting her up on the third floor.  She felt particularly bad deceiving her roommate, but Billie hadn’t even heard about the hot-tub party.  But then, Billie had a lot of interests outside the cottage and sometimes missed some of what was going on inside of Poe.

After asking the right people, Jade had discovered that the hot-tub excursion was a sophomore tradition.  There were plenty of other excursions to the ‘secret hot tub’, but the Tuesday before Thanksgiving was special.  Most of the sophomores came.  The girls all gathered together to get to know one another before the long weekend, and apparently many long-term relationships were sparked by the mid-term icebreaker.

Jade snuck up to the third floor, where girls were already bustling from room to room, whispering furtively.  She knocked on Lily’s door.

“Come in, I guess.”

Jade slipped inside, nervously.

Lily was wearing shoes and a robe.  The robe should have been fluffy white terrycloth, but it had been dyed black.

“I’m having real second thoughts about this,” Lily admitted.  “You know this thing is supposed to be lesbian only, right?”

“Uh, well…”

Lily rolled her eyes.  “Oh, right.  Lesbians or potential lesbians.  Half of it is a recruitment drive for the sophomore T-girls, to show them the true way, the other half is a mixer to connect up with partners.  So why they hell am I going?”

“To help me out,” Jade reminded her.

“Oh, yeah.  So why the hell are you going?  Just ‘cause some PMS freshman double-dared you?”

Jade’s eyes sank to the floor.  “Well, I’m kind of committed now.”

Lily gave a long suffering sigh and tossed over a robe.  “Here.  You might as well get ready.  You can leave your clothes on my bed.  Keep your shoes on.”

Jade was very self-conscious as she undressed under Lily’s scrutiny.  As always, she felt a little sad when she removed her bra.  Taking the panties off was better.  The “permanent” glue seemed to be holding up to its name, the plastic disguise was exactly in place, and the rest of her was still tucked and tight.  She felt as right as she could be, in this wrong body.

“Sure don’t look like a boy,” the other girl commented, further heightening her embarrassment.

“I, uh, took some precautions.”

“I don’t want to know.”  Then the thin girl seemed to realize something.  “Hey, this isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?  I mean, if you were like the only boy at a lesbian hot-tubbing party, and got accidentally exposed, they wouldn’t all be after you for shish kebab or anything, would they?”

Jade shuddered even more.  “Uh, you said it was for recruiting T-girls.  They have to have some tolerance, don’t they?”

Lily shrugged.  “Beats me.  What are most of these girls like?  Your ‘friend’ Sharisha?  Hippolyta?  Or are they more like Mary and Juanita?”

Jade gulped.  “I haven’t spent too much time with the sophomores.”

“Hmmm.  Can you fly, or float?”

Jade had Jann-sensei tightly cast, holding every hair, every dead cell in her skin, and of course, the plastic.  With a moment’s thought, they connected, and Jann lifted her off the ground.  “Yeah, if I need to.”

“Good.  Worse comes to worst, grab me.  I’ll make us both invisible, and try to fly us out of there.  It’s not much of a plan, but it’s something.”  She shook her head, sending ripples down her long, silky, black ponytail.  “Besides, at least that way people won’t be catching me in the buff.”

From her experience in the showers, Jade had adopted mannerisms that were typical of a shy girl.  Her hand tended to linger, casually draped over her crotch, hiding her private area.  She spent more time than normal scratching her opposite shoulder, just incidentally covering her breasts.  Or non-breasts, in her case.  It was a relief to slip into the large robe, which came down to her ankles.

“Okay,” Lily said, decisively.  “Let’s get this over with.  They’re meeting in the lounge.”

There were over a dozen girls in the lounge, all wearing shoes and fluffy black robes.  Jade and Lily were followed by a medium-tall girl who had silver steaks in her black hair.  It would have given her a Bride-of-Frankenstein look with the right hairdo.  Instead, with her hair loose and down, it was more reminiscent of the comic-book character “Lady Lightning.”

“Okay, that’s everyone,” called a girl with long, lush, raven’s black hair.  “You sophomores and others, follow me.”

Jade recognized the girl as ‘Blackrose’, the upperclass guide for the lesbian girls that she’d seen on her first night at Poe.

With furtive whispers, the group of just over a dozen girls snuck down the stairs and out the back door of the cottage.  The night was overcast and dark, as Blackrose led them along the path toward Hawthorne.  After scarcely a dozen yards, they turned off into the landscaped underbrush, following a far fainter trail.  This led about sixty yards deeper into the trees, until they came to the large stump of some ancient oak.  Everything was easily visible to Jade, as she joined with Jann frequently to take advantage of Jann’s spirit-vision.  Blackrose carefully pushed in a knothole, and suddenly a portion of the stump seemed to vanish as it swung inward.

Still maintaining their silence, the girls moved up to and into the stump.  Jade found the rungs of a wooden ladder, and climbed down.  She descended perhaps twenty feet, into a limestone grotto.

Obviously, previous generations had gone to considerable trouble to create this secret cavern.  Splashes of amber and golden light outlined the stalactites in stark relief.  Below, three separate pools were underlit with soft blue lights.  The water glowed and rippled like some luminescent creatures.  Steps and benches had been carved into the limestone formations of the grotto; each was softly illuminated by a faint green glow.  She was reminded of Thuban’s cavern, but this was more artistic and less intimidating.

“You can put your robes there,” Blackrose indicated, waving at a set of natural shelves beside a bench.

Jade became increasingly nervous as the girls ahead of her calmly removed their shoes, folded their robes, and then stepped naked into the misty pool.  Blackrose, in particular, moved with a natural grace that dared the rest of them to emulate her.  And well she might, with her slender build, trim but rounded posterior, and athletic legs.  The girl stepped gracefully into the hot water, then, as it was just lapping at mid-thigh, turned to face them.  Far from being self-conscious, she seemed proud of her firm breasts – despite being at least a C-cup, she didn’t have a trace of sag.  And her night-black pubic triangle had been trimmed with meticulous precision, showing a perfect triangle, but not obscuring the pink furrow of her labia.

“It’s warm and comfortable,” she purred.  “Come on in.”

“Oh puh-lease,” Lily muttered under her breath to Jade.  “Whatever you owe me, double it.”

Looking around, Jade saw that they weren’t the only reluctant skinny dippers.  Several of the girls had taken Blackrose’s less-than-subtle cue, and were slipping into the warm pool.  But at least half of them were still hanging back, too shy or reluctant to take that final step and expose themselves in front of the other girls.

“No way!” Sharisha called out.  “I’m not going in that water until I know Electrode is safe!  I don’t want to be bathing with no living toaster!”

Her sponsor, Julie, tried to shush the pudgy black girl, but everyone was a little embarrassed.

From her position in the water, Blackrose reached a hand out toward the nervous girl with black hair and silver streaks at each temple.  “I was actually hoping for a little electricity tonight.”

Electrode was blushing hard enough to die from, as she stepped carefully into the water, holding Blackrose’s slender hand.

“Well,” the older girl announced.  “That wasn’t too shocking, but I did feel a pleasant tingle.”  The last bit was said with a leer.

“Come on,” Lily said, in exasperation.  “No sense being last.  That gets you even more noticed, believe me.”

With her shoes carefully stowed out of the way, Lily folded her robe and placed it on top her shoes.  Jade tried not to look, but couldn’t help getting an eyeful of the slender girl.  Lily’s breasts weren’t large.  Given the abundance of top-heavy girls at Whateley, Lily might even be considered “small.”  But standing here naked, her figure was a young girl at perfection.  Her slight mounds were topped by proud nipples, and Jade tried not to watch the nipples that grew and firmed in the cool night air.  Lily stood with her legs apart, unconsciously adopting a fighting stance in preparation for action.  Unclad as she was, the stance also revealed her adolescent cleft, barely showing a hint of the pink inner flesh, and concealed only by downy wisps of pubic hair.

Once again, Jade wondered whether she was attracted to other girls, or simply jealous.

Jade herself was more circumspect.  She kept her legs tightly together at all times, walking into the pool as if she were wearing a kimono instead of stark naked.  The girls already lounging in the pool gave her a good once over, making her thankful that she’d taken precautions, but they quickly turned to one of the girls still waiting to disrobe.

Keeping close to Lily, Jade hunkered down in the steaming water, low enough that it nearly covered her shoulders.  Finally feeling secure enough, she risked looking around again.

Everyone was now watching the final entry, a busty blonde with a figure that looked too good to be true.  If she hadn’t known better, Jade would have thought the pinup girl was a high-level exemplar.  Instead, she was surprised to recognize the somewhat klutzy form of Mega-girl, or as she was also known in Poe, Marty O’Bryan.

“You might as well come in, Megs,” Blackrose purred.  “You’re just giving us a good view standing there like that.”

“Do we have to put up with this?” Sharisha called out.  “You know she isn’t real!  That bod is just some psychokinetic projection or something.  Haven’t you seen the shrimp inside?  Hey, Marty, if you drop the skin, I want the first punch when we beat you to a pulp!  Honestly, what the hell made you think that we wanted your kind here?”

“She thought that because I invited her,” Blackrose said.  “Now, much as I enjoy the view Megs, it’s time you came on in.”

The normally vivacious Mega-girl was trapped in indecision.  “But – I mean, she’s right!  Everyone knows it!”

Blackrose’s smile grew seductive.  “Come into the pool, Marty.  Let’s talk about it.”

Stumbling forward, Mega-girl slipped, but recovered by flying briefly.  She floated through the air until she hovered above the pool, then sank down into the water.

“Now,” Blackrose spoke intimately and seductively, “before we talk, let the water caress you.  Feel it buoy and support you, girls.  Some of you, like Sharisha, perhaps need to relax a little more.  Some of you, like Marty, may be feeling insecure in your femininity.  Feel the warm waters as they wrap around and under you, opening you to new ideas and experiences.”

“I just might relax too much.”  Judy Cooms, better known as Plastic Girl, began stretch and flatten out, like a balloon deflating.

“Hold on!” Sharisha suddenly said.  “The guys don’t know about this place, do they?  Tell me a bunch of fag boys haven’t been – you know – in this water!”

Plastic Girl instantly resumed her normal shape, looking perhaps even more rigid than normal.  The other girls sat up, similarly alarmed.

“Calm down,” Blackrose soothed.  “Yes, the boys use the grotto, too.  But like many of the underground features on campus, this grotto far from natural.  The water is filtered, purified, and more processed than a Twinkie.  It also cycles through a complete change every six hours.  The grotto is actually a legacy of the class of ’83.  They made it look as natural as they could, but it’s really ferrocrete with a limestone veneer, and the water comes from the same source as our drinking water.  That too-convenient stump has a locking door on it, and there are precautions against eavesdroppers, cameras, snoops, and a host of other unpleasantries.”

As the girls relaxed again, Blackrose continued.  “Some of you already may have been down here a couple of times, on private adventures.  Probably others of you have never heard of our little grotto.  But you’re sophomores now.  Half of you are already sixteen, most of the rest of you will shortly be turning sixteen.  That, combined with your placement in Poe, means that it’s time to take a more open look at who you are, who you might become, and who you want to be.”

Mega-girl spoke up again, sounding surprisingly grumpy.  “What is this, the lesbian recruitment drive?”

Blackrose just smiled.  “Among other things.  Why, do you object to that?”

Mega-girl scowled, then pointed at Sharisha.  “You heard her!  You all know what I look like… underneath this TK projection.  I’m just…” her voice grew uncharacteristically quiet.  “I’m just some shrimpy little boy.”

Jade hadn’t moved, but her eyes were as wide as they could get.

Blackrose’s voice was persuasive.  “But what do you want to be, Marty?  Do you like being Mega-girl?  Would you stay that way, if you could?”

Megs was obviously too ashamed to answer, as she sunk lower in the water.  But everyone saw the tiny nod that was the only answer Marty would give to the intently personal question.

“Girls,” Blackrose spoke up, “you should know that Mega-girl once went for over a month without dropping her so-called ‘shell.’  Not while she sleeps, not when she’d been knocked unconscious in a training session.  Don’t worry about waking up next to a boy, think about cuddling up to a beautiful blonde who is so strong, and at the same time, so vulnerable.”

Jann’s emotional vision suddenly dropped over her eyes, so she noticed the shivery ripples of interest that suddenly covered the auras of nearly a third of the girls there.

“And Marty, let me ask you this:  Do you like girls?  Do you like looking at them?”

“Well… of course.  But…”

“You’re thinking of Iron Star, aren’t you?  We’ve all seen how you moon over him.  But girl,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “you’ve got to know that he’s in the middle of the biggest romantic mess on campus!  Even if he wasn’t always giving the puppy dog eyes to Gloriana, he’s still stuck in a tug-of-war between Amy Tang and Steffi Zink.”

Megs just looked miserable.

“That’s what makes this the perfect time to find yourself!  Maybe you aren’t a lesbian.  Maybe you aren’t even bi.  But you owe it to yourself to find out!  Everyone here knows the truth about you, and if you showed the slightest bit of interest, I’m sure there’d be plenty of other girls that returned that interest.”

“Is this just going to be one giant heart-warming love-fest?” Julia Krets demanded, pushing in with the manner that had gained her the codename of Shove.  “I thought this was going to be a big steamy orgy or something!”

Blackrose gave her a wry smile.  “If we’d wanted an orgy, we would have invited the lust demon from the basement.”

“Amen to that,” Naomi said.  “She is so hot!”

Electrode poked a hand up.  “Uh, didn’t Hippolyta already claim her?”

“Other way around, I think,” Lily muttered.

Jade watched in rapt delight as the girls slowly unbent around her, revealing more and more of their inner thoughts.  Given the warm reception that Marty had received, she was briefly tempted to tell them her own truth.  But Sharisha was always in her line of sight, and Jade couldn’t forget the other girl’s taunts or anger.  She had enough dangers in her life right now without giving a possible enemy such a potent weapon as knowing her deepest secret.  On top of that, she was still absorbing what she’d learned from the Day of Remembrance, the day before.  That had been a TG event, not a Poe-wide ceremony.  There was no guarantee that the lesbians (and straights, like Lily) would feel sympathy.  Between Sharisha’s attitude and what she’d learned from the Day of Remembrance, that point had been very solidly proven.

Blackrose provided heavy encouragement, and the girls began to go around the circle, explaining themselves, their powers, and their own unique sexual situations.  Jade was surprised to learn about some of the sophomore girls also being transgender.  For some reason, she’d assumed that had been mostly been confined to her class.  But it turned out that Jackie Warrwick, Electrode, was also TG.  She declined to say how much she’d been influenced by the Lady Lightning comic.

Lily was forced to admit more than she wanted.  “Look, I got in under a legacy.  Mom, Tabby Cat, was in Poe, if you must know.  But I’m interested in guys, okay?  And nothing weird is happening to me, or going to happen to me, understand?”

Pulling down her aura vision, Jade saw the others weren’t having the reaction that Lily might have hoped for.  Some were sympathetic, perhaps reading between the lines to spot Lily’s fears.  Others were repulsed, extrapolating to imagine Lily changing into a guy.  She could imagine their thoughts – So that’s why her figure is so boyish.

When the questions then turned to Jade, she readily admitted that she was born a boy, but that she was a girl now.  She wouldn’t go into details, but when Sharisha pressed her, she revealed, “I know what a speculum feels like, okay?”  That quieted the suspicions.  As for her sexual preference, everyone sympathized with the eternally-delayed puberty.

“Maybe I’ll figure it out when I know myself.  I’m still puzzled by the whole ‘lust’ thing.  What’s that like, anyway?  Is that why everyone always acts so weird around Sara?”

That gathered some shaking heads and rolling eyes.

After the introductions, they passed through a round of man-bashing.  Julia and Naomi led.  Mega-girl and Electrode protested, but Blackrose sided with the angry girls, this time.

“It’s another face of the sisterhood,” she said with a shrug.  “Some of us find men fairly useless, others have lower opinions.  Even if you don’t fully agree, you have to admit that the girls raise some interesting points.”

Naomi and Julia had obviously worked this topic very thoroughly between themselves.  They kept away from the Poe boys, focusing instead on the hetero boys on campus, their lusts, and their Neanderthal attitudes toward women.  Although Jade had no reason to trust the two girls, she had to admit that the jokes about “beer and football”, “using a remote control”, and “redneck hunters” were pretty funny.  The climax, as it were, was Naomi’s “Tale of the Haunted Penis.”

“…so the rapist was convicted and then castrated by the same women he’d tormented.  But after they castrated him, they forgot about the penis!  They dragged him, bleeding and screaming, to the pyre.  He was burned alive, swearing with his dying breath that he would visit his revenge upon every one of them, and their daughters, and their daughter’s daughters for seven generations!  One of the women finally realized her mistake.  She ran to the chopping block, where the bloody axe still lay embedded in the wood, but the penis was gone!  And at the base of the chopping block was a small hole in the ground, like a snake’s hole.

“Some say that the penis was filled with the male power of lust and hatred for women, and that it burrowed away like an earthworm.  They say it still roams the earth, waiting for the time when it might find nubile and innocent girls to penetrate and ravage.  Others say that it’s only superstition, that the penis was burned along with the rapist.  All I can do is to warn you: Beware!  Whenever you find yourself outdoors, keep your legs together!  Otherwise, you never know what might suddenly try to defile you!  Beware!”

As she peered darkly around the circle, one girl after another began to scream and leap halfway into the air.  First it was a blonde freshman named Scramble, then Mega-girl, and then Jade felt Lily, beside her, stifling a scream as she turned suddenly invisible.  When Electrode jumped in alarm everyone felt the sparks, as the girl inadvertently released a bit of electricity into the pool.  Not enough to hurt, but definitely enough to startle everyone.

Beside Naomi, Julia practically doubled over in laughter.

“Julia!  Shove!  You did this!” Scramble accused.

Julie wiped away a tear.  “What?  You mean I gave you a TK shove that was maybe an inch-and-a-half wide, right where it counts?  You should have seen yourself jump!”

As she faded back into visibility, Lily muttered, “It wasn’t funny!  Well… except for Megs, maybe.”

They talked for a while longer, but the heat was definitely getting to them.  Jade was in a good enough mood that she was even feeling generous toward the obnoxious Sharisha, as she rose from the pool to put her robe back on.

She was relaxed, but her awareness training proved its worth.  Despite her languor, she knew when Julie reached out a finger to touch her on the butt.  She moved away easily, before Julie could lay a too-intimate touch on her.

“Excuse me?”

“Just admiring the birthmark,” the black-haired sophomore replied, moving to pick up her jacket.

Jade twisted, trying to get a look.  “I have a birthmark?”  She looked at Lily, who was already wrapped in her robe.  “Do I have a birthmark on my, uh, my behind?”  She twisted around.

“Oh, please!”  Lily groaned.  “As if the night hasn’t been bad enough, I don’t need girls shoving their butts in my face.”

“Oops.  Sorry.  Just tell me if I have a birthmark.”

Reluctantly, Lily took a quick glance.  “I guess.  Either that or you sat on a bumpy rock too long.”

Jade slipped into her own robe and slid her shoes on.  “What’s it look like?”

Lily shrugged.  “A blob.”  At Jade’s long face, she elaborated.  “Oh, okay.  Sort of a thin triangle, I guess, about the size of your pinky fingernail.  A thin triangle, kind of more tan than the rest of your skin, with a dark dot behind it.”

Jade followed Lily up the ladder.  “Huh!  You go through your whole life, and then, on your first lesbian skinny-dipping session, you learn something new about yourself.”

Above her, Lily said, “Yeah, strange, isn’t it?  And keep your eyes down until I get off the ladder!”

*****

From the audio, Jinn-Lazuli could tell that the movie was reaching its conclusion.  Sitting through a film that she couldn’t see was not the most interesting thing she’d ever done, but it had given her time to watch and study the people around her.  It also gave her time to think.

She wondered, briefly, how she was doing at the hot tub party.  That was one of the most nerve-wracking things about being herself.  She was afraid there had been a total disaster, perhaps a life-destroying event like her secret coming out in front of all the other girls.  It was possible that she could “let go” and rejoin her body, only to discover that her life had been ruined in the meantime.

Lately, she’d been doing her best to re-meet herself face-to-face, so that she could brace herself more gently for any shocks.  One time she’d awoken to the sudden memory of Sara’s talking decapitated head.  She’d resolved to ease into those big shocks from now on.

At least things were going reasonably well here at the Faction Three party.

Reluctantly, she turned her thoughts back to Fubar’s statements.

Being at the party, and particularly being a center of attention, had been fun.  It was true that some of the kids had gone through some pretty horrible changes.  She had to privately admit that she still had problems accepting some of them, but her time working at Hawthorne had helped.  If she couldn’t accept everyone yet, she at least recognized the problem, and was working on fixing it.  She was doing her best to act like she accepted everyone, and she definitely wanted to come to the next get-together.

But the question was, did she want to come as Lazuli, or as herself?  Obviously, Jade would never fit in with this crowd.  She was far too normal looking.  Even Jinn looked too normal.  But as Shroud, she might be okay, particularly if she did something exotic, like coming as a set of animated bones.

That was an intriguing thought – exposing herself as she really was.  Perhaps a human face or just a hood, and the collection of metal parts that Harry Wolfe had helped create for her.  She dearly loved being Jinn, and being a girl, but the truth was that she wasn’t a real girl.  As Jinn, she never would be.  Maybe it might do her some good to explore that part of herself.

On the other hand, there was no denying that Lazuli was a sexy package.  She hadn’t missed the way the boys stared at her chest, or the way they watched her backside as she walked.  Having a tail certainly added a unique movement.  And having eyes in the back of her head made it easy to see the reactions of people behind her.

And to be honest, Lazuli had a massive advantage in Faction Three.  She had been designed to be a monster, but an attractive one.  She was the image of a cartoon heroine.  Non-human, yes.  Ugly, no.  As Lazuli, it was almost an effort not to become the life of the party.

The ending theme began playing, and the people around her began to stretch.  Beside her, Tool stretched and a host of tentacles burst out of each sleeve.

“That’s pretty cool,” Jinn commented.

“Thanks.  Very believably said,” the figure hidden within the deep cowl said.  “I’d trade it away in a second, if I could.”

“As shapeshifters go, you seem pretty incredible,” Jinn offered.

“I guess.  I’m not in Jello’s league, but I can do things she can’t.  Here, check this out.”

As the girl reached toward her, Jinn was briefly distracted by the girl’s bust line.  She seemed to swell, then shrink, then she seemed to grow a set of four or six breasts, before returning again to the normal pair.  Now a normal human hand reached out of the robe.

“Watch.”

Suddenly the hand morphed into a small, oblong piece of plastic, with a metallic center, and a plus symbol on the side.  After a moment’s confusion, Jinn realized that it was a Swiss Army knife, seemingly growing out from the end of the girl’s arm.  Suddenly the blades started to flick open and closed.

Jinn was amazed.  “That’s incredible!  And you’ve got control over it?”

“Pretty much.”

The girl’s hand flicked through a variety of shapes – needle-nose pliers, a screwdriver, a coffee mug.

“The only thing I can’t do is not shift.  Like when I see something good to eat, and all of a sudden my fingers turn into a fork.  I don’t do that on purpose, it just happens.  And I can’t make it stop.”

Jinn nodded sympathetically, but she really had no idea what that might really mean for a person trying to live under those conditions.  Did it ever hurt?  How long could she pass as normal, out in regular society?  What was she like in a fight?

Tool leaned forward, too casually.  “So let me ask you abut your body.  Thuban said you were just a ‘prop.’  What’s that supposed to mean?  You aren’t some sort of robot, are you?  You seem a lot more lifelike than that.  Are you another shapeshifter?”

Jinn shook her head.  “Sorry, that’s part of my deal.  Professional secret.”

“So… just out of curiosity, how disastrous would it be if you lost that body?”

The girl’s aura was anything but casual.  She was so focused on the answer that it was almost painful to look at.

“What’s that mean, if I ‘lost my body?’  What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tool shrugged, still trying to look casual.  “I’m not sure.  It was a mystic, magic thing I heard once.  You know what it’s like trying to get a straight answer out of the wizard types.”

Jinn nodded.  Trying to get an explanation out of Fey was an experience.  It was either on the level of “all nature is interconnected” or it got so technical that it was like trying imagine a world that was ruled entirely by rhyme and meter instead of physics.  And whatever the rules were, they changed whenever you wanted them to.  Although Sara was even worse, since Pattern Theory delved into high level mathematics, and she claimed you couldn’t really begin to understand it unless you could do tensor calculus while visualizing at least seven dimensions simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Jinn agreed, uncomfortably.  “I’ve had that problem with wizards.  Hey, why haven’t I noticed you on campus?”

“Ha!” Tool pounced.  “I knew you were another student!”

Jinn groaned to herself, realizing that she’d given away too much.

“First off, on campus I wear a better robe – it’s in the school colors, with a Whateley crest,” Tool began.  “More importantly, I wear a mask and these sort of gauntlets for my hands.  They’re covered in kidskin, so they look like gloves.  I can shift all I want inside, but it doesn’t show through the gauntlets.  But for Faction Three, I figured I’d let people see more of the real me.”

The two different horse-girls had been listening, as well.  Now Sted, the pony-girl, exclaimed, “

“No.  This is the real me.  I figured, with Faction Three, I’d drop the suit and come as I really am.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m a centaur today,” Jana added unexpectedly.  Seeing the look everyone gave her, she explained.  “On campus I usually look either human or sort of a were-squirrel.”

Sted nodded.  “Multiple form shifter?  I’ve got four, but ponygirl and centaur are the most human, so that’s what I use on campus.”

“Not exactly,” Jana told them.  “I’m an avatar, but I ended up capturing a spirit that thinks he’s a trickster god.  I can go back to human for a couple of hours, but I mostly end up being half-and-half, in some way or another.”  She shrugged.  “It’s not too bad.  People don’t get too freaked out by the catgirl or squirrelgirl look.”

Tool’s aura was a mix of resentment and jealousy.  “Yeah, even in Faction Three, you get the cute girls, and the freaks.  I’m just getting tired of always being the freak.”

“So… is there anything you can do?” Jana asked.

“They’re talking about a sort of articulated armor – like a knight, but more modern.  I’d wear it, and then my shifting wouldn’t show, unless I stretched or flexed too hard.  I might be able to go out in public.  There are plenty of other kids who have to wear prosthetic faces or bodies.”

Jinn was mindful of her earlier conversation with Fubar.  “And you’d always be hiding your true face.  At least here in Faction Three you have one place where you can be your real self.”

“I wish.”  But Tool didn’t elaborate.

*****

Much later, Jinn sat back to consider the night’s events.  She was Jamie the SpySpeck, and it was becoming something of a midnight ritual for her to waft up to the roof outside, while just thinking about what had happened during the day.  She knew that down below, her various selves were sleeping, or studying, or heading off to see if Sara was available.  But she got to just sit and contemplate.

Her selves had come together, quite surprised by their different experiences that evening.  Faction Three had been… imposing.  So many mutants, and so much hostility simmering under the surface.  Also, so many lonely people, just because they looked a little unusual.  If there was any group that could accept her in her normal form, it was Faction Three.

Except… what was her normal form?  She’d cautioned Tool against hiding behind an armored face, while she herself was hiding inside the gargoyle body.  As Jinn she wore a plastic face.  But she had a real face, too.  The plastic was just material that coated her spirit-self, making it visible for normal people.

She had an image of her “normal” self – it was a seventeen year old girl, naked, outlined by chalk dust.  But recent experience had shown that she might actually be a shapeshifter – at least in spirit form.  So what was “natural” for her?

She briefly imagined showing up to a Faction Three meeting as a ghost of Lazuli, outlined in chalk dust.  She’d never do it, of course.  Ever since Tansy, she’d felt naked if she allowed any hint of her unprotected spirit to be exposed in public.  And holding up a cloud of chalk dust was definitely in the “naked spirit” category.  She’d done it in front of her friends (and felt strangely naughty, doing so).  She would show off her bare face, as a screen of chalk dust, but at least the bear trap gave her some protection there.  That was as much vulnerability as she was willing to risk, since Tansy and Mongoose had both demonstrated that physical access to her spirit gave even the weakest avatar the ability to pretty much conduct spiritual rape.

And yet…

How could she think of being naked and exposed, without thinking of the hot tub party?  Was Marty, or rather, “Mega-girl”, all that much different than she was?  If Megs could find a lover, was it possible that she, as Jinn, might honestly and truly find a lover of her own?

If she made love to a boy, he should be able to find genuine enjoyment with her.  Dr. Traekham had demonstrated that she, as Jinn, was physically complete, and sufficiently real to allow a boy to make love to her.  And while she wouldn’t take any physical pleasure in the act, there would be the joy of the companionship, and the relationship, and the joy of her lover’s pleasure.

Or… could she take a girl lover, instead?  Even as a resident of Poe, she was a little more vague on the details of girl-girl sex than she was on the conventional method.  But what might she do for a female lover?  Coat the girl like a second skin, and stroke her lover across the length of her entire body?  What if she cast herself into something other than chalk.  Could she hold onto one of the many lubricant fluids that were so readily available around the girls’ restrooms in Poe?  What might she accomplish with that?

She felt confident that, given time and the liberty to experiment, she could become a rather stunning lover.

But who would love her?

Skinner could do it, but she didn’t really like him that much.  And she suspected that Fubar could do it, but that felt wrong, too.  He was so much older, and while he was interesting, she sure didn’t feel attracted to him in that way.

In fact, she didn’t feel attracted to anyone in that way.

So why was she so hung up with the idea of having a lover?

After winding the idea around and around in her head, she eventually thought that maybe it was because having a lover was a sort of proof that she was a girl.  Just like with Marty.  If Mega-girl had a lesbian relationship, then she was definitely a real girl, despite any complicated details about Marty and his powers.  The romance and crushing and tenderness and secret looks, and the act of making love – all of those would say to her that Marty was a real girl, in just about every way that counted.  And that must mean that if she herself achieved those things – a crush, that awkward dating, the first kiss, and all of that, culminating in a romantic session in which she lost her virginity – if she achieved that, then she would be a real girl.

And she desperately wanted to be a real girl.

The problem was, she didn’t want to lose her virginity.  Not yet, anyway.  Heck, she was barely up to the “crush” stage.  Well, okay, she was ready and eager for her first crush.

She let her mind drift, considering all the recent events.

Should she stay on as Lazuli, or follow Fubar’s advice?  She owed Thuban.  But what if she passed Lazuli on to someone?  And what was with Tool and her questions about “if you lost that body”?  She wondered if Tool had seen deeper than anyone had guessed, and spotted the suit that was Lazuli’s body.  Could Tool “wear” a suit like that, in effect becoming Lazuli?  Was that what she wanted?  If so, would Jade be doing her a favor, letting the shifter girl take on another identity at the expense of her own?

It would be a shame to lose the magic cigarette box, though.  She could use another one of those.  Perhaps hidden inside Ryo-oki.  Then she could follow Billie around, and serve as her secret closet, producing books and clothes just like they’d been beamed up to some secret hyperspatial starship, like in the anime.

Hmmm, if he could make a magic closet for Ryo-oki, what could he do to her purse?  It was every girl’s dream – a purse that was slim and fashionable on the outside, but absolutely huge on the inside!  She could carry her gun, and all her books, and her laptop, maybe even a change of clothes…

Oh, there were so many plans to make.  The only question was, how to convince Thuban?

 

  since 7/09/06