Babs Yerunkle's - " Jade 5 – Redefining Jade"

The thought struck her – it really was Jinn! She was whole again! After the past week where she’d thought that a part of herself was dead, or vanished, or torn away – to finally be whole again was a joy that she could hardly explain. She’d had trouble explaining it, even to her closest friends. She’d been able to conjure up Jann, and even Jeanie and Jasmine. The fact that she could make multiple versions of her spirit-self was great, but it didn’t make any of them disposable. Each and every one of them was her. She was them. And she couldn’t cope with the idea that she had died. She herself had died. Or at least, so it had seemed.

Maybe it had been a mistake to put Jann into Jinn’s costume. Because when Jinn vanished and Jann immediately took her place, it was almost natural that her friends would think that Jinn was replaceable. After all, hadn’t she been seamlessly replaced?

And that wasn’t the only rough spot. Ayla had snidely suggested that she was suffering from some sort of multiple-personality thing, and that Jinn, Jann, Jeanie, Jasmine, Jewel, and Jayna (assuming she ever got that far) were all different personalities, not just multiple copies of her. Okay, so maybe she behaved a bit different when she was a non-physical real-female spirit-girl. What did they expect? She could call all her spirit selves something dull, like “Jade 1” “Jade 2” and “Jade 3.” That would make the point, but they were pretty dumb names. She liked to think she was more creative than that.

When she was Jinn, she was now looking a lot more grown up, thanks to her body image and hypnosis work. It was definitely a kick trying to act more mature, and having people treat her with more respect. At the same time, she didn’t really want to lose her childhood. Fortunately, she could have the best of both world. That is, if she could slowly convince people to see her spirit-self as a unique and important person. Come to think of it, this should fit in well with Hank’s suggestion. What had he said?

“Let’s start the intelligence process both ways – learning about them, and hiding details about ourselves, or better, providing false information. Jade, you should start by not revealing that you can create more than one of Jinn. Practice plenty, but do it in a way that doesn’t reveal things to outsiders.”

Okay. She’d practice. But the only human-seeming body she’d create would be Jinn. And if anything else happened to Jinn, maybe she’d just have to bite the bullet, and give up the real girl-shape for a while. Then they wouldn’t see Jinn as being quite so disposable.

Thinking it over, she decided that she needed a new background, too. A fake story, for public consumption. What was Tansy calling her at the end? Ghost-girl, demon-spawn, and hell-spirit. There ought to be some good backgrounds she could invent around those ideas. Sara could probably help with that, being half-demon. She’d seemed to know plenty about occult stuff.

Jinn suddenly returned, and she had two other big thoughts. Thinking things over with two minds was handy. She should be finding out everything she could about avatars, and how to defend against them. But she’d remembered an even more vital issue. As Jade, she’d actually shot Tansy, although it had been with a non-lethal taser load. Every time Tansy thought about the twelve-year-old girl that had shot her, she’d had the idea that as soon as there was time, she’d find the little girl and “deal with her.” There’d been thoughts like that about both Fey and Ayla, too.

And Tansy had asked Thuban to, “get rid of Hekate.” When he’d said that he didn’t do assassinations, Tansy had actually been disappointed. As it was, she’d paid twenty-five thousand dollars, just to lose the girl for a week.

The conclusions were obvious. Tansy had money to burn, she’d tried to use assassination before, and she wanted to “deal with” Jade, Fey, and Ayla, but especially Jade.

That was a pretty nasty thing to consider. So… first things first. Jade lay down on her bed and tried to create Jinn, take her back, and re-create her. Then she tried other variations.

Within a few minutes, she had some info. Having Jinn “back” didn’t make the spirits any stronger. That is, her spirit form could lift the same amount today that she’d been able to lift yesterday – right on the borderline of 200 pounds. The whole Tansy episode seemed to have kicked her into a new development cycle, but Jinn’s strength was only increasing by a tiny amount each day. Being re-united didn’t make any of the spirits any stronger.

Likewise, her casting strength hadn’t gotten any stronger. The first spirit she conjured up could go in and out, in and out. It tired Jade about as much as running up two flights of stairs, but she got the energy back when Jinn (or whomever) came back. Jann was the same, but creating a second spirit was much more tiring. That left her feeling like she’d just run a mile or so. She could still move and fight, but she wasn’t in top form. When either of the spirits returned, she recovered almost instantly to “just run up the stairs.” On the other hand, she could cast the second spirit over again, in-and-out just like the first spirit. This left her with a constant feeling of being tired but she hoped she’d build up a tolerance.

That was the same as yesterday, but yesterday, she’d actually been able to make four spirits. The three that she could conjure up, and the original Jinn. Actually, Jinn and Jann, since they’d merged. Perhaps the count should be five spirits.

That meant that, over time, she’d recovered the energy or power or whatever went into casting Jinn. This opened interesting possibilities, if she could convince dozens of avatars to carry around copies of her. She could make an army of herselfs, if she could only figure out how to keep them all from evaporating.

She conjured up Shroud and a sets of gloves for Jann, and set to work. Jinn, as Shroud, took measurements and attempted to sketch out the bones of her forearms. That was part of their new plan for a better attack for Shroud. Meanwhile, Jade turned on her laptop and started writing new backgrounds. Jann went thin and slipped under the door, then headed to the downstairs library to look for books on avatars.

By the time Tennyo’s alarm went off at five, Jade had the basic details of the story in place. She sat back and watched as her roommate stretched.

“Hey, Jade. Glad to see you’re awake. We were a little worried when you passed out on us.”

“Integration,” Jinn reminded her. “I think it’s going to happen whenever one of me joins up again after a few days away. Matching up the memories takes a lot of brainwork, I guess. The weird thing is, when Tansy sucked me in after the breakfast brawl, I had two spirit-versions of me join up, and they got knocked out too. So I guess it’s more than just a physical-brain thing.”

Jade smiled – happier than she’d been in more than a week. “Physically, great. Emotionally, great. I’m a bit worried that Tansy Walcutt is going to hire an assassin to kill me, but I’ll talk about that at breakfast. Hey, do you know anyone who does metal fabrication?”

Billie blinked at that. “Uh… you might try Harry Wolfe. I introduced you, didn’t I? I think he’s been around a couple of time. He’s a sort of mechanic-gadgeteer. Did you just say ‘assassinate’ ?”

“Uh huh. We should be okay until this afternoon at the very earliest. I’ll explain at breakfast.”

Jade watched happily as her roommate stumbled off toward the showers. Tennyo looked really out of it this morning, she thought. I wonder what’s wrong?

She put her new background info into an email, and sent it to Tennyo, Toni, Fey, Ayla, Hank, Sara, and Bunny:

So, hi everyone!

I’m not sure how to start this, so I’m just going to. Remember that Hank said we should come up with ways to fake the bad guys out? So I’ve decided that I need to do that. Remember that I’m now supposed to be a devisor (Bunny’s helping me out on that – Thanks Honey Bunny!). And Jann, Jeannie, and Jasmine don’t exist. Never did. (Trust me, Bunny and I have plans.) So I need to invent a new background for Jinn. Here’s the story I came up with:

Jinn Sinclair is the oldest girl in the Sinclair family. She was killed in a terribly sad accident when Jade was only six years old. Details of the accident aren’t really clear yet (I still need to figure something out), but from the few hints that Jade has provided, it was probably some sort of magical experiment. The little girl was hit really hard (by the death, not in the accident), and wouldn’t talk about it or anything for a couple of months. Then she started playing with an imaginary playmate named “Jinn.”

So then when Jade grows up, suddenly she’s got these mutant powers. Only there’s two completely different powers. Jade starts making cool little gizmos and stuff (sound familiar, Bun?). But she could also summon up the spirit of her dead sister. Well, maybe Jinn was a mutant all along, or maybe she needs some sort of special energy from Jade – the Academy’s people are still researching that part. What they know so far is that Jinn needs to periodically recharge by seeing Jade again, and that it is taking her a while to learn how to shape the energy to look like she’s supposed to – a seventeen-year-old girl. But Jinn is the older sister, and she really looks out for her younger sister. And they live together with their favorite roomie Tennyo, and they talk about *everything*, so they usually know what’s happened to each other.

Okay, that’s the main story. That’s what we can talk about in public. And from now on, I’m going to act like and pretend like it’s true. Only there’s a couple of problems with it. Like, if Tansy or someone asks how come Jinn was still around when Tansy was doing the whole possession thing, I’ve got another story, that’s just a teeny bit different.

Here goes. Yeah, there was an accident when Jade was six years old. It was some really dark mysterious magic thing (maybe you can come up with some good details, Nikki or Sara?). Anyway, that’s how Jade’s mommy died. (Really sad, she was a good person.) Only, something happened with Jade. Because of the accident. And her dad was okay, I guess, but he wasn’t always a really great guy, you know? (I mean, I figure he was the one who was doing this magic stuff that he wasn’t supposed to.)

Anyway, that’s where Jinn came from. There never was an “older sister”, ot in real life. Jade claims that Jinn is an older sister, but no one really knows where Jinn came from. Some sort of ghost? Like connected to her mother or something? Some sort of demon? A spirit? And everyone’s a little spooked by the fact that when Jinn was taken by Tansy (and they KNOW that really happened), then suddenly there’s this new spirit to take Jinn’s place. What’s that all about? No one knows, except maybe Jade or Jinn, and they aren’t talking.

But anyway, everyone uses the “Jinn is Jade’s older sister” story, but there’s some creepy stuff about Jinn. Like the whole “Shroud” business – what if it isn’t just an act?

So that’s my (new) story.

-- Jade (and Jinn, too, who turns into a creepy spirit of shadows!)

She was really zooming along. She’d already made her plans for costume class, she had the designs and sizes for her arm bones, and she’d called Harry and arrange to meet up with him (and probably Tennyo) for lunch. Meanwhile, Jann had found out that avatars were pretty rare. Jade wanted to do a bit more research before handing herself over to a stranger’s hands.

“Come on, Hank!” she begged. “You’ve still got 45 minutes before breakfast. You only need ten minutes to take a shower. That leaves plenty of time to show me.”

“I still can’t get over this,” he admitted, sheepishly. “I mean, us guys are so damn fast in the bathroom. The whole shower-and-prep thing is practically as fast as you can scrub off. Well, okay, there’s a couple of guys that really primp, but I’m wondering if that’s just ‘cause this is Poe.”

Jade frowned. “I can remember some guys really primping, back in junior high. Most of us thought they were pretty stupid. I mean, who cares about the hair and cologne and stuff? Just a quick comb and you’re done, right?” She had the grace to blush. “I guess… I guess I need to learn all about that, don’t I?”

Hank snorted. “Guess I don’t have all that much to unlearn. I never got all that fancy back when… well, before.”

“Yeah.” Jade was just as eager to drop that subject. “So, are you going to show me?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s something you can learn. I do it instinctively. Maybe it has to be built-in or something.”

“Okay, okay.” Reluctantly, he pulled his shirt off and handed a used-up pen to Jade.

Jade made sure the door was locked, then cast Jinn into Hank’s shirt. “I just need something that’s fairly wide. My vision gets a little better, the bigger I am.” Then she cast Jann into the pen. “This way, I can study how you change exactly where I’m poking you.”

All prepared, she jabbed at Hank with the pen. As expected, the TK field that coated his skin resisted the attack. Jade stabbed a couple more times, sometimes quick, sometimes pushing slowly.

“Not really,” Jinn-the-shirt said. “I mean, I can tell that something’s happening where you stab, but it’s impossible to see any details.”

“I’m getting something,” came from the speaker-disk hovering next to the pen. “When I touch him – it’s like a grid. Not exactly. But when I’m on the surface of something, I think I’m like a flat sheet. This feels like some sort of complicated pattern. It comes alive the instant we touch, but it’s not doing anything – not until you push on it.”

Jinn-the-shirt made a “hmm” sound. “Maybe – this is kind of freaky, ‘cause he’s a guy – but maybe if you cast me into his skin, I could watch it.”

With that, Jinn and Jann both returned to her. Jade suddenly remembered seeing the complex weave that Jann had noticed. It wasn’t so much seeing it, as feeling it. And it wasn’t exactly a weave. Like many aspects of psi, it seemed to have more than three dimensions. Jade didn’t really have words to think about it or describe it. The feeling was of some complicated pattern squeezed out in a layer over Hank’s skin. When the front part of the pattern was pressed up next to the back part, something happened. It was like the energy could suddenly flow freely.

“I think I see what’s happening,” Jade began. “Well, kind of. I see what’s happening, but I don’t know how. The patterns over your skin is really complicated. I mean, I can’t really see the patterns, but I can see what they’re doing. Are you willing to let me, uh, charge Jinn into your, uh, skin? If you don’t want to, it’s alright. I mean, I’ll understand. But that might help me see what’s going on.”

Jade touched his skin and was almost surprised when she could charge Jinn into the boy.

For Jinn, it was entirely different. She hadn’t noticed anything, being charged into Hank’s shirt. But entering his skin was completely different. For one thing, she didn’t arrive.

Coating the surface of Hank’s skin was a field of unimaginable force. It was like stepping onto a neutron star. Her awareness was instantly crushed flat, and spread like a paste to cover Hank’s body.

The field wasn’t featureless. There were complex mechanisms at work, psi-constructs in the field that waited passively. As Jinn’s awareness adapted, she realized that her vision was still working. She could see a pen approaching. As the tip of the pen struck the field, the psi-constructs reacted. The harder they were pressed, the more power flowed in, exactly canceling the force of the pen. Meanwhile, a secondary, tiny trickle of force reached inward, tickling against Hank’s skin.

These psi-constructs were obviously the secret to Hank’s protective field. And while she could see them now, and watch them working, duplicating the constructs was about as easy as duplicating a professional musician’s movements, after watching them play a solo. She’d try, she’d see what she could do, but it would be an awfully long time before she created anything useful.

She was stuck, trapped in Hank’s TK field like a fly landing on honey. And Hank’s field was immensely stronger than she was. Using TK to pull herself out activated the same mechanisms that his protective force field did. Pushing in didn’t have any luck either.

Panicking, Jinn tried to think. She moved her effort and awareness up to his ear. As loud as possible, she pulled back and forth, moving herself like a speaker disk.

Yelling even louder, Jinn explained herself. She ended with, “CAN YOU DROP YOUR TK SHIELD? CAN YOU LET GO?”

Jade reeled back as the memories slammed into her. “Whoa! Close one! I’ll make a note of that – never charge myself into someone with a skin-field like yours. Yikes. Like being stuck in tar.”

“Huh, what do you know?” Hank was saying. “I have to concentrate to keep it turned off, but this is kind of interesting. Everything feels a little more … raw … you know? Hey, if I do reps like this on the nautilus, I can work my actual muscles! Cool. So, did you learn anything?”

Jinn nodded. “From the inside, your ‘force field’ thing is incredibly complex. It’s like there are these feedback and response circuits. Only it’s not electronics, it’s all psi-constructs. Not like I could duplicate them, though. Well, maybe, with two or three hundred years of study and practice. There was a bunch of stuff in there that never even got triggered. You should check yourself out against lasers and sonics and stuff.”

She’d learned a lot, but Hank’s TK-invulnerability was a bust. Well, maybe she’d come up with something else.

Breakfast was wild. Everyone paid complete and utter attention to her. The entire crew was there, including both Bunny and Riptide. They found an isolated spot in the cafeteria, checked for eavesdroppers, and Jade began to tell the tale of Tansy.

Throughout it all, she kept to the fiction of describing her “sister” and what the “other girl” had gone through. She told about the Alphas, and how they got along (or didn’t). She talked about telepaths and avatars and dual minds. One recurring theme was her struggle to understand her own powers, and the triumph of learning how to actually possess Tansy.

“Hold on,” Toni said sharply. “You mean to say that while you were possessing her, you were really, honestly, no-fooling-around possessing her?”

Jade nodded. “Yeah, stories and, you know, misinformation aside, that’s exactly what it was like. I mean, using her muscles, speaking with her voice, seeing through her eyes, and particularly feeling with her skin. I would have felt really guilty if it hadn’t been that creep Tansy.”

Nikki leaned forward in curiosity. “So, in a way, it was sort of a dream-come-true for you, huh?”

Jade had the grace to blush. “Well, aside from being so close to Tansy, and having to worry about her waking up. And she’d definitely bigger than I think I’ll ever be!”

Hank, of all people, looked momentarily puzzled, until Billie made a “huge handful” gesture in front of her own bosom.

Jade continued on, explaining about telepaths and mind shields, and how Fey had almost saved her by tugging her free until Tansy tricked her.

“Damn!” the elfin mage swore. “I thought – but how was I supposed to know? And I couldn’t take the chance that I was really hurting you.”

Leaning back, she got decidedly casual and dropped a bombshell. “Oh, what else happened when my sister was possessing Tansy? Let’s see… oh, right. She had sex.”

That got a reaction. Toni, of all people, started choking on her breakfast. Nikki would have helped, but she was looking pretty green herself. Tennyo was just stunned.

When the most entertaining reactions had stabilized, Jade continued. “Fortunately, Jinn and Jann had been sort of forcibly merged at that point. Remember when I passed out last night? Same thing happened to them. So my big sister was completely unconscious through the whole, ugly affair.”

Nikki was still looking ill, but mentioned, “When you said ‘affair’ did you mean… oh, never mind.”

“So…” Toni broached, a little too casually, “you don’t know anything about how it was, or what it was like?”

“Not a bit,” Jade confirmed. “Except that from what I can tell, it’s really disgusting, and not at all pleasant. I mean, really disgusting.”

“And worst of all?” Jade leaned in closer, and spoke conspiratorially. “Guys have this – yuck! – stuff. And it ends up inside of you. And it’s all sticky and smelly, and drips out of you practically forever. Gross!”

“Eww. Some kind of sex-period,” Tennyo said. “Are you sure that’s normal? That isn’t the way people usually describe it.”

“Tansy, if you can believe it, is always taking these birth control pills. Jinn lied to her, and said that we’d swapped in aspirin instead. Man, you should have seen that girl go ballistic! Freaking out doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Gang,” Nikki begged, holding a hand over her mouth, “can we please stop talking about this?”

“Okay,” Jade agreed. She knew she’d have enough smut-gossip to keep going for weeks. Seeing the aftermath with Tansy had been enough to utterly eliminate the curiosity appeal that sex had. Not that she was physically equipped for it, but even if she was, she wasn’t sure that she ever wanted a guy to… do that stuff to her. Even so, it was fun to talk about, even if only to gross out her friends.

“Anyway, there’s lots of other stuff to tell, I’ll probably be going on for weeks with weird little things I saw or heard.” There was one HUGE detail – The Don’s talk about stealing spirits out of avatars – that she hadn’t mentioned. She didn’t plan to mention it, either – not until they were in someplace more private. The acoustics in the cafeteria dome were too strange. You could never be sure who might overhear you. She could handle it if someone managed to eavesdrop on things so far, but that topic was too scary. But there was one thing…

“One last detail,” she said, “and it’s a really big one. So Tansy’s whole point was to make a play for The Don, right? And even she doesn’t know how he did his mind-control whammy with Cavalier and Skybolt.”

“Right. And I told you how she got Thuban to get rid of Hekate for a week. You know how much she paid for that? Twenty-five thousand dollars! And originally, I think she wanted him to KILL Hekate! Like, murder! But he said he didn’t do assassinations. Right up front, clear as can be. That’s what he said. And she was disappointed. Jinn could sense her emotions, and that’s what Tansy was feeling – disappointment.”

“So here’s the thing,” Jade continued. “Toward the end, Tansy was seriously angry at three of us. Mostly me, ‘cause I shot her. She was pretty pissed at Fey, too. I think it’s the whole modeling thing. And Ayla was the third. Partially some childhood history, I think, but it was also your whole,” she momentarily dropped her voice to a whisper, “girl/guy thing, you know? I couldn’t figure her out. She was halfway attracted and halfway scared.”

“Thank you!” Ayla said, in an obvious attempt to head off the conversation. “That’s more than I want to know! Let’s not go there, okay?”

“Right. Anyway, we’ve got three people that she’s really p.o.’ed at, and money to burn, and a history of hiring out murders. And I suddenly thought…”

Nikki shook her head. “No way! That sort of thing doesn’t really happen, does it?”

Ayla snorted. “The Walcutts? Are you kidding? Although frankly, I’m shocked that Tansy would be so careless. But then, she’s always been pretty sloppy.” She began to tick off points on her fingers. “Let’s see, first, when you’re doing anything dirty you never make the contact directly. It’s always done through at least one level of intermediary. And you always maintain ‘plausible deniability’ – you know, the old misunderstood wishes thing. Second, violence is so completely looked down on. It’s just so… blue collar. What are we, a gang? Some sort of mafia? Although,” she mused, “with a name like ‘The Don’ you have to wonder.”

Toni broke into the lecture. “But you punch people, Ayla. Doesn’t that violate rule two?”

“Naw. I’m a mutant. Different standards. Also, face-to-face stuff is completely different. But then, I’m violating rule three as much as Tansy is. That is, ‘breeding always shows.’ I think Grace worked most of that out of me. And rule four isn’t so much a rule as a philosophy. ‘Always do it in style.’ Assassination or some such crass physical attack is so totally lacking in style. But,” she shrugged. “If your question is ‘Could Tansy do it?’ the answer is, ‘Hell yes.’ She wouldn’t batt an eyelash over it. It wouldn’t bother her at all. On the other hand, ‘Would Tansy do it?’ I don’t think so. Not unless she’s completely slipped up on anything like style or class or respect or class consciousness.”

It was another boring lecture, and Jann had a problem. What exactly was she supposed to do? Eventually, she’d be operating all the “gadgets” that she’d invent as Jade-the-devisor. But first she needed to work with Bunny to lash together some special effects so that things would at least look convincing. And for now, she was just hanging around so that she could build up her endurance, and push the limit of her powers.

She could listen to the class lecture, but her physical half was already doing that, and who cared about prepositions, anyway? She’d gotten convinced about nouns and adjectives and stuff, but prepositions?

She’d been popping back and forth a bit, trying to get a comfortable fit. If she cast herself into her skin, then she and herself could talk telepathically, without anyone catching on. But she was as uncoordinated as a web-footed giraffe. The different Tansy variations didn’t seem to matter much. Whether she was object-mode or girl-shape or whatever, she still had full telepathy, full TK, and she saw with both types of vision. She decided that possessing herself was somehow fundamentally different from possessing other people.

And being cast into just the clothes was boring with a capitol B. That’s probably how she’d do it when she turned into girl-gadgets, but right now it was completely dull.

So she worked on variations. She tried skin and clothes, but that worked like back with Tansy – she got sucked into the skin and ended up possessing herself. Then she figured out that she could cast herself into the “dead” parts of her body without getting sucked into the skin. She could occupy her fingernails, or teeth, or hair. For a while she occupied all the super-fine hairs on her body. That was interesting. By waving the hairs near her eardrums, she could speak to herself without anyone overhearing. But herself-in-body couldn’t talk back. She tried possessing every hair on her head. Each one burrowed into the skin of her scalp, just above her brain. Unfortunately, that didn’t give her any special abilities like telepathy with herself.

Then, almost by accident, she stumbled onto a major trick. She decided she needed more practice going from cast-into-object into cast-into-girlshape and back. As Jinn, she’d be using that trick a lot, particularly for a quick-change idea she’d been working on. She’d gotten it down to less than a tenth of a second. So there she was, spread through her clothes and hair, and then –flick– she was a ghostly girl just larger than her real physical body.

And that’s what did it. She instantly heard the undercurrents of her other-self’s thoughts.

A little more experimentation revealed that any time part of her “naked” spirit passed through any part of her physical body, the two of them were in contact.

But it really did make her feel naked. Particularly since the whole Tansy affair. She knew that her spirit form was supremely vulnerable to any avatar. All they had to do was touch her exposed spirit body, and she could be sucked in.

And it probably looked really odd to people like Fey and Toni, who could see her spirit form. One minute, there’s this quiet Asian girl sitting there, the next moment a ghost is flickering into place around her. She paused to consider. Would this endanger the whole disinformation campaign? A hostile snoop with the proper powers would see that Jinn was a “spook” and even when Jinn was out-and-about, Jade still had spooks flickering around her.

Nah, it’s too much fun. I’m not going to live my life in total paranoia. Besides, the fallback story can still fit. Maybe they’ll think I’m a mystic nexus or something – a living portal to the spirit realm.

The main problem with switching into girl-shape was that the clothes tended to expand to fit her. Since her sprit-form was seventeen, and her body-form was only twelve, her clothes looked like they were inflating. Even when she consciously shrunk down to match her body size, her clothes were suddenly showing a figure that didn’t match her body.

It kept her entertained through a boring class, but she decided to quit when she began to get looks from classmates.

The next period (algebra) she spent trying to duplicate Hank’s complicated TK field. If she could get it right she could turn any outfit into armor! Or, inhabiting her own skin, she could gain super-tough skin. Her TK should be strong enough to resist a knife, maybe even a low-caliber bullet! And it would probably soften the blow on other attacks.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t manage to duplicate the complicated field that Hank used. She could use her powers to make her clothes stiffer. In theory, that would make her stronger. Just like in Ranma ½, or in Dragonball Z, if she made her clothes heavier and stiffer, it would provide a constant load, and constant martial arts training. In theory, that should provide fantastic exercise and great muscle toning. It was too bad that didn’t work for her. Whatever kept her from growing older also seemed to prevent her from getting stronger. Way back in the ugly days when she’d been a boy, she’d done a lot of working out with free weights that her dad had bought. They’d never helped at all, although she hadn’t understood why, at the time.

There was something lurking at the edge of her mind, though… martial arts training, and she’d had an earlier thought about paranoia. Since she had plenty of free time, she should probably be watching in every direction for snipers or assassins. That shouldn’t be a problem for today – Tansy would probably be busy until this afternoon. She shuddered at the thought of what Tansy was probably doing right now.

Yeah, she should probably be watching, constantly alert, looking for threats, escape routes, suspicious people, angry emotions, that sort of thing. Someday she’d be a hot-shot Aikido master, like Ito sensei, and then she’d have an automatic awareness of everything around her, but that took long and intensive training.

She would make her clothes heavier and stiffer – well, as soon as it would do her some good. And in the meantime, she’d give herself the even harder training for movement and awareness. That was what she could do as her Jann-self – she would become Jann sensei! She would be constantly watching herself walk and move and react. She’d train her body-self to be aware of everything, to always move properly, to constantly maintain her center and balance. With this level of training, she might learn to be as good as Toni sempai!

She popped back to join with her physical side, then back out. She held the clothing and hair, including the fine hairs in her ear canal. She could talk to herself, but her body-half couldn’t answer back, except out loud.

“Alright, kohai, we will begin with some simple awareness exercises. Don’t turn your head or otherwise react in front of your classmates. You will subtly flick your index finger to indicate direction. First: an external threat is most likely to come from where?”

Her physical self flicked a finger to point at the door, then at the window. No great surprise, she’d been thinking of this exercise before she’d separated again.

“Now some exercises to use me effectively. I’m going to coordinate all your gadgets and outside stuff, so you won’t need to think about them. I’ll return, focusing on a new destination for you to cast me into. As fast as possible, we’ll do cast-and-return. … Pencil!”

Tennyo’s friend at lunch was a werewolf. At least, that’s what he looked like. He was about seven feet tall, with brownish-black fur over his entire body. The odd thing about him were the cutoff shorts and the red vest with gold embroidery.

“Nice vest,” Jinn said. She was dressed as Shroud, with white skin. At the moment she had her hood thrown back.

“You must be Jinn,” he said, in a deep voice with a hint of a more guttural rumble. He turned to look at the younger girl approaching the table. “And you must be Jade.”

The small girl nodded. “Hi, Tennyo.” Then she looked at the werewolf. UP at the werewolf. And up, and up.

“Whoa! And you must be Harry.” Then she slapped herself in the face. “Oh, jeez, sorry.”

They all sat down, and everyone except Shroud prepared to eat while they continued the introductions.

“I keep seeing you in passing,” Jade said, “but I think this is the first time Tennyo’s actually introduced us.” She scowled at her roommate.

“Snot my fault,” Tennyo said. “You could ask, you know.” Her voice was slightly distorted, since she was chewing an entire half sandwich. She had seven more sandwich halves on her plate.

“So,” Harry opened conversationally, “Billie tells me you’re some sort of spirit of the dead or something?”

Shroud shrugged. “Yeah, or something. It’s not quite clear what yet. I’m Jade’s older sister, but I’m not really alive. Well, I am, but not in the conventional sense. I just possess things. Sort of like a limited poltergeist, I guess. Hmmm, that’s not too bad a description.”

“Come on, you guys!” Billie whined around a second sandwich. “Stop embarrassing me!”

“No, this is just to hold my stuff. Convenient, and fairly comfortable. Clothes get a lot more irritating when you’re covered in fur. This is what I wear on green-flag days. On red-flag days I have to wear a hooded cloak, even more concealing than yours, Jinn. Even so, I mostly keep to the class buildings and tunnels.”

Harry made an endearing sort of snuffing sound through his nose. “Well, my mutant power isn’t because of how I look. They’re thinking I might be a sort of mechanical gadgeteer. What are you looking for?”

Shroud leaned forward. She was the only one not eating, so she took over the speaking. “You sound like exactly what I need! You probably saw our little fight with the Alphas, Saturday morning.”

“Well, we’re expecting more trouble. I’m pretty hard to hurt, since I don’t actually have a body.” To illustrate, she pulled her glove away and gave a view down her empty sleeve. “Nothing to get injured. But at the same time, when I hit someone, it has all the impact of being struck by a wad of laundry.”

“I know a bit about fighting, but it’s useless like this. My first attempt to fix it was to fill my gloves with a few pounds of shot. That way, when I hit it made a pretty good impact. But it’s too limited. It’s hard to use for elbow strikes, I can’t use a knife hand, and most of my blocks are useless.”

Harry seemed to be listening, but he picked up one rib and sucked the meat off of it, while making doggie-growling sounds. “Sorry. Can’t help myself. Superman was vulnerable to kryptonite – my one weakness is barbecue. And it’s hell to get out of fur.” He shrugged while Jade giggled and Tennyo smiled. “So it sounds like you’ve got a solution in mind already.”

“Uh huh.” Shroud held her arm out. “For atemi strikes – what some people call ‘hard style,’ you need mass and a hard surface. This isn’t the way a sensei would describe it, because he already knows that his students have the common background of having human bodies. I don’t, so I’ve had to think about this in more detail. In most moves, the energy from a strike comes from building momentum, and from concentrating the mass and motion of your body behind a strike. Most strikes are also designed to focus the impact on a small, hard area of the human body – such as the first two knuckles of the fist. This puts your hard bones behind the strike. The smaller and harder the area of impact, the better the blow can be. But I don’t have any bones, and I have very little material to use to build momentum.”

“Exactly. But that really only works for a punch. Martial arts allows for dozens of other types of blows. After thinking hard about it, I decided that I could get most of the benefit by simulating the mass in my forearm – from elbow to fingertip. Same for my feet – knees to toes. For a real martial artist, you can get more power by putting the rest of your body into things, but I think this should be enough for me.”

“Hmmm, I think I see.” Harry paused to lick his chops. His tongue did an impressive job of cleaning off his muzzle. “If you could make a whole fake forearm, simulating the muscle and bone and skin and stuff, then ‘poltergeist’ it to move normally, you’d get most of the power when you swung into a punch.”

“Exactly. And I could use nearly the full range of moves – blocks, elbow strikes, haito – the ridge hand, yubi – finger strikes, almost everything.”

Harry picked up another sauce-covered rib. “Sounds plausible. Uh, you don’t expect me to do any corpse-robbing or anything, I hope. I may look like a werewolf, but I’m really not into the whole horror thing.”

“Not at all.” She pulled several sheets of paper from her notebook, her own sketch and photocopies of the skeletal system. “Just the bones. The forearm, wrist, and fingers. If they were made out of metal…”

Harry nodded. “I get it. The weight of the metal would give you the mass you need, and the hard surface would provide a devastating strike..”

He licked his fingers clean and looked at the diagrams. “Well, the casting should be easy – there’s enough skeletal models around. Are you married to a realistic wrist design? It would be easier and stronger to just put in a ball joint. The human wrist bones need to be really complex, but I don’t think you have that problem here.”

“The big issue is what alloy to use. That and how to temper it. We might want to consider some unusual annealing steps…”

Tennyo and Jade grinned at each other as their lunch companions suddenly veered off in a flurry of technical details.

The seven of them (including Jinn) headed slowly toward Hawthorne. Jinn stood out, looking pure white and scarcely dressed, with a ragged bandeau top and an equally ragged skirt. The rest of her was a pure chalk-white (quite literally, since she was using pulverized chalk), even her hair.

Ayla was busy grousing. “It was a lot easier thinking about the whole ‘Cooler King’ approach when we weren’t so close to the problem.”

“Hey,” Hank reminded her, “if it was easy, no one would be impressed. So you picked your assignment yet?”

“I have!” Jade announced. She seemed to be addressing Toni. “She’s the one you told me about, Sempai. Jello, the girl without a body image template. I was thinking, maybe we’d be good for each other.”

The were received by Ms. Cantrel, the house mother at Hawthorne. She was a large, elderly black woman in a wheelchair. But, like some of the other wheelchairs on campus, this one had been significantly modified. In fact, this one seemed more modified than any of the others Jade had seen. It had no wheels, but glowing golden orbs at each corner, each orb the size of a grapefruit. The wheelchair didn’t merely hover, it positively swooshed about. It moved faster than they expected, giving the house mother surprising speed for someone of her bulk.

“Late? Not yet you aren’t! But unless we get moving you might be. And those kids need every minute they can get, so don’t sit there gawking, let’s get to work!”

Jade told the woman that she’d be helping “Jello”, so before she had a chance to collect her wits or to look around at the crowd at Hawthorne, she was bustled up the stairs and practically shoved into a room.

Inside, the room was a complete mess. The floor and bed (she assumed the covered mound was a bed) were covered in sheets, discarded clothing, magazines. And in the center of it all, sitting in the room’s one chair and watching TV was a humanoid figure that rippled and shifted as she entered the room. After a moment, the figure seemed to solidify into a rough copy of her, including jeans and apron.

“Oh, oh!” Jade recognized that effect. “You have the locker, I think three down from mine, right?”

“I keep seeing you between classes. I was confused at first, because I thought there were, I don’t know, twenty different people using the same locker, but they were all you, weren’t they?”

The other girl shrugged, which helped her shoulders to slump and she gradually lost more cohesion.

“So I think I’m supposed to be your personal servant or something. What would you like me to do?”

“I dunno. Clean up?” The older girl shrugged, as if cleaning up was not exactly vital.

“Cool. Actually, I’m really glad to be here. I’ve been hearing about you for a while, and I wanted to talk to you.” Jade paused to listen to Jann-sensei’s whispers in her ear. Her other self had apparently been surveying the room and coming up with a cleaning and organizational plan. Jade started to gather magazines as she continued to chatter. “See, from what the doctors have been telling me, I think we’re the exact opposites.”

“Opposites?” Something seemed to penetrate to the other girl, and she seemed to pay attention to Jade for the first time. “What do you mean?”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, your real problem is that you don’t have a body image template, right?”

The other girl, who was now looking more and more like a mirror image of Jade gave her ubiquitous shrug. “I guess.”

“Right. That’s what they’ve been telling me. What they didn’t tell me was that you had such awesome shapeshifting powers!”

“Well, sure! Who wouldn’t be? Not the downside, of course. Sorry, that must really suck. But being able to be anyone, or anything – wow! Is that the coolest thing ever, or what?”

“I dunno. I guess. But if you could be anything you wanted, what would you be?”

Jade was momentarily stunned. “Uh, I have an answer to that one, but I can’t really tell you. It’s kind of a deep, dark secret. But trust me, I do have something in mind.”

Jade started stacking the magazines on the shelf. Following the instructions whispered in her ear, her hands moved quickly to organize them by title and date. Jade herself concentrated more on her conversation with Jello. The girl had seemed almost dazed earlier, but she seemed to be coming out of that now.

“So how do you figure you’re my exact opposite. And to really be my opposite, you’d have to be a boy, wouldn’t you?”

Jade tried to hide her embarrassment at that last point. “Uh, well, how old do you think I am?”

“No, I’m fourteen! My body image template is completely stuck! I haven’t grown so much as a millimeter in years. Exercise never makes me any stronger, it’s like there’s nothing I can do to change my body at all. I’m completely stuck.”

“Oh.” The other girl, who was now her exact duplicate seemed to be actually thinking. Her voice now sounded like Jade’s too. “So who have you been seeing?”

Jade grinned. “Sure! It’s pretty cool. I’m not sure why more people aren’t using it. I use the ‘study’ technique all the time. I’ve used some of the others once or twice, but I’m really working on coming up with my own. I had a gun I’m trying to learn to use – devisor thing, you know? – and I’ve got a marksmanship hypno thing. Dr. Bellows calls it a ‘spell’ even if it really isn’t. I use that a lot.”

Jello was awake enough that she began helping pick things up. “Whoa, you really get to talking, don’t you? Slow down for a minute. The reason the hypnosis isn’t more popular is that it doesn’t work that well on most people. Some people, like me, are really suggestible. They seem like good candidates, and you get a lot of them on the initial sessions – it looks like everything’s going to work great. Unfortunately, we’re too suggestible. Stuff comes in fine, but it either dribbles out just as quick, or else it’s replaced by new suggestions.”

“Oh.” Jade paused for a moment, while Jann described how Jello’s aura and emotions were changing and brightening, as she got more involved. “Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that.”

“Most people don’t. They hear about it, and think it’s going to solve all their problems. But it’s usually really, really temporary. Then there’s other types – the un-suggestible ones. Really strong force of will. Can’t be hypnotized. Which is kind of a shame, because from what I hear, if you could hypnotize them, it would stick really well.”

Jade had a sudden thought. Was this what had happened to Cavalier and Skybolt? Had The Don used some sort of telepathic technique like Tansy’s to force a suggestion into a strong-willed mind, until it stuck?

“And then lastly, there’s a batch in the middle that’s just right. They can accept suggestions – some of the time. And they have a really strong will – most of the time. And the trick is to find a way to get them into the trance, and to word things in a way that they can accept, and then hypnosis is really, really effective.”

“Oh.” Jade suddenly understood. “I think that’s what happened to me. I didn’t actually let Dr. Bellows hypnotize me. I had my sister plugging my ears. She was listening to the doc, and whispering the real commands into my ear. I trust her completely.”

Jello-Jade’s eyes were gleaming with intelligence now. “Interesting. And did it work?”

“Like a charm. I could whip off one of those post-hypnotic programs right now. Except I don’t feel like sleeping, or studying, or improving my marksmanship.”

“Oh. No, didn’t make a bit of difference.” She paused for a moment. “No, actually, it worked pretty well.”

“Well…” Jade took a deep breath. “See, my older sister Jinn, she’s dead, and kind of a poltergeist now. She used to spend a lot of time just inside my head, but we figured out how to let her come out and possess things, like a ghost or poltergeist or something. Only when she does, we think she’s using my body image template. At first, she looked just my age. Fourteen – what I’m supposed to be, not what I’m stuck as. But with the hypnosis, she now looks seventeen – her age. It’s still my template, but it’s what I’m going to look like at seventeen. At least, I hope so. So anyway, the hypnosis changed my template, and helped Jinn, but I’m still stuck.”

Jello-Jade shook her head. “Dead sister, huh? Weird, even for Whateley. Hey, is she here today? Can I meet her?”

“Oh. That might work, then. Hey, I’m sorry I was so out of it, earlier. I never did introduce myself. I’m Eleanor Ruskin, code name ‘Jello’.” She held out a hand.

Instead, Jade gave her a hug. “Hi. Jade Sinclair. I’m still trying out code names, but I’m going with ‘Generator’ for now. Does that sound okay for a devisor?”

“No. I had this gun, but it got kind of confiscated after Saturday’s big fight. I kind of shot Tansy Walcutt with it, and security got a little upset.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s kind of a long story, and you’re in one part of it. See, it started with my sister….”

Things were not going nearly so well for Jinn. She’d assumed that this “musk-girl” would be contaminating anything she wore, so she’d collected a set of rags and discards from other members of the cottage. The tattered black bandeau-top and her short, ragged black skirt gave her a “jungle princess” look. Or perhaps it was more of a “castaway” look. But since her skin was entirely composed of thick layers of chalk dust, she looked pure white, and just slightly transparent (when she stood in front of a light). Still, the results were dramatic, and Jinn was loving the attention. This was the first chance she’d had to strut her stuff as a “full grown girl.” She’d had her seventeen-year-old form since Saturday afternoon, but there’d been way too many other things on her mind. And while she’d gotten a few comments in class, she’d deliberately shrunk her height down to being barely taller than her previous five-foot-three, to make the changes less noticeable. A little work with her cloak, and her new figure was concealed, too.

Ms. Cantrel escorted her up to the third floor. Her main comment on seeing Jinn was, “Lordy, I think you must be the whitest girl I ever saw.”

“Do tell.” The house mother rapped on a door at the very far end of the hallway. “Sue honey, open up! You’ve got maid.”

After a moment, the door opened. An attractive-looking girl poked her head out. She had jet-black hair, with a white stripe that ran across the top of her head from her forehead straight back to her neck. The girl with the white and black hair looked at the girl with the white skin and skimpy black clothes.

“Oh lovely. How cute. White-and-black, for the girl with the stupid hair. Well, you might as well get it over with.” She ushered Jinn in and closed the door behind her.

“Look, much as I enjoyed hearing about the Alphas getting kicked in the teeth, I really don’t appreciate being used as your punishment. I find the whole concept demeaning and insulting. We both know that you’d rather be anywhere but here, so let’s get this over as fast as possible, okay? I’m surprised you’ve held up as long as you have. Most people are usually gasping for air at this point.”

Jinn smiled. “Just one of the many advantages of being dead, I suppose. Altered senses. And it’s not like I actually breathe.”

“Great. And I didn’t think my life could sink any lower. Now they’re dumping the dead people on me.”

The girl smirked. “That’s what they tell me. Name’s Sue Kunque. They call me Musk.” She held out her hand, somewhat challengingly.

“Jinn Sinclair. ‘Shroud.’ Although Tansy Walcutt had plenty of other names for me, including Hellspawn, Demon, and ‘That Damned Ghost.’ Pleased to meet you.”

They shook for a moment, then Musk deliberately pulled her hand back. “Sorry, just testing. Didn’t mean to actually hurt you.”

Jinn held up her hand to look at it. Her palm had turned a sort of greenish yellow. “Huh, how ‘bout that. What did you do?”

“Just one of my regular traits. My hands can emit a mildly corrosive film. It’s hell on clothes and furnishings. I figured you’d pull away before you got really hurt though.”

Jinn stepped over to the trashcan. With her left finger, she flicked away the discolored bits of her right hand, letting go of them so they fell into the trash. When she was done, there was a hole in her hand. She held it out toward Sue. “See? No harm done.” The dust from her skin flowed into the space and restored the color and shape of her hand.

“Nope. Can’t feel pain. An advantage of being dead, I guess. On the other hand, I can’t feel pleasure, either. One of the disadvantages.” She looked around. “So, I think I’m supposed to be your personal servant for the next week. What can I do for you?”

“Nope. I’ve got to do work. They were mentioning cleanup and other stuff? Someone said something about ventilator filters?”

“Yeah, with a delightful mutation like mine, I have both a stand-alone room filter and an independently powered, quintuple filter and precipitator on the intake over there. Hmm, and if you’re really keen on the whole personal slavery thing, I guess you could do my bedding and laundry, too. Like three times a week isn’t enough. Even so, everyone hates me whenever I use the laundry machines. And if that doesn’t get you, I’ll let you clean the floor, ceiling, and walls. They pick up a sort of filmy crust after a few months. I had this room last year, too, you know. And then all my books and personal objects. Followed by another cycle of laundry.” She crossed her arms and stared at Jinn challengingly.

Dinner was lively. Everyone had plenty to say about detention. Then when they came home, they found Hippolyta guarding the mail slots.

“Here!” the body builder said in irritation, thrusting a small package into Jade’s hands. “I don’t know what’s in there, but some idiot from Emerson thought he could lift it right out of your mailbox.” She smacked a fist into her palm. “I persuaded him to leave us the hell alone.”

“We look out for our own, here,” was all the muscular girl said, as she vanished up the stairs.

“Ooo! Jade’s got a sweetie!” Toni sang. “A secret admirer, sending you gifts? Who sent it? Let me see!”

Jade snatched the disk away. She’d already seen the return address. “It’s not what you think! She isn’t a sweetie, we were just playing around.”

That got everyone’s attention. You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.

“Okay,” Tennyo growled, “I think it’s about time you explained that little comment.”

“I don’t think I quite caught that,” Fey said. “I heard the word ‘kiss,’ but nothing else.”

“I’ve got a DVD player,” Bunny offered. “Well, I mean, everyone has a player in their laptop, but I’ve got a big-screen projector in the room.”

“Hey, this is personal!” Jade protested. “It’s my first kiss! There’s nothing to see besides a little making out… and… stuff.”

Riptide took on a blushish tinge that may have been due to her powers. “Oh yeah.”

Jade remembered that Duplex had created a face that no one would recognize. “You don’t know her, so don’t worry.”

“Settle down, everyone,” Hank ordered. “She’s just a kid. What is it, your first kiss at a birthday party or something?”

“Close enough,” Jade said. “Just innocent, like I said! It’s not like I took any of her clothes off or anything!”

Tennyo looked confused. “You said, ‘it’s not like I took her clothes off.’ What were we supposed to think?”

“Oh,” Jade understood again. “I mean Tansy’s clothes. I didn’t take any of those off. Well, not on camera.”

“Yep,” Toni agree. “Must see. No more protests. In you go.” She shoved Jade into Bunny’s room.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Fey protested. “I’ve seen Tansy’s figure in the changing room. It’s no better than mine.”

Hank stared at Fey, obviously undressing her with his eyes. “No better. Heh. Yeah. Just have to see.” The giggles and snorking sounds that crept through his voice made him sound like a complete moron.

“Well, he IS part of the team,” Toni allowed, while slapping Hank across the back of the head. “At least, for now. Straighten up, pervert!”

Despite Jade’s protests the team crowded into Bunny’s room, and soon the intimate little first kiss scene was playing for everyone to see. Afterward…

“I don’t remember you telling us about that!” Tennyo hollered. “What was the point behind that… that… scene?”

“Chill out, Mom,” Jade muttered, under her breath. She wasn’t really irritated, though. Louder she explained, “Look, it’s blackmail material. Tansy is a pretty frothing anti-lesbian, and we figured that something like that would drive her insane.”

Toni drummed her fingers in irritation. “Please explain to me exactly why you thought it would be a good idea to create blackmail material that would drive one of our enemies completely over the edge.”

Jade got a little huffy at that. “Look, she wasn’t our enemy at that point, she was my enemy. No one else even knew I was alive. These girls were the only ones who knew anything about it. I was helping them out by tormenting Tansy – and you’ve got to know that everyone in Dickinson hates that girl – and by giving them dandy blackmail material. Tansy can sure afford it. Do you know that she dropped about forty thousand dollars on her schemes last week? Mostly, just to sleep with a guy she hates. The girl’s got money to burn.

“Anyway, I had to grab for any weapon or tool I could find. And this was one of them.” She finally snatched the disk back. “It’s not like I’m going to have it for long anyway. The other girls have probably already sold their copies back to Tansy, for a hefty fee.”

Nikki objected. “So you’re planning to blackmail her? Is that the kind of person you want to be?”

Jade didn’t understand at first. “But… she’s got so much money, you wouldn’t believe it! And the more we bleed out of her, the less she’ll have to attack us with. This is just self-defense. And it’s not like she doesn’t deserve it!”

“No, I see Nikki’s point,” Toni said. “I’m not saying that Tansy doesn’t deserve it, or that you shouldn’t do it, but think it over, before you commit yourself. A lot of this whole ‘dark side’ stuff starts small and then snowballs bigger and bigger.”

Everyone headed back to their own rooms, with Rip following Toni, but Bunny held Jade back.

“Hold on,” the blonde said, “I’ve got something to show you. I think I’ve got my first one.” She pulled out a slightly oversized pink plastic compact. See? There’s even a paper-thin lid at the top you can open to get a mirror.”

Jade accepted the surprisingly heavy compact. “I like the big Hello Kitty face on top. Makes it a little friendlier, doesn’t it?” She hefted it. “Kind of heavy. Is it made of rock or something?” Jade popped open the small mirror and looked. Nothing special. She was looking for a concealed TV screen or something. There were several small dots around the rim. “Are these buttons?”

“Not exactly. Put it down on my desk, then charge into it. This’ll be Jasmine, right?”

“Nope. Not like it matters, the names are kind of arbitrary. But everyone’s back home where they belong. Jinn’s in the room studying, so Jann gets to be gadget-girl. This will be good, she’s been waiting for some action.”

Jade put the compact down, then touched it with a finger as she sent Jann into the thing. Immediately the compact rattled a bit. Six small needles popped out of the rim.

“In addition to providing a defense from someone that tries to grab you, Jann, you’ll notice small reservoirs connected to each needle. Each reservoir is sized to provide exactly two doses.” Bunny reached over and spun the compact so that it was Kitty-side up, then she touched the sides of the needles (not the tips), skipping her finger around to alternate sides as she went. “Paralysis, paralysis, fast-acting sleep sedative, same, a euphoric compound – I call it ‘happy juice’ – careful with that one since although it’s not technically illegal yet, it’s pretty questionable. The last needle holds a lethal neurotoxin. Don’t ask where I got it. I’m trusting you to only use that one against monsters and vicious animals and stuff.”

“Hey, the casing is like a speaker disk – what happened to my voice?” The voice had come out mechanical and clipped, sounding quite robotic.

Bunny was gleeful. “Special effects, right? I superimpose a different waveform on the casing when you vibrate it, to change the voice. ‘Kitty Compact’ is officially an autonomous defense robot. Now, you’ll notice two more reservoirs connected to small vents. This is sleepy gas. Each capsule holds enough to create a cloud that’s about a foot in diameter, so you only get two shots and you’ll need to be right next to their face. The good news is that it’s colorless and odorless, so no one should notice the cloud.”

“Affirmative,” the compact sounded, then giggled in with an odd mechanical tone. The compact wobbled, then floated up in the air. The six needles popped back in, then came out one at a time. Then in different combinations.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. I’m sure Jann has already seen, but she’s just waiting. Hey, Jann, you see the small round wheel thing? I remembered what you said about having about 3000 watts of power. This should only take a tiny fraction of your energy. Can you spin it up and keep it going? That’s your generator.

“This unit not ‘Jann,’ this unit is ‘Kitty Compact’.” The robot-giggle came again.

A thin whine came from the floating compact, and a sequence of red LED lights turned on around the rim. The top and bottom also began to alternately blink in a soft pink glow.

“If you look around, you should see a bunch of little bumps. They’re momentary contact switches. You’ll have to hold them to turn on the lights, but it should give you full control over all of them. And the larger lights will have a pink glow, but if you flip the mirror lid open, it will be white. You can use it as a nightlight or flashlight. Sorry, I couldn’t think of anything clever to do with the mirror, it’s just tacked on. You could tear that piece off without really damaging Kitty Compact, but the rest is pretty durable.”

The compact floated in the air, the light pattern circling around the rim. The top and bottom alternately blinked pink, then the mirror flipped open, providing a flashlight-like beam. Eventually, the light patterns got fancier, blinking on off in different directions and sequences.

Another whine, louder this time, climbed the scale as it spun up. A tiny, quarter-inch flame came from the bottom of the compact – from the middle of the flat side. As the compact jiggled, tiny flames came in bursts from around the rim.

“I’m using an atmospheric exciter there. Power hog, but very compact. Your spinning provides all the energy needed – it’s about 300 watts. This is pure special effect – unless you need to light a cigarette. Not enough heat to do much else. Jann, do you see that ball bearing in the tube assembly? That’s the automatic valve. It ducts the flame toward wherever you’re accelerating away from. Either down, most of the time, or side-to-side when maneuvering. You could hold the bearing in place, to concentrate the flame and send it out one port, but the flames are supposed to make it look like a rocket drive or something.”

“Wow,” Jade said. “Pretty, and cool, too! I mean, the gas, the lighter, the flashlight, and especially the knock-out needles. Slick!”

Bunny grinned, then did the side-to-side head movement that flopped her pony tails around like big rabbit ears. “That’s not the best part. I showed you all the little stuff first. Jann, before the big surprise, see those two rods alongside? If you can pop those into place, it should lock everything rigid and strengthen the assembly by a factor of four.” She took a deep breath and focused her gaze on the small pink plastic disk, hovering on its small flame. “Kitty Compact: Attack Mode!”

Instantly two dagger blades snapped out from opposite sides of the compact. The full octagonal design was now revealed, with the two dagger blades and the six smaller needles.

“The compact is exactly eight centimeters wide, and each blade is seven centimeters long. Well, seven exposed. So the total devise – and use an ‘s’ so that people know this is a unique-to-you devisor devise – the total length is twenty-two centimeters. Almost nine inches. And since Jann is as strong as a grown man, it should have a decent attack. Obviously, she doesn’t need a hilt, since she is the knife. Your main problem in combat, Jann, will be to avoid getting blown to bits by bullets or lightning bolts or something, so keep a little mobile.”

The knife-disk began jittering about, apparently propelled by small flames that came from the bottom, rim holes, and occasionally the top. It looked almost nervous the way it constantly zipped from spot to spot. Suddenly, it began to spin. By now, there was an even fringe of flame and spinning steel as the lethal propeller jittered its way around the room.

But the spinning devise moved with controlled precision, quickly circumnavigating the top of the room, staying an even four inches away from the ceiling and walls.

“Hmm, spinning. Hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to work on a Mark II version. I was hoping to toughen the case and add a capacitor for a nice electrical jolt on the knife edges, but you have to stop somewhere. It’s all a non-magnetic alloy, so you should be okay with metal detectors. If it gets smashed, bring me back the pieces for analysis, and particularly the metal from the knife blades – that’s the most expensive part.”

Jade looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Uh, after such a fantastically great gizmo, I hate to bug you, but…”

“Yeah? Hey, don’t worry! Us gadgeteers are all about upgrades and new versions.”

“Well could you make another one, really durable, with, I don’t know, foam blades and needles?”

She felt a little better as she fell asleep. Jinn was studying, Jann was practicing. Their endurance was up over seventy-four minutes now, so she’d be getting lots of work done while she slept. Particularly since she was still on the “wake up every two hours” plan.

She now had one decent defense for her physical body – even without her gun – and Jinn would have better capabilities as soon as Harry finished work on her “bones.” She didn’t feel confident yet, but things were looking up.

Tansy had been free for most of the evening. With luck, it would take her a little time to get organized. Jade had to make sure that she took full advantage of whatever time she was given.

With that in mind, and to speed her trip into slumberland, she reached out and charged up Jeanie. As expected, the extra effort knocked her out immediately.

It was third shift, and Jinn was finding it hard to keep track of all the versions of “her” that were around. As of tonight, there were now three versions of her roaming around the room while Billie and Jade-physical slept. She had to double-check, looking down at how she was “dressed.”

I’m not a book, so I’m not Jeanie. I’m not in the compact or a gadget, so I’m not Jann. I’ve got the material for clothes and a body – I must be Jinn. It wasn’t quite so consciously thought out as that, but she needed to make sure that she answered to the right name. It was sometimes the only way she had of keeping track of herselves. The few times the many of her had gotten into a conversation with each of herself, it had gotten a bit confusing. She’d have to work on that.

She experimented around with her look a bit more. She reminded herself that she was seventeen now, which was a heady experience. Being Jinn was the best. Jinn was the only one of her that really got to walk around in girl-shape.

Right now, she was using minimal materials. She’d snagged plenty of scraps of black spandex and lycra from the costume shop scrap bin. She’d expected to need them for detention. Musk had certainly proven that point! Even Jinn’s chalk-powder had gotten contaminated. Normally, she could give the particles of her body a sort of sonic-vibration “humm” – she way she did with her speaker disk – and it would shake the dirt right off her. But Sue’s musk had an actual chemical effect, permeating both the chalk and the spandex, rendering them permanently smelly, even after a sonic cleaning. Fortunately, Hawthorne had an incinerator in their basement. Surprisingly, that cottage had three levels of basements, with the incinerator on the lowest level. Jinn had opened the door and walked into the flames, burning up every particle of her and eliminating the stench. She’d planned on dropping her “hold” on herself once she was in the incinerator, but it was an interesting experience. Even as the outfit turned to ash and her chalk particles changed composition in the heat, she retained her grip on them. She could tell that she was becoming more tenuous and transparent – as her particles turning into gas she could still hold on to them, but they were a little more slippery, for want of a better word. She had to work on keeping them from bleeding out of her grasp. In contrast, the ash was easy to hold. She held herself in perfect girl-shape, even as her material turned to ash. It seemed like a nicely spooky effect. Maybe she could do something with it for Halloween, at the end of the month.

Partly because of that, she was practicing using the bare minimum of material. She had charged into several scraps of black spandex, a mortar and pestle, a box of chalk, and three lumps of coal. She ground the chalk and coal into powder, then “dropped” the mortar and pestle. The chalk powder flowed over her skin, outlining her proper girl-shape. She used the coal for eyeballs, lips, and hair. It was a nicely Goth look.

Her outfit took a bit more work, but she had that done quickly enough. A cloaked hood (she left the bottom edge ragged), the same bikini-bandeau top she’d worn to Hawthorne, and a miniskirt-and-black-panties affair for her bottom. She added cuffed gloves and slippers, and felt almost presentable.

She felt like a bit of an exhibitionist, walking around in what was little more than a bikini. But it wasn’t like she could get cold or anything. Besides, when she finally got to be the lucky one, to be Jinn, she wanted to show off. She knew it had to be overcompensation or something like that, but she had a figure now, and she intended to take advantage of it!

She decided to double-check her measurements, to see if they’d altered from her first appearance. She even (silently) interrupted Jann, to get her to help holding the tape. At seventeen, she was… she topped out at five-foot-seven tall. Her measurements were also unchanged, at 34-23-35, with a small B cup. It was the same as when Tennyo had first measured her, meaning that this was probably real. Her measurements were stable. If she could just get her template to affect her physical body, this is what she’d be growing into.

Saying she was thrilled would be an understatement. While she knew that, in a school of super physiques, most of the older girls tended to average a C cup, with some at D or larger, looking down at herself she thought that B was more than enough. Perhaps she was influenced by her time in her undeveloped physical body, but a B cup was a delight. Stroking a hand down her side, feeling her waist and hips, she felt every inch the girl. And now that she had an outfit to match, she was ready to do some midnight exploring.

Aside from her skin and outfit, one other thing she’d brought along was a small black pouch a little smaller than a juice box. When she switched from girl-shape to object, she could collect together her chalk and coal, and pour herself back into the tiny black bag. Then she could drift about as a pure black cloak. She practiced that now, slipping under the door so that she could exit the room without bothering to open the door.

Wafting along the hallway like a haunted cloak was amusing, but she didn’t really want to spook out the other Poesies (as some called them). Besides, she wanted to be a girl. Floating outside her door, she practiced her transformation. The cloak wrapped around like a cocoon. She opened the pouch, and let the coal and chalk fly out, outlining her girl-shape. Then, unwrapping the cloak, she stepped forward, seemingly appearing from nowhere.

She roamed the halls for a bit, went down to the library and read what she could on avatars. But what she really wanted was someone to talk to. Then she remembered someone mentioning that Sara didn’t sleep. Could that be true?

She let herself into the basement and stepped silently down to the end of the hall. Once there, she felt like slapping herself in the head. Did Sara have a light on? How the heck would Jinn be able to tell? But she thought she heard a sound somewhere inside. She had just placed her ear to the door, when it was suddenly yanked open.

“Sorry,” Jinn told her. “It’s just… I heard you don’t sleep. It gets kind of dull around here in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” the other girl grumped. “Okay, come on in. Sorry for the bitchiness – I just don’t like people spying on me.”

Jinn followed Sara back into the room, making herself at home and sitting lotus-style in mid-air, her cloak dangling down to brush at the ground. “Nice décor.”

Sara contemplated the walls. “Yeah, I was thinking of maybe checks or stripes, but I they had a discount on the mystic runes wallpaper, so I said, what the heck.”

Jinn snorted. “I’m guessing they’re active. To my vision, they look like they’re written in red laser lines.”

“Yeah. My vision is weird. I don’t see color or light. The only stuff that comes out in color are emotions. Well, mutant powers look sort of more-violet than violet. And I guess, seeing that, that some magic stuff comes out as a kind of pure red.”

“Really?” Sara was suddenly showing real interest. “Hey, I see auras. Sort of a fuzzy cloud around a person. Is that what you see?”

“Not exactly. For me, it looks like their skin is transparent, and there’s a sort of colored light inside them, and it’s glowing through their translucent skin.”

They compared colors and emotions, and found that those didn’t quite match up, either. But they both enjoyed watching emotions.

“Did you see Nikki this morning?” Sara asked. “I swear, her aura was like a bruise, all twisted up with purples and reds, when you were talking about sex. I almost fell off my seat from laughing. I think I managed to hold it in, though.”

“Well,” Jinn said, “I spotted you. A sort of sparkling yellow. I don’t think the others have noticed yet. I’d say it was the fairly innocent DVD, but you seem to have a tinge of lust almost all of the time.”

Jinn didn’t know what to say. “Nikki’s the one I feel for, though. She was a guy, not too long ago. And now she’s suddenly thinking about… you know. I think she’s scared to death.”

“Oh, she wanted it,” Sara said confidently. “Billie too. They just won’t admit it yet. Most of the table, heck, most of the school is a bubbling pot of hormones. That’s what makes you the weird one.”

“It’s cause I don’t have any hormones,” Jinn admitted. “That’s a problem with being a naked spirit, or whatever I am. The passions aren’t quite there like they are in a physical body.”

“Yeah, but even ‘in the flesh,’ I don’t get a lot of the old lust smell from you.”

“Give me a chance to go through puberty, first,” Jinn said. “You know, speaking from the pre-adolescent point of view, the whole sex stuff is either monumentally disgusting, or so hilarious I can’t believe it. Usually both. Kind of like bathroom humor, only squared.”

Sara sighed and rolled her eyes. “I see your point. But wait till you start to bloom.” She gave Jinn the eye. “In fact, I’m surprised you don’t already have a bevy of young lads – or maybe lasses – trailing around after you.”

“Well, I haven’t been ‘grown up’ for more than a couple of days. I’ve been kind of keeping under wraps. We’ll see.” After a pause, Jinn ventured, “Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Never met her, and I refuse to take a paternity test,” the vampire-girl quipped.

“No, death.” Jinn interrupted. “I mean, you died, right? And your father, if that’s what he really was, is a demon from hell. You must have the inside track. I kind of died recently, so now I’m wondering about it.”

“Oh.” The vampire girl was quiet for a moment as she collected her thoughts. “Look, I don’t have an ‘inside track,’ as you call it. I guess I died, but it was a lot like being asleep. And as for dear old dad, he hasn’t sent me any revelations yet.”

“Not at all.” Sara waved her hand in dismissal. “I’d rather have people asking me up front than just stewing over stuff. Sorry I couldn’t give you the big secret. But, hey, I might be able to help you in other ways.”

“From your email this morning. You want to fake out some story about you being a ghost, and all. I’ve done some research, and I have some ideas on that.”

Sara walked to a small bookshelf and pulled out a couple of old volumes. “First off, considering your ancestry, did you ever think of impersonating a kami?”

“I’m not sure I like that idea,” Jinn decided. “I mean, I’m not exactly Shinto, but still. What have you got on them?”

Sara flipped though a book finding illustrations, as she summarized from memory. “Classic nature spirits tied to places, animals, trees, people and things. There are supposed to be eight million kami in the ‘pantheon.’ While most kami were spirits of natural formations, some were spirits of buildings and of people, like guardian angels except more ghost-like. Certain people could converse with kami, who were usually invisible, particularly Japanese ‘witches’ or ‘shrine maidens’ known as miko. You could be a kami to Jade’s miko. She fits fine as one of the young, virginal, girls they have attending to Shinto shrines. We could get her a red hakima and a white kimono, and you could be her own personal kami.”

“Maybe,” Jinn said. “But I think if my mom was still alive, she might have disapproved. Have you got anything else?”

“Sure,” Sara told her. “If you don’t like kami, you could be an oni demon or a kishin, one of the demon gods. They come in any form imaginable.”

“Try this,” Sara suggested. “If you don’t want to play fast-and-loose with Japanese culture, how about something from eastern Europe and Russia? You could be a raggamoffin.”

“Not quite. That’s a scruffy little urchin. A raggamoffin is a demonic spirit that possess, guess what? Clothes! They favor discarded rags and the like, and then use those clothes to strangle people to death, mostly for the sheer homicidal joy of it. They’re classic psychopaths and sociopaths. I’ve read several stories of raggamoffins where they hide in a child’s wardrobe or trunk, waiting for an opportunity to strike at a vulnerable little boy or girl. Another favored tactic was wrapping a creature up in themselves and ‘possessing’ them, moving the person like a puppet and forcing them to kill others. Definitely not nice creatures, but it might be perfect for a spooky cover story.”

“Ick!” Jinn said. “No thanks. A spooky cover story sounds fine, but that would keep me from ever getting a babysitting job. I mean, not a chance, never.”

Sara raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You plan to be doing much babysitting here at Whateley?”

“Well…” Jinn’s voice was obviously a touch embarrassed. “You never know. And if I ever had any kids of my own… I just kind of thought that maybe it would be nice if they always had some of me, trailing them around, watching out for them, you know?”

“With an attitude like that, I can see that you’d want to cut down on the whole ‘child butcher’ backstory. But remember, I used to be a horror writer. This sort of stuff was my bread and butter.”

“Don’t get me started,” Sara muttered, darkly. “Well, that brings us to the last choice, but it’s probably the best. The ghul.”

“No,” Sara shook her head. “The ghoul is an undead creature that lives in catacombs and feeds on dead human flesh. Ironically enough, it was H.P. Lovecraft that first described that version of ghoul.”

She paused, looking at the glowing walls, her own skin, and seemed to take a moment to recall that she was now living in the “Lovecraft Room.”

“Okay,” she admitted. “Given what’s happened in my life recently, I suppose we should expect to run across real ghouls sooner or later. It would just figure.

“But what I meant to talk about wasn’t the ghoul, but the ghul or ghulah. They stem from old Arabia, about the time of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights stories. This was back when people believed in a race of elemental beings called the Jinn—”

“I like it already!” Jinn said. “I mean, I didn’t pick this name by accident!”

“Right. So you probably already know that the Jinn were creatures of air created from smokeless black fire.”

“That's fine so far, but to go a bit further, there were many different types of Jinn. The most powerful were the ones we now know as the ‘Genies of the Lamps’ who were imprisoned by King Solomon the Wise and forced to render service to the possessors of the lamp. But there were lesser Jinn, and one of these types were the ghuls, male, or ghulahs, female.”

Sara flipped through another volume, showing pen-and-ink illustrations, and also some photographs of something. The pen-and-ink was easily visible to Jinn’s altered vision, but the pictures were just rectangles of random gray speckles.

“Ghulahs were shapeshifting spirits who, though made of air or spirit, seduced men in a solid form, bore ghul children by them and ate the corpses of the dead. In One Thousand and One Arabian Nights there is a very typical vampire story where a man marries a woman who refuses to eat and sneaks out each night to feast on freshly dead bodies with her ghul friends. She tries to kill him for his curiosity, but he and a bunch of other guys track her down to a tomb and finish her off. Ghuls are typically portrayed as female and evil, which is typical pseudo-religious patriarchal propaganda. Oh, they also have powdery white skin, prefer dark colors and have a tendency to tear their enemies apart and eat them.”

Jinn held up her chalk-white arm, with the black glove over her hand. “Hmm, powdery white skin? Prefer dark colors? This is black, right? I’m never quite sure.”

“Well, it’s not so much that we eat flesh,” Jinn said, testing out the idea. “We just sort of sip portions of the spiritual energy. Far better to take them from the freshly dead, who don’t need it, rather than feeding on a live banquet – I mean, person.”

“Good point.” Jinn wrapped her arms around herself, as if she were cold. “You know, I could do it. The seducing part, I mean. Even the, yuck, sex. I’m physically real, even down there. It’s not like I’d feel much, which is maybe a good thing, but I could seduce a man. And the idea of having children… someday, I really want to.” She thought about it some more. “Was there anything else on ghulahs?”

“A bit,” Sara said. “The myth started in Arabia, but as the story spread north to Europe, many people believe that it served as one of the seeds for the whole vampire legend.”

Jade laughed politely behind her hand. “I like the way you say ‘myth.’ Look around! Are you sure the ghulahs and vampires aren’t real?”

“Good point. In which case, maybe vampires were later mutations or evolutions from ghulah ancestors. They have a lot in common. Devouring human flesh, often female, seducing young men, blah, blah, blah. The usual patriarchal garbage. Even the Celts had a version of them, the baobhan sith.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t believe how it’s spelled. The ‘baavan shee,’ to give it something close to the original pronunciation, had a demonic spirit which took the form of a young girl and combined the faerie circle dance tradition, where young men would be drawn into a dance with a circle of beautiful young women and either die of old age before they could let go or dance forever with the fae in the circle. So the baobhan sith would lure the man into a dance and drain his blood.”

“I like it,” Jinn pronounced. “Of course, I guess I’d be in trouble if Tennyo ever invites me to one of her ballroom dances, and I give one of the guys there the… dance of death!”

“Definitely,” Sara agreed. “It’s not really your approved party procedure. Except maybe for Halloween dances.”

And so the two girls talked long into the early hours of the morning, beginning a tradition that would last for some time to come.

Dr. Traekham had tried to schedule an appointment for Wednesday afternoon, but it conflicted with Jade’s first shift of detention. With ill grace, the doctor finally compromised on an appointment for seven AM Thursday morning. He’d insisted that Jade and Jinn show up together.

Jade wasn’t that happy with his attitude, but she needed his help, so here she was at the crack of dawn waiting outside his office. Inside, she could hear him conferring with another man. Finally, at nearly seven thirty, the door opened and Dr. Traekham looked out.

She was in her “ragged bikini” outfit. The frayed and torn edges of her flat-black bandeau and hot pants contrasted with the chalk white of her skin. She’d taken to using small dime-sized disks of the ultra-black fabric to give herself unusually large pupils. It made her more appealing (she thought) and less disturbing than having pupil-less chalk-white eyes, or even worse, coal-black eyes. She was sitting cross-legged, floating in mid-air about three feet off the ground, just high enough so that her cloak didn’t get dirty.

Jade tried to play good cop to her “older sister’s” bad cop. “I’m sure he had a good reason for needing us here this early.”

“Exactly,” the doctor said, cutting her off. He tossed a set of pale green hospital robes to each of them. “Put these on, right away. You can change in the side room.” With that, he slipped back into his examination room.

Jade and Jinn looked at one another in puzzlement, then moved to the changing room.

Shoulders slumping, Jinn undressed. For her, it was a matter of a moment’s concentration. Her clothes vanished like leaves sinking under water.

Jade, in contrast, undressed like a normal person. Removing her gadgeteer vest, her tech-belt, and the shoes with their attached LEDs. She quickly moved on to remove her blouse and cargo pants, until she was dressed only in bra and panties. With extreme reluctance, she removed those as well, folding them neatly for the top of her pile of clothing. She stood revealed as a physically normal eleven or twelve year old boy, with a pretty face, a feminine hairstyle, and colorful barrettes. She slipped into the concealing gown as quickly as possible.

They were both surprised to see a second man in the examining room. Dr. Traekham was speaking to the other man and pointing occasionally at pages in a paper file folder.

“—so you can see for yourself. The Body Image Template, embodied in physical form. You can see Bellows’ report here. Hypnotic age progression to the late teens.” He glanced up at Jinn. “Drop your robe now,” he ordered.

Jinn looked back in surprise and a bit of outrage. “Who is this guy? If those are my records, they’re supposed to be private!”

Dr. Traekham had plenty of his own outrage. “You will do as you’re told! This man is Dr. Steven Nobel, the east coast’s leading endocrinologist, and a top researcher in mutant physiology.”

Reluctantly, Jinn dropped her gown. She stood there in silent stoicism as the pair of doctors peered and poked at her.

“Amazing. Aside from the chalky texture, it feels like completely normal flesh. I can feel her ribs, and the differentiation between fat and glandular tissue!” This came while the visitor was palpitating her breast.

Jade’s experience was even more humiliating, as her most shameful secrets were felt and measured, weighed and discussed.

“Remember, the boy’s at least an exemplar-one. That means we have to consider a spontaneous reorganization.”

“It’s just like the Ruskin case.” Dr. Traekham taped a file folder, apparently oblivious to Jade’s humiliated presence. “You argued then that the hormone surge might shock the exemplar mechanism into action.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it work in three other cases, even though Ruskin failed. But I was wondering if there were alternative motives.”

Jade couldn’t stand the way they treated her like such an object, while they discussed her shame so blatantly. Just once she tried to interrupt them. “Did you say Ruskin? Are you talking about Eleanor Ruskin? Jello? Because I’ve been talking to her, and it didn’t seem to do her much good.”

The endocrinologist looked up at her. “No. We’re still working on that patient.” Then he turned back to Dr. Traekham.

After a half hour of this humiliation, the endocrinologist abruptly left the room. No explanation was given to Jade or Jinn.

“What’s going on?” she asked Dr. Traekham, as she hastily slipped back into her gown.

“Fine. But Dr. Nobel will be leaving in five minutes. If you want the shot, you’d better sign.”

Jade was in shock. “What, TODAY? I’m getting my first hormone shot TODAY?”

Dr. Nobel stepped back into the room, holding a large hypodermic. “Immediately, in fact. Just two years ago, we would have started you on a regimen of estrogen, progesterone, and an androgen blocker. Although this shot does in fact contain a starter dose of those elements, it is primarily composed of Lutinase, a cocktail created by a biochemist devisor that stimulates your own glands to begin producing a feminine balance of hormones, while suppressing the normal male outputs. In the initial stages, Lutinase works significantly faster than a conventional puberty. When used on normal subjects the feminization is highly accelerated, until the female reaches a corresponding balance for her age, at which point the process of puberty resumes at the normal rate.”

“What does that mean for me?” Jade asked in wild hope. “How long before I start seeing something?”

Dr. Nobel shrugged. “As I said, Lutinase is a modern miracle drug, which functions much more rapidly that older treatments. For a normal person in your situation – a normal fourteen-year-old, you would feel pain and sensitivity in your nipples as early as this evening. This might be accompanied with slight enlargement of the nipple and surrounding areola within a few days. By the end of next week we would expect to see some increase in the fat pad behind each breast, along with visible changes in the fat and skin structures of the face and much of the body. Within a month you would see visible effects at the thighs, hips, waist, chest, neck, and face.

“The risks are primarily thrombosis or pulmonary embolism, although fortunately for you, the risk increases with age. Being pre-pubescent, your risk is minimal. You don’t smoke, do you?”

“Good. Don’t start. Now, the most important thing is that, if you are an exemplar, it’s possible that none of the normal rules will apply! Our goal here is not so much to begin you on hormone therapy leading to SRS, as it is to ‘kick-start’ your exemplar system into operation. At that point, the drugs we’d giv

A Whateley Academy Tale

Jade 5 – Redefining Jade