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(c) 2007 Trismegistus Shandy

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. I.e., feel free to repost or mirror it unmodified on any noncommercial website or mailing list.

This story was first posted to the tg_fiction mailing list in mid-2007, then to Shifti.org.  It's the first of at least five stories about Nat Holcomb; I'm serializing the fourth on the tg_fiction list at the moment, the first draft of the fifth is finished and awaiting revision, and I have some ideas about a sixth story I haven't really started yet.

---

Nat wakes up gradually, and notices that Zach is still asleep. He climbs out of the sleeping bag, drifts across the room, and shakes Zach gently. In a minute or so Zach wakes up, and blearily asks what's going on.

"Remember, we need to go back? Are you strong enough yet?"

Zach mumbles something that sounds like "Coffee."

Nat isn't sure that hot coffee in free fall is a good idea or even possible. He exits the room and carefully works from one handhold to the next down the shaft, soon meeting one of the astronauts. The nametag sewn on her jumpsuit says "V. Czerneda".

"You're Nat?" she asks.

"Yes," he says. "I'll explain later about..."

"Zach explained it to us earlier — before you came up here. And he told us about what you did on the mother ship — that was sharp work, and brave too." Nat smiles back, uncomfortably.

"I think we can stir up some more chaos over there if we can wake Zach up," he says. "He wants some caffeine."

"Just a minute," she says, turning and pushing off down the shaft. Nat waits; she returns a minute later with a packet of caffeine pills and a couple of water bulbs.

"Thanks," he says, and returns slowly to the room where Zach has fallen asleep again. Czerneda follows.

"Wake up," Nat says, shaking Zach again. "Here's your dehydrated coffee, and something to hydrate it with." Czerneda watches for a moment, and asks "Do you need anything else? There are more food-tubes in the sack there, aren't there?"

Nat checks. "Yes, there's plenty. — Hey, what all has been happening while we were asleep? And what day is it?"

"Most of the ships on Earth took off and have returned or are returning to the mother ship, but the mother ship is still in the same orbit. It's Saturday, the fourteenth, ten-thirty GMT."

Nat was captive for about three days, then.

"That's goood. Maybe we started a civil war over there, and both sides are calling for their friends...?"

"It seems likely. — Well, I have work to do. Let me know if you need anything. Use the intercom there," she says. She pushes off down the shaft, out of sight.

A few minutes later Zach is wide awake. Nat repeats to him what Czerneda had said while Zach was still mostly asleep.

"So there's no real urgency, then, right?"

"No, I figure if we wait and let one side win, then it will be harder to start something new. If we go in while they're still fighting, and create some new queens with their own factions, that will at least prolong the fighting and weaken them, and increase the chances that the final winner will run away rather than fight Earth with their reduced strength."

There are a lot of unspoken assumptions here, but Zach is starting to feel the caffeine, and he doesn't question them.

"All right," he says. "Let me eat a little more and we'll go."

So they each finish off another tube of food substitute and wash it down with a bulb of something probably descended from Tang. Between bites, Nat gives Zach the best description he can of the infirmary where the drones-become-queens had been imprisoned. Then Zach takes Nat's hand and a moment later they're standing in the middle of that room.

Nat's eyes sting and tear up, and he closes them a moment before Zach teleports them out into a corridor; but not before he sees several queens and workers lying on the floor, not moving, not breathing.

He hears a soft whoosh beside him, and then Zach says, "Blow it all out!" But he's already emptying his lungs as hard as he can to get out whatever poison one of the queens has flooded the infirmary with.

After they catch their breath, they pick a direction and walk down the corridor. They meet a squad of workers. Before the workers can react, Nat picks one and changes it, warrior-drone-queen; then squeezes Zach's hand and says "Go!" They go: somewhere in another corridor. Nobody in sight, but they hear whistling, and turn around: three warriors and a worker, the former with edged weapons in their hands. Nat changes one of them — drone, then queen — but even as he's working on this, the other two warriors rush forward, and Zach gets them out just in time.

Here they're behind the lines of a pitched battle; warriors hacking at each other, with other warriors queued up behind them, in another narrow corridor. Nat changes one of the warriors nearest them, then Zach jumps them to the other side of the battle, and Nat changes another warrior here.

Six more jumps, five more queens, four last-moment escapes from onrushing warriors. Then Zach jumps them into a small cabin that's currently unoccupied, except for them.

"Tired," he says, flopping down into one of the hammocks. "Rest a minute, we'll go after some more of them."

"That's probably enough," Nat replies. "We can go back to the space station and watch for a while."

"OK. Need to rest first, though."

"I think we should go back now — if you fall asleep while we're resting, then..."

"Good point. OK..." he extends his hand to Nat, without getting up from the hammock. Nat takes his hand again, and...

...<whoosh>; the air rushes out of his lungs, and the insides of his mouth and nostrils are prickling. Nat tightens his grip on Zach's hand. They're in sight of the space station, much closer to it than to the alien ship.

Nat expects Zach to try again to jump them into the station. But seconds pass and nothing happens. He realizes that Zach has passed out. He reaches awkwardly with his free left hand to take Zach's other hand, and shakes him; no result. Ice crystals that have formed from the sweat in his armpits crack soundlessly.

He continues to shake Zach. His vision is getting blurry — frost forming on his eyes, probably. He closes them. The pain in his mouth and throat and nostrils gets worse and worse for the first few seconds, then levels off. He has to try something else.

A couple of seconds later Zach jumps them, not into the space station, but into the emergency room at Grady — about two feet off the floor. Then she passes out again. They fall to the floor; for a few moments before he passes out too, Nat estimates he's at least sprained both ankles, if not broken something outright. He's more worried about Zach, who was more or less horizontal to the floor and fell on her tailbone. But there's too much ice in his throat for him to explain their condition to the emergency room staff.

---

The first few times Nat wakes up, there's something blocking his throat. He hurts all over, and is grateful when exhaustion, sedation or some combination of the two put him out again.

The next time he wakes, his throat is clear and he can talk. He uses this marvelous new ability to, first, ask for water; then, for more pain medicine; and finally, for news of the invasion. A nurse — he seems to be in ICU this time — responds quickly enough to the first couple of requests, but he falls asleep again before he hears any news.

The next time he wakes up, he finds his brother sitting next to him.

"Will," he says, his voice rasping. "Thanks for coming."

"I tried to come when you were in last week, but with the invasion and all, the traffic was insane; the State Patrol had turned I-75 northbound into southbound lanes for refugees from Atlanta and I couldn't get here before you were discharged."

"What's going on now?"

"Well, three days ago all the aliens on the ground took off and went back to their mother ship. And they've been there ever since, still in the same orbit. I can guess you know more about that than I do; nobody's told me anything that hasn't been on the news."

"Zach and I — teleported into the mother ship," Nat replies. His throat is still sore and he can't get out a whole sentence without pausing. "Long story. Eleven queens in one hive. Civil war."

Will is silent for several seconds, figuring this out. He's known Nat for as long as he can remember, and has a lot of practice.

"Cool," he says, finally. "So your power does work on aliens. You figure whichever queen comes out on top will have lost too many soldiers in the civil war to attack Earth again?"

"Hope so. More later. Throat hurts."

Nat rests his voice for a few moments. He's fixing to ask if Will knows anything about Zach when someone else comes in.

"Nat," says Captain Rapid. "The doctors tell us you're doing better. Zach's mostly better, too. She wants to know when you can change her back."

"Now, I guess. Where?"

"No, I think the doctors want you both to be fully recovered and up and about before you use your power again."

"All right."

A short while later, the nurse chases Will and Captain Rapid away to let Nat get some more sleep. He feels better still when he wakes; his throat still hurts, but not as much as before.

"Can I see Zach?" he asks the next nurse he sees.

"Maybe, if you promise you won't use your power yet," says the nurse, whose nametag has flipped around backwards so Nat can't read it. "Doctor's orders. First let's see if you can stand up."

Nat can, indeed, stand up. He's slightly wobbly at first but soon walks confidently enough, leaning on the IV pole. He walks beside the nurse to another small ICU room. Zach is lying in bed, watching CNN.

"How're you feeling?" Nat asks. He sits down in the more comfortable-looking of the rooms's guest chairs, very carefully arranging his hospital gown. They've been teleporting around together with no clothes on for what feels like a month, though it's only been nine days, four of them spent mostly unconscious; but somehow these gowns feel more exposed than nakedness. Probably the association with hospitals and helplessness.

"Throat hurts, nose too," Zach says curtly. "Still feel tired." When the nurse has left, she adds: "And female. Can you do anything about that?"

"I feel like probably could, but I promised I wouldn't until the doctor says I'm recovered."

Zach gestures tiredly at the television. "News mostly about Iran again now. Every couple hours, they say the alien ship is still there, still doing nothing."

"That might be a good sign. What if they killed so many of each other they haven't the manpower — or whatever — to operate the ship?"

"Maybe we can go in and find out," Zach says with a smile. "Not today, though."

"Probably the World Guardians will send a boarding party over to investigate. Maybe they're already doing it and haven't told the media yet."

"Guess we'll find out sooner or later."

---

Will visits again later that day, bringing a few books from Nat's apartment. A little later Flint from the GSPA comes by; she doesn't have any more news from the World Guardians, yet. In the evening Nat sees a doctor, who pronounces him nearly recovered, but says Zach has more recovering to do; he asks Nat not to change Zach until she's ready to be discharged.

The next morning Nat visits Zach again.

"Did the doctor tell you what he told me — I can't change you back until you're ready to go home, even if I'm ready to go sooner?"

"Yeah," she says, her voice a little stronger than yesterday. "Sucks to be me." A long pause, then: "So, I told you a few days ago what happened when I first got my powers. You didn't say much about yours, though."

"No, I didn't," Nat says curtly. Zach looks mortified; evidently she's stepped on something sensitive. But after a few seconds of embarrassed silence, Nat says "I'll tell you about it sometime. But this is too much like a public place — nurses and techs barging in every two minutes for vital signs or whatever..."

"OK." Silence, then, until Zach recovers enough energy to launch into another account of one of her adventures with the GSPA; how he teleported three officers into Kinetica's underground base, while she was away, and helped them set a trap for her. "She was surprised to come back with the loot from her latest heist and find four superheroes in makeshift costumes made of her spare bath towels," she relates, "but I've got to say she reacted quickly, and she nearly got away. Captain Rapid was after her like a cat after a squirrel; they were pretty nearly matched, and the rest of us had to mostly stand guarding the exits and watch them speeding around the base, all blurry. Kinetica knew her way round better and she was a little faster, but we had blocked all the exits, and eventually Captain Rapid caught up with her just because he started fresh and she was tired from the job she'd just pulled."

"You know Kinetica used to call herself Tachyon?"

"No way! I wondered what happened to him."

"I happened to him. He was a little too fast for Captain Rapid, and they hoped if I used my power on him he would slow down at least temporarily. But her reaction time was too good. Captain Rapid said — I couldn't see clearly, it was too blurry — that she stumbled briefly, caught her balance, and then just took off over the horizon in a straight line, not bothering to come back for more loot. Going straight out like that in an open area she lost him easily.

"Later on, after y'all arrested her, they called me in to change her back before she faced trial. Was he grateful? Not a bit."

"You worried he'll come looking for you when he gets out?"

"Not really. I've got a mask I usually wear on jobs like that, but when you explained how your power works I didn't bother getting it out of the drawer."

---

Nat is discharged later that day. He is about to visit Zach again briefly, but finds her asleep, so he just leaves a note. Will gives him a ride to his apartment. They watch a couple of movies, eat Thai takeout curry and stay up way too late talking.

Next morning — Wednesday — Nat groggily forces himself to get ready for school. He didn't miss many classes, most of them being cancelled during the worst part of the invasion, but he doesn't want to miss another day if he can help it. He has the radio turned to WSB, and hears bad news about traffic conditions on I-75 northbound: sounds like he's going to be late anyway. If he had a change of clothes at GSU somewhere, it would be nice to have Zach's power right about now.

Will is still asleep on the sofa in the living room. Nat has just showered and is only a little bit dressed when a series of commercials is interrupted with breaking news: the alien ship just opened a wormhole, or whatever it is they use, and vanished. Nat's victory yell wakes Will, who sleepily eyes his little brother dancing (not very gracefully) in his boxers and one sock.

"Whzt?" he inquires coherently.

"The aliens are gone! We ran 'em off! Me and Zach!"

"Great," Will says, and goes back to sleep, or tries to.

When Nat is about to leave, Will has woken up again, or given up on trying to sleep. "I'm glad you got through all this in one piece," he says. "That was great work, gutsy as hell."

"You think maybe Mom and Dad will let me come home for Thanksgiving when they hear about it?"

"Not sure," Will admits. "Maybe if you promise to wear a dress."

"Sure thing," Nat says. "I've got to go now."

"I'll be gone when you get home; can't afford to miss another day of work. Take care of yourself." Will stands up, and they hug for about fifteen seconds before Nat walks out the door.

---

When Nat gets home from school he sits down at the computer to check his email. Then he hears a toilet flush. A minute later, as he's taking his shoes off, Zach walks out of the bathroom, wearing a pair of Nat's sweat pants (a little too small for her) and an extra-large T-shirt.

"You ready?" Nat asks.

"Hell, yeah," Zach answers.

"Those pants look pretty tight. You'd probably better change into something looser, or else..."

In answer Zach teleports three feet to the left, appearing with her back turned to Nat, the sweats and T-shirt collapsing in a pile. Nat loses no time in changing her back; a moment later he teleports away, then a minute later walks into the room again wearing Nat's bathrobe.

"You heard about the ship, right?" he asks.

"On the early morning news, yeah. Even Dr. Armitage — he's probably the most boring professor I've ever had — even he couldn't spoil my mood today."

"I figure that makes us the most powerful superheroes on the planet right now," Zach says, scooping up the sweats and T-shirt. "Hey, that pile in the bottom of your closet is dirty clothes, right?"

"Right," says Nat. He's not sure how he feels about Zach making so free with his apartment while he's been away. "So, how long have you been here? — And maybe you're one of the most powerful superheroes on the planet, but I'm still just a police reservist, and I plan to stay that way. Those were probably the only aliens in the galaxy my power would be any use against. And the fights the rover craft had with fifty or a hundred superheroes on five continents probably had something to do with them leaving, too."

"Not planning to apply to the World Guardians next, huh? — After I got out of the hospital I went home and called you, and got your voicemail; then I called again after a while... Eventually I got kind of impatient and came over here to wait for you. Sorry."

"I know how it is," Nat reassures him, pretending he doesn't mind this little invasion. Zach has seen him naked in both sexes, so why does it bother him that he's seen how messy his bedroom is, too? "Not directly, I mean, but during my training when they had me practicing on various people, they were almost always pretty impatient to get changed back."

"But it doesn't ever bother you, does it?" Zach asks when he's returned from tossing the dirty clothes onto the pile.

"Colleagues teleporting into my apartment when I'm not home?" Nat says before he can stop himself. "I'm not sure, it hasn't ever happened before."

"I said I was sorry," Zach says, hurt. "Do you want me to go?"

"You can stay," Nat says hastily. He doesn't want to scare Zach off; he's a cool guy, and he can trust him with his life; his cavalier attitude toward privacy is understandable in a teleporter, if not totally excusable. "But don't do it again, OK? Ask and make sure I'm home. And maybe you should bring a change of clothes over sometime, by car, so you don't have to walk around in my bathrobe when you visit."

"I don't drive," Zach says. "I started teleporting before I was eligible for a learner's license, and I live two blocks from a MARTA station, so I haven't ever needed to. But I'll mail some clothes here if that's all right."

"Probably we can meet downtown sometime and you can just give me a package to take home. Or..."

"We'll sort it out later. You hungry?"

"Very. I'll heat up a frozen pizza, if that suits you."

"Let's order a couple; I'll pay for them. You like Papa John's?"

"That's good."

After a few minutes of sorting out what toppings should go on which pizza, Nat phones in the order, wondering how Zach is going to pay for them; she couldn't have brought money with her.

"If I can use your computer for a minute, I'll send you the money for the pizzas by PayPal," Zach says after Nat hangs up.

"Sure; let me set down first and dial up."

As Nat is busy with this, Zach says:

"But anyway... what I meant, earlier, was..."

"Changing into a girl and back doesn't bother me? No, it doesn't. I've had plenty of time to get used to both forms." He hesitates for a moment, thinking of his promise and already regretting it. "In the ICU I told you I would tell you later on about what happened when my power first showed up. Don't tell anybody else, OK? Most of the GSPA don't know the details."

"I won't," Zach says, sitting down at the computer desk as Nat gets up after dialing up and starting Firefox.

Nat walks back and forth across the living room a couple of times, then sits at one end of the sofa.

"I'd had sixteen years to get used to being a girl, and it never bothered me except for a few days in the month. My parents were fairly strict and I didn't start dating until after I was sixteen, and then under fairly tight rules. This wasn't my first date, but it was the first time I'd gone out with the same guy a second time.

"This guy I'll call Cory, because that doesn't sound anything like his name, seemed like a nice guy until near the end of this second date. Then, when he was supposed to be taking me home — I had an eleven o'clock curfew — he pulled onto a poorly lit side street and turned off the engine and the lights.

"...Is it OK if I skip the next bit?"

"You go right ahead. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want," says Zach, who had turned away from the computer screen almost as soon as Nat started in on the story.

"Well, my power manifested itself just barely in time. It was dark and I wasn't quite sure what had happened; I felt this sudden shivery tingling sensation, and Cory pulled back and let go of me. I didn't wait to find out why, I just got out of the car and ran.

"I was lucky enough to meet a patrol car pretty soon after I got onto a main street. I waved them down and told them what had happened. They told me to get in the back, and I told them about where Cory had parked. But when we got there, his car was gone.

"So the cops called my parents and told them I would be a little late getting home, and they took me to the station to make a statement, and finally took me home. Mom and Dad and Will were waiting up for me in a panic; after I started to tell them what happened, Mom shooed Dad and Will out of the room and took care of me by herself.

"Cory wasn't at school the next day. But when I got off the bus after school there was a girl I didn't know there; about my age, but she looked pretty bedraggled, maybe homeless. She was staring at me, and the more I looked at her she started to seem vaguely familiar.

"When the other kids walked off toward their homes, this girl followed me, and when we were out of earshot of everybody else, she asked me, 'What did you do to me?' Actually, there was another word on the end of that sentence."

"Got it," says Zach. He's hardly moved a muscle.

"'Excuse me?' I said. 'Do I know you?' And she said, 'You changed me into a girl, you —!' That's when I realized who she looked like.

"'Cory?' I asked.

"'How did you do it? Change me back quick, and I won't tell anybody you've got this paranormal power.'

"'It's pretty weird, I guess, but how do you know it's not your own paranormal power that did it?' I was walking faster, and we were almost to my house. I remembered the weird shivery tingle I felt just before Cory let me go, and I realized she was probably right, I probably did have some paranormal power that had kicked in to save me.

"'Don't play stupid,' she said, and she made like she was going to grab me, but I ran the rest of the way home and locked the door behind me.

"The next few days were pretty hairy. I didn't have any control of my power yet, but after being woken up by that emergency, it started going off by itself whenever I was startled or scared. I lost track of how many times I changed Mom or Dad or Will or myself; sometimes two or three times a night when I was having bad dreams, which was pretty often, and during the day sometimes just a door slamming or a toaster popping up was enough to set me off. At first none of us left the house much. Then one day when Dad was male he left and stayed at a hotel. The next day Mom was female again and she joined him. Will and I got in his car and he drove all the way to Toccoa; I took a lot of Nyquil and spent most of the drive dozing, to keep myself from changing the other drivers around us and causing a wreck.

"When we got to the GSPA training camp, there were just a few people there: Flint and Captain Rapid and Polyphonia. They took us in, and after a few more days I started, with their help, to get some control of my power. Will went home after he was sure I was going to be OK, leaving in a hurry while he was the right sex.

"I home-schooled there at the camp for a few months until my power was thoroughly under control, and then did my senior year at Stephens County High in Toccoa. After graduation, I signed up as a reservist, and I moved here, got a job and started college. Now you know pretty much everything."

Zach is silent for a few moments. "Thanks," he says. "I'll keep quiet about it. Here, let me finish paying you for the pizza." He's wondering, though: when and why did Nat start being male most of the time? And what happened to "Cory"? None of his business, probably.

The pizza delivery guy arrives a few minutes later. They eat in companionable silence for a while.

"I need to be at work at seven tomorrow," Zach says finally. "I'd better go. Thanks for telling me all that. When I asked you... I didn't realize how, um, ... you didn't really have to tell me all that."

"Don't worry about it," Nat says. "We've saved each other's lives several times, and probably will again, if they see a use for my power and yours at the same time."

"Good night," says Zach, and the bathrobe collapses empty onto the chair. Nat picks it up and throws it onto the pile in the bedroom. He's about to go to bed, when he remembers he hasn't checked his voicemail since he turned off his cellphone right before the last class of the day. Afterward he was in too much of a hurry to get home to turn it back on again. Probably just several messages from Zach, but...

In fact there is just one message from Zach. Was he misremembering or lying? Or did he hang up without leaving a message the second time? Then there's Will, saying he'd gotten home about 4:30 — he must have gone back to bed for a while after Nat left, then — and finally, the voice of Parvati:

"Nat, give us a call if you've seen Zach. He checked himself out of the hospital kind of informally and the insurance paperwork is going to be pretty hairy if he doesn't go back to get discharged properly..."

Nat laughs, and thinks about calling Zach, but he needs his sleep. They both do.

Before he goes to bed, though, he turns on the computer monitor and brings up a form letter and a small mailmerge database: the classified ad department addresses for two dozen newspapers all around the southeastern U.S. He doesn't have time to do this tonight, but leaving the documents open will remind him to do it tomorrow; it's about time to place the ad again.

"Vincent, I've figured out how I did it and how to reverse it. Call me at 404-555-0135. Natalie."