Three Years Earlier:

Terrance Sanders entered the apartment and threw his backpack beside the couch. The sixteen year old had just gotten back from school and collapsed on the couch. Some idiot had brought a knife to school and pulled it on a bully that was messing with him and the whole school had been locked down for over three hours as the police searched the entire building, the staff, and the students. When would they learn that you shouldn’t break the law, even in self defense?

His mom had impressed this on him from a young age. As a junior attorney from a prestigious firm, she had helped represent dozens of criminals and had taught him one thing above all else; without money, power or resources the only way to stay out of prison was to obey the law no matter what. And sometimes even that wasn’t enough. While they didn’t have the most money, at least his mother earned enough that the kind of petty charges the cops normally threw at people they didn’t like wouldn’t stick, so as long as he didn’t anger them enough to throw something serious at him they would be okay.

Pulling himself up from a half-asleep state, he walked towards his bedroom. He needed to unwind from the day’s stress before trying to do his homework, and the new VRMMO he had bought for his PS Dream 2 would be just the thing for that.

There was a sound in the room beside his and he went over to investigate. His brother Timothy had been taking online cram classes in law since slightly after his seventeenth birthday and now, a little over two years later, and should have been at an interview at his mom’s firm for an internship position. Terrance knocked on the bedroom door. “Tim, you in there?”

Tim opened the door a crack and stuck his head out. Surprisingly, he was wearing makeup. Terrance had never seen him like that before. “Sorry, I’m just… getting ready to go out.”

“So, I take it you got the position?” Terrance asked. Their mom had informed him that the senior partners rarely hired male interns, as few of them swung that way, and therefore wouldn’t get the fringe benefits of having a desperate subordinate. But maybe he had impressed them enough that hadn’t mattered.

“Uh, yeah.” he said. “I was just about to hit the club to celebrate.”

Terrance nodded. “Well, you might want to double check your makeup first. Your mascara’s running, like you’ve been crying.” While some of the more religious people in the city would have complained about a young man cross-dressing for a night out on the town, Terrance didn’t see why. Tom was young enough and had a gender-neutral enough face to pull it off. And even if he didn’t, both men and women were being screwed over by society, so what did it matter if he preferred to be a woman when getting screwed?

“Oh, thanks.” Tom said, then grabbed a towel to wipe his face.

“Just make sure you aren’t recognized. Some of the partners at mom’s firm aren’t exactly open minded.”

“Yeah, I’ll go by Tina when dressed like this. They won’t recognize me.”

“Fair enough. Just lock the door behind you on your way out. I’ll be in VR, so I won’t be able to.” Normally, the door would lock itself, a minor bit of security necessary in such a crime-heavy world, but they always double checked, just in case. He knew his mom wouldn’t be in until late tonight, so he would have the apartment to himself. Maybe he would take advantage of the situation and play one of those bootleg adult VR games he had downloaded? After all, no one would catch him.

Around midnight he finished his quest and logged out of the game. If the teacher asked about his homework tomorrow he would just claim mental health issues from the horrible case of someone bringing a weapon to school had prevented him from doing it. He wouldn’t be the only student to do so, and the teacher would have no choice to accept the excuse. Otherwise the school might take even more bad PR from not letting the ‘traumatized’ students have a break than the incident had given them in the first place. The one thing more powerful than the law was the mob, after all.

He walked to the kitchen to get something to eat when he saw a woman in a red dress standing there. That wasn’t his mom, yet the security system had accepted their biometrics. He was about to grab the phone and call the police when the figure turned on the light. While Terrance was a bit sleepy, and therefore wasn’t able to completely focus his eyes, the figure seemed to shift somewhat until he saw his brother standing there. Terrance could have sworn that the woman had a bigger chest than Tom, and a slightly different jaw line. “Oh, Tom, I didn’t recognize you. Or should I call you Tina?”

“Tom’s fine, since we’re alone.” Tom said, nodding his head.

“So, have fun at the club?”

“Yeah, it was pretty fun.” Tom shrugged.

“I assumed you’d be celebrating. Maybe find a nice guy and...”

“No.” Tom interrupted. “I won’t be doing that. Not again.” Tom said the last words quietly.

Terrance knew there was a story there, but decided not to pry. “Well, I’m going to grab something to eat and go to bed.” He walked past Tom and opened the fridge, grabbing some leftover chinese takeout. After fishing around in a drawer for some chopsticks he quickly inhaled the left over lo mein and threw the box away. He grabbed a soda from the fridge and went back to his room.

The excuse was a common one at school the next day and Terrance got away with not doing his homework. He would have to do it tonight, however, so as soon as school was over he took the subway back home and took the elevator up to his apartment. When he got inside, however, he walked in on his mom arguing with Tom. “Uh, sorry to interrupt.” He said, carefully walking to his room. Tom was wearing a woman’s business suit and makeup.

“Terrance.” said their mom, and he paused.

“Yes, mom.”

“Did you know about this?” She asked.

“About what?” he asked in return. Terrance had no idea what she could be upset about.

“About the fact that the office has a new intern. A ‘Tina Sanders’.” Their mom sighed. “At least you didn’t tell them you were related to me.”

Terrance shrugged. “Not until last night. I’m surprised the senior partners couldn’t tell the difference, though. I mean, Tom can pass well enough, but as big of a womanizer as those guys are, they should be able to tell the difference.”

Tom and Diana looked a bit surprised at what he had said. “Actually, I can explain that.” said Tom, but Terrance held up his hand to stop his brother.

“No need to tell me, I already know.” he said. He wasn’t a fool. Two of the five senior partners swung both ways. Tom had no doubt seduced one of them into giving him the job and covering up the fact that he was biologically male. That’s why Toms had said that he wouldn’t be hooking up with guys ‘again’. He didn’t need to come out and say it. That would just embarrass him further.

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“Wait, you know?” Diana asked in surprise.

“Of course, I figured it out last night when Tom came back from the club. Talking about it would just cause problems.” He looked at Tom. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

Tom nodded and Terrance grabbed a soda before heading to his room. No VRMMOs tonight. He had two nights of homework to do.

Two weeks passed before anything happened. Terrance had noticed that he had been doing really well socially. His Public Speaking project had done remarkably well, earning him a ninety five. He had started becoming popular as well. The bullies had started leaving him alone and every girl he talked to seemed to want to talk to him too. The first time he noticed something was off, though, was last night. He was on a date with a girl from one of his classes. He had noticed her when he first transferred to the school but she was way out of his league. Then he had worked up the courage to ask her out. She had rejected him at first. Then he decided to try again. “But I’m the best looking guy in school.” he said said, hoping she’d at least laugh and think him funny. Something in his head tingled when he said it, something he’d noticed occasionally for the last week or so.

She turned and looked at him. “I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before.” she said looking at him. “That perfect jaw, those piercing blue eyes. How did I not notice that?” She blushed and wrote down her phone number on a scrap of paper from her purse. “I’m actually free tonight. Maybe we can go out to eat? Call me after school, and we’ll set something up.” With that she ran off and started giggling with her friends. And the strangest part of all of it was that Terrance’s eyes were green, not blue.

He called her after class and they arranged to meet at a sit-down restaurant near the school, some sort of steak house. The date went well and he was certain that he could have made it end in his bedroom if he wanted, but something was bothering him about how easy it had all been, so he decided to let it end at a bus-stop with a kiss instead. For some reason, every time he would tell her something to try and impress her his head would tingle and she would agree with him, suddenly seeing things his way.

When he noticed it he decided to test the phenomenon. “Oh, look at that, they gave me a well done steak instead of the medium rare one I ordered.” he said, his head tingling slightly and showing her a steak that was pink except for a bit around the edges.

“You’re right.” she said. “How could they mess up on something that simple?” She was about to flag down a waiter to correct the situation when he held up a hand.

“It’s fine. I don't’ mind.”

“Oh, ok.” she said. “You are just so thoughtful.”

When he got home, however, his pleasant night quickly ended. The front door was kicked in and the house was trashed. He ran inside and started looking around. Was this a standard break in? No, the television was still there and, he assumed, so was his console. He noticed his mom’s bedroom door was open at the end of the hallway and ran inside. The shower was still running but the door was open, so without thinking he ran in, not worrying about the possibility of seeing his mom naked. She was laying on the tiled floor surrounded in blood. “Mom!” Terrance cried, running over to her and lifting her blood-soaked head.

He heard someone in the living room but ignored them and a few seconds later Tom came in, wearing the same business dress he was wearing when arguing with mom two weeks ago. Tom quickly looked her over, then bowed his head. “She’s dead.” he said. “And unfortunately, that’s not all. There’s bruising between her legs.”

“Wh-what?” Terrance asked. Break-ins for stuff was rare enough, but to rape someone on top of that, and murder them? “We...we have to call the cops.”

“Not yet.” said Tom. He got up and went to a console in mom’s closet. There he entered the password and pulled up the security footage.

“What are you doing?” Terrance asked. “The cops can handle the investigation.”

“No, they can’t.” he said, pointing to the footage from the doorbell camera which showed an officer kicking down the door. “She’s been defending some rich kid at work. He’s an asshole, but he’s innocent. Mostly. But two officers, including that one, Lieutenant Garak,” he pointed at the screen, “are trying to bring false charges against the kid. The cop told her to drop the case, but she refused.”

“So he broke down her door, raped and murdered her?”

“No, he broke down the door and was going to arrest her on false charges to silence her. I suspect that he hid drugs in the apartment that he can ‘find’ while his body cam is on and arrest her for. That is the one that decided to do the rest.” Tom pointed to a second cop. “That’s Officer Dumar. He’s been brought up on charges of domestic violence, assault and battery, excessive force, and sexual misconduct with a prisoner. None of the charges ever stuck.”

The inside videos played, showing Garak putting a bag of white powder in her purse as it sat on the kitchen counter, but Dumar made straight for her bedroom. Garak turned to follow his partner and they entered the bedroom, where there were no cameras. The cameras had sound, however, so they caught the sound of the bathroom door being kicked in and several minutes of screams. A minute after the screams ended they walked out of the bedroom door, Dumar adjusting his gun belt.

“You went too far this time.” said Garak. “This was supposed to be a drug bust, not a home invasion gone wrong.”

“Does it matter?” asked Dumar. “The bitch won’t be talking now, and that’s all that matters.” He went back to the kitchen and removed the bag from the purse, putting it in his pocket. “Now come on, I know something else we can do with this stuff.”

Tom ended the security footage and downloaded it to a second cell phone I didn’t know he had before texting the footage to someone else. “I know someone that can help with this, but they won’t recognize me like this.” he said, then he started to distort. His face changed shape and he got slimmer before growing average sized breasts. “Just remember, my name is Tina, not Tom.”

“Wait. You’re a super too?” Terrance said in surprise. This day had been an emotional roller coaster.

“I thought you already knew.”

“About you cross-dressing and seducing the senior partner to get the job. Not about you being a shape shifter.”

“Actually, the senior partner came onto me, and I just went along with it.” Then he, or maybe she realized something. “Wait, what do you mean too? You know another super?”

Terrance grabbed a blue blouse off the rack beside him. “See this? What color is it?”

“Blue, of course.” Tina said confused.

“No, it’s green.” Terrance’s brain tingled a bit when he declared it.

Tina blinked a few times. “Yes, of course it is. Must be the lighting.”

“Must be my powers.” said Terrance, then willed the illusion to go away. He wasn’t sure it would, but a second later his brain tingled and Tina blinked again.

“Wait, you’ve got the power to change the color of things?”

“I’ve got the power to make people believe whatever I say. Though I assume I can’t do anything too outrageous, like make you think you are an airplane.”

Tina stood there for a few seconds and was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. “That was fast.” she said, then walked out to meet the visitor.

A man that looked like a hacker from a cheesy cyberpunk series stood there. He wore black jeans, a black t-shirt, a black leather trench coat, and black mirror shades. On his back was a backpack sized custom computer which was connected to the back of his neck via a neural clamp, a device which sat at the back of his skill and was the best way to connect to computers, especially VR.

“Hello, Rebel. Nice to see you.” said Tina. “Let me show you the scene of the crime.”

Tina lead Rebel down the hallway. “This is the apartment of miss Diana Sanders, a junior partner of the firm.” Rebel nodded. “And this is her son, Terrance.”

Rebel stopped and looked at one of the doors. “This his room?” he asked.

“No, that room belonged to her other son, Tom. He moved out recently.”

Rebel nodded and the tour continued the short distance to the main bedroom. Inside Rebel started looking over the evidence. He pulled several devices out of his jacket and did something with them, presumably collecting 3d images of the scene as well as spectroscopic analysis of room. He collected several bits of evidence, including running a rape kit on the deceased, and stood up. “So, what can you tell me about the cause of this?” he said. “From the footage it looks like they had a grudge.”

“Miss Sanders was working on a case. The officers were pressing false charges against her client and she had enough evidence to prove it. Then, yesterday, they ordered her to stop investigating. She did not, and apparently they didn’t like that and decided to shut her up permanently. The kid here called me instead of the cops as soon as he saw the footage, and I rushed over.”

Rebel nodded. “In that case, let me and my people work on this. I hate to dirty the memory of the deceased, but with the cops as corrupt as they are, the media’s our best bet at getting Justice.” Tina and Terrance agreed, and Rebel left.

Rebel sent over a cleanup crew to collect the body and any other evidence before cleaning up the scene. Several days passed, with Terrance skipping class claiming a family emergency. Tina, however, continued to go to work. She refused to tell anyone what happened to Diana, and the others just assumed she was a no-show. Then Rebel and Tina had a conversation, and everything was set.

Officers Garak and Dumar sat in the courtroom as the suspect sat behind the table, his attorney, Diana Sanders a no-show. “Your honor.” said the prosecutor. “Even the defendant’s attorney isn’t willing to show up and defend him. It seems obvious that he did the crime, based on the testimony of these two esteemed officers. Surely that’s at least enough to hold him without bail.”

That’s when the back doors opened up and in walked Diana Sanders, her face bruised and a bandage on her forehead. The two officers were startled and looked at each other, but couldn’t say anything. “I’m sorry your honor, but I was held up by another case. I assure you I am, in fact, here to defend my client. In fact, I have evidence right here.” she waved a tablet PC in her hand. “And I can email you the files as well if you want me to.”

“Approach the bench.” said the judge, and she walked up. The judge held out his hand and she handed him the tablet.

“Your honor, it is most unusual to try and enter new evidence into a case while it is in session, evidence which the prosecutor hasn’t been given.”

“I emailed you a copy of the evidence just before stepping inside this courtroom, Prosecutor.” said Diana.

The judge stared at the screen of the tablet, however. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Footage from my home security system.” Diana responded. “Footage which shows officers Garak and Dumar breaking in, planting evidence, attacking me in my bathroom as I took a shower, then leaving after reclaiming their drugs, under the assumption that I was dead. My medical records are also on that tablet, in case you want to review them. You can understand why I didn’t take this to the police.” The prosecutor tried to respond but the judge just put in ear buds and plugged them into the tablet so that he could also listen to the sound.

A minute and a half later he motioned for the bailiff to come over. “Notify the courthouse security to come here, and when they arrive take officers Garak and Dumar into custody.”

“On what charges?” asked the prosecutor.

“B&E, evidence tampering, felony assault, sexual assault and attempted murder. Need I say more?” The Prosecutor shook his head. “Now, you will remain up here so that they don’t get suspicious.”

Five minutes later the officers had been stripped of their badges and belts and were being hauled out of the courtroom. While the case which they had come here to try had to be delayed yet again, Tina, in the shape of Diana, had no doubt that the police misconduct could only help her case.