Chapter 24 - Girls (conclusion)

Marisa raised an eyebrow and rested her arm against her head. Before she could respond, the doorbell rang. Her eyes flicked over to it and then back to Marley. She wore a look of concern but with a hint of excitement. Leaving Marley, she made her way to the door. Marley leaned but didn’t leave her seat. She knew exactly what would happen.

The delivery boy had some features reminiscent of Isaac’s face but his hair was a little darker and he had black-rimmed glasses, a fair amount of scruff on his chin, fluffy eyebrows, and a lip with a brighter bottom than its top. He wore a gray-tone polo uniform with a delivery company logo.

He asked for Marisa and got her to sign the paper he had in front of him. Once done, he busied himself with his scanner and documents as the transformation began. He took a breath. As he released it, redness spread across his clothes. The cut of his polo changed, and the sleeves migrated upwards. His pants also adjusted. He gave a quick pause of discomfort as his clothes were no longer meant for him to wear but this ended in a shrug as he went back to writing.

His face smoothed and swelled with glossy contours and light makeup. His neck narrowed. His body shifted to fit the clothes, his dark ponytail trailing over his back, and his modest bosom spreading to reshape the contours of his red polo. Between his legs, he was no longer constricted by the feminine cut of his pants. A breath finally released, he…now a normal delivery girl…passed the forms to Marisa for approval. Marley tried to watch Marisa’s expression but she couldn’t see it.

The box contained a new book with a fully-written premise which Marisa had mentioned in class as one she would’ve loved to read but suspected it would never be written. The delivery girl headed off as Marley watched Marisa with expectation. After reading the title and turning it a few times, Marisa sighed and concluded, “I’m back in bed, aren’t I? Well, it’s not the worst dream I’ve had. Nice little change there.”

Marley hopped up and pinched Marisa on the arm. She frowned and rubbed the spot as she gazed back at Marley, who reiterated, “You’re awake. This isn’t a dream. This is reality. Well, a reality. I’m sorry to press you about this but it’s important. I wouldn’t be so insistent otherwise…”

Marisa shifted through several nervous expressions as she turned her book around a few times before deciding, “If this is real then I need one thing. There’s a place by the local mall where there are always so many boys passing by. I’ve mentioned it before. I sometimes sit at the bench against the wall and imagine them all turning into girls, a few at first and then more and more. If that happens…after so many times of wishing it….then that’s really all I need…” Just as Marley had envisioned.

Offering a smile, Marley nodded and they made arrangements to take a bus over to the mall. Again, Marley could’ve just taken them there, but she didn’t want to give Marisa too much of the fantastical at a critical moment. The spot was well-known to her for all the wistful looks her friend gave when sitting there. She knew it was a false memory crafted by herself, but she was glad to give that illusory setting a happy conclusion.

They each bought themselves a little something to drink from a place nearby and sat in the spot. Marisa fidgeted nervously and tried to drink deeply before she finally settled down and asked, “So…umm…will it begin soon?” Her eyes were curious but filled with the edges of doubt. Marley put her arm on her shoulder and told her, “Just watch…”

It didn’t take long for the first signs of something odd to emerge. Marley recalled that reactions were a big part of the changes Marisa enjoyed. So her first target, a buff teen with a muscle shirt and red shorts she’d conjured up out of the ether, was defined by his reaction.

He cracked his neck and then paused at the strange sensation of hair swelling from where it was close-cropped to flood over his shoulders. He touched it cautiously and mouthed surprise and alarm. He tried tugging to rid himself of some potential wig but winced as each tug only left his hair fuller. Unlike the delivery boy, his body changed before his clothes.

A puzzled moment of feeling through his hair became a shock of alarm as his muscle shirt pooled around his dwindling body, flowing down to his thighs like it was being enlarged with each moment. He lost more and more height, till he had to cling with all his diminished might to keep his pants from slipping off his body.

“Oh my gosh!” were his first words. Some of the other guys around seemed to notice something was off, but they still passed by without concern.

Marley noticed that Marisa’s attention was locked on the boy. She kept it there as he squeaked out a new voice with his socks rising inexorably up his legs as stockings. His cheeks were bright red as his shirt became a pink blouse with lace-adorned ends on his sleeves and all along his neckline. He stared, open-mouthed, as his chest swelled under that blouse, his frail efforts to press on it doing nothing to slow its change. Putting his knees together brought a whimper as his short skirt fluttered on his thighs. Fussing with his, now her, transformed clothes and body, she looked around with concern. A few boys stopped to gaze and opened their mouths in curiosity and confusion. They looked one to another and moved closer to help.

It was then that it spread. The guy closest, who had his gaze on the new girl’s bosom, reached a hand out and then looked down to see his fingers were changing. He wound up with spiky black hair and a bosom that rivaled the one he’d just been gawking at. His pale top became a smaller version which fluttered up at the bottom and presented a hint of his cleavage. Below, she had a skirt across her knees in a complimentary color to the other girl’s. From there, it was barely-controlled chaos as the changes spread to the nearest available man in reach.

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A man in a suit found herself with more hair than she’d ever imagined on her head (especially considering how she was balding before) and a flashy, theatrical version of her suit showing off her legs. Even little boys were not immune as they stared down at their new selves in pretty dresses. Step by step, person by person, there were only girls left in the area of all styles and appearances. After a lull of collective shock, they began to rush about for reflective surfaces, their personal phones, or however else they could respond. Marley was rather proud in her work until she noticed that Marisa beside her had her face in her hands. She leaned over and clutched her. With a thought, the chaos around became still and Marley gently asked, “What’s wrong?”

Wiping at her eyes, Marisa answered, “I knew. I knew yesterday. I knew it but I didn’t want to accept it. I knew it the moment I looked across the room and saw we were a class of girls in art. And I felt it affirmed when I had a flash of girls everywhere. I’m Isaac. And I was changed. I was forced and pushed into becoming Marisa…for Sim…for his plots and then for Simona…”

Marley mentally braced herself to provide answers. Marisa shut her eyes and asked, “Inside me is the desire to do the same thing to people I don’t know. Me and Simona.”

Shaking her head, Marley reassured her, “You’re not like her. None of us are. We have choice. We are alive and free to shape ourselves. Just because you want to turn boys into girls doesn’t make you a madwoman in a box…”

Taking a breath, Marley focused for a moment before deciding on what she would say.

“The desire to change others is just the memory of yourself changing. It’s something strong, something which lets you remember in this place of blissful forgetting.”

To herself, Marisa repeated, “Choice…so, what happens now? We’re here. We can do anything, but does it matter?”

Marley asked her what she remembered. Marisa strained a bit and could piece together that Simona was about to destroy them, but that was as far as she could recall. Marley filled in the rest, saying, “She deleted you. She deleted everyone else but me. But I was saved by a program which is the antithesis of Sim. She brought me here and used what was saved of you and the others. She’s the school nurse.”

Marisa cupped her mouth and trembled. “So, she did it. She killed me. What am I? What the hell am I?!” Marisa sunk into her own quivering grasp.

Marley clenched her jaw and offered, “You’re my friend, same as Jessica. Same as everyone else. She didn’t destroy you, she can’t.”

Her eyes on the ground, Marisa said, “It’s like I thought at the beginning. What does it matter? Copies made and deleted and rewritten and manipulated. None of it matters…”

Clutching her shoulder, Marley persisted, “It matters because you have a spirit…what Simona took from someone...exists with you.”

Marisa slipped into quietness, which confounded Marley most of all. Bitter words and dark feelings she could handle, but Marisa just sitting there like the same broken doll emptied by Simona, alive but with darkness spreading in her eyes, left her not knowing what to do.

But she persisted still, saying, “We could sit and mope and mull over how we’re not real or we’re just pieces of Simona spread around to her liking. We could hate that she has a body to return to when we’re just information in a system. But Mona. She’s been in the system since the beginning and she’s fought for the creations within it. She believes we’re living data, she believes our lives matter.”

Slowly, Marisa eased back against the bench. She seemed ready to refute and question, by the look on her face. But she sighed and puffed through her nose as she stated, “Seems the only thing we can know for sure is that asshole Simona wants to hurt us and keep confusing us…just like Sim…just like all the bewildering things…”

It was an opening for Marley as she noted, “Exactly. And would you want them to be out there and never know when they could destroy everything? I say we stop them. I say we destroy them, no matter what it takes. Then we can work on whatever’s true and real after that.”

It was enough. Marisa’s dour look eased, and she said, “I guess that’s something to believe in. So, what’s the plan?”

Marley clutched her friend and told her, “We liberate the others from this dream, and then we blow Simona straight to Hell.”

Marisa let herself have a little smile as she clutched Marley’s hand. Most of the new girls had quietly fled. Looking at those still around, Marley offered, “Would you like to wait a while…maybe watch some happier reactions from transformed boys?”

Frowning, Marisa bent to stand but stayed in her seat as she said, “Despite what I’ve said, despite the guilt I feel…yes…I would like that. Happy ones. Just for a little while.”

And so they sat as the altered boys settled down and adjusted their new clothes and marveled at their new forms with a sparkle in their eyes. Perhaps it was no better this way than the other. Perhaps Marisa’s misgivings were right. But right then, in that quiet moment, it gave Marisa a few minutes of peace and that was really all Marley wanted for her friend before they had to say goodbye to serenity.