A Clockwork Green Ch. 01

"A good night's sleep'll do that... although I had the craziest-"

"They were not dreams, Mackenzie."

"What? Of course it was. We'd have had to get pretty drunk to fuck each other." My voice sounds weird too. I try to clear it without luck.

"Think, my friend. What do you remember?"

"Aww, do I have to?"

"Please. For me." He doesn't usually let his voice get this high pitched. Then again, it's just the two of us now and I'm not gonna call him on being effeminate.

I groan and close my eyes, thinking back. "Not a dream, my ass. We had sex in space."

"How?"

"How did we get into space?"

"No, how did we have sex?"

"Whaddya mean how?"

"Who. Had sex. With whom?"

"You..." But no. He didn't, did he? I did. I had sex with him. He pulls my arm tight around him, and wiggles backward against me. "I... I fucked you, didn't I?" He takes my hand, and slides it up his chest, pausing as it rises over the bump of his pecks...

Wait a minute.

I squeeze my fingers and he gasps. That's a breast. I've had enough breasts in my hands to know the difference between a man's peck and a breast. He wiggles his butt into me again. Why does he keep doing that? Somehow, one of the water bottles got between us...

"Tony, I-"

"No. My name is Charlotte now."

I rip my hand free to roll over and away. Something is wrong with my pants. Tony... no, Charlotte turns over and looks at me. That face. Even though last night is hazy, I remember that face. It's not Tony's face. Not quite. It's softer. Dantier even, like every feature was adjusted on a scale from masculine towards feminine. Her nose, narrower. Her eyes, brighter. Sparkling, even. Her eyebrows have thinned, and her forehead isn't so dominant. Her cheekbones are smoother, and her cheeks...

As she rolls, I can see her clothes are fitting her differently. It's the same uniform, but it stretches over her lovely hips and pert bust in ways it didn't before. Her hands are slender. Tony's hands were never overly large, but... My eyes hesitate over her chest. Dawdle. Linger. Her short black hair curls over her cheeks, threatening her eyes. Holy crap, she's cute. Her legs go on forever...

My pants are really starting to bother me, and when I finally work up the nerve to look away...

"WHAT THE FUCK IS IN MY PANTS?!" I panic as I claw at the cord I use as a belt, but Charlotte (that's gonna take some getting used to) hides a polite smile behind her hand and averts her eyes. I kick myself up onto my heels and shoulders, arching my hips two feet off the ground as I push my pants down to my knees, and what should come flopping up over my waist, but..."Holy shit..."

"This is what I've always wanted, Mackenzie. This is how I should have been from the start." It just keeps staring at me. One unblinking eye. "And I think that might be how you should have been too..."

A prick. I have a prick. I've always been fond of that nickname for it, both for the way it invades and for the 'slightly arrogant jerk' implication that the man attached to it usually deserves. Monologuing is, of course, my way of trying to derail my brain from really thinking about the fact that I have a prick. It's attached to me. I wiggle my hips, and it doesn't fall off. She didn't just glue one on me for a laugh. My prick isn't the only thing that wiggles.

"Holy shit, I have balls too..." They're all a part of me. I can... feel them. It's more than just a strap on. I can feel it rolling around on my hips just like I can still feel my tits. Just like I can still feel my pussy. I fall flat on my back, kicking out small dust clouds to either side. Charlotte is still politely averting her eyes, but her cheeks are a few shades shy of rosey. I yank up my pants and quickly retie the cord. There's something off in the distance. "What's that over there?"

"Wha-uh... I think that is New Verdia." She seems confused as I bounce up to my feet and start walking. "Mackenzie, wait!"

"I'm tired of this damn desert, Charlotte," I say over my shoulder. "Stay here if you want, but I'm gonna go soak up some civilization." She huffs as she gets up, but she follows anyway. She's quiet when she walks. Tony was always pretty graceful, but I have to look over my shoulder a few times to make sure she's still following me. She looks like she wants to talk more, but every time I see her open her mouth and take a breath, I look ahead and quicken my step. It takes us the better part of an hour to find a road and get to the gates. New Verdia was going to be our next port of call anyway.

***

"What are we going to do now, Mackenzie?"

"Cap'n would want us to have the remaining crew funds. What could that buy us?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. The Captain played it pretty tight. We usually bought as much in the way of supplies as we could afford to rather than stockpiling gold for a rainy day."

"So you're saying we need to go back out there..."

I come to a stop, and she steps up next to me. She taps her lips in thought. "There are more than a few things which could have survived such an explosion. The funds I have access to could allow us to procure a skiff, and the Captain's strong boxes alone might make it so that the trip was profitable."

"I can get inside a strong box."

"I know you can, Mackenzie."

I count off on my fingers. "So we rent us a skiff, head back out there, dig through the shattered remains of our lives for a few coins... and that's that."

She looks at me like she's been hurt. "What... what do you-"

"You know what I mean."

She's silent as I meld with the crowd and enter the city, but she follows. After a few turns, she reluctantly takes the lead, and we wind our way to the nearest airport. The buildings here are much taller than they are in Hollinsport. I keep slowing to a stop to stare up. Charlotte always waits. I get the feeling she's waiting for more than for me to stop being awestruck by architecture, but I don't know what she thinks is gonna happen. We can't...

I don't...

There's...

How can I think about anything as complicated as an us when I don't even know what the fuck I am?! I feel bad about staring at her ass as she leads the way up the stairs to the landing pad, but it's hardly my fault! It's right in front of me and fuck, it's an improvement! Mixed signals be damned, where else am I supposed to look? After she catches me for the third time, I just look down and stare at my boots as we trudge upwards.

Charlotte didn't have to tell me to stand back and let her handle the rental, but she did anyway. I cross my arms and hang back, and enjoy the unexpected show. She totally scams the rental guy, playing up the damsel in distress and 'oh what's a poor girl to do', and he's totally buying it! I'm slack jawed. The way she twirls her hair, the way she kicks up one heel, the way she leans on the counter... She wasn't kidding; maybe she was supposed to be this way from the start.

I envy her resolve. She's found more femininity in a day than I've found in a lifetime.

***

"Doesn't..." My voice gets caught in my throat. Even though we're sailing through a desert, I still expect my mouth to have more moisture than it does. "Doesn't verdant mean green?"

Charlotte is wide eyed when I look at her. I have to repeat myself before she answers. "I'm... I'm sorry. I just got the impression that the rest of this trip was going to be a silent affair."

"Damnit, Char, do you know or not?" I don't know where 'Char' came from, but her downcast eyes shift at the sound of it. I don't know if I just made things better or worse.

"Yes, Mackenzie. Verdant means green."

"Then why is a town called New Verdia smack in the middle of the biggest desert in this hemisphere?"

"From what I understand, it only became this way several centuries ago. The death of all earth mages kingdom-wide started here."

"They died and the land got all dry, or the other way around?"

"Contemporary sources thought the former, but modern theory holds that they happened simultaneously."

It takes me longer than I would like to make sense of her sentence. She takes my silence to mean the end of the conversation, which I'm comfortable allowing.

***

By the end of the day Charlotte is beginning to doubt her sense of direction, which I have never known to be wrong. We walked for one full day and woke up just in sight of the gates. At skiff speed, we should have reached the wreck in a few hours. We make camp, and I tinker with a knife I keep up my sleeve to have something to focus on. I sharpen, clean, and oil the blade, and inspect the arm strap it lives in. No wear.

Charlotte looks awful from across the fire. Lonely. Part of me wants to go over there and hug her, but I've got my own shit to figure out.

What the fuck am I? Shems and Herms are pretty clearly men or women with extra bits, but this isn't the same. All of me looks completely normal, and seems to work just fine. Took my first standing piss and everything. I peed 'Mack' into the sand. Damn thing is thick as hell, too. My wardrobe, if it survived at all, will be fine to hide it. I don't own anything skin tight.

But what does this mean for me?! I was pretty happy being a lesbian. Sure, I'll cop to being jealous of pricks; a strapon just isn't the same. It always felt like I needed help connecting that way, and although I love oral, it wasn't what I wanted the most. Not if I'm being honest.

If I'm not gonna be honest with myself, then what's the point?

I lose track of time staring into the fire. It's almost sad when I let it die out, like saying goodbye to a friend. Charlotte must have fallen asleep hours ago...

The next day passes in similar silence. When we stop to make camp, I pretend to clean my blade again, but I'm really just shocked at what I'm seeing in the gleaming steel. All the baby fat is gone. My jawline is more pronounced, and my cheekbones are just a bit more visible. I look less like a butterball and more like my dad, which isn't a nice thought. Not that he wasn't a handsome man, or that I'm freaked out that I resemble him. It's just... That puts me in a weird mood that lasts the rest of the night.

Charlotte turns in early, so I don't have to worry about hiding my anger. Not tonight.

***

"We have enough supplies to last 4 days going in this direction before we need to head back," she says as we load up the next morning.

"How far out there were we?" There's heat in my voice I didn't intend.

"I do not know. I wasn't the helmsman, but I do know it's a miracle we got out alive, Mackenzie."

"Stop calllin' me that!"

"Or what? You'll ignore me some more!?" I grit my teeth and throw the last of the gear in the back of the skiff. There's hurt on her face. "Talk to me, Mackenzie!" I rev the motor to drown her out, and she sits down, hurt and frustrated. Why can't she just let me think?

***

Sometime just after noon, I spot it on the horizon. The AS Chimaera, in all it's burned-out glory. She's still magnificent, resting mostly upright and perpendicular to a dune. Charlotte covers her mouth in a gasp. That was our home, hers for 2 years longer than it was mine, and mine for long enough to put a frog in my throat. The Old Girl hardly looks like herself, but I can spot the remains of my modifications to the rear exhaust vents from miles away. It's definitely her.

The area around her is strewn with debris. I park the skiff under a twisted piece of the rear starboard hull. Neither of us move for a long while.

"She deserved better," I say.

"She's not the only one..."

I round on her. "What do you want from me, Charlotte?!"

"Just talk to me!!" Doesn't she get it?! I have to come to this on my own! I hop off the skiff and storm towards the ship. "Mackenzie!"

No part of what she cries after that gets through. My fists ignite, and the only sound I can hear is the crackle and hiss.

***

My shop is ruined. There's even less down here that I can bring back than I thought. The forge is in a dozen pieces. Some of my tools are ok, but every one of my projects is fucked. Unrecognizable clumps of steel. All of my schematics are in ashes.

The Capn's breastplate is worse than when I started it. All I ever wanted from this fucking thing was for it to hold together, but it couldn't do that, could it? Fucking little piece of shit! I pound it down against my anvil and the anvil cracks, and then I really lose it. The whole room erupts in a whirlwind of flames with me at the center.

"Mackenzie, please, just listen." The intercom squawks weakly. The ships batteries are probably low. I raise an open palm at the speaker and let loose a ball of plasma that ignites and explodes harmlessly. I stare dumbly at it until I remember that the Capn' made me put an imbuement on it so I would stop exploding them with balls of plasma. Enraged, I dive across the room and rip it off the wall.

"I did not mean to push you. Or to push you away. I just... I always felt a connection with you that," she pauses. I can hear her wipe at her eyes before she goes on. 'a connection I did not know how to make good on. How to follow through on." The intercom is a smoking ruin in 6 pieces, but she's got the all-call button down and I can still hear her voice echoing through the rest of the ship.

"I thought we had been handed a gift from the gods, Mackenzie. That we had been made the same by some higher power so that we could finally be together." I've picked up the chestpiece again, and the anvil breaks into several more pieces beneath my wrath.

"I knew as soon as I woke up what had happened to me, and I never thought for a second that you would react any differently. I never thought that you would want something else, or that you would not know what you wanted."

"I WANTED THIS!!" My voice cracks. I pick up Jarritt's rifle and wield it like a club, bending it even worse as I obliterate my workbench. Explosions I don't even mean to be causing send half-finished projects and rejected failures alike careening around the room. "THIS WAS MY HOOOOOME!!"

***

I lost track of time for a little bit there. When I come to, I'm heaving in the middle of the room, with nothing but scorch marks closer than 5 feet away. I haven't gone Holy Fire since...

"Mackenzie! They're boarding! I can't stay up here any longer, not while someone else is trying to gut our home." Our home. It's a shock to hear that, and it breaks me out of my stupor. Our home.

Me and her in the mess, mostly me rushing behind her fixing her colossal inability around food. Me cauterizing the wounds of the guys when they came back, and her dressing the wounds afterwards. The late night card games when we were left alone. The long talks. The praise for my work. All of my good memories of this place involve her. I don't even remember Tony anymore. Tony who?

A dull thud rings through the hulk, and I panic. No! I'm just now catching up! Not now! It's too soon! Why now?!

I'm didn't quite exhaust myself thrashing the shop. I'm not at 100%, but fighting in the ship gives me some advantages. I grab the biggest piece of the hull that I can lift with one hand and spot weld a handle to it. It makes a pretty good fit in the hallway, almost covering the width and leaving a few feet above.

I start heading aft down the port side access hall. Just as I pass the spot where I blacked out before, several gunshots ring out against my makeshift shield. I wait for a pause and picture the angle of the stairs in my head as I reach around and let a Boomer go. Boomers are what I call these little dumbfire bolts that seem harmless as they pass you until they hit something, and then they explode with a force disproportionate to their size. Two sets of screams brings a smile to my face. I continue up the stairs, and then down the far side to stay on the crew deck.

Suddenly, someone jumps around a corner behind me not 10 feet away. I had my hand out, waiting, and let out a stream of liquid flame that keeps burning long after he stops moving. I call that one the Torch. I'm sure I didn't actually invent any new ways of casting fire, but I'm self taught. I get to call it whatever the fuck I want.

I find two more on the crew deck before I head up. Every one I find leaves my grimace just a little darker. This was OUR gods-damned home! I'll be the one deciding when I'm done with it!! Not you, not you, and not you either, asshole!!

Things open up a little more once I get up in the hold, so I can't turtle my way around. That's ok with me. I line up my shield with the first few that I see and set off a massive explosion on my side of the piece, which sends it sailing across the floor and into them. I use the confusion to break across to the starboard side and take cover behind our scrap skiff. I peek through the broken windows to see two of them advancing slowly up the port side. I charge up a Kite and let it loose in the wrong direction. I can control the direction of Kites, but they're much less powerful. Just as it's about to hit the fore wall, I bring it back around in a wide arc, skimming just above the floor. The two of them only see it coming just as it rounds a pallet of boxes the Capn' thought he could barter for rum. Totally forget what's in em. I can't actually see the Kite, but I can see the flare it casts as it hurtles towards them and ignites on my command. Actually, I think they either implode or collapse, and then explode, if you want to be technical.

I can't see any more still upright, so I stalk over to where I hear groaning. One of the first few survived the launch of my hull piece, albeit with a shattered leg. He whimpers at my approach.

"How many more," I say, squatting down next to him. I reach into his shoulder pack, pull out his comm and melt it into a useless lump before tossing it down to the ground.

"None. We're all that's left," he whimpers, but there's a ghost of a smile. I grab his broken leg, right in the mass of destroyed bone. He screams.

"It feels like pudding," I say, as flat as a hammerhead. "You know what happens when you cook pudding?" His eyes get large as he looks down, and I start to apply heat. I can't help but smile now. "Me neither! Wanna find out?"

"Five more topside," he screams. "Five more and one back at the rig! Oh Gods!!"

I let off his leg for a moment. "I'm gonna go upstairs now. I find six guys, and I'll come back for you. Make it painless. I find seven? Or five? Or anything other than six? I'll come back..." I shake my head at him and leave the rest unstated. His imagination is worse than anything I can dream up. He wails at me as I walk away, winding through the tipped-over rubble and fallen support beams.

I count four bodies as I get closer to the bridge. One with a gaping wound in his chest, and three with slashes to their tendons and necks. My smile is grizzly, thinking about just how good Charlotte is with that sword. Probably even better now. Never quite had the physique for what she wanted to do before. No fifth body though, so I keep it low and quiet. Nobody on the bridge, so I keep on heading deeper towards the Capn's quarters.

I can hear Charlotte whimpering as I sneak up on his door. I shave a layer of enamel off my teeth with each second it takes me to lean around the corner. Charlotte is on her knees in front of the last one. No, that's not whimpering...

"We've guhnned down a few fiah mayges in our time. Yor li'l freends prolly deed by naow. Fiah mayges is all the sayme. Awl flash and no-" He has his gun trained on Charlotte's head, but he makes the mistake of raising it to me when I step out. Can't he tell by the look in my eye that I'd rather be the one getting shot at?