Switched Ch. 01

This is a work of erotic fiction. All characters engaged in sexual activity are at least eighteen years old. However, there's no sex in this chapter.

Many thanks to icedragonmo3 for editing and expert advice. Any mistakes herein are because the author didn't listen.

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Switched

Chapter 1

Don't Tread on Me

Chase

The last thing I remembered was the gunshot, and then I came to in the middle of utter chaos. Closely packed people all around were screaming and moving in every direction. I saw a red-haired woman in a 'Don't Tread On Me' t-shirt take an elbow to the face, the string holding whatever the beads were that comprised her necklace snapping apart and sending it all flying. I saw a father pull his little girl up from the floor an instant before she was stepped on. There was a roaring in the air, beyond the considerable cacophony of the crowd, a hugely loud, guttural, bowel-loosening roar.

There were birds, too. No, not birds. Angular, folded shapes swung through the air, wings flapping. Some broke free of the flock and dove into the crowd below, no doubt the source of many of the screams he was hearing.

It was starting to come back. Hadn't there been some kind of emergency? Hadn't I been on a stage? Hadn't...

Hadn't I been shot?

I brought a hand to my stomach. Dry, but it felt odd somehow, besides the absence of pain. I started to investigate when I was interrupted by a wall of people pushing toward me, and for a while it was all I could do to keep my feet and grit my teeth as I got shoved back.

Beyond the immediate press of people, I heard calls for folks to make way for the charging emergency workers.

The place was starting to empty out as folks fled. With the absence of the crowd, I could see the floor was strewn with debris; flyers and brightly-colored posters, a shoe here and there, and even one lone, abandoned purse.

The emergency workers were mounting the stage with a gurney, proving I'd been correct. Someone had been shot. My chest filled with a strange sort of anticipatory dread. Who was the victim if not me?

It was coming back in bits and pieces, the yelling and the clouds of bird-things filling the air, and that woman's voice, shouting louder than a rock concert. Before that, I'd been on the stage, right? Yes, the whole family thing. Mister Earnest Public Servant, trotting out his well-groomed kids to earn a few votes. It had been hot then, but strangely not now.

There was no sign of Father, of course. If Walker was doing his job, he and his men would have buried the family under a solid igloo of dark-suited bodyguards at the first sign of any trouble.

I spotted the head of Father's security up on the stage. There was a close grouping of suits there that must be his crew, but before I could make out any more, I was shoved again, and only a lifetime of prep school societal reflexes kept me from shoving back. Mustn't make Father look bad, you know. If he didn't get reelected to the Senate and it was my fault... Well, that wasn't going to happen.

Then Walker turned, and I remembered the last time I saw that face. Shock and concern had distorted it and there had been a loud pop-pop-pop. Walker had been reaching for me, and I'd looked away to see where the noise had come from, but only seeing the sea of faces comprising the crowd.

I had to get up there, right now. I burrowed between people, elbowing freely. Finally popping out next to the stage, practically pushed onto it, I began to climb.

To my everlasting shock, Walker stopped me.

"I'm sorry," he said, "You can't be up here."

"What the fuck, Walker?"

The bodyguard did a double-take at that, eyed me more closely. Walker seemed so tall when he was in crisis mode. "Have we met?" he asked. His eyes were restless, trying to take in everything at once, but he was paying extra-special attention to me.

I let my irritation show on my face. "Yes, asshole, we've met! What kind of question is that?"

Walker just stared at me.

"This isn't funny, man, we're in the middle of a crisis!" I thumped my chest. "Did you get hit in the head? Me Chase. You Walker." Maybe he'd understand Caveman, because English didn't seem to be working.

Now those eyes fastened to me exclusively, took me all in, and then back to lock gazes. Walker was usually a pretty intense fellow, but this was a whole new level.

"What's your code?" His voice was a hoarse whisper.

I blinked. The whole family had been drilled in security measures, some kind of high-flying boot camp in North Virginia. I recited my code phrase, stumbling a bit over the memories. Why was this necessary? What had those damned freaks done?

Walker nodded, slowly, and said the proper response. "What's my name?" he asked.

"Walter Thomason."

"Tell me about your dog," he demanded.

"Jesus, dude!"

"Do it." His tone brooked no arguments.

"My last dog was Blackfoot. He was an English Foxhound, a gift from some British Lord to Father. He got pawned off on me because he had value and one doesn't just send those to the pound. I resented it at first, but it wasn't his fault, so we kinda bonded."

Walker shook his head fractionally, staring.

I scowled, "Do I have a booger on my forehead or something?"

Walker shook himself, then extended a hand, lifting me to the stage like the effort was nothing. Had I been wearing white shoes? What were those things under my shirt? For that matter, hadn't I been wearing a suit?

Something was very, very wrong. What was happening? Walker took a step back and leaned over, not taking his eyes from me, and spoke to someone. The guy turned-it was Father!

The expression on his face? Shock and disgust. He spoke a few words to his bodyguard that I couldn't make out.

Walker looked over my shoulder and gave a short nod. I turned to see who was there, felt a powerful hand grip my upper arm, and then a thin, sharp pinch in the side of my neck. The bodyguard who'd done this tried to keep it low but I spotted the empty syringe in his hand as he pulled back. After that, everything became very difficult to keep track of.

*

Protocol

Chase

I came to awareness in stages. I was in a soft seat—a car seat. I was in a car. No, one of those black SUVs that Father went everywhere in. There were people in here with me. One of the people was that bodyguard I knew.

Walker sat across from me and another bodyguard sat to my side. My head hurt, my mouth tasted like an old sneaker, and my clothes rubbed against my skin like sandpaper.

Everything spun when I tilted my head to look. Walker saw the motion and became alert.

I was under a blanket. I started to push it off, but Walker stopped me. "You don't want to do that."

My head throbbed. "Did you drug me?"

"We had to. Variant Protocol."

"Variants?" I glanced around. I was surprised to hear him using the approved term for super-powered folks instead of Father's favorite term... Freaks.

"They're gone."

"They were at the convention center, yeah? Big crowd. Birds." There had been, lots of them. And not the little tweety kind, but these dark, darting things whose unity of purpose had been unnerving to watch.

"Yeah," he said.

"Where are we?" Blearily, I tried to glance out of the windows for any familiar sight, but my eyes just would not focus yet.

"Half an hour from Atlanta."

"I must have been out for a while."

"Sorry about that."

As angry as I was, I really did understand. "Yeah. Protocol. How long from Chicago to Atlanta? It's like six hours."

"You'll be home soon. How about getting some sleep, eh Champ?"

He'd stumbled, and he knew it. I could see it plainly on his face. "What's wrong, Walker?" I asked.

"Just get some sleep."

"Walker," I implored him.

His stone face was back. "Sleep," he reiterated.

"Are you going to sedate me again, Doctor Mengele?"

He didn't even wince. I guess that apology was protocol, too. "No. Just rest."

"Walker." No reply. "You called me 'Champ' when you told me about my dog, remember?"

He said nothing.

"And now you're doing it again, except this time, I don't have a dog that you're pretending ran away."

He glared at the guy next to me. Rent or Renji or something, he'd been a recent addition to the staff. Some intuition told me why Walker was mad.

I wasn't supposed to have woken up yet.

"Where is Father, Walker?"

"He's in the follow car," he said.

"We always ride together. Why did you split us up?"

"You were sedated."

"Yeah, was that really necessary? I feel like I've been butt-fucked by a bulldozer!"

"Protocol."

"Fuck your protocol, Walker!" I leaned forward and jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "What aren't you telling me?!"

He had the strangest expression on his face.

I was missing something blindingly obvious, and he wasn't about to rock the boat by telling me.

The moment had become so tense that when Renji's earpiece blipped, I whipped around to look at him. As I did so, something brushed me softly in the face and made me flinch. What the fuck was that?

"Chase, you've got to calm down," said Walker. "We don't want to sedate you again."

"Body weight," explained Renji. That apparently meant something to Walker, who accepted the news with a certain grimness that I took to mean they couldn't do it again. Probably some danger of overdose.

I glanced over my shoulder to see what had struck me, and felt something brush my neck. Reflexively, I grabbed it.

"Ow!" It was hair! Long hair! And my scalp hurt from tugging it. It was my hair. What had those fucking freaks done to me?

It was long enough to hold before my eyes. Brown, with blonde highlights, straight and long. Blonde highlights?

My hands didn't look right, either. Were my...? "My nails are painted!" I blurted.

Walker and Renji looked so uneasy. Renji, a guy whose job it was to run toward bullets, actually leaned away from me.

I looked down at my body. It wasn't right, was it? I started to lower the blanket but Walker stopped me again. He pinned me with a look and said, "Be calm, okay? We'll make this right."

They'd drugged and manhandled me, and now were talking to me like I was a headcase. I slapped his hand away and whipped the blanket down.

I was wearing a gray top with a V-neck, similar to hospital scrubs but it was some kind of plastic-like paper. What was that on my chest—

After awhile I became aware of a high-pitched screaming noise. My head was pounding now and I was hurling myself around the interior of the vehicle, throat raw, fending off the bodyguards, who were also yelling. Hands reached for me but I slapped them away, throwing elbows and scrambling away from them.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" screamed a woman's voice. Strange, I'd been about to say just that. There was no woman in here, just the bodyguards, the driver and me...

I looked down at my chest.

At my breasts.

At my curved hips in those paper pants, my legs meeting in a soft vee, without the bulge I was accustomed to seeing there.

More screaming and hurling myself around. Yes, that was just the ticket. I would do that until I woke up from this nightmare.

Now their hands were tight on my upper arms and I couldn't move. We all shifted and stumbled as the vehicle rapidly pulled over and stopped. That long hair whipped all over and obscured my vision.

"You have to calm down!" Walker yelled.

That was great advice. So I head-butted him.

Renji got the kung-fu claw to the nuts. They'd taught more than passphrases in that bootcamp. I managed to get the door open before they grabbed me again.

I did a reverse head butt this time, which hurt like hell, but my head was already wrecked. I actually saw stars, little swimming silvery shapes. I couldn't get free of their grip but I could kick the door open all the way. Cars were suddenly whooshing past a few feet away. We were on the highway, of course.

While I struggled, there was a rap on the opposite window. Renji powered it down.

"What's the problem?" asked a voice I recognized.

"Father!" I shouted. "Help!"

The guys loosened their grips, but just enough to be non-painful. They weren't letting go this time.

But I knew where the real power was, and how his mind worked. I was an extension of his ego, and therefore should be treated respectfully in his presence. I shrugged them off, daring them to try it, and climbed out of the vehicle on his side.

"How many did they get?" I asked.

He blew air out of his nose, which for him was as expressive as it got. When I'd put a BB-dent in his Bentley on Christmas Day at age ten, he blew air out of his nose before laying down the mother of all whippings. When I'd gotten mustard on his original Picasso, he did the same thing as he picked me up and carried me off to his study for a dynamic round of corporal punishment.

He'd done it when I told him I wanted to be a professional musician. When I'd dated a black girl.

When he came out of the hospital room for the last time, having said goodbye to Mom, that one annoyed-sounding gesture was the sole physical manifestation of the grief he had to have been feeling.

Quietly, so that I had to strain to hear him over traffic noise, he said, "I can't see you like this."

While I stood there in shock he glanced at Walker and added, "Back inside, now. No one sees her."

Maybe it was the pronoun he used. Maybe it was the look of disgust—of disappointment—on his face.

Whatever it was, it was enough to wake a terrifying rage inside me.

He didn't notice. "We will make those Freaks pay for this," he promised.

He wasn't even looking at me.

I backed up. I heard one of the retainers say, "Watch her!"

Her.

HER!

God damn them.

I turned and ran, only a few car lengths. They pursued, but I skipped away from them. I was so light! I hopped onto the grass that sloped down and away from the highway. When they started to pursue, I got back on the gravel, practically dancing over the loose rocks, light as a feather. Now half of them were stumbling back up to the road.

I went around the rear SUV on the highway side, which was risky enough to make them hesitate. I cut between the two vehicles, back to the safe side, but they'd cut me off ahead and behind.

I threw my hands up, "Fine, I'm going."

I climbed into the front passenger seat.

They relaxed. Words were exchanged as they coordinated the next steps. Maybe they were planning to drug me again. These motherfuckers had drugged me senseless and stripped my clothes off.

Rage flaring anew, I hit the door locks.

Then I moved over to the driver's side and discovered the keys in it and the engine still running.

I dropped it into gear and stomped the accelerator.

I got clear of them and stopped, watching them hustle into the other car. Once they were aboard, I reversed and stabbed the gas again.

The sound of the Escalade crunching into the one behind it was so satisfying. These things were tough, but they weren't immune to a good pop to the nose. Drive with a busted radiator now, bitches!

*

Benadryl Coma

Chase

The light went on in the second story window and I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been throwing pebbles at it for ten minutes now. Dude must have been in a Benadryl coma or something.

Bryan raised the window and peered out into the darkness.

"Here," I called.

"Who is that?" he asked.

Well, that was the rub, wasn't it?

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting in his room. "Will you stop... ogling me?"

"I'm not ogling you. That's gross, you're my best friend. And a guy. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this." He gestured vaguely at me in my girl-body.

"So you believe me." I hadn't worked out a code phrase system with him, but even better, we'd been best friends since childhood.

"Sure," he smirked. "You don't have the imagination to pull this kind of prank."

"Quit busting my balls, willya?" Seeing his droll expression, no doubt caused by my choice of words, I gave him a raised-knuckle punch to the shoulder. "This is bad, dude."

"He's your father. What's he going to do?"

I stared at Bryan, stared until he looked away. "He'll protect himself and his political allies," I stated with surety.

He sighed. He didn't want to believe it, but it was undeniable. "He'll lock you up."

"He'll lock me up," I agreed, "until he can fix it, and since he's been calling Variants the spawn of Satan since the Second Wave..."

Bryan finished for me. "They won't help with your problem."

"They did this to me to get revenge on him."

"Maybe they were trying to transform him and missed."

I tugged at my shirt. Clothes felt so odd now. "I don't know. How do you miss with a super power?"

"You have to remember some details."

"It was such a jumble. I didn't even realize what happened to me at first."

He sat back on his bed while I sprawled all over his desk chair as I usually did. He said, "I followed it on the news, you know. The Variants caused a big stir and some injuries."

"There was shooting!"

"Nobody knows who that was. The Variants claim none of them were armed."

"They didn't have to be. You shoulda seen those bird-things, man."

"That was Shadow Hawk. Vigilante. More dangerous with a throwing knife than with his power, if you can believe it. His shadow birds," he added air quotes, "were good for scaring everyone and getting their attention, but they're known to be pretty harmless. Sharper than a butter knife but very lightweight."

"They fucking shot me. I think."

"Couldn't have been them. Doesn't make sense. They sent people who weren't dangerous, right? Flashy and scary, true, but if mayhem was their goal, why not flame powers or something? Why didn't Shadow Hawk throw any knives? I'd say it was a third party, but I've got no evidence."

"What did it say about me?"

"It said you were injured but not how. The Humans First people are getting all riled up on your behalf, if that makes you feel any better." He had a funny way of smiling, kinda sideways. I'd always liked it.

"Maybe we can get some raw footage."

"Maybe," he paused. "You're going on the run, then?" His words were light, but he was watching me carefully.

I shrugged, "I have to."

"Are you sure? It won't be easy."

"Neither will house arrest for life," I pointed out.

He nodded. "Let's plan this out, then."

I was so lucky to have a friend like him. I'd have told him, but things were way too girly around here already.

*

Chase

"Why her?" I asked. A large, detached garage loomed in the headlights of our borrowed car.

Bryan turned to me, his face ghostly in the dash lights. "I don't know her that well, and she doesn't do social networks."

"You expect Father to walk your network?"

"Absolutely. He'll have specialists build up dossiers on everyone."

I shivered, despite the warmth of my borrowed jacket. He was right, something that creepy wouldn't even show up on Father's radar.

"You think she'll help?"

Bryan pretended to think about that for a moment. "There's a good chance. But if she doesn't help, she at least won't turn us in."

*

Hanging

Bryan

This was nuts. For the hundredth time that night, I asked myself if this was all some elaborate joke. I always wondered if and when I'd brush up against the strange world of Variants, but I had no idea it would be like this. This was odd even for them.

The Ozmans lived in an old fieldstone house on a rural route. At the head of a dirt track diving into the tree line, looking like it was being swallowed by greenery, was a large detached garage in which their daughter Tawney lived.

I rang the doorbell before I came to my senses.

Be cool, Bryan, it's a good plan.

I'd switched cars with a friend, in case of tracking devices. I had been lo-jacked before, and while my own dad wasn't as nasty as Chase's, he was in the same line of work. I made sure no one followed, and parked in the shadows on the dirt track so my vehicle couldn't be easily spotted from the road.