Transmutation by Aimee Norin
TRANSMUTATION
by Aimee Norin
Copyright 2014, 2015 by Aimee Norin. All rights reserved. Beyond the legal minimum, no portion of this book may be reproduced or shared. Email Aimee Norin at [email protected]
This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is coincidental, including but not limited to any persons, companies, universities, news media channels and networks, organizations and clubs, et cetera.
This novel is for mature understanding. Scenes involving any sex, violence or harsh language are at a minimum, such that were it a film, I believe it could be shown on broadcast, prime-time television.
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TRANSMUTATION
By
Aimee Norin
Begin Reading
Preface
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
About the Author
Contact the Author
PREFACE
What would happen with people and society in general if a machine were revealed that could rejuvenate everyone in seconds—with any body of their choosing? A spectrum of intersex and gender diversity? The end to closets and bigotry? War? Chaos? How would we manage material resources? What about overpopulation?
What would happen if that machine were presented by an alien from outer space whose people have been here on the earth for 100,000 years? How has the species been influenced? How could that affect religions? Social organization? How would the thought process mature if we lived for thousands of years?
TRANSMUTATION is a Sci-Fi novel, commentary on sex, gender and intersex-related social issues, which brings trans life to every person on earth. A fast read, it moves through tragedy, desperation, and excitement, to fun and humor, ending on a very positive note.
Lori Faraday is 20,000 years old and has been living as a human on Earth for 12,000 years. She came from an advanced culture. In pain from losing yet another loved-one, she breaks with her code of ethics to give a technology to the world that allows people to rejuvenate for health and longevity, to transmute into a new, young-adult body of individual choosing—retaining the original brain (with health improvements) so the person is not a copy—curing all physical ailments and extending life indefinitely.
Transmutation spans the solar system including the United States, the Middle East, Russia, Indonesia, and the White House on planet Earth, and also to various locations in outer space—dealing rapidly with a number of issues:
LIFE AND DEATH: Chapter 1 is desperate. Lori’s husband is dying. She fights for his life, unable to help.
GENDER CHANGE: Chapters 11-34. There are several characters who change gender—in fact, it turns out, when a new one is available, a lot of people choose it.
REPARATIVE THERAPY: Chapter 31. Scenes make it clear, the importance of saving helpless children from misguided attempts to “fix” gender issues in children. With conversion therapy and from a thousand other sources, children are denied needed, relevant health care and get the message their gender needs are demeaned, and that is not tolerated in this social evolution. Matter of fact— Well, you’ll see.
TRANS: Chapters 2-34. Everyone becomes trans in one way or another: transgender, trans-speces, transformed. In order to help society know who has transmuted, and until new forms of I.D. are utilized, a “T” is placed on the left temple by the transmuters. When an 80-year-old man becomes a 20-year-old woman, it’s easy to lose track.
ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE: Chapter 5. The Ahleth are from another planet, far away. They are peaceful explorers who decided to stay about 12,000 years ago, though the earth has been visited for about 100,000 years.
INTERSEX: Chapters 8-34. Lori is Ahleth, and the Ahleth are intersex by birth and nature. Each individual will over time choose any body they wish from available templates they’ve prepared, but even if they sometimes choose to appear as classicly male or female for social reasons, they are intersex, privately, able to function in any capacity. Many people choose to become intersex, as well as trans.
INTER-SPECIES EVOLUTION: Chapters 2-34. Hurting, crying, in anguish at the loss of her husband, she slams all her ethics to the curb in a decision to save her aging Spaniel, the other love of her life, and uses her transmuter to help the dog evolve into a human being, blending in her own template as a guide.
BIGOTRY: Chapters 2-34, example is Chapter 27. Bigotry falls by the wayside as people choose trans living, a different race, or other features, over and over again.
WAR: Evolving through Chapters. Wars erupt over challenged values. People grapple with what we’re doing and why.
RELIGION: Chapters 30-34. Ahleth have guided the development of humans for millennia and have tried several times in the past to “come out” to populations—yet earlier people were prone to misunderstanding, sometimes with disastrous results.
HEALTH OF THE EARTH: Throughout. If people could live longer, what about over-population? Availability of material resources? Polution? Starvation? And then, what also of the retention of genius? Of a mind that matures in thinking beyond the first century of life? Of societies with new, longer-term perspectives on things that matter?
Transmutation provides the opportunity to exhibit wide-ranging variations in individual expression and issues of tolerance and acceptance of self and others in the hearts of people who never considered such things. This novel brings trans issues home to them about what it means to be different, puts variation right in their lap, and even normalizes differentness.
The tone is funny at times, heavy at other times, yet loving and tolerant throughout.
Indeed, it is entirely motivated by love.
Aimee Norin
BRIEF INTRODUCTION
A 20,000-year-old extraterrestrial, hurt by the death of her husband, evolves her dog into a human and gives advanced technology to the world which allows transmutation into new and younger, healthier bodies, including as well of other shapes or sexes/genders. This spotlights her to the world media, which reveals her origins and her plans. The world grapples with immense changes.
CHAPTER
1
Lorelai Faraday didn’t wake at 6:00 a.m., because she hadn’t slept. Her eyes hurt, her arms, her back, her forehead, as if she’d been pushed past the point of exhaustion years ago in a marathon of care for her dying husband—but she couldn’t give up. Never! She frowned behind closed eyes.
No! she screamed inside. Why do we have to die? She took a shallow breath and raised one tired hand to rub her forehead. It did no good; her body ached from head to foot. Had she not slept at all? If she’d had more energy, she could have tried to remember what the clock had said last night when she looked at it last, but the thought was too complex to formulate.
A tear rolled down the side of her face to her ear.
She had to keep going, she knew. Nothing could be more important.
Open my eyes! she screamed to herself, determined to make them obey.
A cry escaped her, and she begged for help—there it was: a wet nose in her right ear that forced her to move. Her hand rose to the back of Marie’s head. Lori turned, eyes still closed, to give Marie a kiss on her soft, furry cheek. It was a morning ritual. She knew it meant so much, and she tried to give her thirteen-year-old, liver and white English Springer Spaniel little girl the morning love she craved, all fifty pounds of her. She tried to appear happy for her girl and felt it would have to be enough, this morning, to pet her and hold her a bit, because Lori hadn’t been able to bring an honest smile to her lips in a long time.
Function, move! she told herself. Shower. Dress. Forget the makeup. Forget the hair. This is important. Get organized and get to the hospital.
Marie lay down by Lori’s arm and nudged her, trying to wiggle inbetween Lori’s arm and the sheets.
“Yeah, yeah. Good girl.”
She rubbed her eyes some more. “I’m going.”
She slowly pulled the blanket back and sat on the edge of the bed.
The morning sun was bright in her eyes, or would have been if the curtains were open.
The yard was beautiful, or would have been if it were mowed.
The house was lovely, or would have been if it were clean.
Mommy and baby trekked down the stairs to the kitchen.
Function, Lori kept telling herself. Function.
The kitchen was—she looked at it—a total wreck. Lori stood there, among the cluttered counters, unable to move.
Marie pranced in her elderly way and nuzzled Lori’s leg. Marie needed her morning turkey dog, Lori knew, which gave her the energy to open the fridge. Empty, almost. Half a gallon of milk, some butter, two old potatoes, and a half package of turkey dogs. She gave one to Marie, which made the little girl’s morning.
Lori didn’t have the time or energy left to waste on extra steps or luxurious comfort. She’d been gong at it too hard for too long.
Coffee cup, the only clean dish left: spray with non-stick. Dump three eggs in it. Cover with paper towel. Stick it in microwave thirty seconds. Milk in paper cup. Drink pills down.
Pills! Why am I taking these pills?
Reach over to get Marie’s morning pills organized, carefully, surreptitiously, without emphasis, hoping Marie wouldn’t notice.
Pull out eggs from microwave, stir, put paper towel on top again, stick ‘em back in for another thirty seconds. Open the peanut butter jar, scoop out a finger full, dab Marie’s pills and turn to give them to her—
Marie ran as fast as she could—barely more than a walk, at her age—out her doggie door onto the patio.
Smart girl.
Lori tried to catch her before she got through, but she wasn’t fast enough.
“Sweetheart!” she called out to Marie. “They’re good for you!”
Marie stared at Lori through the sliding glass door.
“Trust Mommy,” Lori said, pleading. She didn’t have time to spend playing games with Marie to get her to take her pills.
Take eggs out of microwave, stir/chop them up, and put them back in the microwave for the last thirty seconds. Reach in fridge for another turkey dog—Marie hobbles back into the kitchen—and Lori, peanut butter still on finger, steps in front of the doggie door blocking Marie’s path.
Marie gave in with a slight sagging of her head.
Peanut butter, with pills inside, went in to the side of Marie’s mouth, way at the back. Or most of it did. Marie gagged the glob down and tried to lick the peanut butter off her lips.
“I know you don’t like it, love. But you’ve got to have it.”
Lori forgot about her economy of steps and collapsed on the kitchen floor to cry and hold Marie tightly.
“Baby!” Lori cried, her tears soaking into Marie’s fur.
Marie knew something was wrong and pressed against Lori’s neck.
“I love you so much, Marie,” she told her. She stroked her head, ears, and back. “How can I explain this to you?” she asked rhetorically, knowing she couldn’t. So she switched to loving consolation, cupped Marie’s face in her hands, and recited a familiar story to help Marie feel better: “You were such a little thing—big head, big feet, small butt—when you were a baby. And you said, ‘Please love me. Please give me a home. I need you,’ and Daddy and I said, ‘Oh, we do love you, too, and this is your home, and we need you just as much.’”
Marie knew it was true, she was sure.
“’Oh,’ you said, ‘I just need food, and play, and more food, and to jump up on the bed, and food, tear into the trash, and love and play,’ and we said, ‘That’s what we need, too.’”
Lori smiled greatly at the happy girl and kissed Marie on the top of the head for the millionth time.
But to herself, she thought, and now I could lose you both. She didn’t want to say it out loud on the chance Marie’s spirit may hear part of it.
She forgot her eggs in the microwave.
Lori rapidly checked the trunk of the car for supplies. It was fairly well set. The plastic tub was full of supplies, sanitizers, water bottles for medicine and food delivery, first aid kit… The wheelchair was ready. The tub in the back seat of the car was ready, for in-car service as needed: more sanitizers, bandaids (because the sanitizers cracked her skin sometimes), polysporin, more water bottles, tweasers, napkins, two extra cans of TwoCal G-tube food, a replacement G-tube, a replacement colostomy bag, a stethoscope, an oxygen/pulse meter…
What am I doing? He’s in the hospital. We don’t need all this today.
Her phone was charged, but she plugged it into the power port anyway, to make sure.
Lori drove rapidly but carefuly through the morning traffic, hyper-aware of anything that could delay her—a wreck would slow her down. She touched the phone icon on the steering wheel as she drove.
A car pulled out from an intersection, and Lori braked just enough while she talked into the car’s mike: “Call Med Pharmacy.”
“Calling Med Pharmacy at Work,” her car said back to her.
She checked her mirrors and decided to stay in the lane behind the slower car, for now.
Lori could hear a few clicks on the car’s phone, then the pharmacy’s voice mail. “This is Lori Faraday, just checking to see if you’ve gotten those two new G-tubes in yet, size ‘Twenty F’ as in foxtrot. I need replacements. Please call. Thank you.” She pressed the button the steering wheel to hang up.
A red light caused her to slow and stop for a few minutes.
She picked up her telephone and texted the doctor for a status report. He wouldn’t be in yet to answer his phone.
Traffic began moving again.
Lori moved the car as fast as she could without causing a wreck, turning on her turn signals, efficiently changing lanes in the minimum possible time.
“Call Nursing Home,” she told the car again.
“Calling Nursing Home at Work,” it said back to her. The call went through, and she finally got the admitting coordinator. “Just letting you know that he’s going to get better, and we’ll be coming back. Please hold his bed, okay?”
Lori waited impatiently while she filled her tank at the gas station, but it was a kind of impatience that others wouldn’t notice: an efficiency of movement, no wasted effort or time. Ready, when the pump clicked off at a full tank, she spent no more than a second removing the handle and placing it back in the pump, simultaneously closing the car’s fuel door with her other hand, while her right foot raised to step back into the car, the door already open. Her movements were not seemingly hurried, but the moment the pump handle was replaced, she was back in her car and moving quickly but safely toward the road again.
Stepping off the elevator, she saw a sanitizer on the wall and, without stopping, squirted some in her hand, rubbing it over her face and hands thoroughly while she walked.
“Good morning,” she said to the nursing staff as if she weren’t pressured, only recognizing two of them—they changed all the time—and went straight to his room.
Gowned, gloved, and masked per his isolation, Lori stood by her husband’s bedside, leaning over him, her face inches from his, holding his hand, watching him fade. It was pneumonia that put him in the hospital again, and it had probably developed because of Parkinson’s, his advanced age, and his infirmity.
She knew about Parkinson’s, but he wouldn’t let her help. It was his dictate to her.
The head of his bed was up at a thirty-five degree angle, to help his lungs. His mouth hung open all the time, too lax to close. A bag of antibiotics hung on
She leaned closer and kissed him softly on the lips, through her mask, but she doubted he knew. He was unconscious, and so weak that if he were conscious, he may still not know.
She reached up with a trembling, gloved hand to brush his hair back and cupped his ear with her hand.
“John, this is Lori. I’m here. I’m here, John,” she repeated in the hope that if he were even a little there, he may respond, slowlty, to her voice. “Listen to me, John. Listen to me close. Listen to my voice: I’m here. We’re here, together.”
Leaning closer to his ear, so they could be private from the nurses who may be listening in on the monitor, she helped him, yet again, in prayer: “Thank you, God, for bringing John into my life. And thank you, God, for letting me be part of his. Thank you God, for bringing us together, for he is the greatest person in the world.”
His eyes had been mostly closed, lifeless, but at the start of her prayer, he opened them to the half-closed position he used when he prayed, at least in recent years.
So he’s awake enough to know we’re praying!
Slowly, softly, she continued in the the style she’d heard from him before, as if helping him to form his own words, yet in a way to help him know he was loved, giving him credit he would never give himself: “God bless John,” she beseeched. “Make him well and strong. Bless him for he means more to me than everything. Bless him, I beg you, for he has done so much for others. He helped win a major world war and helped prevent another—”
She saw him react a little to that, as it was true, and it mattered. “Yes,” she softly said to both God and him. “Yes. A magnificent life—and God help him to know that I know, too.” She smiled at him behind her mask. Tears began in her eyes and made their way down her cheeks, collecting in her mask, but she maintained her voice. She had to. “God bless John, because he helped save so many lives. Bless him, God, because he is a good man. Bless him, God, because I love him.” She said it over and over again, because she wanted to make sure he heard her, and she hoped he understood.