Morphite – the Prequel
by: Joan Banks
Brian’s roommate took a little getting used to. In many ways he had an "I don’t care attitude" as if faced with the futility of everything. On the other hand Jim would go out of his way to make someone’s day and appear to be living every moment as if it were his last. Jim was two years younger than Brian, paying his way through school on scholarships and with several jobs. Anyway, Brian never knew what to think.
Brian, a Senior, really didn’t want to deal with a roommate, too much studying to do. To partially pay the bills he took to tutoring.
His most recent student, Jeanie, was taking up most of his time. She was one of those pageant girls. Not that she spent all of her time in pageants, just the one, actually. It just took her time away from her classes. Instructors helped all they could with reading assignments and such, but she wanted to excel. That is where Brian came in.
She wasn’t fake, like he had expected. She showed up in jeans and a big sweatshirt with all her books bursting the seams of her backpack.
"Turn it down!" he yelled to the living room as she stood in the door. He heard the stomping to the stereo and then more coming towards him.
"Fine! I’ll just go …." And he saw her "…er..to the kitchen. Want a soda? Beer?"
Jeanie giggled, she’s seen this before "Not for me thanks."
"I’m going to be tutoring in the kitchen, Jim. Oh yeah, Jim, Jeanie, Jeanie, Jim."
"Wonderful to meet you." She said, still laughing a little.
"Uhh, Hi."
"Master of the language, this one." Brian said to Jeanie "Stop drooling, okay?"
Jim slunk into the living room.
"Idiot." Jim said to himself "I am such an idiot." He couldn’t concentrate on the TV, all he could see were those Hazel eyes floating in front of him.
Jeanie came over for tutoring once a week. Both Brian and Jim were developing quite a crush on her. Jim actually changed his work schedule so he could be in the apartment whenever she was there.
Three months later Jim was at the Student Union for lunch. It was definitely the wrong time of day, the place was packed. Choices for seating were limited to 1. the football team (no) 2. the smokers (no) and 3. the cute little freshman sitting at the end of the table (yes).
"Mind if I join you?" she looked up from her book (romance novel, he noted) and nodded assent.
"I’ll try not to bug you." She ignored him. He started eating. After a minute she looked up.
"Sorry, did you say something?" she asked
"Just said I would try not to bug you."
"You weren’t bugging me, I was just so caught up in my book that I just had to get to a stopping point. I’m Ashley Forester" she stuck her hand out to shake. He took it.
"Jim Kilmer, pleasure to meet you." Wow, she was cute, he said to himself.
"What are you reading so intently?" he asked. She turned a little red.
"Trashy romance novel. I started to read them to get back at my mother, now I’m addicted."
"Psych major, I take it."
"Psych and Pre-med."
"Education for me."
"Why education, if you don’t mind my asking?"
"Life is short, if you can have positive influence on a child, then maybe you lived for something."
"That’s nice, live for the moment and all that?"
"Pretty much, but for the future too."
They talked for almost two hours and eventually a date was just planned.
It was almost two weeks when Jim noticed that the study sessions weren’t taking place at the apartment anymore. In fact, he only figured it out when he saw Brian and Jeanie doing their session at the local bookstore/coffee place.
"Hey guys, what’s up?" they both looked a little guilty.
"Just some tutoring."
"and coffee.." she added.
"and coffee." Jim was not convinced but wasn’t terribly worried about it, he was very happy with Ashley who was actually supposed to meet him at the coffee shop in a few minutes.
Brian had not met Ashley before, and he was fascinated. Jeanie was looking a little miffed at the attention the older Pre-med was giving the younger so she proceeded to talk to Jim. Jim had suddenly become fascinating, she always thought he was cute, but she found him fun to talk to. He wasn’t nearly so flustered as that first time they had met and she found him witty and articulate. They all decided to go to dinner together, Jim excused himself to go to the restroom while the rest went outside. Once again Brian was with Jeanie. They are going to be quite a couple, Jim thought.
Upon finishing his business he went outside to catch up. All three were talking to each other and casually crossing the street, as is common in University area. All were oblivious to the traffic. None of the three saw the bus speeding along, the driver looking for something he had dropped.
Jim saw this and ran out into the street screaming. He knew he couldn’t get them safely out of the way by pushing them so he flew at the group in a flying tackle, getting them to safety, as the bus knocked him to the ground, bouncing his head against the concrete. He never felt the bus rolling over him.
- - - - - - -
"Your friend is very lucky." The doctor was telling them. "Minor internal injuries and some broken bones, a heck of a concussion, he should be awake soon. You can go in, one at a time, when he wakes up."
Brian and Ashley took to quizzing the Doctor about the injuries. Trying to prove they were something they weren’t (pre-med really is nowhere near being a Doctor). Jeanie snuck in and sat next to his bed.
Jim was pretty banged up, tubes into his mouth, his right arm and leg in casts and suspended.
"Jim, you are my hero, you saved my life. No one has ever done anything like that for me."
"Miss, are you family?" the nurse asked. Jeanie didn’t want to leave.
"I’m his fiancé." She finally said, hoping the others would back her up.
"I’m so terribly sorry, with the time he has left, it would be better to be healthy and enjoy it."
"What are you talking about?" The nurse looked disturbed "I assumed you would know."
"Know about what?" she was streaming tears now.
"About Morgenson’s Syndrome." A voice came from behind. The Doctor, with Ashley and Brian in tow.
"What’s Morgenson’s."
"I’m afraid I’ve already told you too much."
"We’ll just look it up, and tell him you told us. If you let us know, we can protect you."
"Very well, you got me, come with me." He led them to the Doctor’s break room and sat them down.
"When your friend came in we had to do all the standard internal tests and we found that he had some strange enzymes in his blood. The enzymes come from his liver and we know that these particular enzymes are a precursor to either rejection of a transplant or in very rare cases Morgenson’s Syndrome. He was actually carrying a card that identified him as a sufferer of it (Morgenson’s sufferers are not allowed to donate organs).
"But what is it?"
"It is a genetic defect, carried on the Y chromosome. We know this because only men get this. At the age of 30 or so, their body begins to reject it’s own internal organs, causing a death within sixth months."
"Can anything be done?"
"There are some medicines designed to stop rejection, but the person becomes susceptible to infection very easily and the prognosis isn’t much better."
"How much better?"
"An extra four months, that’s all."
"What can we do?"
"Be good friends, a good wife" he looked at Jeanie. To their credit, Brian and Ashley’s jaws did not hit the floor.
"Help him to enjoy what he has left. Now go and help your friend. You tell him you found the card in his wallet, okay."
"Certainly Doctor, thank you."
Jeanie was in tears continuously, while Brian comforted Ashley. Slowly Brian and Ashley became very close. Jeanie rarely left Jim’s side.
When he awoke, he was surprised. He really expected to be dead. Jeanie was weeping beside him. He croaked out.
"What are you so sad about, I got hit by the truck." He tried a week smile, it almost worked. It did get him a kiss, however.
"Ow." He said "Okay, do that again. Wait, is everyone okay."
"We’re all fine, you wonderful, wonderful man. I am not leaving your side until you are better." And she never did.
Jeanie’s simulated engagement rapidly turned into a real one, and a quick one.
Within five months they were married and a month after she was pregnant. After they both graduated they decided to take little David and move to England. Knowing that little David would have a short life as well, they wanted to live life to the fullest. Gradually they lost touch with Ashley and Brian (who were also married by this time). But Ashley and Brian never forgot them.
"Ash, I am convinced Gene splicing is the way to go. We can cure Morgenson’s!"
Brian was excited, he believed he had found the key to saving his friend. Brian was in the middle of his Doctoral Thesis which was dedicated to Jim’s disease.
"All you have to do is prove it, honey."
"I’m working on it."
"Do you want to call them?"
"No, I don’t want to get their hopes up, yet. I need to do some testing."
Brian continued with his testing, their looming deadline being Jim’s 30th birthday. Every time they tried to insert the new gene, it wouldn’t be promulgated enough, and ultimately it would be rejected. There had to be a better approach.
"Wow, this is drastic."
"What is it Brian?"
"If you swap out the entire chromosome, you might have a chance, but it needs to be a drastic change. The only was I see it is to get a donor chromosome and swap it completely."
"Won’t that change who the person is?"
"No a person is their personality, this would change the framework. What’s worse is that I would have to change it for an X chromosome."
"That would mean he would…"
"Change into a woman."
"That could kill a person’s psyche."
"That’s your side of it, dear. Isn’t it worth living, though?"
- - - - - - -
There were two other sufferers of MgS (Morgenson’s Syndrome), that were still alive. Both were in their mid twenties, knew they had the disease, and were living life to the fullest. When they contacted the first, he volunteered (not knowing the full scope of the cure).
Bob Daniels sat in the office with Brain and Ashley. He was 28 years old and knew he only had 2 years to live.
"Now Bob, what we are doing is a chromosomal splice. We are going to alter your genetic structure…"
"Great Great, now give it to me, now."
"You should know what’s involved…"
"You say it might work ten twenty thirty percent chance of working. I’m dead anyway, give me the treatment."
"So you don’t want to know the side effects?"
"What are the side effect of death? Give it to me."
"Sign here…" he did "And follow me." They went to a fairly ordinary looking hospital room. "Please put this on." Brian gave him an examination and took some photos of him Brian prepared the IV bag and waited patiently. Ashley installed a heplock in his hand.
"This shouldn’t hurt at all." He started the drip. For two days they monitored his status on an hourly basis. It appeared to be working the MgS was now infecting less than 20 percent of his cells, the physical appearance was another thing altogether.
"I’m gonna sue you!" came the cracking voice from the bed. Bob was still recognizable, he had put on thirty seven pounds in two days. His body was covered in stretch marks.
"I’m sorry Bob, you can’t. You signed the waiver. It is all totally legal." The fact that it was, in fact, human experimentation was left entirely unsaid.
"What did you do to my dick?"
"The side effects we tried to tell you about. You are genetically turning into a woman. The stage your "dick" is going through is called hypo-spadism. The structure is changing into a female matrix. In fact, you are now eight-two percent female. The good news is that your MgS is now almost totally gone."
"To live like this, I don’t think so. Why do I weigh so much?"
"Your body is being flooded with Estrogen. Estrogen is also created by fat cells.
Since your body feels it doesn’t have enough estrogen it created the fat to help the process along."
"I don’t like this much. I…" Bob’s eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out. Though they worked on him for three hours, he could not be revived.
"What happened?" Ashley asked him.
"I think we used too large a sample. The changes were too drastic, too fast. He went into shock. We couldn’t do anything. I can’t do that to Jim."
"What if you introduced the changes more slowly. If someone has enough time then it shouldn’t matter how long it takes."
"That’s not the only problem…"
"What else?"
"Bob was really hostile to the idea of the changes. I thought a willing volunteer would make the difference. We need some way of getting them used to the idea, even to like it. Any ideas?"
"Let me work on it. Any luck on the other candidate?"
"He’s supposed to be back from his Mountain Climbing expedition next week. I’ll talk to him then."
"Mountain Climber, going to be a tough sell."
"That’s why you’re going to help me. I need to get these tissue samples checked but I think we at least have the disease licked. If only the patient survives the cure."
- - - - - - -
"Now let me get this straight. The cure for my ‘incurable’ disease is to change myself into a woman?"
"In a rough way, Bill, yes. In fact it is the only way to rid this disease. Tell me, when did your Father die?"
"He was 29. He went early, too early. That’s why I do the things I do, to live life."
"Don’t you want more life?"
"Sure, but I also don’t want to be a woman." Brian had one idea up his sleeve.
"If I give you a very small sample. It may be enough to cure you and still not ‘change’ you."
"That sounds fine, if you are sure it would work."
"It could only help you, but if you don’t want it…"
"Fine, let’s do this thing." Brian and Ashley led him to the exam room, took more samples, and put him in the bed. The IV started.
- - - - - - -
"How’s our patient?" Ashley asked.
"Doing great, I think we might have this thing licked. I think all that counseling you’re doing with him is helping."
"Thanks, you may want to check the stats, though." Brian went through the file.
"This process isn’t going to stop. He appears male now, but in a year, who knows?"
"What do you recommend?"
"A month of observation, followed by monthly follow ups."
"That’s it?"
"I don’t know what else to do."
- - - - - - -
"Bill, we want to send you home now."
"Great, I really got to get rid of this extra weight. I’ve never put on weight so fast."
"I’m sure you’ll take care of that right away. Just check in with us every month and anytime you have questions, okay?"
"Sure Doc, just let me go home."
"We’ll be in touch."
- - - - - - -
"Do you think David will be okay at the water park by himself."
"He insisted, he is almost a teenager, you know."
"He’s growing up too fast."
"Want to drive over and see Brian and Ash?"
"It’s been years, let’s. I have wanted David to meet them. Maybe bring them back for dinner when we pick him up." David was driving the winding road. It was Summer and the weather was beautiful. He felt that stabbing pain in his abdomen and his right leg locked straight. He knew it was over when the car broke the barrier.
"I love you, Jeanie." And it was over.
- - - - - - -
Ring!
"Hello, oh my God. No survivors, you’re sure. Thank you."
"What was that?"
"The Kilmers, they’re dead. They Drove off Huffington Cliffs."
"My God…"
David was pretty perturbed when his parents didn’t pick him up at the park. When the police took him, they assumed he was some kind of runaway and put him right into the child services system. Since the family moved so much (between homes at the moment), he couldn’t tell them where he lived. He didn’t know the area. It was two days later when he heard the news.
The Kilmers had no real assets. They were spending as fast as they needed to. As such, there was no will and no one who knew the Kilmers knew he was still alive. He stayed in the system.
- - - - - - -
A year later, Bill had killed himself. He could not take the loss of his manhood.
The coroner was confused by the stocky woman with small breasts and a man’s ID.
Clearly crazy, they thought.
"That’s it." Brian said "Whatever it takes, we are going to eradicate this disease off the planet. How is that implant coming?"
Ashley was developing an implant, a conditioner, she called it. It could give positive or negative stimuli by remote control. Perhaps with this, she thought, we can get them to accept the changes.
The process was easier now. Brian had actually cured every child that was know to have this disease. The parents were a little dismayed to find their young son’s to be daughters now but they found that if they changed them young enough, they would adapt.
- - - - - - -
"No way, no brain surgery on me!"
"You’ll never know."
"No, I’m leaving."
"You’ll die." That slowed him down.
"So be it." He left.
Ashley turned to Brian.
"He will be changed, I need to set up something."
A month later, Ashley hired some Private Investigators to check on the latest victim. She staged an accident, for which he would be hospitalized. Brian put the implant in and introduced the small sample of Morphite Therapy into his bloodstream.
"Now what."
"Now we encourage behavior we like and discourage behavior we don’t."
- - - - - - -
The latest victims name was Sam. He thought the accident was strange, but they did not want to let him out of the hospital. Don’t they know I have a limited amount of time left? I have to get out of here. But the Doctors did not agree and would not release him.
Ashley had some time to put her plan into motion every time one of the Male Doctors or Nurses came into the room she gave a blast of Pleasure (THRUM) and the women got a blast of Negative Emotion (THRUM). By the end of the week, Sam was getting jumpy around the women. He nearly came in his pants when the men came in (in fact he did once). He would only relax around the men.
"How’s it going, babe?" Brian asked.
"I need some other people in on this. He is acting gay if that is what we wanted."
She sounded tired "Also I don’t have constant surveillance on him. I’ll need that for proper conditioning."
"Whatever it takes."
Sam was a success, for the most part. He didn’t kill himself when his penis disappeared but he wasn’t acting like a woman either. He was like a cartoon. He acted as a parody of a woman, as close as Ashley could get him. She complained of a need for surveillance teams and better equipment. They put their considerable assets to work.
- - - - - - -
"Honey, David’s alive!!" Brian was shouting.
"What?"
"He wasn’t in the car, he’s been stuck as a ward of the state for all this time. Let’s go get him!"
"No."
"No? Are you kidding? This is as close to our own child as we can get. I’m going to get our Godson and bring him home."
"By ‘No’, I mean ‘not yet’. If we are going to save David, we need to prepare. He doesn’t know us and we have to get him ready for this huge transition. I need to try the new implant and the surveillance tools. We can’t test them with him in the house. He will be fine for a few more months. The teams are almost ready. Let me prepare. And honey, I need you to do one thing for me, and it will take a while…"
"What?" he sounded disappointed.
"What have you been using for the donor chromosome?"
"Blind sample. We don’t know who."
"I need you to prepare a special one. Make David the child of all of us. Let him become our actual daughter, not just some random college student."
"For you, my love, and for David, anything."
- - - - - - -
"Are we ready?"
"All stations report ready."
"If anyone hurts him they answer to me." She got in her car and double-checked his psyche profile, compiled by strangers so she would not be emotionally involved in the diagnosis. Brian was reading an identical folder.
"Remember, Brian, we don’t know him. Start out by the book and clinical."
"Will do, sweet, good luck."
"Is that the one?" She asked. Brian was startled that she could be that clinical in so emotional a moment.
"That’s him. A perfect candidate. David James Kilmer, 17, 5’7", 150 pounds.
Loner, quiet, and in the perfect situation. He’s it all right." He copied her by the book approach.
"Bag him." Ashley said into the cell phone. Brian got out and got in the chase car which would take him to the hospital, their hospital.
Ashley saw the scuffle, across to David. Don’t hurt him, she said quietly as she drove up. She practiced this move a hundred times. She knew when to put on the breaks to cut it just fine enough. She provided the simulated car strike just as her assistant injected him in the neck. He crumpled and the woman gently checked his fall to the ground.
Continued in The Morphite
I left spots in here to add in more conversions and a chance for them to get a little lost in their power and over zealousness. Jo
© 2000
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