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-
- Anderson asked the logical question: "Now what?"
- "We'll handle this just like a standard set of permanent
- orders." He pulled the desk drawer open and handed Anderson a
- piece of paper, it was another set of BuPers message orders. When
- the standard wording was translated, it read that Lt Anderson was
- to be detached from his current duty station, take 30 days' leave
- (known as "delrep" for "delay in reporting") and report to the
- military air terminal at McGuire Air Force Base in civilian
- clothes; he was not to use his own vehicle to get there. His
- personal effects (known as "household goods" or "HHG") were to be
- put in storage at government expense for the duration of the
- orders. "You won't be stationed at McGuire," Col. Hampton
- explained, "That's where we'll be picking you up. Bring three
- days' worth of clothes. The Commodore of DesRon 2 has already
- written a detaching fitness report, you'll sign it when you get to
- where you're going after your leave.
- "So go home and get your personal life in order. Make sure
- you're parents know that you're going to be out of touch for a long
- time, it may be a few years before they get to see you." He handed
- Anderson a card. "They can call this number in case of an
- emergency, but make damn sure they understand that doesn't include
- anything less than imminent death. And make sure they know that
- you may not be able to come back for any kind of emergency. You
- can use the address on the card as a forwarding address for your
- mail."
- "Where am I going?"
- "You'll know when you get there, Sherry. The same lady who
- drove you here will take you back to your transportation. See you
- in a month."
- Anderson left the room. Hampton watched him go and sighed.
- He was getting to have too much time in this assignment, he told
- himself. At first, he thought of the program as a way to gain some
- use from worthless deviates. But now, he knew that the men he
- recruited were fine people, they simply had a different
- orientation. Hampton now knew that tossing them out was a waste;
- now at least he could do something with some of them.
- The woman drove Anderson to a third airport, this one was
- considerably larger than the other two and had a control tower.
- This time, he was shown to a Sabrejet bizjet that was painted in
- USAF colors. The jet took him to Langely AFB. The same man who
- had taken his car keys at the Norfolk airport handed them back to
- him. Anderson found his car and went home.
-
- It took four days to arrange for the movers to come and take
- everything he couldn't fit into his car. Then he went home. The
- leave was less than satisfying; neither one of his parents were
- supportive of his desire to stay on active duty. Anderson visited
- his brother and left him the car and his personal gear (including
- a fair number of firearms). He did a little bit of traveling, and
- presented himself to the military air terminal at McGuire with two
- weeks' worth of leave remaining.
- The Air Force sergeant who was at the receiving desk read
- Anderson's orders and then checked a file. She told Anderson to
- go check into the transient BOQ and stay there; he'd be notified
- when his flight was called. Anderson had taken MAC flights before,
- one normally has to wait at the terminal for one's name to move up
- the waiting list. This treatment mystified him, but he just did
- as she told him to.
- The phone in his room rang a day and a half later. Anderson
- switched on a light, picked it up and muttered his name into the
- handset.
- "Lieutenant Anderson? Master Sergeant Wilkes at the MAC desk.
- Your flight leaves at 0430. A car will be at the Q at 0410 to pick
- you up."
- "What time is it now?"
- "A little after three, sir."
- "All right, thanks." Anderson set the handset back into the
- cradle. Fucking zoomies, scheduling a flight on the rev watch.
- Oh, well. He rolled out of bed, shaved and showered. The desk was
- open 24 hours, he was checked out by four and waiting for his ride.
- An airman came over to him. "Are you LT Anderson?"
- "Yes."
- "May I see your ID, sir?" Anderson handed it to him. The
- airman looked it over and handed it back. "Come with me, sir."
- He led the way to a "blue steelie," Air Force lingo for an issue
- sedan. Anderson got into the right-side seat. He was a little
- surprised when the airman passed by the MAC terminal and drove to
- a hangar after passing a security check from the APs, who were
- wearing woodland camo uniforms and carrying M-16A2s. The airman
- drove out onto the ramp and up to an Air Force C-12, their version
- of the Beech King Air. This one had seen better days, it was set
- up as a cargo carrier (or "trash hauler"), complete with a load of
- cargo. The pilot, a woman in a USAF pilot's jumpsuit with
- captain's bars waved him on board. Anderson stowed his bag between
- two crates and settled into the right seat.
- "You might want to put on that headset," she said. "This old
- beast can get pretty loud."
- Anderson did so, adjusting the headset to fit and the boom
- mike to almost touch his mouth. "Can you hear me?"
- "Sure can." The pilot ran through the starting procedure with
- the economy of motion born of great amounts of practice. She soon
- had both PT-6 engines turning. She received her IFR and taxi
- clearances, then taxied out to the runway. They had to wait for
- the wake of a departing C-5 to dissipate, then they were on their
- way.
- The flight went to Wisconsin, Anderson guessed. He could
- recognize Lake Michigan and he did his best to follow along with
- the air traffic controllers working the airplane. Dawn was
- breaking when the pilot started her descent. There was nothing but
- woods, then he saw a small town next to an airport. When they
- landed, he looked with surprise at the collection of airplanes on
- the ramp. He hadn't seen so many tailwheel airplanes in one place;
- everything from a few J-3s up to three Twin Beeches, a C-46 and two
- DC-3s. There were a few tricycle-geared airplanes, but damn few-
- - a couple Cessna 172s, a Mooney, three Bonanzas and a King Air.
- Everyhting was painted in civilian schemes, complete with N-
- numbers.
- It looked like a civil airport in Alaska, except the man
- coming out to greet them had an assault rifle slung over his
- shoulder. He told Anderson to go to the line shack, then he
- started talking to the pilot about refueling the C-12 and unloading
- the cargo. Anderson trudged over to the shack. A woman with a no-
- nonsense demeanor asked for his ID. She compared the card to a
- list, then handed it over. She stuck out her hand and said:
- "Welcome to school, Sherry. I'm Doris Stackpole. I'll be your
- training coordinator while you're here at the school. Let's get
- you situated. Come with me." Doris led the way out of the other
- end of the building.
- "What is this place?"
- "It's a training facility for all sorts of students. Some of
- the students are training for covert ops, some are here above
- board. First rule is: Don't talk to anybody about who or what you
- are or what you are here for. Everything around here runs on a
- `need-to-know' basis. Understand?"
- "Sure do." They had walked across the road to a small area
- of townhouses. Doris led the way to one of them and opened the
- door with a key, which she gave Anderson.
- "This is yours for the duration of your stay." She showed
- Anderson around. The townhouse was on two levels; upstairs were
- two bedrooms and a bathroom, downstairs was a kitchen, dining area,
- living room, a study (complete with a computer with a 19" screen)
- and a half-bath. "You're getting this place because it's so close
- to the field, most of your training is going to be in flying."
- "Which of those planes will I be flying?"
- Doris shrugged. "If you complete the course, all of them."
- "Even the DC-3?"
- "Yes, but you'll have a few other things to worry about."
- Anderson didn't like her grin, but he'd do a lot to get a DC-3 type
- rating. Doris went to the door. "You have an appointment. Bring
- your stuff, they'll take it and issue you what you need."
- Anderson followed along. They walked to a building almost a
- half-mile away. There they went into a room where Doris told him
- to strip to his underwear. Anderson did, two women came in and
- started measuring his body; one measured, the other recorded. They
- traced the outlines of his hands and feet. The real surprise was
- when they measured penis size, both flaccid and erect. Anderson
- was embarrassed at that, but the two were just doing their job and
- did it. Afterwards, Doris gave him a pink terry-cloth robe and
- told him to take his underwear off. She collected all of his
- things and marched out of the room.
- For the first time, Anderson was scared. He had no idea where
- he was, had no money, no ID, and all he had was a pink bathrobe.
- Doris returned about forty minutes later with some clothes.
- She handed him a pair of white cotton panties, "I think you know
- how to wear them," she said. Next was a yellow and black t-shirt,
- a pair of white socks, women's blue jeans and a pair of Reebocks
- that were white with pink trim. "Other clothes will be sent to
- your apartment. Now, let's go to medical."
- "Another physical?"
- "Not like one you've ever had before." This time, they drove.
- Doris had the keys to a jeep-like vehicle that ran on batteries.
- She drove to a hospital that was a couple of miles away by road,
- although it was right across the airfield.
- Doris was somewhat right. It was a thorough physical; but the
- difference came when they had Anderson lie down for a whole-body
- CAT-scan. He almost freaked out; he had to lie on a very small
- white tunnel while the machine hammered and whirred. He could have
- sworn the thing was going to grind him up. After the scan, Doris
- took him to the cafeteria for lunch. The food was about the same
- as any other hospital, barely edible.
- The PA system paged Doris when they had almost finished. She
- left the table to answer it, then returned. "C'mon, Dr. Trotti
- will see you now. We'll find out what he can do for you."
- They finished quickly and left the cafeteria. Anderson wanted
- to ask what was going to happen, but there were other people
- around.
- Dr. Trotti was in his late 40s. He shook hands and led them
- into a darkened room. There was a screen on the wall and an
- overhead projector that could project computer images. "Sherry,
- my field is reconstructive surgery, though maybe should say
- constructive surgery. Take a look at this." He turned the screen
- on.
- Anderson looked closely. The image was of a woman wearing a
- tank top and a skirt that came to just above the knee. Her breasts
- swelled the top and showed a little cleavage. The skirt clung to
- nice hips. Her face was not that of a raving beauty, but she had
- nice cheekbones and didn't look bad at all. "Who is she?"
- "That's you."
- "What?"
- "Yes." Dr. Trotti shifted to another screen. "This is your
- skeletal structure.." He went into a lengthy discussion of how they
- could modify Anderson's skeletal structure to make him look like
- a woman, followed by a discourse of what plastic surgery techniques
- they could use. Anderson felt the MEGO (for "Mine Eyes Glaze
- Over") factor kicking in. Adding pieces here, taking pieces out
- there. It wasn't his body, it was a biological erector set.
- After Trotti said his piece, Anderson asked the key question:
- "How much of this is reversible?"
- Dr. Trotti considered that. "Most of it is. We can change
- everything back that required surgical techiques. You are going
- to need a fair amount of electrolysis for us to be able to
- accomplish what we need to do. That isn't reversible." The doctor
- just smiled. Almost everyone he had worked on asked that question.
- He had done the reversal surgery on about five percent of those he
- had worked on. But he didn't say anything.
- "All right. When does the electrolysis start?"
- "Right now," Doris said. They said goodbye to the doctor and
- went to another part of the hospital. There a nurse injected a
- painkiller similar to novocaine inside his mouth. She had him lie
- on a table, then after about 30 minutes, she started to work.
- Another nurse came in and started on the other side of his face.
- Anderson could hear the humming of the machines and the occaisional
- `zap' as a needle vaporized an oil pocket. The nurses would wipe
- his face with an antiseptic every so often. He was very tired and
- since he was feeling no pain, he fell asleep.
- They woke him up four hours later. His lower face was wrapped
- in a cold mask, it had tubing through which a chilled solution was
- circulating. When they took the mask off, one of the nurses
- closely inspected his face. "Not bad." She gave him a tube of
- antiseptic ointment and a small bottle of pain pills. "See you
- tomorrow," she said.
- Anderson wanted to say something, but his face was numb.
- Doris took him back to his townhouse. She showed him the clothes
- hanging in the closet, mostly variations of what he was wearing:
- jeans, different tops, several pairs of running and aerobics shoes.
- There was an assortment of unisex-athletic gear.
- "You get food by placing an order through your computer,
- though you'll have to cook it yourself unless you order the
- microwavable dinners; I recommend them as you won't have a lot of
- time. The instructions are next to it, it's fairly self-evident.
- You can order any books, tapes, CDs or videos the same way. The
- computer also ties into the training database for unclassified
- material; you'll be taught how that works starting tomorrow.
- Anything you order will be placed on the living-room table, except
- for perishables which will be put into your refridgerator or
- freezer. There are some tapes by the VCR to start you off. I'll
- be by tomorrow at 0730. Any questions?"
- Anderson made writing motions. Doris found a tablet and a
- pen. "Toothbrush? Razor," he wrote.
- "Toothbrush is upstairs in the bathroom. No razor, it's
- easier to work with longish hair. See you in the morning."
- Anderson half-heartedly watched a video, then found a chicken
- dinner in the freezer after his face denumbed enough to eat it.
- He took a shower and rubbed the ointment over the areas where the
- eletrolygists had worked. He soon fell asleep wondering waht
- tomorrow would bring.
- Tomorrow brought flight training. Doris took him to a
- classroom next to the airport. She turned him over to an
- instructor named Craig, who proceeded to start teaching him how to
- fly by instruments. Classroom work was in the morning, simulator
- work in the afternoon.
- This routine went on for a solid month: electrolysis one day,
- flight training the other. As Doris had promised, all the course
- work was on a computer database, so Anderson was able to work on
- the rating in the evening. The simulator gave way to an IFR-
- capable Cessna 180; Anderson became able to fly an approach to
- minimums and follow up with a good landing. "It's a lot harder in
- a taildragger," Craig explained. The electrolyis was a lengthy
- affair, Anderson sometimes had several techicians working on his
- body: they removed all the hair from his face, the back of his
- neck, his arms, legs, chest, and back. The process was always
- accompanied by localized painkillers. They thinned his eyebrows
- to ones that could be either masculine or feminine.
-
- By the end of the month, Anderson had an instrument airplane
- rating and the body hair of a woman.
-
- --