Gender Swapped By Aliens! (2 page)

As I settled on the seat, it struck me how my thinking was already changing, becoming like that of a middle-aged woman.  I had only been Lynn Fong for half an hour and already I was adopting her personality.  It would make for a fascinating paper for a journal, except that to the world I was no longer a psychologist.

I sighed and then forced myself to think of more relevant issues:  how to get my life back.  These aliens were the only ones who could do that.  There had to be some way to reason with them, to make a deal for my family.  Except to make a deal, I would need to have some form of leverage and clearly I had nothing to bargain with.

Well, there was one thing.  They didn’t want me to spill the beans about their little scheme.  If I threatened to do that, maybe I could convince them that it would be better to let me have my family back.  It would be a risk, but it was all I could do.

The bus let me off about a block from Clifton Pharmaceuticals.  I stumbled a few times in these unfamiliar shoes that were on equally unfamiliar feet and legs, but I at least managed to avoid falling on my face.  The younger people around me probably sneered and thought I should get a cane or walker like other old geezers.

My new feet were aching by the time I reached the front gate.  I scrambled to find an identification badge for the guard, but he just grinned at me.  “Morning, Ms. Fong.”

“Um, morning,” I mumbled.

“You’re looking a little frazzled.  Cats keeping you up again?”

“Oh, yes.  The cats,” I said with a dull chuckle. 

“Have a good day, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”  The guard raised the gate to let me stagger through the parking lot, up to the shiny glass tower that was the company’s main headquarters.  Like at city hall, there was an extra flagpole, that yellow flag rising above all the others.  That was obviously the Zargon Empire’s flag, the new overlords no one seemed to realize had never existed until about sixteen hours ago.

Another security guard greeted me as I stumbled through the front door.  “Morning, Ms. Fong.”

“Morning.”  I flashed him a smile.  Lynn Fong seemed pretty popular around here.  I gave an exaggerated sigh and then motioned to my purse.  “I can’t find anything this morning.”

“I can get you a temporary badge if you need one.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary.  I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.”

I set my purse on a table in the lobby.  I took everything out one item at a time.  By process of elimination, I finally turned up a badge with my new name and face on it.  That face had a few less lines and gray hairs to resemble how I had first looked as Lynn Fong.  I clipped the badge to the front pocket of my suit jacket and then returned everything to my purse.

“Looks like you found it,” the security guard said.

“I knew it was there somewhere.”  I gave him a wry smile and then hurried away.  I had no idea what floor accounts payable would be on, but there was a helpful directory by the elevators.  While I waited with dozens of other businesspeople, I consulted the directory.  The text near the top was fuzzy enough that I had to squint to make it out.  Finally I squinted enough to make out that Accounts Payable was on the twenty-sixth floor.

When an elevator door opened, there was a stampede to get inside.  A younger woman motioned frantically to me.  “Come on, Ms. Fong.”

I scuttled through the elevator doors, making it through just before they could crush me.  “Thank you…Jo Ann,” I said, reading her badge.  Someone had already punched the button for the twenty-sixth floor.  “I wasn’t sure I could make it.”

“I have those reports ready for you,” she said.  She must be one of my new coworkers.

“That’s good.”

“I’ll email them to you first thing.”

“Thank you.”

I wasn’t sure how familiar I was supposed to be with this woman, so I tried to keep things neutral.  The elevator came to a stop; we both had to slide back to allow other people to squeeze out of the cramped elevator.  This continued until we reached the twenty-sixth floor, where we were the ones who had to force our way out.

We emerged into a sea of gray cubicles.  In my gray suit and graying hair I could blend in pretty well with the cubicles.  Not knowing which one belonged to me, I followed Jo Ann, hoping to end up in the general area.  Along the way we passed a variety of men and women, most of whom were already at work crunching numbers in Excel.

Jo Ann’s cubicle looked like all the others with papers and ledgers scattered around, memos taped to the walls for later reference, and a single family portrait on the counter.  I couldn’t help gasping at that portrait.  The husband smiling next to her was me!  And the children in front of them were Michael and Tammy!  I squinted at Jo Ann and then I saw it:  Denise’s face, albeit ten years younger with frizzy blond hair instead of short dark brown hair.  The nose, the jaw, and especially the eyes were all hers.

“Ms. Fong?  Is something wrong?”

“Huh?  What?”

“Is there a problem?”

“Oh, no.  Sorry.  I was just admiring your family.”

“We just took that a couple of weeks ago.  It was so hard to get the children to stay still.”

I nodded slightly.  From the look of it, Michael and Tammy weren’t even ten yet, which made sense; if Denise were younger then the children would have to be as well.  “They’re very beautiful.  How’s your husband?”

“Bill’s doing fine.  Always plenty of crazy people to analyze.”  I shared her chuckle, though inside my stomach churned at the thought of someone else impersonating me.  Maybe they had simply switched me with the real Lynn Fong.

“I might have to see him before long,” I said with another chuckle.  Then I forced myself to straighten.  “I should go get to work.  You’ll send me those reports?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I nodded to her and then staggered off in search of my cubicle.  I stopped when I heard Mabel’s voice say, “Looking for someone, Ms. Fong?”

“What?  Oh, no.  Not really.”

“You got a message from Mr. Daggett.  And Colonial is getting antsy for their money again.  I told them you would call them.”

“Yes, thank you,” I mumbled.  I didn’t have a cubicle; I had a whole tiny office for myself.  There was a plaque next to the door with my name and title:  Accounts Payable Manager—West Coast Operations.

I took the messages from Mabel and then went into my office to set my things down with a grateful sigh.  My office didn’t look much different from the cubicles, except I had my degree from USC hanging up and pictures of two fluffy gray cats on my desk.  They had turned me into a bland middle-aged middle manager and my wife into one of my underlings.

I sighed again as I sat in my leather office chair.  It made sense for Denise to be here.  They wanted me to see that it was useless to resist; my family had already forgotten about me and the life we had built.  I had no reason not to let myself be brainwashed, to sink into this drab life they had planned for me.

I shook my head.  I wouldn’t give in that easily.  There had to be a way to remind Denise—Jo Ann—of who she really was and who her husband really was.  I would just have to find it.

***

I didn’t know much about accounting—Mabel did the bookkeeping for my office—but I managed to get by until lunchtime.  It wasn’t all that hard to process the bills that came to my desk.  The real challenge was to decide which ones should be paid first; I largely guessed and hoped I got it right enough not to get into trouble.

By noon I found myself starting to get annoyed at some of the invoices that were crumpled or smeared as if someone had run them through the washer before sending them in.  I could imagine the real Lynn Fong thinking this quite often.  I took off my glasses and pinched my nose to relieve a little bit of the stress.

Jo Ann had sent her emails as promised.  I didn’t have any idea what all her charts and graphs meant, so I just sent her a thank you email back.  At the end of it I asked if she would maybe like to get lunch with me—my treat.  She claimed to have a lot of work to do, which I took as a sign she didn’t want to get too friendly with her boss.  I imagined the real Lynn Fong to be hard enough that her subordinates didn’t want to socialize too much with her.  Or maybe it was only Jo Ann who didn’t like me.

I had to fight back tears at that thought.  When I had gotten control of myself enough, I decided a different tack would work better.  So I emailed her back to say that I wanted to discuss some issues with her at lunch, if she wouldn’t mind.  That convinced her to say yes, though it probably made her worry, thinking I might fire her in public.

As twelve-thirty approached, I found my stomach beginning to flutter.  This wasn’t a date, per se, but it would be very close to one, at least from my point of view.  I needed to find a way to sway Jo Ann, to make her realize that I was her real husband.

At five minutes to the half-hour, I grabbed my purse from off of the desk.  On my way to the door, I stopped at the mirror.  I ran a hand over my graying hair to smooth it down.  I smiled into the mirror, that smile quickly fading to see my yellowing teeth and the deep wrinkles etched into my face.  Why would a beautiful young woman like Jo Ann ever want a hag like me?

I ought to accept that she was gone.  I couldn’t win her back.  I might as well just let the aliens reprogram my brain.  Maybe they could let me forget everything and just focus on being Lynn Fong, a childless spinster who gave all her love to her cats.

No, that was what they wanted.  They wanted me to throw in the towel, to surrender my will.  I had to keep trying, to find a way back to them.

With a more confident bounce in my steps, I went out to Mabel’s desk.  “I’ll be at lunch for an hour or so.  Don’t forward any calls to me unless it’s really important.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It took a little doing to find my way back to Jo Ann’s desk.  She waited for me with her purse on her lap.  “Ready?” I asked her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

As we waited for the elevator, I reassured her, “There’s no need to be scared.  This isn’t that kind of meeting.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Lynn.  Please.”

“OK…Lynn.”

I risked putting a hand on her arm.  She noticeably twitched at my touch.  “You’re doing a good job, Jo Ann.  Those reports were really super.”

“Thanks, ma’am…Lynn.”

The elevator came to sweep us down to the lobby.  As we neared the bottom, I asked, “Do you have a car?  I took the bus.”

“Oh, sure, no problem.”

Her car was a rusty Tercel with a lot of liberal bumper stickers on the back.  I remembered her driving such a car when she was in college; this was probably the same one.  As young as she was now, she must not be able to afford a new car.  Jo Ann visibly blushed as she unlocked the door for me.

She cleared off a few misplaced dolls and action figures to toss into the backseat, where two booster seats were strapped in.  “I’m sorry about the mess.”

“It’s all right.  You’re a busy lady.”

My back flared with pain as I squeezed down onto the seat.  It made me wish that alien hadn’t added ten years to my age.  That also might make Jo Ann less afraid of me. 

“Where do you want to go?” Jo Ann asked.

“The Talladega Diner,” I said.  That was where we had often gone when we had been dating.  Maybe that would help to jar something in her memory.

She didn’t say much to me along the way.  Just some small talk about people at the company and celebrity gossip.  I kept up as best I could while waiting for an opening to steer things onto familiar shores, but nothing came up before we reached the diner.

It was a hole-in-the-wall place, fashioned from an old boxcar that had been plunked down next to the old train station, which had closed down about fifteen years ago.  There were still quite a few cars at the diner, though not enough that we couldn’t get a table.  I muted my grunt of pain as I got out of the car and then hobbled towards the front door.

I recognized Cindy, the waitress who had often served us when we went here.  It was strange to think we were the same age now—or I might even be older than her.  Cindy showed no sign of recognition as she led us to an empty booth.

“What can I get you ladies?” she asked.

“A cup of hot tea with lemon, a tuna sandwich on wheat, and a cup of chicken noodle soup,” I said.

“Diet Coke, no ice, and a small garden salad with no dressing,” Jo Ann said.  We handed our unused menus to Cindy and then settled in.  “My husband used to order that exact same thing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tea with lemon, tuna on wheat, and chicken noodle soup.  That’s what my husband always ordered when we came here.”

“I suppose great minds think alike,” I said with a grin.

“I suppose so.”

“How is your husband?”

“He’s fine.  Keeping busy.”

“That’s good.”  I leaned forward to ask, “Have you noticed anything strange lately?”

“In what sense?”

“In a general sense.”

“I don’t understand.”

Before I could try to come up with an answer, Cindy returned with our beverages.  I took a sip of my tea and then smacked my lips.  I missed this place.  Jo Ann took a pull on her straw, seeming to relish the silence.  I could tell she was unsettled by my line of questioning.  Yet I plunged ahead anyway, not seeing any other way.