Genomorph

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

“Good morning, Susan, did you sleep well?” Amanda Breton asked as Susan Covington joined her in the dining room for breakfast. She was beginning her fourth day at the estate and was beginning to think she could get used to the lifestyle very easily.

“Very well, and good morning to you, too, Amanda,” Susan said smiling. “I got an email from Brandi last night. She received the initial funds and is very excited about the trust. She is also extremely curious as to whom her mysterious benefactor is, but I respected your wish to remain anonymous for the time being.”

“It’s not modesty or anything like that,” Amanda told her. “I just don’t want to add to the stress that is already on her.”

“I think it would make her more comfortable knowing where the money is coming from,” Susan told her gently.

“I suppose you’re right,” Amanda replied after considering it for a moment. “You may tell her the next time you email her. How is she doing if you don’t mind my asking?”

Susan sighed and said, “I am a bit concerned about her.”

She went on to tell Amanda what Brandi had related to her in her last email; the full details of her ‘night out’ in LA and the hijacking of Arnie’s truck.

“The hijacking doesn’t concern me so much,” Susan admitted. “Of course every time she does something like that she risks exposure, but Brandi is going to take action in a situation like that; it’s just her nature to do so. But going out and looking for a fight, well, I feared that she might do something like that.”

“Why is that?” Amanda asked.

“Brandi is still fighting a battle inside,” Susan said. “She’s fighting both the artificially programmed sexual desire and the naturally programmed feminine mentality. The fight was an attempt to redirect those feelings and it very nearly backfired on her. I’m afraid that the more she resists the more the programming will assert itself, and eventually it will overwhelm her.”

“And if that happens?”

“She could very well become exactly what she is afraid she will become; a virtual slave to that programming.”

“I can only imagine what turmoil it is causing within her.” Amanda said sadly.

“It doesn’t have to be that way though,” Susan told her. “Everything I have read concerning Genomorphs in the Forerunner files indicates that while they were certainly very sensual women, they were not slaves to their sensuality. But they had accepted the gender change willingly, not had it forced on them. Brandi must accept that she is now a woman and learn to embrace that. If she can do that, the programming will not fight to ‘convert’ her.”

“I thought she had accepted that she is female?”

“No, Brandi accepted, pretty much from the start, that her body is female,” Susan corrected. “She still has to make the leap to accepting that she is female.”

“Do you think she will?” Amanda asked as Gretchen brought in breakfast for the two women. Susan had been told that she could speak freely in front of the staff.

“I think she is beginning to,” Susan said. “Immediately after the transformation Brandi was very much a forty year old man in a young woman’s body. But she may have made the first step that night in LA. She actually dressed like a girl. Yes, she did it to lure her ‘playmates’ out, but it was a step in the right direction. She even wore makeup, though she said she ended up looking like a prostitute, which probably fit the image she was going for anyway.

“She is beginning to develop a curiosity about the young woman she has become. She’s starting to explore exactly what that means, which of course leads to conflict with her memories as a man. Still, it’s the result I was desperately hoping for; the one thing that could not happen as long as she was confined to the lab. She was safe there, without a need to explore her new femininity. Now she must if she hopes to fit in to the world around her.”

“It sounds like she really has more than the male/female duality to deal with,” Amanda remarked. “It’s very much like having multiple personalities from the sound of it.”

“That’s a pretty accurate description,” Susan agreed. “I believe she has to deal with issues the Forerunners never intended. When they created a Genomorph, it was from a willing person.”

Susan grew very quiet as she toyed with her omelet.

“It wasn’t your fault, Susan,” Amanda said gently.

“I disagree,” Susan said bitterly. “I let my ambition blind me. There should have been more testing and research, years more, before we attempted to use the machine on a person.”

“If you let anything blind you it was your compassion and desire to help someone who had come to mean very much to you,” Amanda countered. “Your heart was pure. And if you made a mistake, then learn from it and move on. Blaming yourself will not help Brandi.”