C H A P T E R T H R E EA Bck Hole in His Heart2019 November 18, MondayThey ask her every day if they have more information. And they never do. Christine seems hard at work trying to figure out the puzzle, but Maria doesn’t really understand it. Hopefully though, she can solve it soon, because the longer this goes without answers, the worse it gets, for everyone at the Hall. Everyone has been stressed out and scared and unsure what exactly to do. The emotion that dominates the Hall, however, is anger. Aunt Bea has abdicated her position in all but name due to the response from every one of the Sisters. Dorley Hall is near-rudderless, and is operating right now off of momentum, until they can get a new captain of the ship. And Maria will probably be chosen for that within a couple days.

  She wrestles through the crowds in the halls. Questions are asked, but they all hit with the same level of force as anything else. She can’t hear any of the actual words, just the intonation of a question. She moves on, she goes up the stairs to her ft. She closes the door behind her, and colpses on her chair. She takes a breath.

  She wonders who it could have been that would do this to Dorley Hall. It’s unlikely that it isn’t reted. Whoever took Stef, Decn, and the soldiers did so professionally and probably with a motive of some kind. They had to have been skilled enough to get through PMC security systems, so it could be a different group.

  Then a terrible thought fills her mind. One she desperately does not want to believe, but must acknowledge because it makes a twisted level of sense. Grandmother must still be out there somewhere, hiding. She clearly was in contact with Karen, who was used as a pawn in an ancient war. Having Karen tossed into the North Sea probably pissed her off, and perhaps she took revenge.

  Maria desperately hopes it isn’t that, because she remembers the cruelty imparted on her and her sisters. Her wrists still remember what it felt like to be torn apart. Her identity was forged in hellfire, one of the few of her Sisters from that time that’s still alive. What if Grandmother has been continuing her operation in secret all this time? How long has it been going for? How many has she killed in the pursuit of furthering torment?

  What if she grabbed Stef and Decn? What if what happened to her will happen to them? Maria can only hope that isn’t where the evidence points, because she can only hope that they won’t be broken husks by the time they rescue them. Maybe she’ll ask Edy to pray for them. It’s not something that she believes in, but it might provide some comfort to her that someone is praying for their safety.

  She can’t sit with this for too long, though. While she is still a sponsor, she has a duty to go to Aaron. He has only mildly improved since her st conversation with him, and she wants to try and improve that in any way she can. She makes her way down to the basement, ignoring the flurry of questions on the way. She doesn’t have answers, just an unproven theory.

  The boys are still pissed at the sponsors, they have even less answers than Aaron, so they’re not generally behaving well. They’ve mostly kept it slow for now, though. It feels like a powder keg is going to burst soon, and if it does, it is going to shake the foundations. Whether it’s disclosure, or something else, something will happen. And disclosure has to happen soon. Aaron and potentially Adam have started to develop, and that’s pretty early. The assumption is that they have until the end of November before having to do disclosure.

  But right now, what’s important is talking to her boy, hopefully in an attempt to calm him down. She walks into the common room, and Aaron is there, sitting on one of the couches, potentially lost in thought. She walks up to him. “Hi there, Aaron. Are you doing alright?”

  “Not really, I’m still worried. I don’t know what’s going to happen anymore. I think the stress is getting to me, my body’s changing, nothing makes any sense!” Aaron looks at her with a miasma of confusion, worry, and sadness. Maria wants to be able to talk more freely about their situation, so she asks the question.

  “Do you want to come with me to your room? You don’t seem too comfortable out here.”

  “Yeah, that sounds alright.” Aaron follows her out of the common room, and they make their way over to his room. She sits on his rolling chair, while he sits on the bed.

  Aaron pipes up. “So, when will that call happen? I get it might take some time, but I need to talk to her soon if possible.”

  Oh god, he’s not going to get that call I promised him!

  She freezes for a moment. Aaron seems to notice it. “Are you okay?”

  “Sorry, I need a minute. Will that be alright?”

  “Sure,” Aaron says, worry beginning to show on his face, but he’s trying to keep it down.

  Maria isn’t sure how to do this. She knows that Aaron is definitively not ready to find out that Stef has been kidnapped, but she also knows that he already barely trusts them. Lying any more will only further his distrust when he eventually has to find out. She’s on a razor’s edge, with both decisions leading to bad outcomes.

  You know what? Fuck it. She’ll tell him.

  ***Maria has been sitting there for a minute now, lost in thought. What was she thinking? Aaron hasn’t been sure what to do the past few days. Maria said that Stef would be allowed to give him a video call, and that helped, but only in theory. He needs to actually know that’s what’s happening. More than anything, he wants to see Stef. She was an anchoring point here for him. Without her, he’s lost and alone. The other boys are at most acquaintances, with no one really able to be there for him like Stef always could.

  Then, suddenly, Maria seems to almost reset. “Can I sit with you on the bed?”

  “Uhhh, sure, go for it.” He moves to give her some space.

  “Okay, so I need you to agree that you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to say. If you are alright with that, I need you to say ‘I understand and agree,’ okay?” Maria asks, with a tinge of worry on her face.

  “I understand and agree.”

  “Okay, so what I’m about to tell you is going to be very difficult to hear, but I need you to hear it, because I promised that I wouldn’t lie to you, and I think you have to know what happened.”

  Maria takes another second, and then begins to cry. Aaron goes to comfort her. “What is it, Maria?”

  “Aaron, I don’t know how else to say this, but Stef’s whereabouts are currently unknown. The transport that took them away is missing.”

  What? Stef is… missing? How did that happen? How did they let that happen?

  “How long have you known, Maria?”

  “A few days, just a little after I told you about where Stef was going.” Maria says, sadly.

  So they hid this from him? They let him go for three days without telling him that the one person in the world he cares about right now is missing? Off the map? No signal? Are you fucking kidding me?

  “So you’re telling me, that you’ve known Stef was missing for multiple days now, and you haven’t told me? Not once, not anything?” Aaron blurts out.

  Maria seems sad. “I’m sorry Aaron, we’ve been trying to get more information before saying anything, but it has been a very difficult task for us, whoever took them has connections.”

  He wants what he does next to sting. Maria doesn’t care, none of them care. They just want to tell him things in a way that hurts the most. They tell him that this isn’t just a complicated punishment, but everything seems designed to cause him the most pain. “You know what? Go.”

  Maria tries to continue, but Aaron can’t hear it above the static in his head. “Go!”

  She gets up, gives him a sad face, and closes the door. Aaron doesn’t care anymore. If they’re telling the truth, Stef is missing because of what, incompetency? Them not doing their job to protect her? They can keep the boys down here, all high and mighty about what they want to do to them, but they can’t protect one person the second they make it out of here?

  And that’s assuming they’re telling the truth, about any of it. The trans part is maybe slightly more believable. No reason comes to his mind as to why they would use that as a lie, but did they lie about where they were sending her to? Were they going to send her to the same pce Decn was going to go? Were they just going to make her disappear? Was this always the pn, pcate him until she was far enough away, and then reveal it days ter to maximise the hurt?

  He knows of only one way to send a message. So he gets up from the bed, goes over to Will’s door, and knocks. Luckily, Will is actually there, so he opens the door. Aaron goes into a whisper, aware of the cameras and microphones. “I want to join your pn. When do we start?”

  ***2019 November 28, ThursdayThe days have been passing by easier and easier. Stefan can swear they’ve been putting him to sleep. Doctors have been checking various things about his body. Catheters have been readjusted, various little tests have been done, and all the while Stefan has been in the bed, locked to it. He still doesn’t understand why that is, but none of the doctors will answer his questions as to why. Recently, he’s barely been able to move his face. It feels numb, along with the chest.

  He wonders about this, as the movies continue to py in the background. Most recently, it’s been an eclectic mix of Saving Private Ryan, Batman Forever, and now Flubber. Have they done FFS on him? Maybe breast augmentation? Impossible to tell, since he doesn’t have a mirror to check. The only hints have been the sudden changes in feeling around those areas after waking up from slumber.

  This transition facility is clearly very strange though. Cuffs aside (should he put that aside?) no one comes in to talk. That creepy old woman has not been back in the room at all. Everyone behaves very strangely. None of this makes sense. The only thing that Stefan can use as evidence that he is where Bea sent him to is that some surgeries might be already done, but that is a pretty big evidence point to him being in the right pce. That only makes it stranger that all of the other quirks exist, though.

  Well, hopefully he should get some answers soon. Maybe once he recovers from these surgeries, that’s when they’ll introduce him to the facility proper. Or tell him anything at all. That would be rather helpful.

  As he ventures off into sleep once again, he notices a new movie start pying. Oh, a Friday sequel. Interesting choices.

  ***Christine sits in for today’s sponsor meeting. She just got officially hired by the Hall as Head of Network Security, and is also being made to be a bit of a helper monkey, so she’s now having to go to these meetings, waking herself up honestly way too early. She wishes she was back in bed with Paige right now, instead she’s downing her second coffee.

  “Alright everyone, get ready. The next few days are going to be critical to get right.” Maria says. She has moved up in rank to be in the same functional position as Aunt Bea, though for now both of them are co-custodians, as they both decided that she should be around until they’re able to get Stef back, at which point she will retire. Indira, who has taken over fully as Aaron’s sponsor, sits next to Christine, giving her a little side hug. “Yesterday, we finally got enough information to know what the boys are pnning. Two days ago, Will talked about ‘the pn’ with Aaron, Adam, Raph, and Ollie, and the mics just about managed to pick it up. We now know that they intend to perform an attack two days from now, November 30th.”

  Monica stands up to continue. “Disclosure needs to happen very shortly. Aaron and Adam have both started developing. It’s early days still, but they are aware that something is changing, and I believe both Maria and Indira have gotten comments from Aaron wondering what is happening. Mostly, the stress of the other events around them have kept them calmer than prior intakes about the changes, since they rgely seem to not be noticing too carefully. But it will need to happen very shortly anyway. We rgely had a soft time for disclosure on the 7th, but we are going to move it up a week. The hope is that by giving them disclosure shortly before their little rebellion starts, it can throw off enough of them that whatever’s left is more controlble. Five boys attacking at once is a problem, two or three is much more reasonable.”

  Christine is intrigued by this. Use disclosure as a weapon, rather than just an eventuality. Hopefully it doesn’t break them too badly. But she wonders how the next few days are going to go. “How do we handle the next two days until then? If they set off early, we might be left in a bad spot. What if they wanted us to hear that?”

  Maria responds. “Our solution for now is to have all hands on deck and keep full attention on the boys. No talking while in any boy’s presence, even Martin. Yes, we know he’s the only one seemingly not participating in this, but we need to make sure we don’t take any chances until the 30th. No distractions. No splitting into small groups. Nothing is to be taken for granted. Keep the PMC’s on call while any sponsor is down in the basement. Any fewer than 4 sponsors down there should not be permitted. Because almost all of them are allied, it gives us the unique ability to not staff anyone down there if we don’t have enough. We don’t believe any of them will attack each other, since they all are focused on an attack on us. Without anyone down there, they will be left to stew, unable to do anything. Does everyone understand the game pn?”

  A chorus of yeses go around the room. Because all of the boys are practically the same group right now, there isn’t a need for a traditional one-by-one breakdown like what Christine hears is usually the norm. The meeting is thankfully adjourned. Christine stays behind in the security room, however. She grabs her ptop out of her bag and gets to work.

  Her aims have been twofold the past two weeks, patch the holes in Dorley’s security she once used, and try to get more concrete information on what took Stef. Emphasis on the what, because this was not the work of an individual. From what she can tell, it was done by professionals. However, tracing packets that were sent to Peckinville to throw them off is retively simple for her. It just takes a lot of time. Fortunately, she thinks she can make a breakthrough today.

  She goes through the data received and finds a little scrap of information that was sent at 9:07am that day, that’s different from all before it, and after it. She decrypts the packet, to find out that it got sent from a strange looking IP address. It contains various bits of information about obfuscating the location of the van, including a program yer that used the journey time the van took in real life as a marker for how it should slow down in the public yer. Very sophisticated stuff. It successfully managed to obscure the actual location information by transting it at the entry point rather than at the exit point, so that it wouldn’t be saved in any capacity on the network. But the fact that they used their actual travel time to their destination meant Christine has something to go off of.

  She loads up a program that calcutes driving times from a certain area, and gets the full map. She now knows that wherever they took Stef is somewhere within this zone. She then grabs the IP address, now feeling on fire from getting all of this information in a short time. The address is clearly an encrypted one, so she goes through her tools. She’s able to trace the IP address back. It’s sent from Cairo, which was sent from Paris, which was sent from Berlin, which was sent from Boston, which was sent through a bunch of other proxies before nding on an IP address from the area within the zone Christine mapped out. She checks one more time to make sure that this one doesn’t have a further yer, but it doesn’t. She now knows that whoever sent the location information is within a two hour drive from Sudbury.

  Now all she needs is to figure out what that IP address belongs to. She sets a ghosted tracking program on the real IP address, and then sits back. She can’t do anything more on this front quite yet, she just needs them to slip something, and that will probably take a few days.

  She sends the information to Maria, as well as the Peckinville infosec department that she’s been in touch with since she’s been on the hunt for Stef. She closes her ptop, has a swig of coffee, and gets going. Shame she still has csses right now.

  *** 2019 November 30, SaturdayToday is the day. It has to be. The day when they run out of here free. The gunpowder has been building, and Will has been letting it happen. He knows that a spark is going to set it abze, because it always does. He’s just being careful to ensure that when it happens, everyone else is there with him.

  They were never able to get Martin in on it, he was never the type to fight anything. He didn’t have much faith in Aaron or Adam, but the extreme events have seemingly radicalized them to act. Good. They need all the numbers they can get.

  Will made sure to check the st few days to see if there was a better angle on it, if a weakness would show, but nothing has. The girls have been careful to not let their guard down. It’s probably going to make today more difficult, but five boys are a force to be reckoned with, and Will is ready to lead them into battle.

  They pn to strike during a shift change, a standard moment that occurs at 4:00pm. Hopefully, they’re weakest then. Once they get some weapons from the sponsors, it’s only a matter of time until they can use their manpower to get out of this basement, and hopefully, out of the doors here. There’s a university nearby? They can run there, and hopefully the game will be up by the time they can catch them.

  He gets up, and goes to get breakfast. The boys have already pnned everything out, so there’s no need to discuss anything to draw attention to themselves before the big moment. Still Weetabix. He finds it annoying that they still serve this stuff. Sure it’s healthy, but so are real foods like eggs. He chows it down though. Every calorie is going to be important. No exerting himself right now.

  He gets up, and heads into the common room. There are a lot more sponsors than normal, some he doesn’t recognise. Is there something they’re here for? Even more come through the doors, and they’re told to sit at the common room tables. Will and Adam at one, Raph and Ollie at another, and Martin and Aaron each getting a remaining table. A brunette walks over with a ptop, and sets something up, while Monica goes to the side of the room that connects to the dining hall. She sits down on a stool, and faces them.

  “Good morning!” She looks at them like a teacher who’s just a little wary of her students. “It’s time for the big speech. But first, a reminder: violence will not be tolerated. If you attack your sponsor or any other employee, there will be consequences. If you attack each other, there will be consequences. You must understand that we are not offering you a choice in what we are doing here. And-” she takes a second to ugh, “-we are not accepting comments, criticism, critique, or anything of the sort at this time. There are two ways to leave: complete the program or wash out, through resistance or violence. And I know you all do not want to wash out. Are there any questions before I begin?”

  “Could you define ‘resistance’ please? Do we ever get to make any compints about our situation, or will you just blenderize me the second I try?” Aaron says.

  “Oh, compin all you like!” Monica says, smiling a little. “Just not during this speech. After, you may say whatever you like! In short, keep your compints in the ride vehicle with you, and you’ll be fine.” She looks around the room. “Okay, no more questions? Let’s begin.” She leans forward, looking at all of us. Did she figure us all out? Is this some complicated punishment for our scheme? But he was careful! He tried his best to be as silent as possible. Maybe there was nothing he could have done to avoid the axe coming down. Hopefully it isn’t that. Hopefully it’s unreted, and they can ignore it after today.

  “By now, you’ll have noticed certain changes in your bodies. Perhaps you feel the cold a little more than you did; maybe you’ve found you’re more sensitive in some areas and less in others. These changes are deliberate, and there will be more to come. You remember your Goserelin impnts? Those have been suppressing your testosterone since you arrived. It’s a procedure we’ve used in other years, with other male intakes, to reduce aggression, but our success with them has been… mixed. In fact, in all the years Dorley has been operating as a rehabilitation facility-” Will snorts, along with Aaron. Both of their sponsors get their attention back with a quick sp on the shoulder. “-we have had considerably poorer treatment outcomes with our male intakes than with our female intakes. Put bluntly, the endemic violence of toxic masculinity is extremely difficult to cure, and we have been forced to wash out the majority of our subjects. So, this year, in the interests of being humane, we’re trying something new.”

  She pauses for a bit. What could they be doing? Will has obviously noticed the goserelin. It had rgely the effects expected of an anti-androgen. He’s been ever so slightly less aggressive in his thoughts, though not by all that much. He does wonder though. Anti-androgens alone don’t necessarily cause those kinds of changes. He’s ughed at the others for thinking the goserelin could make you grow tits. He knows what makes you do that.

  Nothing else comes to mind. The only other thing that’s changed are the vitamin shots, and perhaps they were needed, he’s felt mildly better recently. Not sure why they need to be injected, they could probably just be mixed in with the food. It’s pretty strange, though.

  Monica speaks, finally. “In addition to your testosterone suppression, for the past month, we have been administering estrogen in appropriate doses. We intend to continue this regimen indefinitely.”

  what

  wait what

  He sits still.

  He is motionless.

  He can hear commotion outside his body.

  Aaron protesting.

  “You fucking what?”

  And yet nothing outside his body matters anymore.

  How could it?

  He can hear Raph and Ollie yell.

  He registers the sound, but doesn’t process it.

  They’re doing the very thing that he has run away from for all his life.

  They’re punishing him for being a freak by forcing him to live out the rest of his days as such.

  They knew.

  They must have known.

  All the times he masturbated in his Mom’s dress while everyone was gone.

  They must have known that he shed out because Topher was just being himself, and that was something that Will never could do.

  The talking continues.

  Will can hear snippets of them talking about Aaron, possibly?

  Not sure.

  He sees a hand float in front of him, Tabby’s hand.

  He doesn’t register.

  All he can think of now is one thought.

  “It’s not fair.”

  ***“You fucking what?”

  “Sit down, Aaron.” Indira puts a hand on his shoulder. He can’t take this. They can’t be serious. Why are they doing this? Subjecting men to the very hormone that makes trans women into women. He doesn’t understand. They keep breaking him more and more. Every action by them is designed to destroy him.

  “I can’t with this. Fucking why?” Aaron screams.

  “Sit down, Aaron, I will not ask again,” Indira says, and he can hear the crackle of the taser behind him. He reluctantly sits down.

  “You’re not kidding, estrogen?” Aaron says to Monica, praying this is some practical joke.

  “I am deadly serious, Aaron,” she says. “You should have noticed some of the changes already. Feeling a little sore around your nipples? Skin feeling a little softer? That’s the estrogen doing its work. All of you are free to read about all the effects in these pamphlets over here.” She points to a stack of them on a nearby table.

  “So you’re turning us into women?” Aaron says. It seems the only answer that could even be possible.

  Monica responds. “Yes, we have found it is the only compassionate and moral thing to do, lest we have most of you wash out of our program.” At this, Raph and Ollie try to stand up, and yell.

  “Fuck you! I’m not getting turned into some fa-!” Ollie says, getting interrupted by the taser in his back.

  Raph, who was about to say something, simply sms the table with his fists, and sits down when commanded to by his sponsor.

  Monica, now done with the interruption, continues. “We did not come to this decision lightly, lest you think that we would do this casually. All of you were chosen carefully and deliberately, because we think you would be helped by the program. Aaron, since you’ve been the talkative one today, how about we use you as our example. Christine?”

  The brunette, presumably Christine, presses a key, and the screen lights up. There he is, a couple years ago. He remembers this night. He just graduated from that shithole of a boarding school, and he felt just a little free. Sure, he still had to follow what his parents demanded of him, but at least having removed himself from the boys, he felt a little more powerful. But he knows what’s coming next. He barely has had any time to process what they’re going to do to him, and they’re already looking to show his past to everyone.

  “Aaron Holt,” Monica resumes. “Twenty-one years old as of July. Geology student, and prolific harasser of women.” The words cut through him like butter.

  “Do we have to do this?” he says, his voice beginning to give out.

  New things come on the screen. He looks away. He can’t stand to see what he did.

  “I believe you’ve gone over your history of dick pics with everyone here quite extensively, while you were expelled from Saints for this action, your parents caused the school to countermand this punishment by donating to a tennis court, which will likely feature your name. Be proud, Aaron, your name will live on,” Monica continues, a wry smile on her face. Probably. Even if he can’t see it, he can certainly hear it.

  A button can be heard clicking. “These are the other victims. They may have escaped your penis, but you still harassed them in other ways.” Aaron knows. The names course through his mind. He doesn’t want to see the screen, but he can imagine what’s up there. He remembers some of their faces.

  “Please stop.”

  “Next.” Another click. More spring to mind. More times he did what he always did. More times he was a bastard.

  “No more please.”

  “Next.” Yet another click. More and more and more and more and more.

  “Stop, p-please.”

  “It will be over soon,” Indira says, putting her hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t bring him any comfort.

  Monica continues. “Here are the websites we grabbed off of your computer and your phone. Notice a common theme?” Aaron knows what sites he used. He knows what they said there. He would browse them regurly. He needed that fix. Be angry at women, it distracts from the pain.

  He pleads with a yell. “Stop! I get it! You have everything I’ve ever done up there, please can this be over?”

  “Not yet.” Monica continues. “We also have this.” Aaron looks for a split second, only to see what happened during boarding school. He doesn’t need to be reminded. The nightmares every night make sure of that now. The boys surround his vision. “We have incidents dating back to primary school, both as aggressor and victim.”

  “Fuck you, you’re trying to tell me that I came to be this way because of bullying? You’re wrong,” Aaron fights to say. He can barely stand to be here.

  “No, you came to be this way because your worst traits have been encouraged throughout every step of your life. The world won’t let you be better. All the people around you made sure of that. The only positive role model you had, she left.”

  They knew about Elizabeth. Of course, they knew everything, didn't they? The one person he had to help, the only one that cared about him as a person, rather than a half-sentient thing they could make do their bidding.

  “You have been failed at every turn by the world, but especially by masculinity. It is at the core of everything that is causing you pain, and I think you know that, Aaron. It has done nothing but hurt you. It has hurt everyone here, but it is especially emblematic of everything that led you to be hurt, and then to hurt others. The only way this can truly be fixed is by removing masculinity from the equation altogether. This is the only way you can truly reform.”

  “But I can reform! I can change!”

  “Could you? Could you, if we plopped you back out onto the street, truly say you would never harass another woman again? How long would it take until you fell back into the same patterns you have always lived by? Months? Maybe a year? Maybe two? Can you truly say that you are a sufficiently better person to the point where those temptations would never affect you again? Maybe you can try to say that now, but could you say the same three years from now? It is far too easy for men to fall into comfortable patterns of violence. The frequency with which you harassed those women tells us this was your regur, comfortable state. Could you control yourself without total erasure of those patterns?”

  Aaron doesn’t know. The patterns were how he got by. How he released the stress of living. He wants to say something different. But right now he doesn’t know. Words won’t escape him.

  “This institution has been operating for fifteen years now, and we have seen every example of boy and girl under the sun. We try to take the people that are starting to break. These cases are time-bombs. They all have a fuse, and then they either implode or explode. I think that you know what would have happened. Where would you be right now? Where will you be in five years? Ten? Do you even know? Can you even see that eventuality?”

  “P-please stop.”

  “You said you wanted to reform. Unfortunately, men are not allowed to reform in this country. The second you leave here, they will pull you back down. We’ve seen it happen countless times. They are too willing to fall back on what they’re used to. To reform you as males would be to abandon you. The reason we have far more success with our female intakes is because there are no systems in pce that benefit women who do awful things. The same cannot be said of men. Do you know the story of Charlotte Church?”

  And then she goes on about her life, and how the media took control of her life, and used her up. She never got to be a kid because they treated her like an object before she had any ability to resist. Aaron knows how that feels.

  “She never had any control over how she presented herself. The men that run this country have never allowed women to control their bodies, their narrative. God forbid a woman wants to control her sexuality, and especially if that sexuality doesn’t cater to men. Women are constantly denied agency in their lives. They are harassed for doing what they want to do, while men are praised for doing the same. Men like you can get away with all of this without punishment. You escaped your due because of the privilege that men allow other men to wield. It is far too easy to be an abusive man in our culture. The only way out of it is a clean break.”

  “That can’t be true. There must be some other way.” Aaron says, desperation in his voice.

  “Unfortunately, it is true. We have tried everything under the sun, and nothing has worked. We cannot in good conscience leave any of you behind to fail. So this is what we’re doing. We selected all of you very carefully, we know that you are capable of being better.”

  “Um,” Adam says. “When you say that you want to make us into women, what does that entail? How far will that go?”

  “All the way.”

  “A-all the way?”

  “Yes, Adam.”

  Jesus Christ, they’re going to chop off his balls. They’re going to give him a vagina. They’re going to change his face. They won’t stop anywhere before that, will they? Irreversible changes that will do nothing but break who he is. A bck hole opens in his heart. There’s no way out, is there?

  “Can I- can I go back to my room please?” Adam asks his sponsor.

  “Sure, come with me,” she says to him.

  “This is insane!” Aaron blurts out. “You want to cure us of toxic masculinity by mutiting us? Shaping us into little dolls?”

  “We intend to rehabilitate you as fully-realized self-sufficient women. We will help you through every stage of the process.” Monica says.

  “I can’t believe this! Indira, it seems that going back to your room without being tased is an option. Can I do that, please?”

  “Sure, Aaron.” Indira lets him stand up from the table. He gets out of there, and goes to his room. How do they expect any of this to work? Men can’t just become women. Sure, trans women exist, but he is emphatically not that. Not like Stef.

  Wait, that’s odd. If they knew this twist was coming, why did they get rid of the one person that this program would benefit? That just doesn’t add up. Nothing adds up about the whole thing. And then they let her be taken. Why would you allow that to happen? Why would you let someone like her leave if they would benefit so much from the program?

  Did she know about it? Probably not at first, but what if they told her about the program, and she fought against it? Was that why she was removed? She found out that it was happening to all of them, and she refused to comply? Aaron’s respect for Stef only increases from that. It’s the only expnation he can think of, the only one that expins her not being able to talk to them at all after. Did she want to tell him about what they were doing to him, but was refused?

  At this he feels a dichotomy of hatred and powerlessness. There’s nothing he can do to arrest control. He hates their guts, and everything they’re doing to him, but there’s nothing he can do now. The sheer scale of power they now wield over his life is too daunting. Resistance feels fake. There’s nothing left. If they can make a trans girl leave, there’s nothing that he feels could be done to stop it. He had hope earlier today, but those hopes got dashed when they told all of them that they were going to go all the way.

  ***2019 December 5, ThursdayTime continues to slip. Doctors come in and out. Dressings are refreshed. Something’s clearly been done, at least, so Stefan can take some refuge in that. Maybe he’ll get to see her in a mirror soon. They continue not to respond to any of his questions. Nothing has truly changed down here in a while. So he keeps going.

  He’s been getting hungrier. They haven’t given him many meals since he came here. Maybe one every day? Just enough to barely sustain him. There’s thankfully enough liquid in the IV bags to make him stable in that department.

  The movies keep getting stranger. War Games, followed by High School Musical 2, followed by, what was it? Oh, Hereditary. That one freaked him out. The movie choices are so confusing. Made for TV stuff, B-movie schlock, random action movies. It feels meant to throw people off, but for why, he cannot figure it out.

  The door opens, and to his shock, that old woman is back. He hasn’t seen her in god knows how long. “Very good,” she says, as she presses a button to force Stefan to sit up on the bed. She comes up to the front of the bed, holding a tablet. The nurse who was already in the room takes some notes, takes a picture, and leaves.

  “Stefan Riley.” He flinches at that name. Isn’t this pce aware of the fact that he hates that name? “Twenty-one years old. Born and raised in Almsworth with your sister. Went to the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, before mysteriously ‘leaving to find yourself.’ Where are you supposed to be right now, huh? Italy? Oh how I do so love their cuisine. But you haven’t been there, have you? No, you’ve been right there the whole time under Dorley Hall. Wonder what caused you to be rejected, huh? Must have been something real serious for them to do that.”

  “Don’t you know why I’m here?” Stefan asks, confused at how this woman seems not to be aware of what’s going on.

  “Of course I do! I’m the one who arranged it! Stefan Riley,” she looks closer at him, eyes almost glowing with something that Stefan can’t quite pce, but considering how this woman keeps using that name with a malicious undertone, possibly hate. “You may call me Grandmother.”

  Huh. Are all of these transition facilities run by older women with a familial name? Such an odd naming convention. Also, really creepy. This “Grandmother” freak is extremely weird. Stefan, after a moment, asks a question. “Why am I cuffed to the bed? What kind of transition facility is this?”

  “Grandmother” (Stefan is going to find out what this woman’s real name is, and then immediately stop using that title to refer to her) moves throughout the room, instead of answering his questions.

  “Oh, Stefan, you seem like fun. You know, I was only expecting to get one new toy out of my venture, a suitable trade, but instead I got three! What a payday! My backer facilitates your transition, and I oversee your retraining.”

  Stefan is confused by that phrase. “Wait, retraining?” And what does she mean by “backer?” It’s all so confusing.

  “Oh I do so love taking from Elle!” She continues, and Stefan briefly wonders who Elle is. “Three for one deals are rare, Stefan, and I love to take advantage. Normally it’s oh so difficult to get my hands on good raw material these days, but you just fell right into my p. And look at it this way, now you get to be beautiful.”

  She comes up to him, creeps ever closer, and pces a finger below his chin. This is all so weird. Why is she talking about him like she doesn’t know anything about him? Or talking about him like some prize cut of beef? Did Beatrice send him to a pce run by a TERF? Or is this something different entirely? And what the hell does she mean by a three for one deal? And taking from Elle? Is he not where he’s supposed to be? But how does he expin that this seems to be a transition facility? None of this makes any sense. Maybe? A weak maybe.

  And then she starts to leave the room. “You didn’t answer my question!” Stefan yells.

  But “Grandmother” has already left the room.