The Week I Turned Into Erin

FIVE WEEKS EARLIER

As an angry, androgynous Aaron walked out of the clinic Wednesday evening, a man passed him and walked into the waiting room of the clinic and to the empty receptionist window. He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants a few sizes too small. His long hair was pulled up in a ponytail. He had a week old facial hair. He knocked on the window trying to see someone in the office. “I see you in there, Dr. Ara.” he said.

Dr. Ara came to the window. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I have to see Dr. Fry.” he said, frantically.

Dr. Ara sighed and walked around to open the door. “We can’t have you walking around freely in the hall, so please go to room one.”

“Fine.” he said, walking down the hall to room one and shutting the door behind him.

The man paced back and forth in the room. He noticed his degree on the wall. It was crooked. He straightened it and looked at it. He reminisced about the life he used to have. “Dr. Laura Silva.” the degree said.

It’s been two weeks but being Laura seemed like such a distant memory. Dr. Laura Silva had been a leading geneticist. She was working on genetic gender mutation with her partner Dr. Marcus Fry. They needed more money to begin human trials. So she gave a brilliant presentation to their sponsors. They dismissed her work because she was a woman.

She was angry, upset, and vowed to continue on with her work. In a momentary lapse of judgement, she tested the drug on herself. Within a day she started growing hair all over her legs. By day 3 her D cup breasts had shrunk to nothing. By day 4 she had a functioning dick.

The new male Dr. Silva attempted to use his transformation to his advantage. Instead of getting excited and giving the group money, their sponsors had instead threatened to shut them down.

Realizing his mistake, Dr. Silva then changed course. In order to save their careers, they needed to create the inverse drug. All of that stopped when an irresponsible lab-tech came in with COVID19. Of course, Dr. Silva tested positive and then came down with COVID himself. He was forced to walk away from his work and self-quarantine.

There was a knock on the door and Dr. Fry walked in.

“Laura, what are you doing here?” he said, in a concerned tone.

“Are you any closer to the inverse drug?” Dr. Silva replied. “I’m getting stir crazy. I should be here helping you, not sitting at home.”

“I’m almost there.” He said. “But you have to stay away. You’re still contagious. The more you leave the house the more you expose everyone else here to COVID. If we’re all sick, the inverse drug will take longer.”

Dr. Silva put his hand over his mask and coughed into it. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“What is?”

“Having a dick between my legs, Marcus.” he said. “Do you really want your girlfriend to have a dick?”

“Dammit, Laura. Not here. People will hear.”

“Yeah, yeah. You don’t want your affair with me getting back to your wife.”

Dr. Fry let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been testing the Male to Female drug this week. The guy testing it for us is responding very well to the drug.”

“Good.” Dr. Silva said, crossing his arms and slouching over. “I should never have tested the drug on myself. I was angry. I didn’t think this through.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. What’s done is done. We’ll fix this.”

“Can the MtF drug work on top of the FtM drug? Have you tried that yet?”

“Not yet. Subject #2 only got the MtF version.”

“Subject #2? Is that what you’re calling him?”

“Yes. His real name is Aaron, he simply walked up to us, and volunteered to do whatever we wanted in exchange for money. He didn’t even read any of the legal documents we gave him.”

“Yeah, great. Does that imply I’m Subject #1?”

Dr. Fry didn’t answer that. “I haven’t tried putting the two versions of the drug on top of each other. When Subject #2 is done with his transformation, I’ll bring him- or rather her- back and try the original drug on her to see if changes will happen in the reverse. From what I know of the drug so far, I assume putting one on top of the other won't work. I need a separate concoction that will neutralize the first drug. I’ll have to create a 1350-B that will neutralize 1340 before 1350 can take effect.”

Dr. Silva sighed.

“When that happens, I’ll let you know. Or when you finally get over this virus and test negative you can come back to work. Whatever comes first. Until then-” Dr. Fry grabbed Dr. Silva’s hand and held it. He looked into his eyes. Dr. Fry felt uncomfortable looking into another man’s eyes, but this was Laura under all of that scruff. “Laura, you need to stop coming in and exposing us. We’ll fix this.”

“Fine.” he said, getting up.

“Laura.” Dr. Fry said. “Who are those guys in suits who keep showing up? And asking for you?”

Dr. Silva sighed. “When our sponsors threatened to kill our funding, I… I sought out another potential source of funding. I haven’t told them that the deal is off.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t really know. They contacted me. Offered billions in funding. Now they won’t leave me alone.”

Dr Fry put his head into his hands, as Dr. Silva left the room.

On his way out Dr. Silva passed by a mirror. He cringed. Seeing his reflection was painful. In the mirror was a reflection of a man she hated. “This is not me.” he said to himself. When Laura transformed into a man, his face started showing features of Laura’s father. The deadbeat who used to beat her and her mother and left them when Laura was 6. Dr. Silva hated his new reflection. He hated looking like that man.

He continued walking and stopped at the door. He looked behind him to see if he was being followed or if anyone could see him.. “I can’t wait. I can’t stand seeing that reflection anymore.” Dr. Silva said to himself. He poked his head around the corner to see the hallway. Then he quickly snuck into the lab that held all of the drug samples.

He opened the refrigerated vault and looked at the labels. 1340 was the original Female to Male drug that he took originally. 1350 was the new Male to Female drug Dr. Fry was working on. He found a vial of 1350 and pulled it out of the vault and closed it.

He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean needle. He extracted the drug from the vial into the needle. He rolled up his sleeve and injected himself with the drug.

“Hopefully this drug works on top of the original drug.” he said to himself, wiping his puncture wound clean.

He rolled down his sleeve and cleaned up his mess. He suddenly got dizzy and braced himself against a table.

What Dr. Silva didn’t know was, the two drugs reacted to each other inside his body. The combined drug then reacted with the nearest viral carrier - the COVID19 virus. The virus quickly replicated inside his body and continued down the bloodstream.

When he was OK to move he snuck down the hall and back to the main lobby door.

Before he reached for the handle, he had to cough. He coughed into the mask. But he kept coughing. It was getting harder to breathe so he pulled the mask off and coughed in his hand a few times. He couldn’t catch his breath.

Dr. Ara came down the hall to see who was coughing. “Dr. Silva” she said, rushing to her side as Dr. Silva accidentally coughed into Dr. Ara’s face. “I need help over here.” she yelled.

Dr. Fry came down the hall and saw Dr. Ara holding Dr. Silva who was coughing. “What happened? What did you do?”

Dr. Silva stopped coughing long enough to say “I took 1350.”

“Shit. That wasn’t ready for you!” he yelled running back to the lab and grabbing an empty needle. He came back. “I need to test your blood now.” He stuck it into Dr. Silva and took some blood. “Dr. Ara, isolate her to another room. Stay with her.”

Dr. Fry went down the hall to other labs where assistants were working. “Go home now.” he told them. “We possibly have a contamination issue.” He then went back to the lab and examined the blood he just took.

* * *

An hour later his eyes hurt as he re-read the analytics he came up with. He slammed the desk. He then took some of his own blood and examined that quickly and came to the same conclusion.

He put his head in his palms and exhaled. He then picked up the phone. “I have a contamination problem here. Drugs 1340 and 1350 have become contagious.” “How many? Potentially 10. Definitely 3. Myself and two other doctors.” “No. We can’t abort. We’re so close to finishing this.” “No. You can’t shut us down.” “Please reconsider.”

Dr. Fry slammed the phone down. He was angry. This was his and Dr. Silva’s life's work. He couldn’t let the research stop. He didn’t trust Dr. Silva’s mysterious buyers.

He got a bag and started putting all of his work into it. He grabbed several vials of 1340 and 1350. When he was all packed, he lit a bunsen burner and tossed it off the desk into a trash can. He started piling paper and rags on top of the now burning trash can. He then left the room and raced down the hall.

He poked his head into the room where Dr. Silva and Dr. Ara were at. Dr. Silva seemed to stop coughing and was a little more calm. “You both need to go.” Dr. Fry said. “Quarantine yourself. We’re all contagious. But you have to leave here - now! Dr. Ara, keep tabs on Subject #2. We’ll be in touch.”

Dr. Fry left the room as smoke started filling the hallway, and snuck out of the back door carrying his bag of vials and his notes. In the darkness he ran to his car. He turned around and started to see smoke billowing from a few windows of the building. He got in, started it and turned on his headlights.

Through the dashboard light he looked down at his hand on the steering wheel. His nails were considerably longer than they were hours ago. He wondered if this is how it started with Aaron.

He sat in his car and watched as both Dr. Ara and Dr. Silva departed the building and got into their own cars.

He decided he needed to go into hiding. To quarantine himself. And to save his life’s work.

As Dr. Fry drove out of the parking lot, the fire got into the gas line and the building exploded.