57 Alterations
“So…” I said to Vicki as we left Allie’s dorm room.
“So…” she replied. We walked on toward her room in silence for a moment before she added, “Marsh, I’m sorry. I really thought he might have a better answer.”
“I’m not thinking about that now,” I answered, tightly. “I’m trying to stay positive. I have something to do, even though I don’t see how it’s going to help. The more we know, the better my chances, right?”
She nodded. “I hadn’t been to meetings in a while. I didn’t realize that he had decided that just living with it was the answer.”
“Well, for him, and most of you, it probably is the answer. Chad and I discussed this a month ago. If you’re hoping to get back to exactly the same place, that’s not too likely. But I would be happy with looking even close to what I did, as long as I could be male again.”
“That would make me happy, too. I really liked dating you, Marsh. I can’t imagine finding another guy who’d be so right for me.”
I broke the next silence after about a minute. “Um, I’m a bit embarrassed about the whole baby incident, though. I’d just never seen a baby so cute. I’m surprised you didn’t want to hold him.”
She laughed. “I’m used to finding babies cute, Marsh. If we hadn’t been in a rush, I absolutely would have made a fuss over him, but I thought getting you to that meeting was kind of critical. I guess it was a new experience for you, and you weren’t ready for it.
“Oh… and speaking of new experiences,” she added, “are you getting your period?”
I flushed a bit. “Yeah, were you able to tell?”
“I had a hunch. I’ll bet that was a shock for you, getting to experience what I’ve been going through all this time. I mean, I remember my first period. I’m still getting used to them after five years, and I expected to have them. For you… I can’t even imagine what it must be like.”
“I’ll say. This is actually my second time. The first was a total disaster: I bled all over my sheets and kind of panicked. So I took precautions this time. Rather than be surprised, I set an alert on my calendar, and put in a tampon ahead of time, just in case.”
She winced and stopped walking. “That’s really not a great idea, Marsh. The tampon absorbs whatever there is to absorb, and if you don’t have a flow, it’s going to absorb stuff it shouldn’t and you could end up with toxic shock syndrome. People die from that, Marsh.”
I’d stopped when she did, and now I stared at her. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Did you read the package carefully? You sort of have a habit of not reading directions, but it’s all there. Don’t insert a tampon early. If you want to do something early, a pad is much safer.”
“I… I’m not sure if I have any. Why does this have to be so complicated?”
“Complicated? Try weird,” she observed, as we started walking again. “I never thought I’d be giving my ex-boyfriend instructions on feminine hygiene.”
“Yeah, there is that,” I admitted, a bit chagrined.
Finally, we reached her door. Automatically, I started to reach for her, but stopped in confusion. “What are we…?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I guess, sometimes when we’re just talking and not actually looking at each other, I can ignore your higher voice and imagine you’re still Marshall. I wish…”
“Yeah.”
“Marsh… if there’s anything I can do…”
“I know, Vix. I appreciate it.”
She went in alone, closing the door after herself, and leaving me outside alone. I sighed and walked back to my own room.
Nikki and I had arranged for me to come over for another attempt at my lesson in alterations, so I headed there in the early afternoon, after my regular fruitless search of the physics building. It’s not that I really expected to find the lab any more – I just didn’t have any better ideas yet, and I had to do something.
The lesson followed the somewhat predictable pattern. Nikki showed me what to do, and I picked it up quickly, as though my hands had been doing it for years. In a sense, they had, since they were Marsha’s hands, which was very convenient for me in my need to earn money, even if it had cost me my skill with the guitar. I probably wouldn’t have made the trade if given the choice, but just now it was necessary.
While we were taking turns at the sewing machine, I raised the question of the night before. “So, if no upperclassmen volunteered for the experiment,” I said, “we suspected that they might have known something that the rest of us didn’t. Can you think of something that might have served as a warning from two years ago?”
Nikki thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “I don’t remember anything, If I had wanted to volunteer for experiments, I can’t think of any reason I would have avoided that one. Besides, if there were something I’d known, don’t you think I would have warned Ben?”
I conceded the point. “There has to be some other explanation, then. Maybe the experimenters specifically rejected any junior or senior volunteers. Or…” and I suddenly had another thought. “Maybe it was just easier to use the older students as some kind of a control, and they did a different type of experiment on them, one that didn’t change their pasts.”
“Or they might had advertised someplace that only freshman and sophomores would look,” Nikki suggested. “Do you remember how you found out about it?”
“I think I saw it on a college web site,” I said, after thinking a bit. “I don’t remember exactly where. Or maybe it was a mailing list? It’s hard to remember, since I signed up for a bunch of them, mostly in the Psych department. This is the only one I remember being Physics, and that’s what intrigued me.”
“Well, if it was a mailing list, maybe they only sent it to underclassmen?”
“That’s possible. I’ll have to ask the others what they remember. Does your brother ever talk about the experiment?”
She shuddered. “A lot, actually. But I don’t remember him saying how he found out about it. He’s been spending time outside the gymnasium where the team practices, trying to get a glimpse, trying to talk the coach into giving him another tryout. The problem is, he’s not anything close to athletic enough.”
“Yeah, I guess in one sense I’m lucky that my passion was something I did alone, and I wasn’t playing in a band. That would have hurt even more if I was, and I saw them jamming without me.”
“I really admire your attitude, Marsh. You’re always so positive about things.”
I laughed bitterly. “No, I just haven’t had a meltdown in front of you, that’s all. It’s getting a lot harder, now. Every chance I thought I had to change back isn’t panning out. I’m crazy about Vicky, but she made me face something I really would rather not have, that I’m not really in control of this, that I might be stuck. You think I’m positive? Maybe I’ve just been putting the crash off again and again. If it comes, you might not really want to be around me. I… I just want to get through the show. If I can make it through the performance without falling apart, at least I’ll have that as a positive. I’m not sure how much else I’ll have.”
“What about Vicky? Doesn’t finding her count as a positive?”
I nodded. “OK, yes. She’s definitely a positive. She’s my link to the past and – I hope – the future. Sometimes when we talk, it’s as though she still sees the real me. I can almost feel like my old self. She and I – we have at least the memory of our relationship and the hope to resume it, and I can almost pretend in my mind that we’re still dating. But… what happens if she does find somebody else? Somebody who’s actually a guy now?”
“That won’t feel good, will it?”
“No. I keep thinking that I’m just so lucky that the guys here are obviously too stupid to figure out how great she is. But what happens if one of them does? Where will that leave me?”
“Marsh, no matter what happens, you have your friends. Remember that. We love you as you are, and we’ll be here to support you.”
“Thanks,” I murmured. “Thing is, I can’t help thinking that you’re friends with Marsha, though. Sometimes I feel so jealous of her. OK, she didn’t get the guitar and can’t play, but she’s a better singer than I am, probably a better actor… I thought I was really close to my sister, but she seems to have been even closer to Marsha than she was to me. And I was here first! Marsha probably shouldn’t ever have existed, but now she seems to be trying to replace me.”
“Marsh. I’m friends with you. Yes, I remember Marsha, and I liked her. You are more alike than you realize, I think. And I really admire the way you’ve been coping with what must be an unbearable situation, much worse than what Ben is going through, and handling it so much better.
“Whatever Marsha’s reality, you are the one who’s here now. Not Marsha. You are the one who’s replaced her, essentially. Would she cope as well if she were put into your shoes? Who knows? But don’t sell yourself short. You have enormous strength, and that’s what your friends respect. Vicky didn’t even know Marsha, right? And you’re the one who exists now.”
I managed a small smile, got up from the machine and hugged Nikki. “Thanks,” I said. “That really does help. There are times I just want to… I don’t know. I’m not a quitter, but why couldn’t I just wake up and discover that this was all a dream?”
She hugged me tighter, but didn’t say anything, and somehow… somehow that was enough.
After dinner, I got Dan’s name from Vicky and looked him up in the student directory.
“Alright, scratch that idea,” he said when I told him about my conversation with Nikki. “I like her suggestion that they might have used a mailing list only for the younger students.”
“But don’t you remember how you found out about the experiment?” I asked.
“Marsh, do you have any idea how many experiments I volunteered for? I found them in all kinds of different places and made a list. I’m pretty sure the rest of the Strangers did much the same. If you’re trying to raise some cash by being a guinea pig, you assume that the college has checked all of the experiments to make sure they’re safe.”
“And we can’t even check with whoever would have done that, since the administration’s official word is that there was no such experiment.”
“Exactly.”
“OK,” I asked, “what’s next? Do you have any more ideas on how we track these guys down? Does anybody have instruction sheets from the experiment that we can look at?”
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t hand anything out. I remember signing something, and they told me to take notes and come back for an interview, but that’s it.”
“I don’t suppose anybody remembers doing the interview?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Why?”
He looked at me as though I were stupid. “After you woke up like this, was your first thought, ‘Gee, I should go for an interview with these guys’?”
“Oh.” His assessment was right. Boy did I feel dumb. “I didn’t even give it a thought.”
“Yeah, well, I think two people did try to go in for the interview, but couldn’t find them. About half of the rest tried to find them to change back or get an explanation – also no luck. The rest did pretty much as you did. I mean, when you find your body physically changed, helping somebody with a lab experiment doesn’t see very important, does it?”
I nodded. “So it’s just one dead end after another.”
“I know, right? I’ve been racking my brains, trying to figure out what else we can use, but as I said, so far I cannot think of anything at all to distinguish between time travel wiping out the experiment and the experimenters just going into hiding. Marsh, seriously. If I come up with anything, I’ll give you a call. I just don’t know what else to tell you right now.”
Another disappointing chapter for me.
I am disappointed at how many times in the book information/scenes has either been missing or, when questioned, asnswered with an ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember, I don’t care, or it doesn’t matter.” A dead end is much funner if you don’t see the sign… if you drive down the street aways, thinking it is going somewhere, and only then get to the dead end.
So, the search of the physics building.. find a name, think it is the right one, break in, and find it is all about something different. Papers; remember papers, know where you put them, look them up, and have them be something different.
So much here seems to fizzle before it really starts burning. And, seriously, I went to an experiment and nobody gave me any papers?? Nobody gave me a long detailed explanation with various caveats? This all may be plot driven, but for the interest it would be nice if the plot allowed us to explore *something* before it fizzled. And if nothing else, this should drive tension by itslef, as everyone goes, ‘this is nuts!’ all the other experiments we did had innumerable papers, and warnings, and lectures… what is with this one?
>>“I don’t suppose anybody remembers doing the interview?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” he admitted.
“Terrific. It’s just one dead end after another.”
Instead, last line
:: What? How on earth can that be? We all forgot it? I may be brain dead, but how could *everyone* have forgotten the interview?
“I don’t know, that does seem odd.”
(SNERK)
Theory: They’ve all been programmed with an almost-effective aversion to thinking too hard about the experiment. (SEE: Spider Robinson’s “Mind Killer”)
(Seriously, though, it provides more evidence their minds, rather than their histories, have been tampered with>)
Corollary: The papers will turn out to have been sitting next to the fax machine for the last couple of years. I’ve heard (from the highest levels!) that happens all the time.
Had to look this one up:
snerk
Verb or Noun: Small sound that is emitted through the nose and mouth, usually a compressed laugh or snort. Often accompanied with a small grin, smirk, or sneer. Usually a tone of either derision, (as when someone says something you find stupid) or innocent humor. (When someone tells you a funny joke and you are busy doing something else, so a full-fledged laugh is difficult.)Nice to use behind other’s backs, as when they do something inanely stupid and you can’t help but laugh about it, but don’t want to fall over laughing.
I agree Scott, I have been thinking this for a while. Russ and I had quite a discussion about the possibility of hypnosis. But my current theory is a mind thing. And alternate universes, of course. Can’t do without my alternate universes.
My favorite theory, tho, is that it is all completely fake, an advertisement for the play 🙂
Um… I’m going to claim lack of sleep when I wrote this. Yeah, that’s it. Lack of sleep. I have fixed it.
This is a good idea, and I just have to figure out where it belongs. Probably the search on Monday.
Color me confused. I had thought you were talking about the interview *before* the experiment, where they discuss what they are doing, how long it will last, possible risks, etc.
You didn’t read “they told me to take notes and come back for an interview,” ?
Oh, I might have. I forget the original.
Anyway, my point in my other comments and emails is that I can’t believe that there has been no debrief/discussion about ‘what did they tell you’. If they had done other experiments, then they would know the routine, and this was *not* routine but bizarrely short. And the fact they hadn’t discussed it is… an issue. No papers?!
That was in the original and unchanged.
Your experiences must have been different from mine. I never remember getting any papers to take with me, and generally I only received very brief explanations of the experiments. Subjects knowing too much can distort experiments that deal with psychology or perception.
I work in the medical field, and ‘informed consent’ is very important, legally. An experiment that did this would… well, it would be illegal… but leaving that aside I would think a very long contract, and a very long explanation explaining all of the possible risks, etc.
Very different from a ‘do nothing’ experiment, like ask you a bunch of questions etc. Do you remember the famous obedience to authority experiment… Stanley Milgram? Caused a huge fuss, and a bunch of rule changes.
Anyway, I remember Marsh saying something about his instructions, I would like to hear from others, more details.
Ah, OK – I see where you are coming from. We are not talking about medical testing here.
In my experience, the kinds of experiments that students volunteer for are run by students, and generally reviewed by their advisors and the administration to ensure that there is no risk. For example, one psych student wanted to study the effect of alcohol on lowering inhibitions. Each volunteer was given a drink which might or might not contain alcohol (the taste was heavily disguised) and asked to do something that many would have considered a bit embarrassing – sing a corny song. The administration modified the experiment to lower the amount of alcohol that a volunteer could be asked to consume to a level that IMHO invalidated the experiment.
So the volunteers here had every expectation that there would be NO danger. Clearly that point should have been made, probably around chapter 6. I just took it as obvious.
>>generally reviewed by their advisors and the administration to ensure that there is no risk.
>>The administration modified the experiment to lower the amount of alcohol that a volunteer could be asked to consume to a level that IMHO invalidated the experiment.
But this is my point. If it was an absolute no risk experiment, then it could have been less paperworked. But if, as here, it would actually effect the student (as in medical testing, which students sign up for) then there would have had to be a waiver with informed consent.
So either this was a rogue experiment or it went way beyond its bounds or it would have needed informed consent… ie lots of paperwork.
And here you have a bunch of students who, if the various shards of information we have heard are put together, volunteered for a very dramatic experiment without informed consent. And none of them questioned this?
But this is all extraneous to my point, which is that the plot and the tension would be moved forward more (IMO) by more information, more searching, etc., and not less. It seems that we end up with a gray void at the end of every tunnel, which is not that interesting, especially when the tunnel is short.
It seems a little forced when Vix asks about the periods.
Maybe she should “Suddenly Realise” that Marsh must be getting periods, rather than explicitly know she is on it right now. I NEVER assume PMS. It’s mean. Because sometimes people have a valid reason to be in a bad mood and want you to ask you whats wrong, not assume its PMS. Even if I had PMS, which I don’t get bad, I would rather someone asked me what’s wrong than assume it’s my “time”. Vicky would likely not jump straight to asking if she is on, even if she knows it’s Marshall, not Marsha.
>>It seems a little forced when Vix asks about the periods.
True. A little abrupt. I would think a bathroom scene might work better. It would be a girl thing, too. You all are always going to the bathroom together.
Not to talk about periods and tampons! More to slag people off of discuss how cute that boy was over there.
One more thing about the experiment: if it an experiment, then presumably the testers would like to know what happened, right? This suggests that maybe some of the Strangers are in on it, perhaps changing theirselves in order to fit in, or maybe they have a way to go back and forth between timeframes?
If they have some sort of portal that would allow them a chance to observe their experiments while not giving up their own lives. It might also explain why the school would want to cover the experiment up; such a portal could be tremendously valuable, maybe even worth ruining a couple of kids’ lives (in the scientists’ eyes).
>>“No, I just haven’t had a melt down in front of you, that’s all It’s getting a lot harder, now.”
I don’t know if this comment has already been posted as I haven’t been reading all of the comments, but I was kind of thinking that Marsh’s reaction to this whole experience is to calm, and not frantic or panicked at all. At first I thought he was just stuck in the first phase of acceptance(denial), but it seems that most of his responses lack a certain amount of emotion. I just thought it kind of weird that he hasn’t even had a minor outbreak yet.
melt down <– meltdown is typically one word, not two
in front of you, that’s all <– missing a period
Does anybody have instruction sheets from the experiment that we can look out? <– look at?