The next few pages of the Face in the Mirror

You've heard the expression “You could have heard a pin drop?” The room was saved from that solely by the beeping of the medical monitors and the groan of the automatic blood pressure cuff. The silence wasn't broken till the nurse came back in, bearing the promised painkiller. The poor woman took one look around the room and inquired, “Bad timing?”

Walt took the medicine from her and shooed her back out so they could “Consult privately with the patient and his next of kin.”

“This is a joke right? Help the patient get over the stress,” I asked.

Coleen gripped my hand tighter. “It's true dear. You don't have to worry though, Dr. Chapman says they should be able to perform a sex change on you, in a few months, when you've fully recovered.”

“Assuming you want to, that is.” Dr Shimada added.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Coleen spat. “Why wouldn't he want to be a man again?”

Shimada just shrugged. “New body, new hormones, major trauma. We have talked about this.”

“Yes, yes,” Coleen was clearly angry now. “And I still think your being ridiculous. I know my husband.”

Dr. Shimada looked like she was about to say more but decided against it.

I thought I'd been overwhelmed before. Now, I felt like I was drowning in confusion, as dozens of questions vied for my new tongue. The one that won out was, “Why didn't you just do the sex change while I was already out, during the transplant?”

Walt chuckled, “Your wife wanted us to, but, medically speaking, it wasn't a good idea.” As he spoke he was dabbing medicine around where the hair had been ripped off my arm. “Your new body was somewhat atrophied, from inactivity, before we acquired it and the transplant procedure put a large additional strain on your metabolism. You'll have a hard enough time with recovery and getting used to a new body without adding more changes.

“Also, no one has ever done gender reassignment surgery on a felis before. It should be quite similar to the procedure for humans but we thought one untested experimental procedure at a time would be best.”

“So, am I strapped down in case I reacted violently?” I inquired, half joking.

“Are you inclined to?” Shimada responded, deadpan.

“We connected your major nerves surgically, but used nanobots to reconnect the rest of them over a week or so,” Walt explained, while giving Shimada a dirty look. “You experienced several violent muscle contractions as the nerves were repaired. We had to strap you in, to keep you from hurting yourself. After we make sure you have sensation and muscle control in all your extremities we can unstrap you.” With that he began the examination, which was largely poking me with a stylus and asking where I felt it, then having me wiggle fingers and toes and clench other muscles. The strangest part was when he touched the tail. Felis have tails, which their brains are wired to feel with and control. Humans do not have tails and our brains are NOT wired for it, unless there is some evolutionary holdover from monkeys in us. I felt every touch on the tail as though he was touching around the base of my spine, and I couldn't make it move at all. It seemed to move on it's own, however. Dr. Shimada speculated that it might be an interaction of muscle memory and my mood, because felis used their tails for emotional expression. Whatever the cause, it bothered me that I could feel this extra limb move against things but not control it. After several minutes on each limb and my head, he unstrapped me and I could finally adjust the bed and sit up.

Looking down at myself was a surreal experience. It was bizarre to see arms covered with fur coming out of me. Stranger still was to see breasts under the hospital gown I was wearing. Why did the genetic engineers who created the neo's give felis breasts? Cat's don't have them. Their teats swell when they are nursing, but aren't noticeably large at other times. Was it just so they could tell the difference between males and females when they had pants on? Walt had left the blanket off my feet and instead of human feet I saw over-sized cat paws. As I looked around the room I realized that everything looked slightly smaller than it should, just as Coleen's hand had felt small. It took me a moment to remember that felis generally stood between seven and eight feet tall, so I was probably over a foot taller than I used to be. “This is so weird.”

“Well, if you thought it was normal, I'd worry.” Shimada replied.

The Face in the Mirror: a transhuman identity crisis