MA-26 (Patreon)

“Mom, where are we going?” Jessie/Karyn cried after I pulled her into our condo.

“Pack a bag!” I screamed into her face. Locking the sliding door behind me, I grabbed my pull-along suitcase and started cramming clothes into it.

“But Mom, vacation isn’t over—“

“Honey!” I gripped her small shoulders, looking down into her eyes. She was so young how was this possible? She had been herself that morning, Transmigration Studios had evidently swapped her into a young girl’s body.

I looked into the mirror and saw I had also been swapped. It was a sight better than Joyce’s overweight older form, I was easily mid-thirties, toned, tanned, blonde...but definitely not me.

“Look into the mirror and who do you see?” I turned her in front of me, looking over her head.

She stared into the mirror. She had light brown shoulder-length hair framing a cherubic face and just the beginning of breasts, with light blue eyes like mine. It wasn’t the body of a fourteen-year-old, maybe twelve, or god forbid, ten?  Somehow that number sprang into my mind as I held her.

“I see me, and you, Mommy, standing over me.”

“Honey, look at me.” I knelt, to stare into her eyes.

She looked at me, fear bright in her young eyes.

“Please tell me you remember Karyn Adamson?”

She blinked...”No? Is that someone you work with?”

“No, honey. Close your eyes.”

She did as instructed, though I could tell from her trembling chin she was frightened.

“Does the name Robbie Adamson mean anything to you?”

“N..”

“No don’t answer,” I said. “Think about it, Robbie and Karyn Adamson.”

She frowned and I could tell she was starting to remember.

“Karyn was so pretty. And she had a YouTwit account and TalkTalk?”

“Yessss,” keep going.

She frowned. “Something...happened to her, didn’t it, Mommy? She...disappeared?”

“Think honey. What happened to Karyn and Robbie.”

She frowned cutely.

God, she was so young!

“You are my light, my heart, my..”

“Spirit, my strength..” I continued.

“You are my everything,” she continued. “I take you to be my husband, and be faithful, honest, and trust you.”

“I will respect and care for you.”

“Through the best and worst of that is to come...”

“For as long as we live.” We said together.

She opened her eyes. “Mommy, why do I know those words?”

“Honey, you used to be Karyn Adamson. Can you remember?”

She nodded a little but frowned like she was in pain. “It hurts my brain to think like that!” She started to cry.

“I know, baby.” I hugged her tightly, feeling her small body pressed up to me. “But they’ve done something to our minds this time. We have to fight it, and we have to run away from here.”

She wiped her eyes, nodding. “Where will we go?”

“I don’t know honey, but we have to get away from here. Frank...Stephen will be back and he’ll try to keep us this way forever.”

She nodded, then ran to her room and I heard her gathering her clothes.

Stephen knocked on the sliding door behind me. “You can’t do this, Joyce. Let’s talk.”

“The time for talking is over I screamed, throwing whatever I could into the suitcase, then zipping it up.

“Let’s go baby!” I said.

Karyn came out of her room with her pink pull-along suitcase. “I’m scared, Mom....Robbie.”

“Me too, honey, but we have to get to the car. I’m going to open it from here, then we’re going to run as fast as we can until we are in the car. Can you do that for me?”

She nodded her little head.

I grabbed the keys, purse, and as an afterthought, Stephen’s wallet from the entry table.

“Go!” I said, and we started running for the SUV.

Stephen came around the condo, and grabbed me from behind. I screamed. “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!”

“You’re not going anywhere, bitch!” he said, trying to force me back toward the condo. I writhed in his grasp, then kicked him hard in the groin, and shoved an elbow into his throat. It caught him by surprise and he doubled over, gasping and grabbing his pelvis.

“What’s going on?” A woman said, opening a condo door, two doors down from us.

“He’s trying to rape me!” I screamed, running for the car. Several people came out at that point and started to hold hands up to Stephen, who was trying to chase after me but couldn’t catch his breath.

“Listen, my dude, you might want to let her...” a man said, trying to pull Stephen away from the car.

I got in the car and looked back to make sure Karyn was in. “Seatbelt!”

She nodded and buckled herself in. I could see tears streaming down her little face in the rearview mirror as I started the car, and slammed it into reverse.

“You won’t get away with this!” Stephen yelled, trying to jump onto the hood of the car, but his new body was stout and a bit overweight so he couldn’t leverage himself up enough and he slid back down.

Pressing down on the gas, the car backed down the driveway and out onto the street. I was glad another car wasn’t coming as I threw it into drive, then slammed my foot down on the gas.

I almost lost control of it right there as the small SUV twisted from side to side and I think it might have gone up on two wheels, but I managed to maintain control as we streaked down the road. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I could see Stephen still doubled over in the middle of the road, bent over double as some of the neighbors tried to talk him down.

We made it out to the highway. I had to consider which direction we went.

New York would have been the best option to lose any pursuit since the roadways north of the state were limited. I could also go east, maybe toward Boston.

“Where are we going to go?”

I sighed, weighing options. “Boston,” I said, and turned right.

Light rain started to fall. My heart was pounding in Madeline’s chest. I took some deep breaths; it wouldn’t be a good look if I got pulled over by state police.

“Are you okay, honey?” I said, looking in the review mirror.

She had her earbuds in.

“Yes.”

“So you can remember now who we were?”

She nodded. “It hurts to remember, though.”

“I know.”

She held up her hands, staring at them. “I’m not even fourteen, am I? I look like I’m younger than that.”

I sighed. “I think you may only be ten.”

She nodded. “That’s what feels right now. Something in my brain keeps saying: It’s only natural that you’re ten years old.”

My eyes widened, and I pulled the car over to the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?”

I got out of the car, and immediately wished I’d packed an umbrella. The rain sluiced over my hair, ruining my new hairstyle. I opened her door quickly.

“What, Mommy?”

“Honey, I think it’s this doing it!” I grabbed her media device.

“But that has my music!”

I threw the thing into the bushes. “We were both listening to it last night, remember?”

Realization dawned in her eyes. “Oh, my God.”

I nodded, as I got back in.

“Jesus, I even got in the back seat!” She said. “They programmed me to be a little girl!”

“We’re going to be okay,” I said, as I pulled the car back onto the highway.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

I sighed. “Some how, Some way, we are going to Abu Dhabi. That’s where all of this ends.”

“That thing you were talking about, Mommy?”

I nodded. “Ambition.”

“Do you think our bodies will be there?”

I winced. Karyn’s body was back in the town we just left. I hadn’t considered that.

It made sense though that whoever had been put into our bodies would be at the event. Whatever was happening there, it was drawing everyone involved in both Transmigration Studios and Lord Mallory INC.

“I think it’s our best bet,” I said.

“What if it’s not, though?” She said in that small voice. “What if I’m stuck like this?”

“We’re going to be okay, baby,” I said. “Regardless, we stick together, right?”

“Through the best and worst of what is to come,” Karyn said.

“For as long as we live.”

I gritted my teeth, furious at the situation I’d allowed us to be put in.

Some how, some way, we were going to be okay.