“Amanda, are you ready to go? The bus will be here in ten minutes.”

  I was all packed for the bus ride. Troy and I would be staying in a hotel near the Great Lakes Navy base this evening, and then going to Kos-Api’s ceremony tomorrow. On Saturday we would be following Kos-Api down to Texas for the weekend. The extra-terrestrials were flying the bus, and I wasn’t sure how Troy had managed that. Also, this was going to be my first weekend in a long while away from my friend slash support group, and I was nervous.

  Troy had told me weeks ago what Kos-Api could do, and then I confirmed it in a letter as soon as I could get it to the post office. Kos-Api could fix it. No more medication, no surgery, no lifelong discomfort, no embarrassment, she could just put it the way it always should have been.

  She could start once she was released from duty on Friday afternoon. We would actually fly up to the Space Station. It blew my mind that I could even think that in my head. Space. And then Freedom. That she would do this for me, having only met me a handful of times was another point of confusion for me. She set me up with her… boyfriend and was rooting for us, despite our current… incompatibility.

  Troy was sweet, and understanding, and supportive. But what I had wasn’t what he was looking for, which was fine because I didn’t want it either. I mean, I was a big fan of the guy parts and always had been. Just having one attached to me was my own personal nightmare.

  Kos-Api had worked out the permissions with the Navy to go so far away and perform this procedure. They had actually talked to me about it last week. I had signed a consent form for scanner data to be shared with medical professionals, after editing out personally identifying information to ensure it stayed HIPAA compliant. I hadn't had time to blink my eyes twice before scrambling for a pen.

  Troy walked back in the door.

  “Amanda?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. I’m ready.” I hefted my bag full of cute outfits and shooed Troy back out. Locking the door of the mother-in-law suite behind me, I walked over and rapped on the back door of the main house.

  “Bill, George, I’m going!”

  “Be safe! Take your pepper spray!” shouted Bill from inside. Ironic considering the man never went anywhere without a pistol in his purse.

  “I’ll be with a commando and a magic catgirl, Bill. Anyone that messes with me will have their pronouns changed to Bold Design Element.”

  “That’s the spirit!” shouted George.

  We walked around the house and waited just two or three minutes for the space bus to land out in the street. The door being smack dab in the center of the front side was strange, but since the driver seat was at the top of the rear and empty anyway it made a strange sort of sense.

  “Welcome aboard.” came a voice from the overhead speakers. “We will be taking this trip more slowly than normal. Three legs of approximately one hour each, with some rest stops in the middle for bio breaks and snacks. Please make yourselves comfortable and I encourage using the restraints in the seats.”

  Troy and I played a ccg on the floor of the bus until the first stop. To avoid attracting too much attention, the bus stopped at a back road convenience store. The poor cashier didn't know what to do with a cute circle skirt with petticoats hopping out of a flying bus though. I hope we broadened her horizons.

  The second leg of the trip Troy took a nap as you do in the military when flying and I made some changes to my Island on my game console. The second stop was at a family restaurant off a highway and the bus made itself scarce for an hour. The waitress loved my outfit, and Troy exchanged guy nods with a table full of vets near the back.

  We chatted about that one anime with the skeleton main character and brainstormed how to do a good cosplay on a character with no fleshy bits. Then we finished up the ride to Chicago and the bus dropped us off at the rental car place.

  Troy had booked the car and hotel under his name, so I ducked the trauma of having to tell people who I was even though I had legally changed my documents years ago. It still stung.

  The hotel room was nice. Troy had evidently either shelled out some monies or got hooked up because it had an unobstructed view of the lake.

  We ordered room service for dinner, because neither of us had ever been to a place with a good room service menu and it was super cool. Then we watched the streaming services while stuffing pasta in each other's faces and looking at the lights out on the water. The night ended with cuddling, because cuddling was good and safe.

  The next morning after breakfast I got to see Troy in his dress uniform, which was candy candy candy. My dress was perfect, since I made it myself. Then boring car ride, boring waiting in line, boring bench seating blah boring. Thank God for mobile gaming.

  Then the sailors came out in their white uniforms standing in neat little people boxes and walked around smartly. Kos-Api was easy to spot. Her hat didn’t match and she was the only one with a tail. She was very still. If she wanted to pretend she wasn’t there she probably shouldn’t be standing right up front with a flag.

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  Then very important sounding people made very important sounding speeches that I couldn't find it in me to care about and finally it was over. I somehow missed the point where Kos gave the flag back but then everybody was released and it took us a minute to sort through all the boaty bois to find her.

  Ashley had found her first. Her and three other MIB had boxed her in and I saw three others circling like sharks. Kos Api looked thrilled to see us. She took Troy’s hand and bit it. Then she took my hand.

  “Permission. Significantly meaningful gesture.”

  “Um, yes?” Kos-Api confused me a bit sometimes. She put her teeth on me but unlike Troy she didn’t break the skin.

  Ashley got us moving and we were quickly ushered to somebody’s office.

  “Allegro will be here soon to pick us all up. She had to stop first in Norfolk to get the observers.”

  “Observers?” I squeaked. “Do we have to?”

  “They are observing me,” said Kos-Api. “They won’t see any more of you than you are showing now. Since I am not licensed to practice medicine they are sending doctors to ensure that I stay within Earth human ethical boundaries.”

  “That makes sense.” I said hesitantly.

  “We were able to ensure all the doctors are women. This isn’t a show.”

  “I have arrived.” came a voice out of Ashley’s pocket. “I am on the East side of the building soaking up the attention. Exit to the West in five minutes and I will hop over the building to pick you up.”

  “OK, out we go.” Three agents led the way and the other three followed behind. We exited into a parking area where the last stragglers were moving away.

  “Ok, up and over.” said the voice again. Ashley held me and Kos-Api back to the wall and a moment later a huge spaceship was hovering inches above the cars in the lot, lowering a ramp as it finished turning away from us. Ashley and Troy rushed us up the ramp and the others raced up behind us. I couldn’t feel movement but the big screen in the room we all walked into showed that we were already over the lake and getting faster and higher very quickly.

  “Amanda, join me up front please. Corporal Givens, please show the agents where to change clothes.”

  “Why would Troy know that?” I asked.

  “Classified.” Troy shut me down while gently herding me through the door in the front of the room. Oh my God. I was in the room where they flew the ship. Breathe. Be cool. Breathe. There was a girl in a space suit in the front flying the space ship. Oh my God. She’s flying. Breathe. She had the word BUBBLEGUM in balloon letters across the back of the helmet racked behind her seat with cartoon depictions of the candies. SO CUTE. She looked over her shoulder at me.

  “You seem to be in some manner of distress.”

  “Fighting for my life here.” I wheezed.

  “Do I need to ask for one of the doctors back there?” she asked.

  “The excitement has me on the ropes, but the Cute will be what gets me.”

  “Aw, shucks. Take my seat here so you get the best view for this next part.” She climbed up out of the seat.

  “But you’re flying!”

  “Silly woman, I don’t need to sit here to fly.” She stepped back to grab my wrist and plunked me down in her seat. One of the other two identical seats behind us rotated to face forward and the girl dropped heavily into it. Then all the bright displays projected in front of me blanked out leaving me a clear view out the front window. OK, having trouble breathing again.

  “Just relax and take it in. Continue existing.” The girl said comfortingly. We got higher and higher and the sky got dark and then the Earth was just, you know, there. We flipped over so it was above us instead of below and I lost myself for a while.

  After a few minutes I heard Troy and Kos-Api behind me. Kos -Api scratched my head lightly with her claws.

  “Who is driving? Oh my God, Amanda is driving! How can that be?” the girl in the back seat joked.

  “I don’t get it.” prompted Troy.

  “Bleh, and now I understand why people say that youth is wasted on the young.”

  “If I can pull you away from the window, we need to have a talk.” said Kos-Api.

  “We should move then, because the window is all I can see right now.” I said and stood. Once I actually looked at them I saw that they had put on space suits like the girl flying. We went back to the big room where the living area was and then left into a small side room where there were several beds built into the walls. Kos-Api sat me down and sat on the bed next to me.

  “I have to give you a warning and an apology before we start today. At home this process takes years and the reason boils down to that they do it all with magic and there is an energy bottleneck. Here we can do parts of it with technology thus making it less energy intensive. Also, there's no energy bottleneck so we're going to do it all in a day.”

  “That sounds good?”

  “All things in trade. We're going to be seriously altering your body chemistry today and it's going to make you feel awful the entire time. The worst parts are that we're going to be increasing your blood pressure and bypassing your heart so that we can cycle your blood much faster. The second part is that we're going to radically increase your blood sugar which is going to make you feel thirsty and nauseous and you are going to have a headache the whole time.”

  “Oh.“

  “It's your body so you get to decide how you feel about this.”

  “Can’t you just…” I wiggled my fingers at her.

  “Yes, I can. But I'm already deleting and creating whole organs for you, Amanda. How comfortable are you with me having to split my attention off of that for hours at a time to do things that others can do for me without magic?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good point. OK, sound mind and body and I'm going to do it anyway.”

  “Brave girl.” Kos-Api said encouragingly. She patted my head.