The scuffle intensified, hands, rough and insistent, closing around Milton's biceps. "You're coming with us, kid," a gruff voice rumbled in his ear. He'd been shouting, screaming about their hateful rhetoric, a lone voice against a sea of red hats, and now this. Panic flared, hot and sharp, in his gut. There had to be a way out, any way. He squeezed his eyes shut, a desperate, silent plea for a miracle.
The next thing: he was blinking against the sun. His lashes seemed longer, tickling the tops of his cheeks. Beneath his feet, the ground pressed back with a different kind of certainty, less familiar, distributed in new ways through hips and toes. He staggered, catching himself, and registered—in a sequence of shocks—his hands, their nails painted a subdued, corporate pink, their fingers slender and precise, wearing a gold ring he’d never seen before. He flexed them, marveling at the delicate articulation of bone and tendon, distracted for a moment from the blank, white noise in his head.
The world outside had resumed motion, time unpausing.
There was, at the edge of the plaza, a line of police officers in riot gear, weapons slung but not drawn, and two of them were hustling a wild-limbed, hoodie-clad protestor away from the scene.
That protestor was him.
He glanced down, bewildered, at a pristine white tank top and form-fitting jeans. The breasts. the hips. The blonde hair cascading down. Undeniably a woman’s body.
And then he saw him – his own body, lanky and clad in a dark hoodie, being frog-marched away by two stern-faced officers. The figure's mouth was agape, a silent scream of disbelief. He recognized the look – the same shock and confusion that must be mirrored on his own, new face.
He pressed trembling fingers to his face, interrogated the highness of the cheekbones beneath, the softness of the lips, the angle of the jaw.
He was… her? The blonde woman he'd barely registered in the periphery of the MAGA rally, walking calmly amongst the very people he’d been screaming at? He looked up at the man holding his hand – a burly guy with a concerned frown.
"Are you okay, honey?" the man asked, his voice low and comforting.
"Honey?" he squeaked, the word sounding high-pitched.
He watched his old body disappear down the street, a growing knot of terror and exhilaration twisting in his stomach. He'd escaped arrest, all right. But at what cost? And how in the world was he going to explain this to… well, anyone?
"That was wild," her husband said, almost reverently, "We got out of there just in time, Lizzie."
Lizzie? Oh, fuck.
"Yeah," he uttered.
He was a woman…
Oh, God. Not just a woman, but a red-hatted, Fox-News-worshipping, God-Bless-America, All-Lives-Matter Barbie. He was certain of it the instant a gust lifted a strand of that platinum hair into his field of vision—freshly highlighted, Jesus Christ—and the man whose hand still practically enveloped his own beamed at him with a kind of proud, paternal affection, as if they’d just pulled off the world’s most daring escape.
He’d spent years fighting with people like Lizzie on Twitter, trading barbs and gifs, blocking and being blocked, and now all at once he was her, a living meme of everything he’d despised.
The man he assumed was her husband was now steering them both toward a waiting pickup truck, its bumper festooned with flags and slogans that made him want to retch.
He caught himself staring at the way his knees pressed together, at the unfamiliar distribution of mass in his chest and hips as he folded in.
Once in the truck, the man—Mike, because of course his name was Mike—kept glancing over, eyes soft with concern, “You sure you’re okay? You got real quiet, babe.”
He scrambled for footing on this new terrain, “Just—shaken up.”
That answer seemed to satisfy him.
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