The transformation process was not yet done with Janice. When she'd adopted the name she'd been assigned...with Rebecca Fine's help, she'd appeared in her early twenties. No one would mistake her for a college student now.
She was still extremely attractive, but the signs of age had been written into her face. Rebecca had been slowly changing her outlook, and her body was catching up. The 20-year old Janice had made way for a 30-year old one. In fact, Rebecca would much younger than Janice to any observer.
She began to change the tone of their conversations once again. They had gone from her as authority figure to friend and now it was time to change those parameters again.
"When can I go home?" Janice asked her one morning.
"In two days, ma'am," Rebecca said. She'd started calling Janice ma'am the previous day. "To be honest, we mostly kept you here for her benefit. She needs you, after all."
"I want to take her home now," Janice insisted.
Rebecca cringed, rather deliberately. She twisted her hair around her finger nervously, as if she were merely an unimportant cog in a higher bureacracy. "I don't think that is a good idea. At least another day," she said.
"There is nothing wrong with either of us," Janice insisted.
"I'll see what I can do," Rebecca said. "If we can expedite things. In the mean time, you don't really have to wear that hospital gown anymore. Why don't you get your stuff out of the closet in your room and get dressed?"
Janice took the suggestion. When alone, Rebecca smiled. The last phase of Janice's programming was complete. Janice was actually treating her as an inexperienced young hospital worker...seeing the world the way Rebecca had been assigned to make her. How far their relationship had come.
The final tests would be tomorrow.
