Richard Dickinson frowned down at the halter top and shorts he was wearing. It had happened again.
It wasn't the first time he'd jumped into a woman. His second jump--or no, was it his third? yes, it had been his third jump--he had found himself dressed in a sports bra and spandex running shorts, jogging along a tree-tined sidewalk. Richard had felt humiliated to be dressed in such clothing in public, though of course he knew that no one saw him; rather they saw the woman he had become. Still, it was embarassing, and it had forced him to feel some sympathy for the other men in town who had become women. He'd been relieved when, a moment later, he'd felt himself be snatched away into another life. Unfortunately, that next life had been that of a waitress in an old-fashioned waitress's uniform.
Two jumps later he'd found himself dressed in one of the revealing uniforms he'd admired on the cheerleaders at the local high school football games, and in his most recent jump--his longest yet--he'd become a bridesmaid at a wedding that had been disrupted by the swaps when a man named Eric had jumped into the bride. That jump had been the worst; although the floor-length gown he'd been wearing had been considerably less revealing than either the cheerleading outit or the jogging clothes, Richard had been forced to deal with high heels and a very constricting dress, not to mention the advances of a groomsman who could not wrap his mind around the concept that Richard wasn't really a woman. Perhaps, Richard reflected, it was justice that he, a man who had not treated women with much respect for most of his life, was forced to experience life repeatedly as a woman.
Just or not, though, it didn't make Richard happy. So when he looked around and caught sight of the reflection of a young HIspanic woman in a mirror against the wall, he scowled at it.
He looked down at the book lying open on the desk in front of him. It appeared to be a civics textbok; Richard couldn't help but reflect on the irony of a third-term mayor finding himself reading an introductory-level civics textbook. He'd been taking notes, or rather the girl he'd become had been; skimming briefly through them, Richard found them to be utter nonsense. If things ever quieted down and he found himself back in his own body, Richard would have to do something about the quality of the textbooks in town. Of course, Richard had always been a little skeptical of the whole concept of teaching government and politics out of a textbook; books and lectures and notes could never approximate the real hands-on experience of governance.
Putting the books aside, Richard stood. He was in a dorm room, a particularly cramped and musty one. He needed some fresh air, and an opportunity to think. Taking a purse lying on the bed and slipping into a pair of flip-flops, Richard stepped out into the hallway.
A short distance down the hall, Richard saw a small crowd gathered. They whispered restlessly to each otehr, concerned expressions on ther faces. Richard approached them and asked, "What's going on?"
"Shhh," said a young man. Whispering, the man said, "It's Callie. She's gone nuts. She's got her roomate in there, and she's holding her hostage. She's claiming she's really a man named Frank Murphy, and she says she won't let her roommate go until someone turns her back into a man."
Frank Murphy? Richard frowned. He'd heard of Frank Murphy. Murphy had tried to rob a bank in broad daylight two years back and had murdered three people in the process. He was supposed to be locked up in John Wilson... no longer, apparently. This was serious.
"Have you called the police?" Richard asked, keeping his voice low.
"Can't," said the young man. "She says she'll kill her roomate if anyone calls the cops."
Richard frowned. Turning to the door, he shouted, "Excuse me... Murphy? Frank Murphy?"
"What do you want?" came a feminine voice from the other side of the door.
"You want some answers?" Richard said. "I think I have some for you. I know what's happened to you. You've found yourself in someone else's clothing, and you see a stranger when you look into the mirror. You're angry, confused, and afraid. I know... it happened to me, too. It's happening to people all over town. You're not alone. The police, the mayor's office, even the federal government... they're all working to contain the crisis and find a way to restore people to their proper bodies."
"I don't wanna go back to my body," Murphy said. "My body's in prison. I'm not goin' back there. I just wanna be a man again. Some dude kissed me a while ago 'cause he thought I was his girlfriend... do you know how disgusting that is?"
"I'm..." Richard hestitated. "I'm not sure anyone can do that. We don't even know what's caused people to switched places... we... or rather, the government... they might be able to return people to their own bodies, but keeping you in your current body and turning you into a man... I'm not sure anyone has that kind of power. Though," Riichard added, more quietly, "at this point I'm not sure what's possible and what's impossible."
"Okay," Murphy said, "then put me in another guy's body. Whatever. Just make me a man again."
Richard sighed. He was beginning to suspect that Murphy wasn't going to listen to reason. "Listen," Richard said, putting a harder edge into his voice. "Open that door immediately, or I'll--"
"Or you'll what?" Murphy said. "You just sound like some stupid little girl. What are you gonna do, huh? You ain't getting through this door, an' I've already told you the girl bites it if you call the cops."
Murphy was right, Richard realized. He couldn't rally the police from his current body, and even if he could, Murphy had already made it quite clear that the police were not to get involved. Richard wasn't sure what to do... he was a politician, not a hostage negotiator. Murphy had the upper hand here.
Before Richard could worry about the situation any longer, he found himself being swept away and off to another life.
Heat.
Richard was aware of the heat even before the light had faded. It was sweltering... no, sweltering wasn't strong enough a word for it. As the last wisps of light faded from his view, Richard realized that the building he was in was on fire. Flames raged around him. Richard was on the floor, his body pressed close to the ground, presumably to stay below the line of smoke in the air above him. The air was already getting thin, having been drained of oxygen by the fire. The fire must have been burning for a while now. The building groaned; it must have suffered structural damage. It probably wouldn't be standing long. Richard knew he couldn't survive long staying where he was; either the fire would get him or the roof would collapse or he would suffocate. His best shot at surviving, he realized grimly, would be for him to switch out of here before one tragedy or another befell him; that meant that someone else would switch into his body, though, and Richard couldn't allow someone else to die in his place. He had to try to get out of here.
He didn't know where he was or what the layout of the building was, so he had no idea where he needed to go to get out. The smoke was too thick for him to get a good look around. With nothing better to go on, he picked a direction at random and started crawling forward.
Luck must have been with him; Richard saw sunlight on the carpet ahead and, crawling toward it, found himself in a room that had not yet substantially caught flame. Richard stood and saw he was in the front lobby of a business of some sort, though he couldn't tell what the business was. Light shone in through large windows along the wall, and outside Richard saw one of the more run-down areas of town. It didn't look like the fire department had arrived yet, but that didn't matter; he was free. Throwing the front door open, Richard started to step outside... but he stopped at the sound he heard next.
"Help!" a man's voice shouted, breaking above the roar of the fire. "Help me!"
Richard closed his eyes. So close. But he knew he couldn't leave. Not yet. So, taking a deep breath of fresh air, he turned and ran back into the inferno.
"Whoever said that," Richard said, heading back the way he came, "keep talking so I can find you. What's your name?"
"My name is Billy," the voice said. "I'm five years old and my last name is Thompson and I'm scared!"
Richard winced. A child? Could it get any worse?
"My name is Richard," Richard said. "What's your mommy's name?" Now he wanted to keep Billy talking not just so he could find the boy, but so he could keep him calm. The last thing Richard needed was from the body to panic.
"Her name is Bet... ahhhhh!" There was a crashing sound and Billy screamed, a high-pitched scream that sounded strange coming from a grown-man's mouth.
"Billy, are you okay?" Richard shouted. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah," Billy said, "but a piece of the ceiling just fell down. I'm scared..."
"I know, Billy, I know. Just try to keep calm. Do you know how to count?"
"I know how to count to thirty!" Billy said, a note of pride suddenly in his voice.
"Good for you," Richard said. "Can you count for me?"
Billy began counting, haltingly, and Richard headed in the direction of the boy's voice. It was becoming louder now... and at last, as Billy reached seventeen, Richard found him.
"Billy!" Richard said, looking at the middle-aged, heavyset figure huddled against the wall. "I'm here, Billy." Richard took Billy's hand. "I know the way out. Get down on your hands and kneeds and follow me."
Billy did so, and Richard wound his way back through the building toward the lobby, checking behind him every few steps to make sure Billy was still following. At last they found their way to the lobby, and they both got to their feet and sprinted tot he door as a burst of flames took the room.
Once outside, they fell to their knees and gasped for air. Richard turned and watched as the building burned behind them. The cracking sound that had been steadily growing suddenly got louder, and the building suddenly began to collapse violently to the ground.
"Thank you, Sir," Billy said, throwing his arms around Richard. "You save m--"
But Richard couldn't stay to listen to the rest of Billy's grateful words. The world vanished around him in a flash of light.
Richard found himself in the waiting rooom of a busy hospital. Activity bustled around him, and the room seemed to be packed nearly wall-to-wall with people. Patients, nurses, doctors... Richard had never imagined a hospital could be this busy. It looked like the pictures he'd seen of hospital after Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans a few years back; now that was a disaster Richard was glad he hadn't had to preside over. The situation in Richard's own town wasn't that bad, at least, though it seemed to be getting worse by the minute.
Richard looked down at his clothing. He was dressed in scrubs dotted with the smiling face of Big Bird, and he held a clipboard in his hand. So he must have been a nurse, probably one who worked with children. Richard was actually glad. This nurse would be perfect to take care of Billy, if that was in fact where he or she--no, she; Richard recognized the telltale constriction of a brassiere, having worn several by now--had been taken. Through Richard was sorry that the nurse had been taken away from her job; it looked like the hospital needed the help.
"Rebecca," said a male nurse as he passed Richard, "they need you up in ICU. You're supposed to report to Dr. Klein."
"I'm not Rebecca," Richard said.
The nurse stopped and stared ar Richard for a moment, then he ran a hand over his face. "Oh man, not another one."
"Another one?" Richard said.
"Yeah," the nurse said. "Another nurse swapped out of the hospital. Look, I'm sure you have a lot of questions... if you want to--"
"I know all about the swaps," Richard said. "I'm fine. I, uh... I guess you've had a lot of people switch places with your nurses?"
"And our doctors, and even our secretarial staff... we're having a really hard time keeping things running here with someone new switching bodies with one of our staff members every few minutes. And we're swamped..."
"So I can see," Richard said. "Things look pretty bad in here..."
"They are," the nurse said. "The swaps are really causing havoc out there. There are car crashes all over the city, people are getting into fights, people are having accidents right when they jump into their new bodies because they don't know what's going on... and as you can imagine, our psych staff is really being pushed to the limits, too. And people keep switching with our patients... that's the scariest part, to be honest. We have people who are hooked up to essential life support equipment who are switching out, to God knows where, and we're worried about what's happening to them out there once they're unplugged. And the people who switch in aren't much better off... they wake up hooked up to all sorts of machines pumping chemicals into their bodies. It's bad."
"I'm sorry to hear all this," Richard said. "And I'm sorry to have switched into this Rebecca and taken away another of your nurses."
"It's fine," the nurse said. "To be honest, we need nurses who have already swapped. We can't have nurses and doctors who haven't swapped touching patients who have, or they'll get switched out as well. We need some of our staff to still be in their original bodies to work with people who haven't been switched yet, but we need more staff who have already swapped. Rebecca will come back when she can, she'll be reassigned, and we'll be fine." The nurse looked over his shoulder. "Look, I need to get back to work." He looked at the clipboard in Richard's hand. "I should probably take that."
"Of course," Richard said, handing the clipboard to the nurse. "Good luck dealing with everything here."
"Thanks," the nurse said. He began to reach out reflexively to Richard to pat him on the arm; then he stopped himself, nodded curtly, and walked away, leaving Richard alone with his thoughts.
Richard sighed. The town was a mess. He had been dealing with the swaps and their aftermath all day, ever since his secretary had called him and informed him of the situation. But that was all intellectual. Cloistered by his office, his limousine, his aides, and his staff, Richard hadn't had an opportunity to see how things looked on the ground. Now that he had, things seemed very bleak indeed. He lamented the state of his city and his people. Despite the ugly realities of politics, despite his years in office and the cynicism that brought, despite his womanizing, despite his critics, Richard had run for office because he truly wanted to help people. Richard had begun his political career as an idealist, and after twelve years as mayor, his idealism persisted. Some of his aides called him naive, but Richard wanted the best for all of his citizens, and he truly believed that it was attainable with a little hard work and cooperation. Now, though, he had seen first-hand the ills of his city, and there was nothing he could do to help.
