New commission - "The Change" - Part 5

You want to know your real name? The one you came here with?” The question lingers as Nicole walks, hand in hand, with Rachel.

Nicole doesn’t have a secret name, just as she isn’t a secret boy. The idea! The absurdity! If ever there was a girly-girl, a perfect princess, it’s Nicole.

Yes, there are some missing pieces in Nicole’s life. Because she’s special. She’s extraordinary.

Miss Anderson discovered her. Dr Sucette gave her super-powers. And before that?

Nicole doesn’t know. She doesn’t need to know. She doesn’t care.

Silly, soppy Rachel.

A boy. Nicole shakes her head, smirking to herself. After this is over, she’ll tell Miss Anderson about Rachel’s crazy story, she’ll tell Miss Brown and even Miss McKay. They’ll all have a good laugh.

Nicole keeps hold of the teenager’s hand, which is enough to keep her under control. As Sucette used to say, when Nicole was getting used to her powers, “You can’t hug someone forever. What you say then, it matters. It echoes. Don’t waste your words.”

They enter the headquarters building, so nondescript that it could be any office. It could belong to an estate agent if they didn’t have any properties on their books. It could belong to a dentist if they didn’t want any patients.

There’s no issues at the front desk. There wouldn’t be anyway because everyone on staff knows Nicole and Rachel. They would see the two girls together and assume an important meeting or mission. They would wave the two agents through.

But there is no one sitting at the reception desk today. And Nicole thinks, yes, she’s noticed less staff, less presence. She thinks about what Dr Sucette before the last mission (the one rewarded with the Samantha American Girl doll – Victorian era, they don’t even make that one anymore, but Sucette had found it, along with a matching pink dress for Nicole to wear with it):

“You’ve been in the field long enough, honey. You don’t need to call back-up. You’re more powerful than any of us.”

Perhaps that’s why Nicole didn’t just take Rachel back into the school and let Miss Anderson deal with her. Because there’s no back-up anymore. Because the rug has been pulled out. But as they stand in the lift, Nicole is honest with herself and understands that they came to the clinic because she needs to see Dr. Sucette. The doctor always knows how to clean up messes.

Sucette stole you.

Impossible. Unsayable. What a nasty idea. The lift door opens and Nicole imagines persuading Rachel to lean over the banister and throw herself down. Stupid, wicked girl.

Instead, she squeezes Rachel’s hand extra firmly and says, “Time to be a good girl, time to stop saying naughty lies.” She’s tempted to give Rachel a fresh cuddle for good measure, but from the innocent look on Rachel’s face, that won’t be necessary.

The door to Sucette’s office is closed. Nicole raps on it with her little knuckle. “It’s Nicole,” she says. She adds, “I brought a friend.” And she allows herself a moment of satisfaction. She has brought a rogue agent, a bad actor, off the street before she could do any more harm. There will be a prize for this. There will be something with accessories. Nicole thinks of the burgundy velvet purse for Samantha, she thinks of the golden locket necklace.

The door opens just wide enough for Nicole to see teen agent (No, formerteen agent) Katie with a questioning look. She is dressed like a little girl and holding a doll of her own – Nicole feels a twinge of jealousy at seeing the American Girl doll – not Samantha, but Molly. Katie’s even wearing the matching tartan dress. The outfit makes sense because she’s been…how did Miss Anderson put it? Retired, since last Christmas. She’s all rainbows and unicorns. A former agent.

Nicole swallows her envy about the doll-inspired envy and gives Katie a dismissive smile. “Hi. We’re here to see the doctor.”

Katie smiles back, and then as she opens the door wider and she sees the rogue agent, her demeanour changes. “Rachel, you took your time! I don’t know how long the gadget is going to last.” She ushers them inside, looks up and down the corridor, and closes the door behind them.

“Hi Katie!” Rachel says brightly.

Katie looks at her, and it’s the teenager dressed like a little girl who has the sharpest look on her face. “What did you…” She shakes her head and says urgently, “Let go of her hand.”

“No,” says Nicole, clamping onto Rachel’s wrist. “Rachel and me are best friends now. She told me all about wanting to leave. To quit.” She purses her lips and adds primly, “That isn’t how a responsible agent is supposed to behave.”

Katie shakes her head. “We don’t have- “

“What’s going on?”

They all look towards the armchair next to Sucette’s desk. There’s Jessie, sitting in front of the doctor.

Nicole let’s go of Rachel’s hand. “Dr. Sucette!” She runs to the doctor, and for a moment she is ready to tell the whole story in a rush, from the instant in the playground when Rachel began telling her lies. She even opens her mouth, takes in a breath, ready to tell the best and most satisfying of tales.

And then her lips close, just as her eyes widen. She draws just short of touching the doctor. Because there’s something very obviously wrong with Sucette, slumped in the chair that’s normally reserved for agents.

The doctor looks beyond dazed; she is without a first clue. There’s not a hint of intelligence behind her eyes.

“What did you do?” Nicole asks in a strangled tone, her throat tight with anxiety. “What did you do to her?”

“We didn’t have a choice,” replies Jessie. “It was self-defence.”

Nicole does the one thing she’s been trained to do. She hugs the doctor, arms around her neck, kisses on her face. She cuddles the doctor and holds on tight, all the time whispering the sweetest of things, the most perfect of promises.

Sucette says nothing. Her arms stay limply folded in her lap. No hint of a smile. Nothing close to a recognition of the little girl’s unique scent.

Nicole pulls away and gazes at the woman’s empty face.

She feels tears sting her own eyes. She feels her heart thud in her chest, too big, too loud.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jessie says, even though the expression on her own face suggests the opposite.

“What did you do?” Nicole asks hoarsely, stretching to her full height which still makes her the shortest person in the room. She is just a little girl, really; even if she’s made of magic, how can it be her job to fix this?

“Dr Sucette is the only one who knows how it all works.” She looks at the teen agents - at Katie who is dressed to match her doll in a frilly tartan dress with white ankle socks, and at Rachel who looks confused but not as dim as a few seconds ago. Nicole watches the teen rub her eyes, as if she’s just woken up, and she runs back to her and swings Rachel’s arm back and forth. “Gotta be a good girl,” she says in a sing-song voice, and she smiles as the teenager’s face produces a frown and then an obedient nod.

“It was self-defence,” says Jessie, repeating her excuse from before. She sighs. “Rachel, you were supposed to explain all this to her before you got here.”

Rachel blinks stupidly. “I did,” she whines, and then she hangs her head. “But that was naughty.”

Jessie groans. “Let go of Nicole!” She throws her own hands in the air. “You had one job! Bring back the cub! That’s all you had to do! I’ve been here with Sucette, I’m the one who warned Katie.”

Katie nods. “Thanks for that.” She strokes the hair of her doll as if she’s grown attached to it over the last few months. She giggles. “My mum thinks I’m taking a nap, but I sneaked away.”

Jessie taps at her phone and holds it to her ear. “I’ve been trying to let Luke know what’s happened, but he won’t answer.”

Katie nods, and there something giddy about her expression. “Luke’s my friend,” she says. She wrinkles her nose. “Can you smell strawberries?”

Nicole smirks at the girl who’s close enough to be affected by her scent, even without touching. But then Rachel pulls on her hand and blurts, “Luke’s havin’ ice-cream!”

Katie’s face pales. No more giddiness. She steps back to the treatment chair and away from Nicole at the same time.

“Oh, no.” She drops her Molly doll to the floor, and Nicole sees what Katie has been concealing behind it – a mobile phone. “They got to him, they got to him, and I wasn’t there to save him.”

“It’s not your fault,” says Jessie. She looks down at doctor. “It’s hers. And the rest of them.”

“Can you fix her?” Nicole asks, also looking at Sucette. “Can you bring her back?” If the answer is positive, she can forgive them. Everyone gets a second chance, says Miss Anderson. Parkdale is a town filled with people getting their second chance.

“I don’t know,” Jessie says. “She’s been like this for almost two hours, no change.” She shrugs. “We were in a rush, Sucette was about to zap me like she did Katie.”

“Like they just did to Luke,” Katie adds acidly. She points at the doctor. “Zap her again. She doesn’t deserve to come back from this.”

Nicole feels blood rush to her face. Her hands tremble at her sides. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says to the teenagers. “You’re being rotten and stupid.” It’s only Rachel who looks remotely scolded.

Katie moves quickly. Before Nicole knows what’s happening, the teen in the tartan dress has pulled her and Rachel apart. She pushes Nicole away, sending her sprawling.

“Hey!” Nicole looks up from her position on the floor. She sees Rachel bunch her fists. “You didn’t have to do that,” Rachel says.

Katie glares down at Nicole. “You ungrateful little brat, what we’re doing is saving you. We could’ve just left, but we wanted…Luke wanted, to save as many of the cub agents as possible. Starting with you.” She looks over at Rachel and adds, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “Because she’s so special.”

Nicole snorts. “I don’t need saving.”

Jessie shakes her head. “Honey, they took everything from you. It happened at the bookshop, and I’m so sorry, but I thought, when you were placed with Rachel, that you were getting a happy ending. But Sucette took you back, turned you into something else.” She holds up her hands. “They took your life away. They took your identity.”

Nicole looks down at herself.

Sucette stole you.

What did happen, before the doctor gave her the superpowers? Before Nicole became a perfect princess? She closes her eyes, swallows, and understands that there’s nothing there. She was a blank slate.

“I’m…I’m sorry. About before. We want to help,” Rachel says. She looks more like her old self, the effects of the playground cuddles and the handholding starting to fade. Because she is a teen agent, because she has defences, even against someone like Nicole (And of course, there’s no one quite like Nicole).

“I don’t want your help,” Nicole says. She gets to her feet, looks around the room. Katie at the treatment chair. Jessie next to the doctor. Rachel standing by the door where Nicole was pulled away from her.

“You can’t hug all of us,” says Jessie, as if she’s reading the little girl’s mind. She walks over to the child. “Let us help you get back to who you were before. And then we can leave this place behind.”

What a choice. Between staying with the Parkdale grown-ups who have given her the only home she has ever known. Made her powerful, given her a purpose. And of course, given her prizes. A choice between all of that and leaving town with a group of teenage agents who have all turned bad.

Nicole holds up her hands. She doesn’t form fists; she won’t need to punch or kick. She spreads out her fingers like starfish. She will touch, she will stroke. She’ll get them one at a time, and once they’re all behaving properly, she will find a grown-up who can clean up the mess.

Because this is the biggest case of spilled, spoiled milk. This is the barn door opened and the horse has bolted.

She turns to Rachel. “I can start with you.” She smiles. “You were easy-peasy.” She beckons the teen over. “Come on, it won’t take…hey!”

Nicole has superpowers, but she is still just a child.

Jessie rushes her, hands around Nicole’s arms like snakes, lifting her off the ground.

“Stop!” Nicole cries. “I mean it, you’re going to be in big trouble!” She kicks her legs, and she’s definitely leaving bruises on Jessie’s shins.

“You little…” Jessie grunts, but her grip is true.

“Sure you want to do this?” asks Katie.

Nicole understands in this moment that while she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, Jessie and Katie do. They’ve known since before Nicole entered the office. Because they’re Parkdale agents, they’re trained to think through a scenario and plan ahead. Rachel probably knew as well, before she fell under Nicole’s spell.

“Please!” cries Nicole, her tone pleading, matching her shoe size.  “Please stop! I won’t hug you; I won’t do the thing!” She’s loud, loud enough to beg, and loud enough for others to hear, if only this place had some security, if only it wasn’t all falling apart around their ears.

Jessie moves both of them backward, and there’s a thump as she shuffles up and into the treatment chair, with a flicker of possibility as her grip weakens, hands reaching for the straps, and then the flicker disappears as, Nicole finds her wrists strapped to the chair.

“Hey!” Nicole yells. “You can’t do this!” Because the plan now is obvious. If they can’t get her on side, they will neutralize the theat.

Katie holds down the kicking legs and fastens the ankle straps.

“I don’t wanna be a baby!” yells Nicole, her tone as whiny and demoralized as any sulking, fearful child.

Katie peers at the control panel. “Rachel, I hope you remember the sequence.” And then she says to Jessie, “You’re stuck there until this is done.”

Jessie nods, pinned behind the little girl. “At least she can’t touch me.”

Nicole shakes her head and wriggles as much as she can, squirming on Jessie’s lap. “Rachel, stop it! You have to be a good girl!” She strains at the straps. “Remember the bubble bath! Remember your mummy!”

She watches with dismay as Rachel walks over, and the blonde looks conflicted. The teenage girl with the pixie cut, the girl who had turned over a new leaf but still seems to have a chip on her shoulder, pointed at a row of buttons.

“Sure?” Katie asks. “The kid did a number on you.”

“It’s the right set,” says Rachel. She sounds sorry, she sounds as though she might be on the verge changing her mind. She takes a step back. “I can still smell her.” She looks at Jessie. “It’s not just her hands, okay? It’s all of her. It’s her skin and her hair, be careful.”

Nicole squirms anew because she knows how her powers work. And from the breathing and sounds behind her, it’s clear that Jessie is getting a good idea as well.

Jessie grunts. “Smells like a damn bakery.”

Nicole manages to smile. “Can you smell cakes, Jessie? Can you smell something extra-special?”

Her nose wrinkles at the sight of Katie pressing a sequence of buttons on the panel, and the chair starts to hum.

“Stop!”

“I can smell it…” Jessie whispers.

Nicole doesn’t need to see the expression on Jessie’s face, she’s seen it so many times before. The lips slightly parted, the relaxing of the jaw muscles, the sleepy eyes.

“Can you smell your cakes like a good girl?” asks Nicole desperately, squirming and fidgeting.

“Hold your breath!” Katie orders her friend. “And hold her head. Sorry, but you need to hold her tight.”

Nicole understands why. She knows how the chair works. But she won’t let Jessie do it. Because Nicole is little, but she is powerful, she’s stronger than all of them. The grown-ups said so.

“Time to be a good girl,” Nicole says, gritting her teeth but managing to keep her tone sweet. “Time to be all cuddly and soppy for me.”

Jessie cries out. “Quick, do it quick!” She grips the child’s head.

Katie quickly lowers the helmet over Nicole’s head, and Nicole is now in the dark.

Nicole can’t make out what Katie says next, but then her voice is closer. “Gotta get her clothes off.”

Nicole feels a cool blade against her skin, the snipping of scissors, and then a breeze as her school uniform and underwear are removed.

As Nicole tenses, embarrassed and vulnerable, she feels Jessie’s breath as the teenager exhales. The teenager can’t resist; nobody can.

“I can smell it,” Nicole hears Jessie say dimly. “Birth…”

“What do you smell?” asks Nicole. “Tell me about the cay-cakes.”

“Birth…day cake,” Jessie says, almost sighs, as her hands fall away.

Nicole feels her captor’s body relax, Jessie falling under her spell. She gets ready to tell Jessie what to do; how to undo the straps, pull off the helmet, and clear an escape route for the sweet little girl in her charge.

And then Nicole has other things to think about.

She screams. Because this is the very worst pain in the world.

“No sugar cube,” says Katie. “We didn’t have time. But it won’t take long.”

“Sorry!” Rachel says, and her voice may as well be a million miles away, but Nicole can hear the anguish. “It’s for the best, I promise.”

Nicole screams again. There is a coppery taste in her mouth, she has bitten her tongue.

Her body tenses, strains, and then falls back against Jessie. “Be a good girl,” she whimpers. “Jessie, you gotta do as you’re told, you gotta…” She trails off, because as young as she is, Nicole knows that this is a lost cause. There will be no prize.

“Daddy makes the best birthday cakes,” blurts Jessie. No pain for her, no transformation, just a sweet, dreamy sensation. Not for the first time, Nicole is jealous of her target.

And then there is no pain for Nicole. There is nothing, there is white space, and it is both the hottest and the coldest sensation of her life. Her impossible, handful-of-years, much longer than advertised, life.

The pain returns. She cries out, but her voice sounds wrong. Deeper. And the pain is different, centered on her wrists and ankles, as if the straps are digging into her skin, hungry for her bones.

“Wow.” Katie’s voice is still so far away. Maybe they have all run away and left Nicole. Perhaps they have taken her to the very top of a tall hill.

The helmet is lifted off her head.

Nicole swallows, her ears pop, and then Katie’s voice is crystal clear. “It worked. It actually worked.”

A stupid thing to say. Obviously, it didn’t work. Nicole isn’t a baby. Quite the opposite. She exhales in relief when Katie loosens and removes the restraint straps. And then she looks down at her chest.

She looks back at Katie and Rachel, both teens staring back at her. Katie appears proud of herself; or as proud as a fifteen-year-old dressed as a four-year-old can look. Rachel, meanwhile, looks as though she’s just woken up; as if Nicole’s agony has jolted her from a dream.

Nicole is a teenager like them, with a maturing body to match. If she wasn’t in the PPA clinic, Nicole would say this was impossible, but she knows better. She reaches for her hair – longer now, and escaped from the ribbons, leaving Katie as the only girl in the room sporting pigtails. Nicole wishes she was wearing even Katie’s childish outfit, because surely anything is better than being naked like this.

She rubs tenderly at her wrists. She half-climbs, half-falls off Jessie.

Nicole blinks. She’s taller. She is the same height as Katie. And she’s not wiser – no, if anything, she has so many more questions than she had before – but she does know more. She knows something very important.

She knows the before.

“Sorry,” whispers Rachel. “I…I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t know it was you.” She holds out her hands and then pulls them back, as if she’s wondering what comes next, reward or punishment.

Nicole exhales. Pieces of her past don’t arrive in a rush but more like a series of parcels.

Some of the news isn’t good; she was stolen, she was trafficked. She was a spoiled, coddled, manipulated child.

Parkdale took her life; they took her sex. Her life before was male.

“How do you feel?” Rachel asks her gently, nervously, while Katie goes to Jessie who has remained in the treatment chair with a bland smile on her face. She must be still smelling cakes; she will still be completely open to suggestion. And yet in this moment, Nicole can’t decide which one of them is the most vulnerable.

Nicole blinks. There. That’s the good news. Because if there’s one good thing that’s come from Nicole’s life in Parkdale, it’s her family. Before she was stolen, she was with Rachel. She was with Cecelia, their mother.

And she was the best, the most loved, the safest of baby boys.

“Oh,” she says, her voice small.

Rachel bites her lip. Gives her a half-smile. “Well?”

“Oh,” Nicole says again. And she steps forward, and she hugs her big sister. It is a perfect hug, it is the missing piece, it is love not war.

“Welcome back,” says Rachel, and she produces a hitching laugh because she is crying at the same time. “I missed you so much!”

Nicole nods. “I know.” She laughs as well. “I mean, I didn’t, but I get it.” And then she springs back. “Watch out, I don’t want to- “

Rachel smiles. “I can’t smell you. It’s gone.” She laughs. “You’re normal. At least, a normal teenage girl, anyway. We should probably find you some clothes, huh.”

Nicole looks down her body. She doesn’t blush, she’s beyond that. There’s enough to be surprised about, there’s more than enough to process.

“We could take away your powers, but we couldn’t change your sex,” says Katie, looking over the control panel critically. “That was Sucette’s experiment, it’s not anything the machine can do.”

Nicole looks at the doctor with clearer eyes. Her abductor. The liar-in-chief. Sucette continues to sit in the armchair, staring at nothing, lips parted. Did they break her entirely? Is there anything left? And if not, where does that leave the town?

Nicole looks back at Jessie.

“Hey,” she says gently, taking the girl’s hands in her own. “It’s okay, I don’t smell anymore. Sorry about all the wriggling.”

Jessie blinks sleepily. “Daddy made me a birthday cake,” she says, a bland smile on her lips. Dah-dee may me a burf-dey cay.

Nicole shakes her head. “It’ll fade. You’ll have to be careful for the next couple of hours, but without the rest of the story, you’ll be back to normal.” She looks at Katie. “Jessie didn’t change age…because she wasn’t wearing the helmet?”

Katie shakes her head. “The helmet is for the mental changes; the chair is for the physical.”

“So why isn’t she older?”

“Because she can’t get older,” says Rachel. “That’s one thing Sucette was honest about.” She gestures at herself, Jessie, and Katie. “We’re all stuck the age we are.”

Nicole stares at them. “Forever?”

“I’ll explain later,” says Rachel. “We need to go see Mum, okay?”

Nicole nods. She looks at herself again. “Mum’s gonna freak out when she sees me.”

Rachel laughs. “Little bit. Better get you dressed first.” She taps her chin. “So, you want an outfit like mine, or like Katie’s?”

At this, Katie and produces a little curtsey, lifting the hem of her tartan skirt.

Nicole smiles. “You look adorable,” she says to Katie, “but I’ll probably keep go with school uniform.”

“Could do with a change myself,” Katie says, picking up her matching doll and her phone.

Jessie announces to no one in particular. “Can we have cake now? I’m starving.”

Nicole pats her hand. “She’ll still be very suggestible,” she tells the others, probably until tonight. We’d better stick together.” She looks at Rachel. “So, are we staying for the others, or are we getting out of here?” She purses her lips and then says, “I want to see Mum.”

Rachel nods. “Let’s go home, see Mum, make a decision.”

“There’s still Hannah and Emma,” says Nicole. “And Lottie.” Her eyes widen. “And what about Luke?”

She sees Katie stiffen at the mention of Luke’s name.

Rachel pulls Nicole in for a hug, then looks into her eyes. “You want to save the world, I get it. But we need to be careful. Sucette is out, but there’s still plenty of bad guys. Low profile until we can speak to Mum.”

“I wanna see my daddy!” Jessie blurts, climbing out of the treatment chair, and then blushes. She clears her throat. “I’d better see my Dad.”

“I’ll help you get there,” says Katie. She winks. “Make sure you don’t talk to strangers on the way.”

Jessie laughs with the others, but it’s obvious to Nicole that she’s still added from the cuddle, especially when she says to Katie, “Don’t you want to see your mummy…mum and dad?”

Katie sighs. “My mum’s been quite happy treating me like a four-year-old since last Christmas. So no, I’ve got no plans to visit home. But I still have some work to do here.” She turns to Rachel. “When you were going through the tech, did you see my necklace by any chance?”

Rachel shakes her head. “Sorry.” She offers Katie the black box she had used on Sucette. “Better than nothing.”

“Thanks.” Katie puts it inside Jessie’s blazer pocket. “There,” she says, “I’ll take you home.” She winks. “Make sure you don’t speak to strangers on the way.” She gives Sucette a final look-over while Nicole gets dressed in a school uniform that matches her sister’s. The doctor doesn’t stir from the armchair. “Got a taste of her own medicine.”

Rachel folds her arms. “Literally.” She looks at Jessie. “Much better.” She laughs. “Mum’s still going to be amazed.” Her eyes soften. “But she’s going to be so glad to see you, Nicole.” She frowns. “Is that name okay? You had a different one when you came to Parkdale.”

Nicole nods. “I know.” She gestures at herself. “Better stick with Nicole, I think.”

“Want to get changed too?” Rachel asks Katie. “Bet I can find another set.”

“We need to get going,” says Katie, looking at her phone.

“Problem?” Rachel asks, reaching for her own phone.

“Someone’s missing Sucette,” Katie says. “They all will, sooner or later.” She looks at Jessie. “If someone asks on the way to your dad’s, you’re taking me to nursery, okay?” She adds her phone to Jessie’s blazer pocket and then holds her doll with both hands. “Better keep matching Molly here until I don’t have to pretend my brains are scrambled anymore.” She gives her friends a cross-eyed look that earns a laugh from each of them.

And then the girls leave the room.

To be concluded...