
same dark brown as Don’s but they appeared glassy, as if she were coming out from a heavy doping
session.
The few students we saw were all shouting and running in the opposite direction, toward the new gate. I
looked back over my shoulder, half expecting it to be gone, but it was still there. Already a small crowd
was gathering, coming from all directions. There was little traffic on the street, and the few strollers we
passed on the sidewalk were staring ahead at the gate. Besides, they were used to seeing students in odd
raiment; probably they thought the girl with the jacket tied around her hips by the sleeves and another
hanging over her shoulders was the victim of a new clothing fad.
Rita stayed close to this stranger who claimed to be Don while Russell and I hung back. Russell didn’t
say a word to me—he was too deep in thought. Well, I was thinking too, but I doubt my thoughts were
as profound as Russell’s. Mostly, my mind circled round and round one incredible idea: was it possible
that weird green arch could change a man into a woman?
It sounded like a wild science fiction tale, one I would read in a book but never expected to see
materialize right before my eyes. My mind kept replaying the picture of the gate appearing out of
nowhere, but my astonished disbelief refused to vanish. It wasn’t possible.
As I watched the woman struggling to walk, I felt a pang of guilt at my relief that it was Don who had
gone through the gate rather than me. How would I react if it sucked me in and turned me into a woman?
I didn’t want to pursue that thought. Fortunately, I didn’t have to, as my house came into view, sitting like
a sanctuary on its spacious corner lot, and we turned into the drive.
I rented this house, which was a post-Millennium modular located only a few blocks from the college
campus. It was solid on the outside, but it was easy to rearrange the rooms on the inside. Don and
Russell lived there with me, and I’d spent the past several weeks trying to talk Rita into moving in too.
I told the door to open, and Rita hustled the girl into Don’s bedroom. Russell snapped out of his reverie
as we entered, and we both headed straight for the bar at the far end of the great room. This room was
comfortably furnished with a couple of loungers and the two wall screens that connected us to the media
and the web.
I don’t usually drink much, but I still kept the bar well stocked for parties and for the others in the house.
Russell hardly drank at all, but he didn’t object when I poured us both a double shot of Jack Daniels and
dropped a couple of ice cubes into the glasses. We sat down on the little lounger and propped our feet
up, trying to pretend we weren’t straining our ears at mumbled sounds coming from the bedroom. I
couldn’t make out what Rita and Don were saying, other than a strained curse or two from the strange
young woman claiming to be Don.
I leaned back in my chair, already aware that the life I had known until now was about to change forever.
Before the arrival of the gates, I was more or less a perpetual student. I had already earned degrees in
journalism and biology at North Houston College, but I was still taking undergraduate courses (all that
were offered at North Houston at the time) in psychology, business, sociology and anything else that took
my fancy.
It probably sounds like I was leading a spoiled life of leisure, doing as I pleased, while other students had
to struggle after the last of the federal loan programs were cancelled. I have my grandfather to thank for
that.
My grandfather, Mosby Stuart, was an eclectic jack-of-all-trades who was relatively uneducated but
self-taught in a number of subjects, most notably electronics. My parents claim I take after him. My dad
described him as a visionary, a dreamer who wandered all over the South for years, seeking a niche and