A Pitch-Perfect Lie

Walter leaned in, his eyes dancing with a reckless, almost manic light, and whispered back to her with a casualness that was frankly insulting given the situation.

"I told him she’s had a bit too much to drink!" Walter said, as if he were discussing the weather instead of social ruin. "That Alison is on a wild, drunken bender and decided to spend her afternoon running around... well, mostly naked."

Sandra felt the blood drain from her face, then rush back in a hot wave of embarrassment. "You told him what?!" she hissed, her voice reaching a pitch only dogs could hear. "He’s going to think we're all lunatics! He’ll think he’s walking into a scandal!"

"It is the perfect cover!" Walter insisted, straightening his—or rather, Alison’s—posture. "If he thinks she’s just being a wild, intoxicated young woman, he won't question why she looks so... uninhibited! It explains the state of her attire and the suddenness of our 'gathering.' It’s pure genius!"

Rebecca looked like she wanted to slap him, but she was too busy trying to figure out how to hide in her own living room. "It is not genius, Walter! It is social suicide! When he walks through that door and sees a woman who looks exactly like his daughter acting like a degenerate, he isn't going to think 'science,' he’s going to think there’s a family crisis!"

"Nonsense," Walter chuckled, though a bead of sweat now rolled down the young woman's cheek. "He just needs to see the physical reality of the work."

The doorknob turned. The heavy click of the latch echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Mr. Angelmann’s voice drifted in from the hallway, sounding puzzled and slightly concerned. "Walter? Are you in there? You sounded so urgent on the phone... is everything alright with Alison?"

Sandra looked at her father in pure terror. He was standing there, a perfect biological duplicate of a young woman, looking ready to present his masterpiece to the man who might be the first person to realize he's looking at a stranger in his daughter's skin.

"Stay calm," Walter whispered to them, though his own hands were slightly shaking. "Just act natural."

The voice was jarring. While he had the slender neck and delicate features of an eighteen-year-old girl, the sound that emerged was the unmistakable, gravelly baritone of a middle-aged man. It was a surreal, uncanny mismatch—the visual of a young woman paired with the heavy, authoritative bass of her father.

Sandra stared at him, her eyes wide with a mix of horror and fascination. "Dad," she whispered, leaning in close. "The voice... it doesn't match the face at all. If he walks in here and hears that, he’s not going to think she’s on a bender; he’s going to think she’s joined a heavy metal band!"

Walter looked down at his throat as if he had momentarily forgotten. "Ah! Of course!" He chuckled, though the sound was still too deep to be convincing. "The vocal folds are still calibrated to my original mass. A minor oversight in the biological transfer!"

He reached for the iBod on the table. It hummed with a low-frequency energy, glowing with a soft, pulsating blue light.

"Watch this," Walter said, his eyes sparkling with scientific mischief. He pressed the tip of the device against his throat, right over his larynx.

There was a faint zip sound, like a radio tuning to a new frequency, and a slight shimmer in the air around his neck as the device worked. He swallowed hard, and as he did, his throat muscles shifted slightly under the skin.

"Is this better?" Walter asked.

The voice was no longer deep or heavy. It was light, melodic, and breathy—a perfect, feminine soprano that sounded almost exactly like Alison’s. The transition was so seamless it was terrifying.

"It is much better," Sandra whispered. "But you still need to be careful about your mannerisms. You can't walk or sit like an old man."

She looked at him, her eyes wide as they watched the smooth contours of his—her—face settle into its new state.

"Good," Walter said, his voice now a perfect imitation of a young woman’s airy tone, sounding almost exactly like Alison's. "And now..."