Morning

The next morning, Alice gets up, kisses the still sleeping Brian on the cheek - he was up rather late, after all - dresses, washes, grabs her phone and purse, and heads to her favorite thinking place: The library.

It's a short walk from the dorms to the four story concrete structure, the marble-faced columns in front supporting the offices on the third floor.She walks in through the bronze doors and past the very colorful history section, skipping the display highlighting the impact Black Cat had on modern investigative methods, going to the microbiology section, grabbing a random book, and checking out a study room from the desk clerk (using the student ID from Lost & Found). She walks into the designated ten by ten room, closes and locks the door, and sits down in one of the recliners to think.

“Okay…” she starts, keeping her voice low despite the soundproofing on these rooms, “...I can't go back to being Adam after having spent so much time as Alice. It's everything I ever dreamed of…” she sighs… “but I'm zeroed. What other options do I have?”

She blinks a few times, “What other options DO I have? I can't be the first person changed as a result of accidents or super activities ....”

After an hour of searching online on Muggle, all she can find are sob stories. She eventually finds one post online that speaks of a man finding a way to get a new identity… but not how… and the account was banned by the mods, so no PM was possible.

“But at least it IS possible,” Alice grins, “I still need to figure out HOW, but it can be done.”

Happy that she made at least some progress, her belly reminds her that she's gotta eat. So she looks up a buffet place that serves breakfast, gets walking directions on her phone, and heads out… only to be stopped by a dart hitting the side of her neck as she steps out the door. As she collapses to the ground,her consciousness fading, she hears the voice of the man who gave her that examination a day ago, “There were just a couple things you didn't report, Adam….”

—

When Alice awakens, there's something long clogging her throat and making her want to gag, she's bound tight to a table, inside a loud white tube… oh, and she's wearing headphones? She's feeling very woozy.

“Ah, you're awake,” the fake doctor's voice comes through speakers somewhere as the machine dies down, “The MRI gave us a very interesting picture… retractable claws, venom sacks in your fingers, increased muscle density… I'm not finding a cause, though, so I needed to wake you up. Where did all this come from, hmm?”

The woman tries to curse at her captor, but all that comes out is a gargle.

“Ah, right, the feeding tube, couldn't have you dying on me…” there's a pause, and the restraints pop open, “...the sedatives still in your system should keep you fairly docile, and you can feed yourself, now.”

The table slides out of the plastic tube with a mechanical whirr, and Alice sits up groggily, pulling the feeding tube out of her mouth… and finding out there was a bit over a foot of the clear medical material inside her.

“I found a lot of unusual things in your body, Adam,” the voice continues, “but nothing that has that tiny spark of power behind it; everything I found follows standard laws of biology and could exist in nature whether it currently does or not… where did it come from, Adam?”

Alice brings her hands to her groggy head, and makes a very subtle and very risky change before she answers, slurring her voice… which isn't hard, as her throat feels TERRIBLE after the tubing, “How…” she coughs, “how should I know?”

“Ugh, stupid art students…” the voice from the speakers sighs as Alice removes the headphones, “okay, so, SOMEONE turned you into a woman, then transformed you again into some very hungry female facsimile of Sergeant Mega. Not only did this mystery person give you your dream body, but changed you AGAIN to obscure your identity and give you a means to protect yourself when you got into trouble trying to use me to get new ID. We know it's not your roommate Brian, as you wouldn't have needed to send him that text from your phone.”

“You're intercepting…” Alice croaks out as her mind starts to clear.

“Oh yes,” the voice comes over the riom's auido system, “Breaking the encryption underlying RCS is trivial for one such as myself. Makes it easy to

find people, given that nearly everyone buys, charges, and carries their own tracking device nowadays… but I digress. Who changed you?”

Alice takes a moment to review herself… and realizes she's in a hospital gown. Trying to act drunk, she croaks out, “Someone gave me my dream?” as she checks out the room… ah, there's a plaque of donor names on the MRI… with the school's logo. She clearly wasn't taken far.

“Ugh, I need to come up with a good mind control serum…” the voice complains as Alice gets her bearings, “...yes. Who would be most likely to do so if they had the power?”

I know who I wouldn't mind throwing under the bus… Alice chuckles inwardly as she outwardly acts surprised that the doorknob seems disconnected when she finds the handle turns far too freely, “That'd be Prof. Moriarty, Dean of Art,” Alice sucks in some air, getting ready to open the door the hard way, “he always said his hands are tied by school policy… if they suddenly weren't, well… I'm not sure what he'd do.”

“School policy? What… hold a minute…” the voice pauses momentarily, “Ah, some kerfuffle with stupid people planting cameras where no cameras should be, resulting in… that's a bit ****. Well… not the stupidest reaction I've seen to something, but they should have just disbanded the frats.”

“That's what I thought too,” Alice shrugs as she kicks the door off it's hinges, rushing to the control room right next door… only to find a metal beetle staute the size of a German Shepherd in the room.

The beetle turns to her, clearly some kind of robot, “I apologize for not greeting you in person, but I have three other leads to follow from irradiating that delivery of art supplies, and while your strength is nice… you're going to be a B-lister at best. Nowhere near worthy of the direct attention of…”

The machine doesn't relay the rest of the sentence, instead dying in a shower of sparks and shrapnel as Alice puts a piece of shattered wood through it.

“Stupid villians…” Alice shakes her head as she goes looking for something to wear….