The White Room

The only clothing that was clean were the outfits the dancers in the cages wore. Lois covered the essentials with a thong and a top she could have flossed with, neon-pink bits of ribbon that tied at the sides for easy access and removal. On top of that she managed to find somebody's extra pair of white gym socks and the cut-down remains of a t-shirt that left the bottom of her breasts exposed. Maria was dressed much the same, though instead of a t-shirt she had managed to find a pair of daisy dukes.

Lois had seen worse sights than the barmaid squeezing her ass into the cut-off jean shorts, and noted with approval that the bottom of her cheeks hung out the back.

Maria led Lois along a back corridor; doors led off to offices, storage closets, a breakroom. A large man with a bald head, black glasses, and an earpiece stood in front of a door at the end of it, a heavy pistol visible in a shoulder holster—the lack of concealment alone let Lois know they were close to something big.

He raised one eyebrow as they approached, but Maria stood up on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear...and the guard stepped aside to let them pass.

The White Room was a cube of shiny white tile, with industrial-looking vertical lamps on every wall and the ceiling, along with small dark flatscreens. There was a little platform in the center, and on the far wall, a kind of tube jutting out from the wall.

"This is where it happened," Maria said. "This is where I became...me." The woman looked at Lois sadly. "I won't tell you all of what happened. It took them a while to...get it right. But I was pretty fucked up, most of my life. Body dysmorphic disorder. Gender dysphoria. The missing women...you looked into their past, right?"

"Yes," Lois said.

"All of them—all of us—had their issues. We weren't happy with who we are. Not like...like normal people. Lots of women want to lose a few pounds, or wished they had bigger tits. With us, it was worse. We had trouble functioning. What we wanted wasn't possible. Not really. Not even with surgery. We needed a miracle...and that's what happened."

Maria hefted her own tits. "You might not think that, to look at me. But I was a girl trapped in a boy's body, her entire life. These aren't tits you can grow from hormones, or get from implants. Or these hips. This face, this pussy...it was like being reborn. I was willing to do anything for that. Which was good. Because it took them a few tries."

"Maria..." Lois said. "You say they changed you. But what happened? How?"

The woman took a deep breath, looking around the room...and for the first time Lois saw some of the scratches on the tiled floor and wall, the dents in the lamps, around the lip of that tube protruding from the wall at head-height.

"There was preparation, first. He made me drink something. Told me it was going to re-write my DNA. I didn't like his face when he watched me drink it. I don't know if he was bullshitting me or what. The taste was...well, you've blown a guy, right? It was like that. I don't know if it was on purpose, but..."

"What happened next?" Lois asked. She could feel the story coming together. She had to know.