The Xtra Strength Pill

The bonus sounded nice, but he was afraid of what the "+" and "B" might entail. The 100k was enough. This was already strange enough already.

"Whenever you're ready, you can take the pill of your choice and head to the observation room."

Henry took the Xtra Strength bottle. "Ah yes, good choice.", the doctor stated. "There are some conditions that go along with that." "Like what?", Henry responded.

"You have to take one pill a month for eleven months.", the doctor explained. "Why eleven?", Henry inquired.

"The effects of the **** will be permanent after twelve consecutive months, so we will have a long enough time period to measure the effects with an eleven month time frame. If you decide to volunteer for the twelfth month you will get the same bonus as with the plus pill."

Henry was intrigued. This would give him a long time to observe the effects of whatever he was volunteering for without committing to anything.

"What does this **** do...?", Henry asked. The doctor seemed genuinely surprised. "You've never heard of X-Change before?", he answered a question with a question. Henry didn't care, he really just wanted the money, and as long as the effects weren't permanent...

"It's a transformation ****. We found a way to rapidly change the genetic code of organisms by a combination of a nanotechnology and **** cocktail. It takes dormant genetic code within cellular structure and "flips" it into it's opposite form. In this case, for a male, that would be female. We had initially developed it for anti-cancer purposes.", the doctor stared off into nowhere during his ramble.

"How does that even work?", Henry replied. The doctor smiled like a kid at a theme park and explained: " It uses the natural metabolic energy within the cells to fuel the nanites which rearrange genetic code within the span of minutes. You would not believe how many clinical trials this had to go through. We had to tweak nanites functioning over decades to get it where it is now." Henry gulped at the thought of his entire genetic sequence getting rearranged so quickly.

"Is it safe? And will it...hurt?", he asked hesitantly.

The doctor smiled and put his hand on Henry's shoulder. "It will feel strange, definitely, but now we have had a 99 percent success rate. No, it won't hurt. The nanites are programmed to do a specific job depending on the brand. They have their own "genetic code" you might say. We will be monitoring you throughout the process."

"Now I know why you're giving so much money for this...", Henry said plainly. "Yep. It's still not too late to turn back if you want, Henry.", the doctor offered. One percent was such a marginal risk and the concept so amazing, almost like something out of science fiction, he couldn't turn it down.

"No, I'm ready."

The doctor pushed his glasses back up on his brow with his index finger. "Good. There are number of measurements we're going to take while you're undergoing the transformation. Please, follow me." The doctor led Henry through a door to the right and into a bright white room with a single steel chair. It reminded him of an interrogation scene in a movie. There were two other men and a women all in lab coats and two machines on either side of the chair.

"We're going to need you to strip down for this.", the doctor informed. "Ok...", Henry sighed and began taking off his clothes. His cheeks were red and he covered his genitals with his left hand. He sat down on the cold steel chair that rose goosebumps on his body. It must've been 60 degrees in here. The female scientist walked up to him. "Please, don't be shy. We need both of your arms free for blood pressure and resistance measurements. Believe me, we've seen everything, don't worry about it."

They put a sensor on both of his temples hooked up to an EEG machine, sensors on his arms for blood pressure readings, and took a sample of his blood. "How do you feel, Henry?", the woman asked. "A little scared, honestly.", Henry replied. "Don't worry, everyone does their first time. It will be over before you know it."

The doctor from before held the pill out to you, you pinched it out of his hand, took a deep breath, and swallowed it.