Prime Identity

by Robert Schmitt

  “You are just about the right height,” I mused. “Plus, you’ve definitely got the body for it. Actually, the more I think about it...”

  “That was supposed to be a joke.”

  “Well, joke’s on you. I’m going to check Amazon when I get home.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “But I’m your—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  I sighed. “Well, I guess that was a longshot no matter what I tried. Still, you never know. She said she likes Out-N-About, so obviously she’s got a disconnect from reality going on somewhere. Maybe I can...”

  “Oh wow.” She suddenly sounded frustrated as I trailed away. That never failed to get her going. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

  “Just admit that they’re not that good.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Jake.”

  When I got home, I was unsurprised to see that Amber wasn’t there. Before hanging up, she had asked me to get dinner ready—she was caught up with a fundraiser for our congregation and wouldn’t be home in time to make anything. After peeling some potatoes and setting them to boil on the stove, I sat down at the kitchen table to take a moment to unwind. I sucked in a deep breath and rested my head in my hands, aware for the first time of just how tired I was. I closed my eyes for a second and slowly exhaled.

  My breath caught in my throat as an excruciating surge of pain flooded through my body. The pain ripped at every nerve fiber, searing across every inch of my skin. I would have screamed if I could, but the pain was so powerful and so sudden, I didn’t have the chance. Distantly, I sensed myself falling to the ground, but before I had the time to react, the pain was gone.

  As fast as the pain had come, it disappeared, leaving me breathless in its wake. As I came back to myself, I realized something was wrong. I didn’t feel right. I couldn’t feel my limbs. I forced my eyes open, and the sight that greeted me took me completely by surprise. I wasn’t in my kitchen anymore. Instead, I was standing in an open courtyard and staring at a man who was grinning at me. He was pointing some kind of device at me, a crazily-wired black box that was arcing angry blue sparks off two parallel antenna on the front of it. My mind reeled as I tried to take in and understand what was happening. With a jolt, I realized I was staring at a prime named Doctor Quantum. Even without his gaudy costume of lime-green on powdered blue, his insane, Cheshire-cat grin was unmistakable. He was one of the most feared primes in Chicago. A rogue. His powers gave him an unusual gift with technology. Whatever he was pointing at me, I knew it was deadly.

  “Don’t move.” His grin widened madly. “I’m sure you’re confused right now, but what you should know is that if you move, I will kill you.”

  I looked between his eyes and the device he was still pointing at me. I could see, without knowing his history, that he was serious. I tensed with fear, not daring to move a muscle.

  He took a step forward and glanced down at his box, then moved his free hand to adjust a knob on its side. In that moment, something stirred inside me that I hadn’t expected. I was angry.

  All primes were the same. They had been given incredible powers, powers that ordinary people could only dream of, and what did they use those powers for? To lord over others, to destroy, and to kill. Even Gravita, one of the “good” primes, hadn’t been above grabbing me by the front as a form of intimidation, had she? Doctor Quantum wasn’t even the worst prime I had ever heard of, but he was bad enough. I didn’t think about the fact he was probably about to kill me. All I knew was that he was close—close enough for me to act.

  With a fury I didn’t know I possessed, I reared back, preparing to punch him. The motion caught his gaze. I saw his gaze snap back to me, but I didn’t have time to register the surprise on his face before I swung a fist toward him.

  Doctor Quantum fired a wild shot from his device that missed hitting me by inches. As my fist sank into his gut, a well of energy surged to life in my spine. Acting more on instinct than thought, I focused on the sudden power within me and somehow pushed it down my arm toward my fist. I channeled all my anger, all my hatred, into that current of... whatever it was, and then I let it go.

  The energy left my fist in an explosion of destruction. I was thrown backwards from the blast that engulfed the courtyard, landing on my back a dozen feet away.

  For a few seconds, I blinked through the cloud of dust and rubble that hailed down to the ground. I rolled onto my side and looked around the courtyard. With mounting horror, I twisted around to find that the entire area around me had been leveled by the explosion. I saw, at the center of the destruction where Doctor Quantum had stood, a ring of gore plastered to the ground.

  Bile rose in my throat as I pushed myself to my feet, my mind dipped in ice. How had I done that?

  I walked away from the ring of death, unable to bring myself to look again at the remains of Doctor Quantum. Instead, I found myself walking along the edge of the courtyard. Ahead, I saw a street with parked cars lining the sidewalk nearest me through one of the arches in the outer courtyard wall. Not willing to stay there one second longer than I had to, I made a beeline for the line of cars to see if I could find some help.

  As I made my way to the street, I lifted my hand to wipe some sweat away from my forehead, but I froze as my hand came into view. My hand and arm were encased in a brilliantly white gauntlet. I raised my other arm up to discover I was wearing a matching gauntlet on that arm. My hands moved down to my stomach, and for the first time, I realized something was deeply wrong. Something about all of this was off. As I moved my hands up and down my front, my hands bumped into something that made my insides shrivel away. My chest...

  My head snapped down as my hands cupped my breasts. I had breasts. Without a second thought, my hand shot down between my legs. My head swam as something deep at the core of my being rejected what I felt, or rather, didn’t feel, there. It was impossible. This wasn’t... I wasn’t...

  In that moment, I caught sight of my reflection in one of the few windows in the courtyard that hadn’t shattered in the explosion. Staring back at me was a woman in a white catsuit, with thin magenta lines weaved into the edges and the dazzling image of a spiral galaxy etched across the chest. A purple cape fluttered around my ankles, caught in the slight breeze of the courtyard. Gravita. I was Gravita.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, just gawking at myself, but I came out of my revere as a ringtone sounded in my ear. I tapped the side of my helmet and was relieved to discover that the call connected.

  “Jake,” a voice sounded on the other end of the phone. “Jake, is that you?”

  My breath caught in my throat. Even though the call was muffled, I recognized my voice on the other end of the call.

  “Who is this?” I asked. If I had any doubt before, it was gone now. When I spoke, my voice was unmistakable as a woman’s.

  “It’s me,” my old voice said. “Jake, this is your wife, Amber.”

  2

  “EXPLAIN IT TO ME AGAIN.” I paced around the room. Sitting on the foot of the bed a few feet away was me, or better stated, my old body.

  “I’m a prime,” Amber repeated herself for the fifth time that night. “Gravita. Come on, Jake. I saved you this afternoon. I know you know who she is, or was, or... well, whatever. I was fighting Doctor Quantum, and he shot that ray gun at me. Next thing I knew, I woke up in your body. I figured if I was in your body, maybe you were in mine. That’s when I called you, or, me, I guess.”

  “This isn’t possible,” I moaned as I dropped onto the bed next to her. She reached out a hand to comfort me, and I fought the urge to flinch under the rough touch of her masculine hand on my back.

  “I’ve heard of things like this happening before.” She furrowed her brow as she spoke. “Two of my teammates once got stuck in this machine, and they ended up in each other’s bodies for a week.”

  “So, so what?” I twisted around to look at her. “Do you think this is just temporary? Will we change back to n
ormal?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Every prime’s power is different, and techies are notorious for having tech that’s impossible to replicate. Unless Doctor Quantum designed that ray to only be temporary, we might not be able to reverse this.”

  “I can’t believe this.” I wrapped my arms around me, but regretted it almost immediately. The foreign weight of my breasts, which hurt as they were squeezed by my arms, was the last thing I wanted to feel at the moment.

  “It’ll be okay.” She pulled me closer for a hug, but I pushed her away.

  “Don’t touch me.” I stood up and faced her. “You know, for the past few hours, I’ve been trying to make sense of this. But I just can’t figure out what’s worse. The fact we’re stuck in each other’s bodies—” I gulped as I met my wife’s gaze, staring into my old pair of brown eye. “—Or the fact that, all the years we’ve known each other, throughout our entire marriage, you never once told me you were a prime.”

  “I wanted to. There were so many times when I was about to. But, be honest, Jake. How would you have reacted to me telling you? You’ve told me, so many times, how much you hate primes. It was practically the only thing you would talk about during our first date.”

  “I...” I stopped myself from saying something I would regret. “I don’t know. But you still should have trusted me.”

  “I know.” She stood up and pulled me into a hug. This time, I didn’t resist. I tried to ignore the scrape of the stubble on her chin as she rested her head on mine. “I’m really, really sorry. Me not telling you I was prime has been the single greatest regret of my life.”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered as I pulled away. “I know why you didn’t. I’m... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so close-minded. All of this is kind of my fault.” As I glanced away from her arms, which were now much wider than mine, I had to crane my neck to look her in the eye. It was hard not to feel intimidated as she towered a foot above me.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, my gaze down on my hands. They were so small—so delicate—now. Life had a way of being so ironic. Not only had my wife been prime, but if I had to choose any prime for her to be, Gravita certainly would have been at the very bottom of that list. Now, I was...

  “You know, the only thing I could think about in those seconds when I was sure I was going to die today?” I spoke softly. She froze as she watched me. “It was you. I love you, Amber. More than anything. Today just proved that over to me again. We’re going to get through this. I know it.”

  “Yeah, we will.”

  I looked up to see she had tears in her eyes. I took a moment to wipe away my own tears, then grabbed my pillow from off the bed. “I guess we’d better go to bed. If it’s alright with you, I think I’m going to sleep on the couch, at least for tonight. Just... sharing a bed with a man is probably beyond me right now.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. I noticed her ears turn red, the same way mine always did when I was embarrassed. She grabbed her own pillow. “I guess I should probably be the one to sleep on the couch, now that I’m the... well, you know...”

  I stopped short. “Does that matter?”

  “I’m not sure.” She grimaced. “But if we’re stuck in these roles, I think we’d better get used to playing each other’s parts.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” I shrugged, uncertain if I agreed with that logic, but too tired by then to argue any further. We had already spent most of the evening arguing as it was.

  “Well.” she sighed. “Goodnight.”

  She leaned down to kiss me. Without thinking, I lifted my head to kiss her back. As our lips met, I realized for maybe the sixth time in the past hour that I wasn’t in my body anymore, and more importantly, that I was kissing a man.

  “That was... weird,” I whispered. It took most of my concentration to stop myself from scratching at where her stubble had touched my lips.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, even as a small smile tugged at her lips. As we parted, I glanced down and was startled at what I saw.

  “Oh!” I tried without success to stop myself from blushing. I quickly averted my eyes.

  “What...” She stopped and looked down. With a yelp, she pulled her pillow down in front of her in a vain attempt to hide what I had already seen. “Goodnight, honey!”

  Without another word, she turned and practically ran out of the room. For my part, I dropped down onto the bed and wondered how on earth that kiss could have done anything for her. Wasn’t she just kissing herself?

  But as I thought about it a little more, my mind drifted back to the moment only a few seconds before when our lips had met, and I was surprised to discover a pleasant, burning sensation start somewhere just behind my navel and trace a subtle path downward at the memory.

  “Oh crap,” I whispered.

  I woke the next morning feeling vaguely happy. Unfortunately, as I stretched to wake myself up, I was struck by the urge to pee. I lazily nudged my leg to the side to adjust myself, only to realize that there was nothing there for me to adjust. My stomach shriveled away as my eyes snapped open and I frantically tried to figure out what had happened to me. My eyes darted down and settled on my breasts, which were rising and falling with each breath I took. I watched them for a second, my dream-addled mind buzzing with questions. This was wrong, somehow. Wasn’t it? I wasn’t supposed to have...

  I bolted out of bed, horrified that I had forgotten the events of the past day so easily. How was that even possible? I squeezed my eyes shut and ran my fingers through my hair, trying in vain to take deep breaths to calm down. It didn’t help that my fingers trailed through over a foot of hair as I combed them along my scalp. I dropped my hands to my sides and shook my head vigorously to try and clear it. After another moment of catching my breath, I managed to open my eyes again, careful to keep my head trained ahead to keep the rest of my body out of view. I gulped as sweat dripped down my forehead. I could ignore the strangeness of this body. That’s what I would do. But as the seconds ticked past and I resolutely kept my gaze fixed ahead of me, I realized with mounting dread that I couldn’t ignore my bladder, which had begun to throb.

  I tiptoed into the bathroom off to the side of the bedroom. Staring at the toilet, I stopped short, my heart beating heavy in my ears. I would have to sit for this, wouldn’t I? My face burned in embarrassment as I slipped my gym shorts and underwear down to my ankles and gingerly sat down on the toilet. I took in a sharp breath at the startling feel of the cold porcelain against my bare thighs. I stared pointedly at a spot on the ceiling but then regretted it as my hair tickled my shoulders. I forced my bladder to relax, then shivered violently when the flow began. I blanched after finishing, only then realizing I wasn’t done. I still had to clean myself up, didn’t I?

  A few minutes later, I left the bathroom, unable to stop my face from burning again in embarrassment. For a wild second, I worried what Amber would think if she found out what I had done in her body, but then realized the absurdity of my fear. I shivered as I thought of the similar, if not worse, predicament she was almost certainly about to face, if my old body kept to its usual routine and schedule. The thought almost made me gag.

  I moved to the closet and reminded myself to look through Amber’s side rather than my own. I extricated her robe and tied it around me before heading out of my bedroom and down the stairs.

  My oldest child, Nicole, looked up from the kitchen table as I entered. “Morning.” She flashed a smile at me as I pulled open the refrigerator.

  I grunted something unintelligible as I pulled out a carton of eggs and set them on the counter. “You want me to make pancakes?”

  “Umm.” She frowned as I rummaged around the kitchen collecting the ingredients I would need. “No offense, mom, but doesn’t dad usually take care of breakfast?”

  “It’s Saturday.” I shrugged and set the frying pans onto the stove. “Besides, you like my cooking, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” She spoke too quickly to be convi
ncing. I sensed her squirm, grateful I was turned away so she couldn’t see me smile at her expense. We all knew Amber couldn’t cook a casserole to save her life, but none of us would ever admit that to her.

  “Good morning, mom.” My youngest child yawned as he came into the room.

  “Good morning, Alan.” I glanced at him as he pulled a glass out of the cupboard and filled it up at the sink. “Have you seen Sam?”

  “She was up when I came downstairs.” He shrugged. “I think she’ll be down soon.”

  “Good,” I smiled. “Nicole, will you go get your... father?”

  “Sure.” She nodded. From the corner of my eye, I saw her give me a sidelong glance before she pushed herself up from the table and left the room. I didn’t think I had paused that long, but evidently it was long enough for her to notice.

  “Dad’s not making breakfast?” Alan glanced between the pancake batter on the counter and me as he took a gulp of water.

  “Not today.” I sighed. “Can you set the table?”

  We got through breakfast easier than I had anticipated. There were a few moments when I had to bite back an answer from a question that had been directed to me, but Amber seemed more than capable of covering for the two of us. Since we hadn’t decided yet if we should tell our children about what had happened, we had decided to try passing for each other for the time being. Perhaps it was a consequence of the arbiter training or lifestyle, but she seemed to take to the task of assuming a completely different character with more apparent ease than I did, which came in handy, as I had no shortage of lapses. Still, I was sure Nicole sensed something was wrong, but neither Sam nor Alan seemed to notice anything off, for which I was grateful. I wasn’t sure I could handle having to tell our children what had happened just yet.

  Within an hour, Amber and I had dropped off our two daughters at a friend’s house for a birthday party, and Alan had gone over to hang out with a neighbor who was about his same age, leaving the two of us alone in the house.