Stephanie Part 4 Discoveries

Even though two people had managed to pass through the first filter and listen to the podcast, there were no phone calls, then one evening there was a ring on Stephanie’s phone.

Stephanie pressed to receive the call and put it on speaker phone for Graham to listen.

A broad Scotts accent said. “Am I through to the Help Line?”

“If it is the Help Line you read after the Podcast, then, Yes.”

“I am told my name is Kirsty, although until two days ago it was Hamish. I am sitting with Kirsty’s Mum, Lucy.”

“Where are you?”

“I am in Dumfries in the Scottish Lowlands.”

“Where does Hamish live?”

“I used to live in a village near Lockerbie.”

“Does Hamish have a mobile phone?”

“No, my mother; his mother doesn’t allow it.”

“It is important that you and Kirsty (Hamish) meet, but let me say that I think you are taking this all very well. It is very difficult to deal with until everyone knows what is happening.”

“Lucy, what do you make of all this.”

“I was amazed when Kirsty woke up and said she was actually Hamish, but I think we have come to terms with that now. I am single Mum and a nurse and can cope with most things.”

“You understand the importance of keeping quiet about this mind exchange.”

“We both understand that, but my mother, Hamish’s mother is a devout evangelical Christian and is not online. I fear that she may be so blinkered that she does not understand what has happened and will go to her Elders at the chapel where she worships.”

“My daughter, Kirsty, will not tolerate that behaviour. She is a feisty little madam sometimes, and I am proud of her for that. I think there will be ructions in that household before long.”

“Can you get to visit? I think the link can be made between Kirsty and Hamish through a closed door.”

“We can try, but Dorothy is unlikely to open the door to anyone she doesn’t know.”

“I am only fifteen myself”, Stephanie said. “I am going to need to ask for help. May I ring you back on this number in a few minutes?”

Stephanie rang off, and rang Seraphina and explained the predicament they were in.

“I think Lucy and Kirsty should go to her old house and stand outside the front door and hope that the bond that ties Hamish and Kirsty together is strong enough to reach through the door and make the link. After all we know it goes 20 miles through air! Once the link is made then everything else is less important. Ring the door bell after that and see what happens. If you are prevented from seeing Hamish then that needs a further intervention. Hamish and Kirsty will be able to sense each other’s thoughts after the link is completed.”

That is what Lucy and Kirsty did.

Outside Hamish’s old home they stood quietly outside the front door unobserved, and Kirsty called to the boy who knew he was Kirsty, through the door.

Shortly there was an altercation behind the door, and a crash as someone was thrown away from the door. The door was flung open and Hamish and Kirsty leapt into each other’s arms.

Hamish’s mother was slightly bloodied over one eye, but held her bible aloft. “Honour thy father and mother”, the Good Book says.

“I am. Lucy is my mother, not you.”

“If Lucy will have me, I am going home to a nice peaceful home away from your nonsense.”

“You can certainly come home with us, if that is what you wish, Kirsty, but it would be far better to make peace with your mother and for us all to understand what has happened to our young people.”

“I understand that you are called Dorothy, but will you let us inside so we can tell you what has happened? I understand that you are not on the Internet, so will not know how to research this event.”

Dorothy could see Hamish and Kirsty clinging to each other like limpets.

“I suppose you had better come in but I would like my pastor to be here with us. He only lives two doors down the street. I will ring him now and see if he is available.”

The Reverend John was available and came at Dorothy’s bidding.

Shortly, the five participants sat round the parlour table and Lucy used her mobile to involve Seraphina and Stephanie in a conference call to include them in the conversation.

Seraphina spent the first minutes questioning the two children. It was as previously … A boy and a girl who were developmentally very similar and born on the same day, swapping minds.

Each mother was asked to pose questions that could be answered by no-one except her child. Both Hamish and Kirsty answered faultlessly from their new bodies.

Both teens could describe the bedroom where they used to sleep with the contents of each drawer named.

Clearly, Reverend John was becoming agitated.

“If this is true, then it must be the work of the devil” and he began to quote scripture of the denizens of Hell and all their skills to manipulate humans.

Seraphina was clearly his equal and each time Reverend John dragged a new verse from the bible, from ever more obscure books, Seraphina could counteract what he said from another part of the bible. Eventually Reverend John grew silent.

Dorothy eventually calmed down and realised that her longterm mentor and pastor had met his match.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“Seraphina continued “What is important is what is best for your children. Bonded young people have significant advantages and if they are able to be in the same school and prepare for the same examinations, then it can be hugely beneficial. If a way for Kirsty and Hamish can live and work together can be found, then that would be best for them.”
Seraphina seemed to be able to spot when Reverend John was about to boil over even over the phone.

“This bonding is pure and virtuous and free from any sin. You are fond of quoting scripture, but Jesus reiterated the Creation account of male and female being united as "one flesh" and the divine principle that this union should not be broken by human action.”

“Are you, John, prepared to defy your God?”

… and of course he wasn’t, and left shortly afterwards.

It was certain that Dorothy’s reliance on Christianity had received a substantial blow.

“What I suggest is that all four of us go back to my house. I have room for us all and the Kirsty and Hamish can bring a suitcase with the necessaries for a boy, then after a night’s thought and sleep we will consider the future.”

That is what happened and when Lucy phoned Stephanie the following day, she said that they had agreed that Hamish and Kirsty would live with Lucy during the week and stay with Dorothy over the weekend.

Seraphina was quite sure that they had made an enemy of Reverend John, but there was nothing illegal about a widow and a divorcee agreeing to share the care of their two children, and Hamish/Kirsty moved school the following term.

The second contact through the website didn’t seem to lead to a phone call, but Graham was a little suspicious about it. Call it a gut feeling that it was someone snooping rather than a genuine enquiry.

If it was a snooper, then how did they get through both layers of QR code devices?

Then Graham’s phone rang.

He answered it noncommittally just giving the number.

“Who am I speaking to came an adult male voice.”

“More to the question … Who are you and why have you rung this number?”

“My daughter left this number on a piece of paper. I keep track of her contacts.”

“You haven’t said who you are.”

“Who I am doesn’t matter. I am concerned as to who she is phoning.”

In the time the unknown man was speaking, Graham had done a Reverse Phone Lookup. The phone in use was in the Edinburgh office of a well known newspaper. They made a lot of money pedalling spurious and vituperative claptrap.

Graham continued. “Clearly you need help, but there is nothing I can do to help someone like you.” and he ended the call.

I need to change my phone number he said to himself, and he went out and used the bank card to buy a burner phone number and had the number of his normal phone changed.

The website seemed to recognise the change and after discussing it with Stephanie and Serephina they inserted a new security level. Any caller to the burner phone was told in a recorded message that if they answered ‘Yes’ to a question asking if they needed more help, then to end the call and they would be contacted through a new call from a ‘number withheld’ number within five minutes.
The website remained inactive for some days and Stephanie and Graham were able to concentrate on school work for a while at least.

The following week there was just one call to the burner phone with an enquiry.

Graham phoned the number back within the five minutes he allowed himself.

A man’s voice answered.

“How can I help you?” Graham asked non-committally.

“We are on holiday in the South of France at a campsite. This is a birthday treat for my son, Billy, who will turn sixteen tomorrow. He has woken up this morning speaking French, and only schoolboy English, saying that he is a French girl called Simone who lives in a village about ten kilometres from here.”

“I assume that Simone could see the QR code on the website?”

“Yes he (or she) spotted it straight away, but the information is in English and my French is limited to ordering a meal and a beer in France. I couldn’t translate the information properly and translation software doesn’t work through your software.”

“No it is designed to stop the copying needed for translation software to work.”

“I suggest that you drive Simone to the house where she says that she lived until yesterday. You will not need to go inside to see if there is a reaction. Simone and Billy will be able to sense each other through the door. Once Simone and Billy have bonded they will share each other’s memories and I suspect that the language difficulty will have been solved.”

“Once they are bonded I think some of your problems will have been solved, but with so many miles between your homes, it will be difficult to sort to some of the logistical problems. I hope Simone’s French parents are co-operative. Please try to avoid other people becoming involved. As you will have read there are always opportunities for groups to embrace hatred of people they see as ‘others’.”

“I will ring you again this evening to see how things have gone. Please be positive. Everything we know about this process is life affirming. My partnership has been enormously fulfilling for us both. “

Later that day Graham rang the mobile number in France again. It was answered promptly by Simone and she said straight away in perfect albeit accented English that the phone was on speaker phone, and that Simone, Billy, George and Barbara Thompson, and Simone’s mother Celeste Combe, were listening.

“Clearly both families have met. I cannot speak French very well so I will give time for Simone or Billy to translate for Madame Combe if that is needed.”

“Maman cannot speak English so I will translate.” said Billy, who now looked like Simone.

“You know that bonding seems to be a matter of chance where two people who are on a point where their lives converge, and have been through a mind exchange. The range of that exchange seems to be about 20 miles. After life bonding has taken place, the couple will diverge with the partner who was male becoming very feminine, and the partner who was female becoming strongly masculine.”

“As part of this process, the couple share memories, and although we did not know it before, they share languages. They can do school work as a team, and are likely to marry and have family together eventually. They are likely to be very unhappy if separated for long periods or separated by long distances.”

“By chance your Simone and Billy have transitioned whilst on holiday. I am delighted that they have found each other but I think the practical consequences are probably quite daunting for you all.”

“Parents of other partnerships have found that the only solution was to move close together and the two children will live between the two houses and go to the same school, but that is going to be more challenging for you. Please be inventive. I am sure there must be a solution to your problem, but I am not sure what it is. I will keep in touch, but is there anything else I can help with before ending this call?”

“How do we contact you if we need you again?”

“If you go on to the original website and go through the first QR code portal, the system will recognise that you have been there before and will give an option to send one of us a text message and we will contact you. This phone I am using will not accept incoming calls.”

“Please do keep us informed of your progress. You are the first mind swap we are aware of that has taken place across an international border. We do treasure every couple who transform, and look forward to keeping in contact with you. Eventually we will offer greater connectivity for you to keep in touch, but we already face people with prurient interests whose motives are highly suspect.”

“We will keep these matters secret, and maybe we will be able to meet face to face eventually.”

After ringing off, the two families tried to sort out their options. Billy attended an Independent Boys School in the Home Counties and his home was in Wembley in West London. Simone attended a Lycée in Lezignan Corbieres in the Minervois.

Madame Combe was a web designer and could live and work anywhere, Billy’s parents had a mail order company selling children’s clothes. They had an apartment attached to the warehouse where they kept their stock, and the apartment was currently empty . It was decided that Madame Combe could live and work in the apartment, and the two children would attend the London International School near their homes in Wembley.

The extra layers of filtering of access to the website seemed to be paying off and there were no more attempts to access the group in the months that followed. There were occasional successful accesses to the site and the screen of information was accessed a couple of times a month, but no one seemed to need any one-to-one assistance.

There was still plenty of money on the prepaid bank card, so Stephanie and Graham were not out of pocket, and yet there was a feeling amongst the pair and the other couples that there were individuals who were not being supported through their transition. Seraphina examined the Coroner’s reasons for unexplained suicides in fifteen and sixteen year olds and there was a constant trickle of three or four a month. She thought that some of these must be associated with a failed partnership, but how to access these people before they became desperate? One problem was that Coroner’s reports often took over a year after a death before they were released and there didn’t seem to be any sort of pattern even then.

“Tiny differences in an individual’s DNA might be observable if detailed karyotyping was done, but that was not done as a matter of course and was probably the main reason why transitioning fifteen year olds was not spotted.”

“Sites that allow individuals to search for ancestors often offer a DNA testing service. These take the DNA from saliva samples and extract the DNA from the cheek lining cells and compare it at more than 40 positions on the chromosomes where there are know to be genes that have more than two alternatives. That is, genes that can code for a variety of characteristics. What we are probably looking for is a gene whose function is unknown. This will be found in the general population, but there is also a much smaller activating gene that switches on only when the person is at the optimum time to swap minds with someone else.”

“Could this be a gene that is either active or inactive, rather like the dominant and recessive genes we learned about in school?”

“Absolutely. The hypothesis is that our gene is active for a short period and it triggers the universal gene that everyone has.”

“Agreed. In that way the DNA that is tested on millions of individuals will not show up as a significant change.”

“Are you saying, Seraphina, that an injection of our DNA just at the right time might trigger a transition in someone?”

“That is my hypothesis, but it would be unethical to try it out on anyone without their permission.”

“If triggering is subject to the rules of simple genetics, how is it that all the children from one family do not transition.”

“Have you noticed that all the transitions have come from families where there is only a single child. I cannot see how that is important but maybe it is.”

“i have another hypothesis, Graham said”

“The DNA that codes for a transition is present in everyone, but a carrier individual who comes into close contact with a teenager at just the right time can pass over a tiny amount of nucleic acid in perspiration, moisture droplets in breath or even in a virus like particle, and that will trigger the transition.”

“That could be in a swimming pool or sports changing room for instance.”

“Unless someone was very careful with their planning and knew the ages of people, the DNA transfer would be completely random.”

“How can one think of teenagers sharing some item that has DNA on it. I know there are people who share combs or hairbrushes although I am repelled by the idea, and I also understand that within families, there are people who share toothbrushes or towels but it is rare and rather unsavoury.”

“Clearly, kissing would transfer DNA, but we don’t know of any transfers in people who already have boyfriends or girlfriends. It would complicate the mind swap if there were.”

“I think we have made progress. We have a working hypothesis that does not compromise the DNA testing we have done.”

“The next question is … if there is a mind swap over a distance of up to 20 miles would any person who has received the trigger be receptive or is it specific to one pair alone?”

“We have already ascertained earlier in this account that there are likely to be at most, two mind swaps in Britain each month where both people have to be within 20 miles of the other when the swap is triggered, so it could be just random.”

“So who, or what, provides the tiny bit of DNA or t-RNA that triggers the process?”

“I can only think of one way for that to happen.”

If a person’s phone is altered so that a small jet of DNA suspension is jetted into their ear when a specific number calls, then it can be highly specific and highly effective.

“Stephanie, may I see your phone?”

In the space for a second SIM or memory card was a tiny empty vial and a hair like tube leading to the earphone. Graham then checked his own phone, and inside his phone was a similar tiny empty vial.

“I think it is clear how we have been dosed with DNA or t-RNA.”

“That was very clever to think of our phones, Graham. I get calls regularly from unknown users, and listen to a few words before ending the call. I am sure that a small jet of liquid could have been squirted into my ear during one of these brief calls.”

“We would have to see why the vial is set in action with only one call, and not any call, and there is no reason why there should be a 20 mile limit to the transfer unless there is a person behind the doctoring of each phone.”

“Perhaps the card with the vial attached is a separate phone SIM. If the person who inserted it is the only one who knows its phone number, then on the first call it will discharge.”

“Do we feel that this intrusion into our lives is justified and are prepared to let it carry on with more young people being affected, or do we make an announcement so that every phone of a fifteen or sixteen year old is examined and the procedure will be stopped.”

“I think another question is how many phones today are like yours, Graham. Firstly the user must have a phone that has space for two SIM cards.”

“I don’t know the answer, but certainly many, but not all.

“I am sure the moral thing to do is to make an announcement, and get everyone to check their phones, but I have a strong gut feeling that they will find nothing because the phone is only doctored a short while before, and for only those specific people. If nothing is found then we will just be called a bunch of nutty troublemakers and any of our efforts will be marginalised.”

“Do we get all the other mind swap people to check? I am not sure that everyone we have been in touch with are going to take the mind swap as pragmatically as we have done.”

“Aren’t you forgetting about Hamish, who didn’t have a mobile phone?”

“Yes, I am, but we will have to pin that down later. My guess is that he could borrow a phone, and because it was only the second slot that was used for the vial, the person phoning could use the second number when he had the phone in his hand. It doesn’t fit so well as a theory, but we could ask him.”

“I agree. We need to find out why this is being done, and then decide who else to involve, but I do think we should set a time limit. If we cannot find out anything about the old man who gave us the Pre-paid bank card, or those sorted out the web page then we need to go public. It would be immoral not to do so.”

“So what do we do if the interference is technically an assault of an under-age minor, but is judged to be benign, or even entirely beneficial?”

Seraphina had been quiet for some time. “I have looked into the question of ethics. It is a dilemma with various types of medical treatment. The individual needs treatment, but either the individual or their parents refuse it for ethical or Religious reasons. Does Society intervene or not?”

Stephanie had decided “On the whole, the wishes of the individual should be respected, even if the consequences would be beneficial and I think it is even more important if the mind swap gives additional advantages to the couple. It becomes a form of positive eugenics if it is forced without consent and that is seriously questionable.”

“I still think that with only two mind swaps a month in the United Kingdom and an unknown, but probably small cohort swapping each month elsewhere in the World, that we need to get as full a picture as possible before going public. Starting a witch hunt is probably easy with the universality of social media, and false news. A story like this could trigger all sorts of unpredictable consequences. I am unhappy about starting a stampede that no one can control.”

“That seems sensible. We are still only getting two people a month getting through the first filter and accessing the web page.”

“What about the people who have already transitioned?”

“I am uncomfortable telling them because what has been done is irreversible as far as we know. How is that knowledge going to help them? If they get angry and they have no one to blame, then the information stampede will start.”

“OK we leave the existing swappers for the same time as the general public, and how long is that going to be.”

“We know that whoever is responsible, knows what we are thinking and doing almost before we do. That is worrying of itself.”

“I think we set a limit of a month for the person or group who are responsible to show themselves more.”

“OK, a month more, and no longer.”

“We don’t want to be disbelieved and we don’t want to be thought of as magicians or disregarded because we are young; and we don’t want to frighten people or make them feel threatened; but we do need something to demystify what has happened!”

Shortly after message arrived on the phones of both Stephanie and Graham.

“You have made startling progress understanding what has happened to you. Your transition has happened to a small number of individuals since human records began. We choose people very carefully to make sure that the mind swaps do not give rise to repercussions. The changes are generally regarded as beneficial to the individuals or at least thought of as benign.”

“Releasing of your information into the wider world is not recommended. The consequences could be very serious. People in your situation have been harmed in the past, and have even died when these changes have been made public. You must choose whether to live quietly, and to benefit from your transition. Our experience is that mind swap couples are healthier and live longer, have slightly more children and are a little more successful in their daily lives. None of these gifts make you obviously extraordinary. You will live your lives out in comfortable obscurity as does everyone else who has transitioned.”

“The choice remains yours of course. Reverend John has been silenced by the Elders of his faith; some of whom have been through Mind Swaps such as yours. The journalist has been given other ‘fish to fry’ as the saying goes. Again, the choice remains yours, but government agencies have never found any evidence of our existence, and will not in the future. If you go to the Press or Police, for instance, you are on your own and will have no evidence. The bank card was funded by a well known multimillionaire entrepreneur who has no idea that he funded it. You bought the phones. In the past, exposés have become very messy and the mind swappers have taken the brunt of the anger and frustration of the population.”

“We thank you for the fact that you have eased the passage of fourteen couples and only the ones you know have contacted you. Please keep the balance on the Prepayment card. We will send you a present when you marry and a further present on the birth of each of your children.”

“This message will be deleted in fifteen seconds and cannot be recovered.”

“Well there we have it. We got what we asked for. Do we shut up and get on with long, happy, successful lives or go out on the certainty of what seems morally right, but with no evidence other than two plastic vials that are, at this moment liquifying on the table. I can see that the web page has gone as well.”

“I think the decision has been made for us. I do not want to be experimented on and spend perhaps years in an institution. I want to protect Stephanie and our unborn children from that fate as well.”

Seraphina said goodbye. “I must get back to my partner, Jake. We transitioned some years ago.”

“Graham kissed Stephanie. I think we should go and lose our virginity together.”

“Anybody disagree?”