Chapter 1

I woke up slowly even though the alarm was right beside my head and was screaming for attention. I silently chastised myself for yet another late night as I hit the snooze button for 'just five more minutes'. It was a relatively new habit, but was really starting to take its toll on me. Thirty seconds later the alarm was screaming for attention again. At least that was what it felt like.

This time I actually looked at the blurry red digits and cursed. I'm going to be late again and I know I'm going to get an ear full from Mom. At least I didn't have to think about what to wear. My school uniform was the typical gray wool pants, white shirt, tartan tie and black dress shoes. Just like everyone else. In record time I washed my face, brushed my teeth and hair and I headed down the stairs expecting to be chewed out from Mom again for being late.

Instead I found the house empty. Since breakfast was out of the question, I grabbed a cereal bar and looked for my school bag. I found it at the front door, with a note from Mom on top of it:

'Cameron,

I had to go into work early today. I put some money in your bag for lunch. See you for dinner.

Love Mom'

Great! Now I have to fight my way through the lunch crowd for vending machine food. This day is off to a wonderful start already. Now if I could just get through the gauntlet. That's the name that my friends and I had given the time between arriving at school and first bell. That was the time when there were far too many people in the halls and far too few teachers to monitor them.

Stepping out of the house and locking the door I looked at the sky. Dark gray clouds threatened rain. I just hoped it would wait until I got to school before it started, but I already knew how my luck usually went. As I walked through the doors of the school my wet shoes made squeaking sounds on the floor. I got three quarters of the way to school before fate turned on the sprinklers. There was nothing I could do about the soaking wet pants and changing into my gym shoes was not an option either. The teachers didn't accept any deviation from the dress code. At least not for the boys! The girls seemed to be able to get away with a little variation, but not much. At least they had the option of long pants in winter and skirts in the warmer weather. We just had to sweat it out in wool pants all year long.

I made it to my locker without incident, and found Tyler already waiting for me. Tyler had been one of my friends before he morfed last year. Back then he was a skinny, short kid just like me, and just about as unpopular. MORFS had been the best thing to ever happen to him. MORFS didn't give him any powers but it turned into something like a Greek God. He was now about 6 feet 2, blond hair, blue eyes, very athletic build and very popular with the girls. This year he had joined the football team and was having an almost perfect season. He was even holding his own with some of the physically enhanced members of the team.

"Hey Cam, you got it?" he asked. There was no need to explain what 'it' was, we both knew and there was no need to broadcast it to all the people near by.

"Yeah, I have it." I pulled the memory stick out of my shirt pocket and handed it to him.

"This had better be an A, or I'll be looking for yeah!" The standard warning, I didn't expect anything less these days. With football, girls and hanging out with the other Neanderthals from the football team, Tyler had started to use me as his own personal assistant. This was the thirteenth essay I had written for him this year. Well, the year was almost over and Tyler was looking at a full football scholarship if he kept playing at this level. Since I was heading to a technical college I wouldn't have to deal with his type again, I hoped.

"Of course it's an A, exactly the same as the last one. Have I ever let you down before?"

"It better be!" With that, Tyler walked away with the essay and my dignity. What could I do? At 5 feet 5 inches and only 125 pounds, it's not likely I'd be able to hold my own in a fight. I could only see two options available to me. Hope for a major growth spurt or maybe get lucky and catch something that would trigger MORFS. At eighteen, neither of these seems likely anymore. I know other people have gone though MORFS as late as their mid twenties, it's just that they were rare and most of the time without pleasant results.

"What was that all about?" an all too familiar voice behind me said.

I turned and looked in the direction the voice came from and said to the blank wall, "just paying my life insurance premium."

Bill laughed as he literally popped into view. I have no idea where the popping sound came from, but it was a cool effect. "You need to stand up to him one of these days. If you two get caught you'll both get expelled!"

"Yeah, like that's going to happen. Standing up to him worked out so well for you, didn't it?" Bill didn't like to talk about the beating that Tyler had given him when he tried to stand up to him. Not that he had to worry about that anymore. MORFS had given him the ability to avoid any physical attack just be not being there. I still can't figure out how he's able to talk without any physical body. The popping sound every time he used it was weird too, but what do I know about MORFS.

"Well I hope you've been keeping a record of all the work he's been making you do. You know, just in case it does get out"

"Of course I am. I'm not that stupid." Not only did I have a copy of every piece of work, I also had all the references, source material and a recording of most of the hand offs. I had big plans for that stuff. It was a risk making the recordings, but I thought it was worth it.

I threw my book bag into my locker and pulled out the ones for the morning classes before Bill and I headed to home room. "So, what does Mr. Pollard have in store for us today?"

"What ever do you mean?" The sarcastic, innocent tone was a dead give away. Bill had been popping in and out to check all the upcoming mid semester tests the teachers where giving everyone. It was our little advantage, and the only way I was keeping my good marks with the added work load.

"Come on! Spill it, Weasel." I said. "I know he's been prepping for something."

"Stop calling me Weasel, you know I don't like it." Bill pleaded. Ever since he got MORFS and picked up his little disappearing act I'd been calling him Pop Goes the Weasel, or just plain Weasel. Mostly because I knew he hated it.

"Well, you come up with a better nickname and I'll stop." It had been six months since he had figured out how to activate his power and he'd hated my nickname for him from the start.

"Pop quiz tomorrow on the War of 1812," Bill said, avoiding the subject again. "Nothing to worry about and I already send an outline of the questions to you. You should have it in your mail."

"And you talk about me getting expelled!"

"They have to catch me first," laughed Bill.

Science class was up first and was my favorite subject, but today I was just not into it. I was too tired and couldn't concentrate on anything. Fortunately, Mr. Lewis liked me and knew I'd pick it up anyway, so I was fine. English was another story. Ms Gilbert seemed to have it in for me. She constantly would say, "You have such potential if only you would just make an effort." Today was no different with the exception of me being so tired! By the time that we broke for lunch I just wanted to sleep. I didn't even want lunch, which was a good thing as the vending machines all had long lines at them. I wouldn't get anything even if I was hungry. I just sat at the table with Bill and put my head in my hands. It was nice to just rest for a minute. That was until I heard Bill's distinctive pop. My head was up and I was looking around for the reason when I say Tyler heading my way, and he didn't look like he was going to thank me for the essay.

"You are fuckin' dead meat, Camilla!" I hated that name and it wasn't even that imaginative, but I've learned not to expect much from Tyler. I was frozen in place and just too tired to do anything anyway. As he got closer he threw the memory stick at me and said, "The dam thing's blank idiot. You gave me the wrong one."

I pulled out the second memory stick I had in my pocket and looked at the ID tag. I had given him the wrong one. All I could thing of was, "this is gonna hurt!" As Tyler pulled me to my feet and started to drag me out of the cafeteria for the beating that he was going to enjoy a little too much, I was overwhelmed with nausea and felt dizzy.

"I'm gonna puke!" I warned Tyler. Not surprisingly, he didn't care. That was until I threw up on his pants and shoes! I was lucky that a teacher had heard Tyler yelling at me and saw him trying to pull me outside when this happened.

"What's going on here!" demanded my savior. I just wished that I could thank him instead of throwing up again. It was around this time that the whole world went black.

I woke up for the second time that day in the nurse's office and smelling like an open sewer. I felt even worse, if that's possible. The nurse saw that I was awake and came over to me. The name tag on her uniform said Gail, or Dale or something. It was hard to focus. I was about to start asking questions when my Mom walked in. 'Gail' turned to my Mom and said, "It's okay Mrs. McMichael. Cameron seems to be feeling a bit ill."

Wow! What an understatement. I feel like death warmed over.

"William Smyth and Mr. Benson brought him in." Bill hated the name that name more than Weasel, but that was what his parents had registered him at the school as and all the teachers and staff called him that. "William was telling me that Cameron's been tired since this morning and suddenly passed out in the cafeteria at lunch." Not entirely the truth, but it's not like Tyler was going to get into trouble anyway. At this news my Mom sat on the side of the couch. I have to give her credit; she only wrinkled her nose a little when she got a good whiff of me but didn't say anything.

"How are you feeling now, Cam?" she asked. "Do you think you can make it to the car?"

The car? I was wondering if I could make it to a sitting position.

"Now that you're awake I'd like to do a quick test," the nurse said. She pulled out a small box and attached it to my finger. I was just about to ask what it was when it stabbed me.

"Ouch! What was that?" It was more of a surprise than painful.

"Oh sorry, I should have warned you. It's a blood test kit," she explained. "Standard procedure for this kind of thing."

"For what kind of thing?" my Mother and I both asked at the same time.

"When we suspect MORFS," she said as if it happened every day. Mind you, with over 2000 teenage students in the school I guess it was fairly common.

My mothers face went white. "Do you think it's MORFS? I thought he was too old for that now?"

"Oh no, It's perfectly normal for someone his age. And his symptoms do match."

The test only took a few minutes to come back positive. YES! Something good came out of this day after all. However, from the look on Mom's face you would have thought I had a deadly disease. I remember hearing of all the deaths from long ago, but not anymore. I'm sure people still died from MORFS, but not as long as they got treated for it. And that is exactly where we headed, after I changed clothes. Thanks Mom!

The wait in the hospital wasn't as long as I expected, or maybe it was just a blur because I was so out of it. The next that I remember was getting home with the attached arm mounted IV unit and blissful, dreamless sleep. I woke up late in the afternoon and still felt terrible, but nature called and I had no choice but to answer it. After I finished and was washing my hands I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn't look any different. Maybe it was still too early for any changes yet, I hoped! Once back in bed I replaced the canister in the arm unit and fell back to sleep. The next time I woke up I felt a lot better, not quite over it but better. This time I didn't look into the mirror as I wanted to be completely finished with any changes before I saw the new me. On waking the next time I looked at the arm band unit before anything else. The status indicator showed that Stage 2 was now completed and the unit had automatically removed the needle and shut off. I grabbed my tablet from the night table by my bed and looked at the date and time. This can't be right! I've only been out for a little over two days. I removed the arm band unit and headed for the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and immediately wanted to cry. I looked the same! It's not fair!

Getting MORFS, felling terrible, being out cold for over two days and nothing! Not even a change in my eyes or hair color, damn it! Well might as well let Mom know, she'll be relieved. But first, I needed a nice long hot shower to make me feel human again.

"Hi Mom," I said as I hit the bottom of the stairs. She was sitting at the kitchen counter with a cub of coffee and the morning paper, just like most days.

"Hi Honey, are you feeling better this morning?"

"Yeah, I'm just really hungry. I thought that it always took three days or more before you where up again?" Like Mom would know. She avoided MORFS as much as possible. She never caught it herself when she was a teenager and never bothered to look into any of the information that the school regularly sent home on it.

"Well I guess you're just lucky that way" she said with a bit of pride in her voice. Lucky wasn't how I would have put it. I was hoping for some major changes. Muscles would have been nice, or a few inches taller. Hell, I'd have even liked some sort of hybrid or, better yet, a gender change. Anything would have been better than ... me. I had actually thought a lot about MORFS and the possibility that it might turn me into a girl. There were actually a few Twisty's that I knew of in our school. Girls turned into boys or the other way around. Being calling a Twisty started as an insult and they took the name and used it like a badge of honor. I could have accepted being a girl.

"Do you want a ride to school this morning, or are you going to walk?" Damn, it was still only Friday.

"School? No one will be expecting me back until at least Monday!" I can't believe Mom still expected me to go to school after this.

"But you look fine and I don't want you just lying around the house doing nothing."

"Shouldn't I be going to see the Doctor again? I thought that I needed to get a post MORFS scan, or something." At least that would put off school for another day.

"Fine, I'll call and make an appointment at the clinic for you this afternoon. But you'll have to go on your own. I have to get to work." And yet another classic move from Mom to avoid MORFS at all cost.

If I wasn't so hungry I would have just gone back up to my room, but I needed something to eat. So I opened the fridge and started pulling out the eggs and bacon, my standard when I had time to cook it. Mom left me to my breakfast and headed into the spare bedroom she used for her office to call the clinic. Three eggs and way too much bacon later I was finally full and Mom was off the phone.

"You have a 2:00 appointment at the King Street MORFS Clinic," she stated coldly.

"King Street, that means I have to go all the way downtown! Why can't I just go to the one by the mall?" It was a really cool looking place with all the latest scanners and even had a full time telepath on staff. The receptionist that could be seen through the front doors also looked really cute with her neon green hair.

"That place is a private clinic. Medical insurance only covers the cost of the downtown one. You know we can't afford to pay the difference for the other place." Money has been really tight since Dad left us. He was paying child support payments to my Mom, but that stopped last fall when I turned eighteen. At least we still had the house and didn't have to move out after the divorce. I still can't believe he left us to be with his new girlfriend. I don't know what hurt Mom more, that Cindy was a cat hybrid, or that she was about ten years younger.

"Okay Mom, I'll be there." There really was no other option. The only other clinic was even further away and in a really bad part of town. That was the free clinic run by the hospital and it catered to the really poor or homeless in the city. People went there only if they had no other choice.

"I have to get going or I'll be late for work," she said as she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. "Call me from the clinic if you need anything." She gave me a brief hug and kissed me on the forehead as she left to catch her bus. I still bothered me that I was eighteen, had likely stopped growing and I was still shorter than my own mother.

Oh well, at least I had about fours hours of quality online time before heading to the bus. I went back upstairs to my room to get my tablet and log into the net. I could still pretend to be anything that I wanted to be online. It's not like anyone could find out what I was doing online anyway. The computer took a few minutes to start all the applications and connect to the net. I was still dreaming of the day that I would be able to buy a new one, or even an eCom. The computer beeped as it made the connection to the online chat room that I had secretly been a member to for about a year now. There were several messages waiting for me to look at, but I was more interested to see who was online at the moment. Before I could even say anything in the chat room the instant message screen popped up.

'Can you talk?' it was from Burnout. We had been chatting online almost from the day I created my online account.

I typed back, 'yeah for a little while'.

'Cool' pop up at the same time that the incoming call indicator flashed. I hit answer and said, "Morning, how are you?" One of the other programs instantly altered my voice to what everyone online thought was the real me.

"I've missed your sexy voice, where have you been?" Burnout had a deep sexy voice that reminded me of my Dad's. I just hoped that it was his real voice and not simulated like mine was.

"Oh I've been busy. You know usual stuff", first rule in keeping this illusion alive was never to give out to much personal information. You never really know who you could be talking to. No matter how long you've been talking online.

"So when are we ever going to get together?" This had been a common theme with him for that last few weeks. Either he was starting to suspect something, or the last few sessions had really got to him. I just smiled to myself from the memory of the last one.

"You know my schedule is crazy." This was just another stalling tactic that I had used maybe once too often.

"Babe, for you I'd make the time. You know that" He always knew just what to say somehow.

"So who else is on today?" I thought it was a good time to change subjects. I hated to keep putting him off, but it's not like we would ever be able to meet now. This was another reason that I was hoping for a better outcome from MORFS.

"You just missed The Wiz. He just signed off. He said something about needing to get some sleep if he was going to be able to do anything at work."

"Aw, I love talking to him. He has such a beautiful accent." The Wizard of Oz was from somewhere in Australia, of course, and the time difference usually meant we missed each other a lot.

As we continued to talk I checked my messages and replied to most of them. Later we entered one of the chat rooms and caught up with a few of my other online friends and what they were doing. Before long it was time for me to say goodbye to everyone and head to the clinic. The ride was uneventful, thankfully, and the short walk to the clinic from the bus stop allowed me to enjoy the cool spring day. As I got closer to the clinic my heart sank. There was a small group of protester outside with picket signs. REPENT was written on one and ABOMINATIONS TO GOD on another. I stopped reading any more of them. I just looked at my shoes as I walked down the sidewalk and then made a sudden turn into the clinic before anyone notice that was my intention. Getting out on the other hand was not going to be fun.

I signed in at the reception desk and sat down and tried not to stare too much. I couldn't help but look at one little girl sitting there playing with her doll. Her mother reading magazine that looked like it was printed a hundred years ago. She was about 10 or 12 and an obvious cat hybrid. All I could do was look at her and think of my Dad. I missed him but Mom was making it hard for me to be able to see him. She still had a lot of anger in her about the whole thing and just assumed that I felt the same way. I looked through some of the magazines as well, but the selection was somewhat limited. I didn't find anything that I was interested in, so I just continued to look around and day dreamed. Shortly after the little girl and her mother where called into one of the examination rooms, my name was called. The nurse showed me to a small room with two chairs and an examination table that looked older than me. I sat in one of the chairs and waited.

"Hello," the doctor looked at the name on the tablet with my medical records to find my name. "Cameron McMichael, is it?"