'Get ready for magic,' said Jandra. She furrowed her brow and the heart began to melt in her hand. The silver slid across her fingers and down her arms. It flowed like paint under her sleeves, disappearing under her clothes. A few seconds later, it appeared at the base of her neck and flowed upward, covering her throat, creeping across her chin, tinting her lips with a sheen of silver. She closed her eyes as the metal flowed across her cheeks and nose and climbed over her brow. Within seconds, every patch of visible skin was enveloped by the liquid metal. Shay held his breath as Jandra stood silently, her eyes closed, a look of intense concentration on her silvery face.
When she opened her eyes, they were no longer hazel, but were, instead, an intense jade green.
Lizard dug his claws deep into Shay's calves. 'Good boss?' he whispered.
'Jandra?' Shay stepped closer, to make certain his eyes weren't playing tricks. 'Are you okay?'
Jandra grinned. She stepped toward Shay and draped her arm across his shoulder. She pulled his face to hers and pressed their lips together. Her lips were cool, much smoother than flesh, yet still soft. Her tongue slipped between his teeth. It, too, was cold and slick coated with silver.
Jandra made a purring noise as she ran her hands along his naked back. She grabbed his butt in a fashion he found unnerving, despite their previous intimacies. He stood still as a statue, not even breathing, as she groped him.
Her tongue stopped moving in his mouth. She pulled her head back, studying his face. She grinned again. She snickered and stepped away, giggling harder.
'What's funny?' Shay asked.
Jandra laughed wildly, clutching her belly as silver tears ran down her cheeks. Her laughing turned harsh, almost braying. Lizard's claws sank deeper into Shay's legs.
'Is it something I did?' Shay asked.
'She slept with you?' Jandra said, between gasps for air.
Shay scowled.
Jandra straightened up. She wiped the tears from her cheeks, and then motioned with her hands along her body. 'I mean, look at me! I'm hot! Why am I wasting time with some skinny, freckle-faced slave boy? Any man in the kingdom would kill to touch me. Half the women too, probably.'
Shay frowned.
'Nothing personal. I kissed you because, hey, you were convenient, and it was a nice way to celebrate the moment. Alas, I've outgrown you. I'm going to be more upscale in my partners from now on.'
'Jandra?' Shay whispered.
The woman shook her head. 'Guess again.'
JASMINE ROBERTSON, GODDESS, hacker, geek, had always lived on the razor edge of risk. She'd topped the FBI's most wanted list when she was nineteen and had taken a paid tour of the White House to celebrate. She'd worked as an intern for Senator Coe the summer her Earth Liberation Army set off the bomb that toppled the Washington Monument. When she'd finally had to get out of town due to the tightening net, every member of the Senate woke up to a zero balance in their bank accounts and she'd been, on paper at least, the eighth richest woman in the world. Not that she ever cared about money. Money was only useful if you were the type of loser who actually bothered to pay for stuff.
Yet, despite her rebellious, devil-may-care nature, Jazz had always possessed one cautious, even conservative, trait: she never failed to back up her data.
Jazz stretched her new back. If felt as if Jandra had been sleeping on rocks, which was probably the case. Jandra's body was also scuffed and scraped and bruised in a variety of places, including some difficult to reach spots that hinted of interesting stories. She felt curiously… bubbly. Hormonal, even.
'Yowza!' she said. 'I'm seventeen again!'
Across the pit, the lanky red-headed guy gawked at her. There was something trembling under the dirty long- johns that hung around his waist like a backwards apron. Either there was a frightened dragon hiding between his legs, or he was really unhappy to see her.
'Hmmm,' she said, searching Jandra's memories. 'You're Shay? Runaway slave. Would-be librarian. How pathetically noble.'
'What have you done with Jandra?' Shay asked.
'I've evicted her,' said Jazz. 'My genie did a running back up of my memories while I was alive. I've overlaid these onto Jandra's synapses, onto the sections of her brain I altered on the moon to make her more receptive. The preprogrammed urge to rescue my genie in the event of my body's demise must have worked. I've prepped a few hundred girls over the centuries, but this is the first time I've ever actually lost a fight.'
Shay knelt and reached for a long leather pouch beside his backpack. He drew out a weapon, taking an oddly long time to free it. It was obvious the kid hadn't watched many westerns. Jazz looked down the barrel of the flintlock as he stood, a bit perturbed that it existed. She'd worked diligently to keep the world gun-free.
'Get out of Jandra's body,' said Shay, in a low, hissing voice as he clicked off the safety. 'Get out or I'll blow you to hell.'
Jazz shook her head. 'Kid, you really need to work on your threats. I've just spent a month buried underground as a bodiless intelligence with a flaming sword burning big holes in my personality. What was left of my senses was all digital, meaning I felt the full chemical subtleties of being buried in soil composed of my own cremated remains. Hell would be a vacation after that. Besides, we both know you aren't going to shoot your girlfriend in the face.'
'You aren't her,' said Shay. The muscles in his face twitched, but his hands remained steady on the flintlock.
'Jandra isn't dead, only dormant. I might give her back eventually. To be honest, she feels a little short. I'm sure I have enough DNA in my hairbrush to grow a new me. So put the gun… gun… guh… uh…'
Jazz's neck twisted. Her tongue cramped, bunching into a hard knot near the back of her throat. Her left hand jerked forward spastically, fingers wide, as if grasping for a rope just out of reach. Her jaw began to move of its own accord as she exhaled, 'Kiilll meee…'
Tears trickled onto Shay's cheeks as he closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger.
Jazz was knocked from her feet by the force of the lead balls smacking into her. They tore at the cotton blouse Jandra wore, but failed to penetrate the silver shell of nanites that coated her skin. She hit the ground hard. The impact silenced the spirit that had temporarily grabbed control of some of her muscles.
'Son of a bitch,' she muttered as she sat up. Her ribs felt like they'd been hit with a hammer. 'This is why I hate guns.'
She rose on shaky legs. Her toes didn't feel right. Was something wrong? This was Jazz's first experience with putting her mind into a new body. The Atlanteans did it all the time. No doubt there was going to be a learning curve.
Shay was busy reloading. While she was confident the gun couldn't do any real damage, she wasn't in the mood to get knocked on her ass again.
'I honestly hadn't intended to kill you until now,' said Jazz.
Shay walked backward as she approached, still reloading the gun. He was attempting to pull the ramrod free as Jazz lunged forward and grabbed the gun barrel. It was still hot from the previous firing, but nothing like flaming angel sword hot. Almost pleasant, in fact. She ripped the shotgun from his hands, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to her face, and whispered, 'It was sweet of you to reload. Now, it's my turn to see if bullets bounce off yoooooOOO!' She cried out as something sank its beak deep into her inner thigh. She staggered backward, dragging a heavy weight on her left leg. She looked down and found a twenty pound earth-dragon with its mouth clamped firmly onto her leg just beneath her crotch. The little beast hadn't pierced the nanite shell, but it had pinched several inches of skin, muscle, and nerves between its powerful beak.
She banged it on the head with the shotgun. 'Get off me, you damn lizard!' The small beast growled and shook its head, refusing to let go. She hit it again, harder. Still it held on. When she tried to strike again her swing went wide and the shotgun flew from her grasp. Her mouth moved without her ordering it too. 'Run Lizard! She'll kill you!'
Jazz grimaced and retook control of her mouth. Tears welled in her eyes; the dragon bite hurt like hell, and the beast showed no signs of letting go. She said, her voice quavering, 'You should have listened to your mama.'
With a thought, she electrified her nanite shell. Lizard flew back and rolled across the burnt ground. White smoke trailed from his open jaws. She studied the dent on her inner thigh, half expecting to find that the little devil
