THE PATIENT WHO WASN'T REBECCA

Jason was driving home from yet another business trip when the storm struck.

Rain hammered against the windscreen so violently that even with the wipers at full speed, he could barely see the road ahead. Lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating the countryside in brief flashes of ghostly white.

Then came the explosion.

BANG!

The steering wheel jerked violently in Jason's hands.

"Dammit!"

He fought to keep control of the car and eventually pulled onto the side of the road. He switched on his hazard lights and climbed out into the pouring rain.

One look confirmed what he already suspected.

A tyre had blown.

Jason opened the boot and reached for the spare.

Flat.

"Perfect."

Another flash of lightning lit up the countryside.

For the first time, Jason noticed the enormous iron gates on the opposite side of the road.

Beyond them stood a sprawling old manor house.

It looked Victorian, perhaps even older, with dozens of dark windows staring down at him.

Jason hesitated.

But he needed a telephone.

Pulling his coat tight, he hurried through the gates and followed the long driveway.

By the time he reached the manor, he was soaked.

He knocked on the enormous oak door.

Nothing.

He knocked again.

Slowly, the door creaked open.

An elderly man stood there.

He must have been in his mid-eighties. His thin white hair was carefully combed back, and he wore a white doctor's coat beneath a green plastic apron. Green rubber gloves covered his hands.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to bother you," Jason said. "I've had a blowout. My spare's flat too. Could I use your telephone to call a tow truck?"

The old man stared at him for several uncomfortable seconds.

Then he smiled.

"Of course. Come inside."

Jason stepped through the doorway.

The door closed behind him.

Only then did he notice the plaque hanging beside it.

FRANKLIN THOMAS INSTITUTE

FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE

Jason turned toward the old man.

"This is an asylum?"

"An institution," the doctor corrected pleasantly. "For patients requiring specialised care."

Jason nodded uneasily.

"I only need the phone."

"Naturally."

The doctor gestured toward a corridor.

Jason followed him.

That was the last thing he remembered.

Consciousness returned slowly.

Jason heard a rhythmic electronic beeping.

Then came sensation.

Strange sensation.

His entire body felt wrong.

Too light.

Too sensitive.

Different.

He tried to move.

Leather restraints held his wrists against a metal table.

Jason's eyes snapped open.

Bright surgical lamps burned above him.

He attempted to sit up.

Something shifted heavily against his chest.

Jason froze.

Slowly, terrified of what he might discover, he looked down.

A hospital gown covered his body.

Beneath it were the unmistakable curves of two large breasts.

"No..."

Jason struggled against the restraints.

His voice made him freeze again.

It wasn't his voice.

It was soft.

Young.

Female.

"No! What the hell have you done to me?"

A polished medical cabinet stood across the room.

Jason saw his reflection.

A frightened young woman stared back.

Long hair surrounded an unfamiliar face. His shoulders were narrow. His body was slender and unmistakably feminine.

Jason screamed.

The laboratory door opened.

The elderly doctor entered.

He was smiling.

"Excellent," he said. "You're awake."

"What did you do to me?"

The doctor walked calmly toward the table.

"My life's work."

Jason pulled desperately against the restraints.

"Put me back!"

The old man's smile widened.

"For decades, I have studied the human brain. Memory. Personality. Consciousness. I wanted to know whether the mind could survive independently of the body."

Jason stared at him.

"You've been experimenting on the patients?"

"Naturally. Nobody believes the criminally insane."

The doctor's eyes glittered with pride.

"Tonight, however, I finally succeeded."

Jason looked again at the woman reflected in the cabinet.

"You transferred my mind?"

"Your consciousness," the doctor corrected. "From one brain into another."

Jason's breathing became frantic.

"Then reverse it."

The doctor said nothing.

"PUT ME BACK IN MY BODY!"

The doctor's expression changed.

Almost pitying.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible."

Jason stared at him.

"Why?"

"Your body is dead."

Silence.

Jason stopped struggling.

"What?"

"It reacted poorly to the serum. The electrodes caused further complications."

Jason shook his head.

"No."

"I'm afraid so."

"No!"

"This is your body now."

Jason began pulling violently against the restraints.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE A WOMAN!"

"You misunderstand your situation," the doctor replied calmly. "Being a woman is the least of your problems."

Jason stopped.

"What does that mean?"

The doctor picked up a file from the table.

"Would you like to know whose body you're occupying?"

Jason stared at him.

The doctor opened the file.

"Rebecca Thomas. Twenty-seven years old."

He paused.

"Convicted murderer."

Jason's blood ran cold.

"No."

"Multiple murders, actually. Extremely violent. Extremely disturbed."

"You can't do this!"

"But I already have."

The doctor prepared a syringe.

Jason began screaming.

"My name is Jason! I'm not Rebecca! I'm Jason!"

The needle entered his arm.

The laboratory slowly disappeared.

The last thing Jason saw was the doctor smiling down at him.

"Nobody here is going to believe that."

Jason awoke screaming.

This time there was no laboratory.

There were padded walls.

He tried to move and discovered that his arms were trapped inside a straitjacket.

A tiny reinforced window looked out onto a hospital corridor.

"HELP!"

Jason threw himself against the door.

"HELP ME! MY NAME IS JASON! THE DOCTOR DID SOMETHING TO ME!"

Two orderlies appeared outside.

"Rebecca," one said firmly. "Calm down."

"I'm not Rebecca!"

"Calm down."

"My name is Jason!"

The orderlies exchanged a familiar look.

The look people gave the insane.

Jason spent his first night as a woman screaming, crying and begging anyone who passed his cell to listen.

Nobody did.

Over the following days, Jason told his story to everyone.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Orderlies.

Psychiatrists.

Patients.

He explained the storm.

The flat tyre.

The laboratory.

The machine.

The consciousness transfer.

His dead body.

Nobody believed him.

According to the institution's records, Jason didn't exist.

Rebecca Thomas did.

Rebecca had been committed after being convicted of murder and judged criminally insane.

Every time Jason insisted otherwise, another note was added to Rebecca's psychiatric file.

Delusional identity disorder.

Persistent rejection of biological identity.

Elaborate false memories.

Claims to be an unidentified male named Jason.

Eventually, Jason understood the terrible truth.

The more desperately he tried to prove that he was sane, the more insane he appeared.

So he stopped talking.

He took the medication they gave him.

He answered when they called him Rebecca.

He followed instructions.

And gradually, the restrictions were relaxed.

He was allowed to eat with the other patients.

He was allowed into the recreation rooms.

He showered with the other women.

He was given women's clothing.

Nurses patiently explained the personal routines and physical issues that came with the healthy twenty-seven-year-old female body he now inhabited.

Every new experience reinforced the same horrifying reality.

This wasn't temporary.

No machine waited to reverse the experiment.

No body to return to.

Jason was dead.

Only his consciousness remained.

And as far as the rest of the world was concerned, that consciousness belonged to Rebecca Thomas—a convicted murderer who might spend the rest of her life inside Franklin Thomas Institute.

Weeks became months.

Jason learned when to speak and when to remain silent.

He learned to walk naturally in Rebecca's body.

He learned how to care for it.

He learned the institution's routines.

Most importantly, he learned never to tell anyone the truth.

Sometimes, late at night, Jason would stand before the small mirror above the sink in his room.

Rebecca stared back at him.

A young woman.

A murderer's face.

A stranger's body.

Jason would touch the reflection.

"My name is Jason," he would whisper.

It became a ritual.

A desperate attempt to preserve the last thing the doctor hadn't taken.

His identity.

Because Jason had begun to fear something worse than imprisonment.

Worse than spending the rest of his life as Rebecca Thomas.

One morning, he might look into that mirror...

and no longer remember the man staring desperately from somewhere behind her eyes.