“...Bradley.”
“I get to be a teenagah?!”
I sat their stunned until my mother broke the silence, “Are you really sure you'd be OK being a teenage boy, Brad?"
"Uh-huh!" Brad nodded enthusiastically. "I wanna be gwone up!"
I started to protest but mom shushed me, it looked like she was having second thoughts about “losing” her little boy Brad "Just let your father and me really think about this for a moment."
Mom and dad went off to talk in the other room as I sat there, shocked that they were taking this seriously. Lucas looked like a he was trying to hold himself back from bursting with laughter. Brad, on the other hand, was bouncing around like he’d been told he might get a monster truck for Christmas. The only real consolation was that Mariah seemed to be as surprised as I was that our parents were considering this. She and I just stared at each other as I tried to process the possibility of being eight-year-old Brad. The idea of being anyone other than myself was bad enough, but to have to live as an eight-year-old again? And to have a bit of his little kid mispronunciations, especially of the letter “R?”
I was still going over things in my head when mom and dad came back into the room.
"Your mother and I have given this a lot of thought and we've decided to stick to our word. You will swap with Brad.”
"WHAT?!" I screamed.
Brad ran up to give dad a huge hug and Lucas, who looked visibly relieved his name wasn’t picked, gave me a smug smile.
"Dad, you can't do that!" I protested again, but mom broke in again.
"David, think about this for a moment, OK? I know that no wanted to switch, and this way only one person who doesn't want to switch has to. That's better, right? Instead of two unhappy people we only have one. It will be a lot less stress for your father and me if only one of you is upset with things."
"OK, but why me? Why not let Lucas switch with Brad? I mean, they’re both needy and rely on their parents.” Lucas looked less smug after I suggested that; he was clearly pissed I called him out.
"Your father and I thought of that, David, but Lucas doesn't want to switch at all and you at least admit that it's something we should do. Besides, your the one who’s name was picked. I know this is rough for you, but overall it seemed the fairest way to handle things and to make sure that it's as smooth as possible overall."
I sighed. My parents were right in their own twisted way; overall it just made more sense to them to let Brad swap with me since our names were both picked and he agreed to a swap.
"I suppose you're right. But I'm not happy about it."
"It's OK David! I happy for bof of us!"
I sighed. “th’s” were also still a problem for him to pronounce. Would I inherit his speech impediment and have to go see his speech therapist as him each week like he does? At least he is a cute and charming little guy with a slight sharp, thin handsome nose. The only one with blond hair and blue eyes in the family. His hair style was unique in a good way, sort of sweeping up and to both sides naturally, with a clear part that’s slightly off-center. I’ve always dug his hair and his pleasant/slightly mischievous boyish facial features. So there’s that to look forward to, I guess. A good looking kid, just with a strangely unique speech impediment.
The remainder of the week was actually pretty nice, aside from Lucas "accidentally" calling me “Brad" any time our parents weren't around and the fact that Brad’s near-constant low-level excitement was a perpetual reminder of what awaited me over the coming weekend. Still, I'd managed to convince myself that things weren't all that bad. After mom and dad's decision, Mariah and I had spent the rest of the evening together talking it out.
"I really don't want to be an eight-year-old," I complained as soon as we were both back in our room.
"Hey, at least you'll still be more mature than Lucas." Mariah laughed and I managed a bit of a chuckle too. "Besides, when you think about it, this works out better for you too."
"How on earth does trading lives with my baby brother work out better for me?"
Mariah gave me a knowing look, "You realise that if you swapped with, let’s say me example, you’d be jumping right into the fun of having a period..."
I must have looked absolutely stunned because Mariah started laughing again. "Oh come on. They're not that bad. I'm just saying that with Brad there should be less to adjust to since you’ll still be a boy.
I'd been forced to admit that Mariah was making sense, and it really did help me to think of things with all those points in mind.
Anyway, Saturday quickly rolled around and it was time to head over to Larry's lab and get things over with. While Brad didn't seem to care, I really didn't want to have the whole family around for the procedure and dad agreed since Larry had mentioned that it would take a while, so it was just mom, Brad, and me in the car on the way over. Since I was 16 and had my learner's permit, I was driving. I figured that it was the last time I'd be allowed to drive for a long time so I might as well take advantage of it. When we arrived at the lab, I parked and helped mom get Brad out of his booster seat, trying not to think about the fact that I'd be riding home in it, and then the three of us walked into Ambrosia Corporation's reception.
We were greeted almost immediately by Gloria Adams, Dr. Thomas' lab assistant. We'd met her a few times before, but it had been a while and she hadn't been pregnant then. I was surprised that she hadn't taken maternity leave, but quickly decided that she must have stayed on because of Dr. Thomas' recent discovery.
"Hi David. You're doing a really big thing for both your family and for science you know. You should be proud of yourself."
I made a few noncommittal noises and commented that I didn't really see any alternative, in response to which Gloria switched her attention to Brad.
"And you must be Bradley," she said, smiling. "I hear you're really excited about this."
"weally excited! Imma be gwon up!" Brad was positively beaming and I tried not to think about how strange my body would seem with Brad’s little kid speech patterns.
"Well then, I suppose we shouldn't waste any time." Gloria grinned and patted Brad on the head affectionately.
"David, you can go straight into the lab and put on a gown. Dr. Thomas wants to talk with Brad a little bit first just to make sure that he’s really OK with the procedure. The size of the developmental gap between you two means he wants to gather some additional information before starting. One of the technicians will take some baseline medical readings for you and then I'll bring Brad in once Dr. Thomas has all the information he needs."
I headed into the lab through the indicated doorway while Gloria took Brad into Dr. Thomas' office. The lab itself didn't look very remarkable. As far as I could tell it didn't look much different than the generic operating rooms shown on TV dramas. I figured that I had better just get on with it, so I disrobed and put on the hospital gown that I'd found waiting for me; I'd only just finished when the lab tech came in and took my blood pressure, heart rate, and a blood sample before efficiently leaving again.
Not having any idea how long Dr. Thomas might take with Brad, I settled in on the operating table and pulled out the copy of "Wired" magazine that I'd brought with me to kill the time. It was a good thing that I'd brought it, because it was at least 45 minutes before Gloria, Dr. Thomas, and Brad came into the lab. Brad had also been changed into a hospital gown and Gloria helped him up onto the other table as Dr. Thomas put Brad’s much smaller clothes down next to mine.
"Hi David. I apologise for the wait, but, as Gloria explained, there's a big developmental gap between you and Bradley here and I wanted to be sure I was getting as much information as I could. I suppose that you're wondering exactly what's going to happen. Well, this," he held up a small vial from a tray filled with surgical tools, "is NeuroGen. It allows the body to regenerate nerve tissue in a matter of hours. Since the brain is simply a mass of nerve tissue, NeuroGen allows us to connect one person's brain to another person's body. unfortunately, the body develops a resistance after the first use, so the product can only be used once, but this is still a major leap forward for science."
"So you're physically going to swap our brains?" This actually sounded pretty cool; if I weren't the test subject, that is.
"Not the whole brain, no. We tried that in animals and it caused a lot of problems because most of what we do isn't regulated by conscious thought. Without the instinctive responses that come with the non-conscious brain the animal subjects had severe coordination and communication problems. What we've found is that it's best to transfer only the parts of the brain that contain personality, most knowledge, and memories and leave the rest alone. That way instinctive responses like motor skills and language processing stay with the body and prevent the problems we saw in early testing."
I nodded. That made sense. I didn't want to suddenly be completely un-coordinated in Brad’s body, nor his in mine really. And since my personality, knowledge, and memory would still be the same at least I wouldn't lose who I was.
"So," Dr. Thomas continued, "are we ready to start?"
"Yeah!" Brad was still clearly excited about being older. I simply nodded.
"Very good then. You two just lay back on the tables and Gloria will administer the anaesthetic."
I laid myself down and Gloria walked over, placing a mask over my nose and mouth. I could hear the faint hissing of gas starting to flow as she asked me to start counting down slowly from ten.
"10...9..." I took a deep breath and blinked slowly as my eyelids got heavy, "8..." I felt like I was floating and it was hard for me to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing, "sev...uh...se..." And my world went dark and silent.