A few minutes later, she was dressed and searching for the TransDem Labs website on her father’s computer. She found the customer service phone number and called it on her cell phone from her room.
“TransDem Labs, making your dreams a reality. This is Julie. How may I help you?” said the operator.
“I need to talk to Frank,” said Jenny. “My name is Jeff, er, Jenny actually now. He helped me out earlier as a hologram or something. Can you please transfer me to him?”
“One moment please,” said the operator. Jenny paced as she waited on hold. She wanted out of this body now. She avoided looking at Justin. “I am sorry for the wait.” said the operator. “Jenny?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. It appears that Frank has gone home for the day already. We are about to close for the day actually.”
“What? No,” Jenny was ready to cry. “I need him now. Can you give me his cell phone number or something? I have an emergency.”
“Are you currently in any physical danger due to your Chronivac?” said the operator, mechanically.
“Well, no but…”
“I’m sorry,” said the operator, cutting her off. “We only offer emergency service in cases of physical danger to customers. You can leave Frank a voice mail. He should be able to contact you sometime this week.”
“This week?” said Jenny. “Isn’t there someone there who can help me tonight?”
“I’m sorry,” said the operator in a voice that didn’t really sound sorry at all. “Frank is the specialist assigned to your case. He is the only one who will be working with you. It’s company policy. For privacy’s sake, you see. Unless you have a real emergency, you will just have to wait.”
Jenny was ready to scream at the operator, but she controlled herself. “Fine. Give me his voice mail.”
“One moment,” the operator said. Jenny waited on hold until she heard a recording of Frank’s voice.
“This is Frank. Leave a message. I’ll get to you when I can.”
“Some voice mail message,” said Jenny. The phone beeped and she said, “Frank, it’s Jeff, I mean, Jenny. I was Jeff. I need to you to change me back into Jeff as soon as possible. You didn’t tell me that I would be attracted to boys. You need to fix this now. Call me.” She told him her number and hung up.
Jenny lay down on her bed and sighed. She started crying in frustration. “Fucking stupid Chronivac,” she muttered and sobbed. She felt so helpless. Everything had gone wrong, and all of the things she had done to try to fix things only seemed to make things worse. She wished that today had never happened. She just wanted everything to be back to normal again. After a few minutes, she calmed down and wiped her eyes.
“Just keep it together,” she told herself. “He’ll call you this week, and he’ll fix you. Then, in a few more weeks, everything will be back to normal.”
From downstairs, her mother yelled, “Jenny, dinner!”
She got up from her bed and checked her face in the mirror. She looked presentable.
“Just have to hold out a little longer,” she said and headed down to dinner.