When Your Tabula Is Not Rasa: 18

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Dan reddened a little. "Honestly, I thought this would be open-and-shut:
I'd ask you if we could go save Dexie, and you'd say yes.
I mean, you did like this girl, didn't you?"


 
When Your Tabula Is Not Rasa
 
Chapter 18

 


"You know how it is when you lose someone close to you. I sort of made a backup." — The Eleventh Doctor


 

"Bring Dexie back?" I echoed. "Back from the dead?"

"Yes," Kristy replied.

"Can they do that?"

"Apparently," Kristy said. "But you really have to hurry, because they are running out of time."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. But there's a limit, a time limit, and we've almost reached it." Once again, I heard the voice in the background, urging Kristy to tell me to hurry.

"Who is that?" I asked. "Who's talking to you?"

"You won't believe this," she answered, almost laughing, "but he's an attorney from Texas."

Puzzled, I retorted, "Why wouldn't I believe that?"

"Oh! You don't know! Because we're on the flying saucer... the spaceship, whatever."

"You and Carla?"

"Yes, and you need to come, right now! If you don't, they won't be able to bring Dexie back."

I hesitated a moment, then asked the obvious question: "Can't they just beam me up?"

"No, I already asked. They don't have that technology." Then, the voice in the background was speaking again. She said Okay to him, and to me said, "Listen, do you have access to a car?"
 


 

In the cab, on the way to pick up Arrow's car, I called Lizzie and told her that an issue had come up with the Holderlins (which was true), and that I'd be back as soon as I could.

I even threw in "I love you, Mom," at the end. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Arrow's car was exactly as I left it. It had only been a few days, after all. To retrieve the hide-a-key, I had to get my shirt dirty, lying on the ground and shifting under the car until I could reach the little magnetic box.

But hey! There was a clean shirt in the go-bag in the trunk. So after a quick change (and no, I didn't care if they saw my bra on the security cameras), I took off toward 90 West. As soon as I got out of the city, I called Arrow, and filled him in. I said, "Listen — you have to ignore the GPS tracker, especially if it turns off. Once I'm on the saucer, I don't know where we'll go."

"Where are you now?" he asked.

"I'm on 90 West. Once I pass Granite Lake I'll pull over and they'll pick me up."

"Don't go," Arrow told me. "Do not go. Go back to Spokane or turn around and take Route 2. Get the hell away from there."

"I have to go," I told him. "Otherwise Dexie stays dead."

"You are Dexie," he said.

"No," I countered. "I'm becoming Dexie, but she really is Dexie. If she can come back and live her life, I have to give her that chance. I can't steal her life."

"What about YOUR life?" Arrow retorted. "You realize for her to come back, you have to disappear."

I blanched at that.

"Or," he continued, "you have to go back to being Fred. Do you want that?"

"No," I assured him. "I definitely do not."

"I don't think Kristy wants you to be Fred any more either," he put in.

I sighed.

"I'm almost there," I lied. "I'm going to have to hang up."

"Just say no," he urged me. "Just say no! Don't leave me, Dexie. Don't. And don't do this to yourself. I love you!"

"I love you, too, you crazy man," I said, and turned off the phone.

I hung up because I needed time to think. But what exactly was there to think about? Dexie, if she could come back... I had to help. At the same time, I wanted to pull over and work out what I thought and knew and felt, but there wasn't time. If I stopped, Dexie would stay dead forever.

Obviously, they needed me so they could give Dexie her body back. And then? What would they do with me? They couldn't make me Fred again. Fred's body was broken beyond repair, and two weeks had passed... what a disgusting thought. I'd been embalmed (with everything that goes along with it) and buried. Even if they could clean up that mess, there was no way I'd step back into it. I didn't want to be Fred again. I was NOT going to be Fred, ever again.

Could two of us be Dexie? Could we both be Dexies? Maybe they wanted me back so they could make a clone, and put Dexie into it. Or I could be the clone. Maybe they could give me black hair, so we could be different. I don't know how Dexie would feel about that, but I could live with it. I'd be glad to go live in a different part of the country. All I'd need was a new identity, a new social security number...

Dexie, on the other hand, would be stepping back into the life I had already changed. I've already met her mother. Although, with Lizzie's high tolerance for the improbable, Dexie might be able to simply tell her the truth and start all over again.

And of course I'd give Dexie the composition book with her family history... I'd brought that along.

Hell, I could even go live with Arrow. That would keep me out of the way. I'd be way out of sight. I didn't need to marry the guy. Plus, I felt pretty sure that Arrow could help me cook up a new identity.

Oh, and my petition to change my name — or, rather, Dexie's name! That would be easy to undo. If she didn't show up at the court, or if she showed up and said she'd changed her mind, it would be fine. The process would simply stop. I'll give Dexie the money from her father, along with her birth certificate. I'll have to give her the explanations, too, since Lane won't be willing to do it again. (I'd have to explain *that*, too.)

It would all work out.

Once I'd settled everything in my head, I felt a lot better.
 


 

On my right, the watery expanse of Granite Lake was zooming by. I was getting close to the rendezvous, and I'd made pretty good time. It was only twenty minutes since Kristy's call.

To my surprise, the spaceship was parked just off the highway, in plain view, at the southern tip of the lake. Kristy and Carla stood near the craft, waving me toward a ramp.

"Do I just drive in?" I asked.

"Yes," Kristy said, as she and Carla climbed inside. "Get moving. There's no one on the road at the moment, but we can't dilly-dally."

I drove carefully up the ramp and turned off the engine. The ramp closed silently behind us, and we had a quick family hug.

"Sorry to rush you," Kristy apologized, "but they keep telling us that we're running out of time. Come on."

We ascended a spiral staircase, down a hall, and entered a conference room. It looked like any conference room on Earth, except that it had no windows. There was a long bar against one wall, filled with food: fruit, nuts, sandwiches, hot dishes of meat, chicken, rice, pasta, and all sorts of drinks. I helped myself to a large glass of white wine, which was quite nice.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Kristy asked.

"I'm sure," I said. "Look at me." I held my arms up. "I'm shaking. Do you know what's going to happen?"

As Kristy replied in the negative, the door opened and a good-looking man in his forties walked in. He was wearing a suit and tie. "Are you the lawyer from Texas?" I asked.

"Guilty as charged," he quipped, and came forward to shake my hand. "You can call me Dan."

"Is that your name?" I asked.

"No," he admitted. "I like to keep my interstellar activities off the radar, so to speak." He smiled, but none of us did. "I'm going to sit down, but feel free to sit, stand, eat, drink... whatever makes you comfortable, while I explain what's going on.

"Let me apologize in advance if I appear hasty or insensitive, but time really is running out for your young friend, and I'll explain why in a moment.

"First of all, I have to ask: is Dexie — I mean young Dexie, the one who died — is she your daughter?" He looked from Kristy to me and back again.

"No," Kristy replied. "She is... she was a friend of the family."

"Is she a minor?"

"No, she just recently turned eighteen."

"Good," Dan said. "Now, here is the situation in a nutshell: The young aliens who caused your crash broke a heaping pile of laws, several of which are horrifying and distressing to the aliens in general, but to their parents in particular. Simply the act of racing with you qualifies as a form of harassment known as interfering with native culture, which is already a serious crime.

"But the fact that young Dexie died as a result, makes it a major crime. It's similar to vehicular homicide among us, except for one thing: the aliens take death far more seriously than we do.

"The parents of the young aliens want me to convey their deepest regrets and apologies. They want to express how horrified and mortified they are. They realize how badly this reflects on them, and they hope that you can find it in your hearts to join with them in setting things right. They especially want you to understand that they came as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, their ship had to assist in a rescue operation. There was an accident on another, unrelated ship. Forty-five people were killed, but several hundred were saved. And, because of the nature of their mission here, the survivors had to be off-loaded onto a third ship. Waiting for that third ship to arrive resulted in a delay of several days."

"Why couldn't they just bring the survivors along?" I asked.

"I'll come to that," Dan assured me. "But as to the rest of it, you're all with me?"

We all nodded.

"Next, we come to the reason for all the haste and pressure: The crimes that the young aliens committed against you and young Dexie are so serious, that — in Earth terms — they could spend the rest of their lives in jail.

"It's not really jail, per se, but they would pay for their mistake for as long as they lived. Luckily, they come from well-to-do families, and those families carry insurance that covers cases like these."

"Insurance?" I echoed. "What do they plan to do? Buy us off?"

"No," Dan said. "The insurance covers time travel: a very short, very focused intervention to correct the situation."

"Time travel?" Carla echoed. "Are they going to fix it so the accident never happened?"

"No," Dan said. "That's against the law. What they can do is prevent the accident from killing either Dexie or Fred Holderlin."

"Wait," I objected. "If they really can do this—"

"They can," Dan assured me.

"If they really can go back and alter the past, what do they need us for? If they've got all this power, why didn't they just go fix it?"

"They need your consent," Dan explained. "Time travel is very expensive, but it's also VERY highly regulated. There are all sorts of laws and controls and bureaucracy. They don't use paper, but if they did, there would be a mountain of paperwork on this."

"Why all the hurry, then?" Kristy demanded. "If they can travel in time, they could start next week or next year! Why did the three of us have to drop everything and run? Just because they feel ready?"

"No," Dan said. "You can't just go dipping at random in the past. They are only allowed to touch the recent past, and only if no major events have occurred. There is a time limit, and we've almost hit it."

"What is the limit?" I asked. "How much time do we have?"

"I can't tell you," Dan replied.

"Can't or won't?"

"I won't," Dan said. "It's against the law."

"Why?"

"Because it adds an adversarial element to these negotiations. If you knew how much time was left, you would want to use all that time. One side or the other could use the limit as leverage. If we pass the limit, I'll tell you. But I won't warn you when we get close. Besides, what if a major event occurs while we're talking? We have to make haste, but as carefully as we can."

Stunned, Kristy, Carla, and I looked open-mouthed at each other. Dan watched us, then assured us in a soft, quite voice, as if he were afraid of being overheard, "Don't worry. We have enough time to talk. We don't have time to argue or dissect every detail. We'll address all of your concerns, but we can't waste time. In any case, the decision should be simple. It comes down to this: Is young Dexie going to live or not?"

Dan took a deep breath and drank a little water, then he continued in a normal tone. "The more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to change things. It takes more energy, because there is a kind of unwinding that needs to be done. It also becomes more dangerous, the more time passes, and major events can prevent them from going back at all."

"After they've fixed it... after they change the past, what happens to all the things we've done since the accident?" I asked.

"It all disappears," Dan said, "because those things won't happen."

"We'll remember everything, though, won't we?"

"No," Dan said. "You won't experience it, so you won't remember it. You won't remember any of it."

"Wait," Kristy said. "Back up a step. You can't hold a gun to our heads like that. If we pass the limit are you going to say, So sorry, too late: Dexie stays dead?"

Dan reddened a little. "Okay," he said. "I'll see if I can give you a warning. I'll have to go ask. But honestly, I didn't think we'd need much discussion. I thought this would be open-and-shut: I'd ask you if we could go back and save Dexie, and you'd say yes. I mean, you did like this girl, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course we did!" Kristy protested. "We do! We all do!"

"Are you hesitant because you don't want to go through the accident again?" Dan asked.

Kristy stopped. "I hadn't thought about that..."

"It will be the first time for you," Dan said. "It won't be a repeat experience. I'm sorry to ask you to go through it, but it's the only way."

"Exactly how are you going to save Dexie?" I asked.

Dan got a smug, satisfied look on his face. He enjoyed this part. "Dexie died because the air bags failed. We'll go back before the accident and fix the air bags. Simple! That way, she'll get banged around a little, but she'll walk away without a scratch."

"And me?" I asked with a gulp. "I mean, what about Fred?"

"That was a tricky one," Dan said with evident satisfaction, "but I came up with the solution. Your body was mashed up because you weren't wearing a seat belt. The problem becomes: how to put you in a seat belt? The answer was pretty simple: we'll put seat-belt sensors in the back seat. It will all be done using current Earth technology, and after the accident, the car will be totaled. No one will ever know."

"Hmmm," I said, with a little sadness. Dan didn't notice.

"So!" Dan said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. "Are we all on board?"

Kristy looked around the table before she spoke. I nodded when she looked at me. She was doing just fine as our spokesperson. "We all want to bring Dexie back. We want her to live and have her life back. But there's something else: we all have something to lose here."

Dan's brow wrinkled. Puzzled, he asked, "What would you lose, exactly?"

"I was epileptic," Carla offered. "The aliens fixed that after the accident."

"I was legally blind," Kristy put in. "And the aliens fixed that. And... I was a little older, too."

Dan chuckled. "I don't think that will be a problem! Let me just run this by my alien counterpart—" and he began to stand.

I put my hand on his arm to stop him. "I have an issue, too," I said.

"And that is?"

"I was Fred."

"I know that," he replied, smiling. "Don't worry! We'll put you back, good as new. You'll be Fred once again."

I looked at him. I squeezed his arm and shook it gently, but somehow I couldn't speak. The words refused to come out. So Kristy spoke for me. "I don't think she wants to be Fred again."

"Oh!" Dan exclaimed. "Really! Well— Huh! I just assumed— I figured... I thought... hmmph! Well, well!" He was clearly flustered and embarrassed. "Now, that's a horse of a different color, isn't it!"

© 2014 by Kaleigh Way

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Comments

Wow! They're baaaack!

What will the new Dexie become, if the aliens allow it? Hmmmm...

SuZie

Thanks For Not Leaving Us Hanging for Long

Of course, you did leave us on a whole new cliff. I thought Fred would want some form of his life back as he very much loves his wife and daughter. I guess we find out what he/she wants next time.

Yes, soon we'll know more

The next chapter is part-way written. We're in the home stretch now, so it will all be over soon.

Beyond any developing desires/love for Arrow...

I agree with Arrow, Kristy does not love Fred anymore nor does Carla.

Dexie clearly deserves a second chance, preferable aided by what Fred/Dexie has learned.

Oh, the time travel would supposedly erase their memories of this revised and abandoned time line but as it stands now Fred/Dexie knows what a fragile farce of a family he had. His wife abandoned HER quickly after the transformation and all but threw her in Arrow's bed. But why?

And his daughter though grieving for her friend was not much better. Why would he wish to risk them abandoning him again once they’re all given *bonuses* as the time line is restored to save the original Dexie.

He/she knows now how fast it could all unravel and that just maybe this life that was forced upon him, um her is better or at least worth making an effort to keep.

Can the aliens turn back time, save the original Dexie but let the new Dexie somehow remain, memories intact. It is the mix of his memories in her body that makes her special. And maybe it could lead to something of a reconciliation with Fred’s family though as friends not father/husband.

Lots of possibilities here.

I wait impatiently.

John in Wauwatosa

John in Wauwatosa

A lot of that comes in the next chapter

We will see more of the family dynamic in the next chapter, and specifically we'll find out what Kristy's problem is. Also, the memory issue will come up.

Why Kristy told Arrow about Dexie being Fred is pure conjecture. Fred/Dexie thinks Kristy told so that he and Arrow could speak freely. Arrow thinks that Kristy told so that Dexie and Arrow would NOT get into bed together. Both of those are guesses, opinions. So far, we have no idea why Kristy told, but after the next chapter, we might be able to make a better guess.

Carla, on the other hand, was simply uncomfortable with the new situation. She didn't reject Fred/Dexie. Carla just couldn't have her father speak to her AS HER FATHER while in Dexie's body, and she couldn't pretend that her-father-in-Dexie was her best friend Dexie.

I have to say, though, as I've said before in both comments and the story, there is nothing left of Dexie except her body. No memories or tendencies or anything. If there were a mix like that, it would freak out Kristy and Carla even more than they were freaked out before.

Besides, the aliens don't have the technology to make a mix. Everyone is one person; they can only do the mind transfer to a recently-dead person. It's an important point.

Anyway, the next chapter should pop up soon. I wrote most of it today, but it needs reworking.

Now That Time Travel...

...is in the mix, there are a lot more possibilities -- especially since all the restrictions we've been told about are legal ones, not technological limits.

We don't know whether a physical machine is involved. But if one is:

- Whether Fred could convince Dan's clients that a particular move further back in time (about 20 years) is needed to create the present-day timestream. (That may be enough of a clue to give away what I'm thinking about.)

or

- Whether, probably with help, Fred could hijack the machine temporarily and do something unilaterally, or virtually so. And in that scenario, what Fred's penalty would be when his unauthorized use and potential change of the timeline was discovered. Dan was very vague as to what kind of life sentence the aliens impose, and naturally it never came up as to whether a human offender would find it a penalty at all. (One suspects that if they did, Dan wouldn't have been so unwilling to say what it was.) The temptation is to guess that their consciousness is transferred to another body. Depending on the body in question (and the degree of retained knowledge), Fred might well find that a positive development.

Eric

Interesting idea

The hijack is an interesting idea! I hadn't thought of it.

It is a physical device - it's the ship itself.

Hmm

Kalkin62's picture

Interesting story.

The writing is very accessible, and it's very captivating emotionally, it pulls me right in. It makes me care about what Fred/Dexie is going through, and angry on her behalf. The individual chapter structure seems pretty good too, each chapter manages a compelling thread and ends on a note that leaves the reader (or me at least) wanting more.

You've got a lot of plot elements going on though, do all these come together somehow? Some of them don't seem very connected to each other. Is there a resolution planned to each one? Mind you, I don't expect an explanation of the plot, I'm just offering how I react based on what I've seen of the story so far.

I have various emotional reactions to the events of the story.

My first reaction is that I don't really like Kristy Ann very much. Faced with an impossible situation, she makes an emotional decision to save what she can, and puts Fred's essence in the body of the deceased Dexie. Now, that's all well and good. She had limited options, limited time, she made an emotional, gut reaction when faced with two bad choices. What she does after that is fine too. When faced with the reality of Fred's essence in Dexie's body, and after having more time to come to grips with the long term impact of her short-term, emotional decision, she pushes Fred away (emotionally).

That part is understandable.

It's after that that I begin to dislike Kristy. Fred didn't ask to be saved. It's not Fred's fault that s/he's suddenly in this strange, alien space (both physically and emotionally) where his/her family suddenly doesn't want him around and doesn't want to help him anymore. Fred ends up in this fish-out-of-water state and the key here is that it's not of his/her own consent. Fred did not get to choose, he was not consulted. The fact that Kristy (essentially) abandons Fred to the situation that she put Fred in is something I have a lot of trouble with.

Carla's reactions are much more understandable. It would be horrible to have your best friend suddenly become someone completely different. To have them be dead, but still be there, reminding you they're gone. Also, she's 18 (or thereabouts) and doesn't have a lot of adult experience (and associated resilience) to draw upon. The fact that Carla reacts poorly to Fred-in-Dexie's-body I can forgive.

Then, there's how Kristy reacts to Arrow. Kristy clearly knows exactly what Arrow thinks of women, and how he'll react to Dexie. The kindest description I could give about Kristy pushing Fred to go see Arrow is to call it "tough love". Then, she does something worse. Kristy tells Arrow that "Dexie" is actually Fred, in a new body. It was really unfair of her to do that to Fred. To send Fred off to see Arrow, and then secretly plant an emotional timebomb to go off in Fred's face as soon as s/he arrives. Especially after Kristy flat-out tells Fred not to tell Arrow the truth at the end of chapter five. Kristy once again makes a huge decision for Fred and does it without his/her consent or even knowledge.

As a reader, I don't know how you as a writer, want me to feel about Kristy Ann, but looking at her actions in those early chapters, I really don't like her much.

Arrow isn't my favorite character either, he's a bully and he's manipulative. He's much more obvious than Kristy though. I don't really like him much, but in his scenes, more of my emotionally negative reaction is directed at Fred, who knows Arrow is manipulating her, but still does (mostly) exactly what Arrow wants. I wish Fred would have stood up for herself more in those chapters.

On the other hand, I actually liked the fact that Fred was perfectly happy to jump into bed with a guy and try things out from the other side without a whole lot of emotional hand wringing. And that Fred was perfectly happy with the physical (sexual) side of the whole interaction. I liked how casually Fred approached that, and how casually she was willing to incorporate it into her personality.

On the third hand, Arrow is 60ish? That's ... kind of uncomfortable. Sure, Fred isn't quite the average 18 year old girl, and to "her" Arrow probably seems more like a contemporary, but ... really? Forty-odd years of physical age difference? Ugh.

The whole cult surrounding Dexie's mother is really creepy. I liked the way you set it up, foreshadowing it with Lane's explanations. The meeting with the aliens seems to have interrupted that plot thread though which seems a little awkward to me. I guess ... it depends on what the resolution of the situation in the next chapter is, potentially, the meeting could take no time at all.

Buuuuut ... what about Dexie? None of what's happened is fair to her, she had her life taken away without recourse too. But then if the real Dexie comes back, what happens to Fred? Leaving aside the fact that Fred has decided she likes being an 18 year old girl with her life ahead of her, how exactly do we progress some of these plot lines (which center around Fred taking over Dexie's life) if the real Dexie is in the picture?

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Good story.

(And please don't take my negative reactions to Kristy Ann and Arrow as an indication that I don't like the story, I do like it. The fact that they inspired a fairly strong emotional reaction in me is an indication that they're well written in my opinion. I wish I could write characters I hated that much (or could write characters that I could get others to hate that much)).

Thanks

No one's ever written a comment like that to me before. Thanks so much! I'll try to answer as much as I can in the order you've written.

Not every element will be resolved. I don't think they need to, but maybe that's a limitation in my ability to construct a coherent story. For instance, some people have thought that Arrow is in cahoots with the cult, or that the cult is connected to the aliens. Neither of those things are true, but I can see how someone could infer that from the way I've written.

One thing I don't do well is understand what my characters are feeling at first. But as I write, I find myself realizing it couldn't happen this way, and then I have to fix it. I don't mind if Kristy and Arrow are not liked. We will hear Kristy's side of things in the next chapter, which will probably appear tomorrow. People may like her less after she vents her feelings, I don't know.

Arrow is based on a real person, someone who was one of my best friends, and in real life people reacted to him exactly as the people writing comments have. He was an amazing and generous person, but at the same time a misogynist and was very controlling. There are some people who he helped keep afloat when they had no money, prevented them from losing their houses, and never asked for thanks. And yet those people always spoke badly about him, what a jerk he was, etc. It was all true, both sides of him. In my own case, I couldn't bring myself to talk or see him for several years because he made my daughter cry, just like in the story. Sexually he was like Arrow, too.

He died a few years back. I think he'd like Arrow, if he could read the story. If you don't like him, I guess that means I got it right.

In any case, I am happy with the story and how it will end. I'm quite curious to see if you readers agree.

Hugs,

Kaleigh

Reading this again...

It strikes me that no one has considered that Kristy might have wanted Dexie to visit Arrow just to see what would happen. She couldn't have known that they'd fall into bed. It was possible that Dexie would react badly — she might even panic in response to Arrow's advances.

Kristy may have seen the visit to Arrow as a kind of test.

Also, maybe I shouldn't say this, but to me what the story is about is NOT Kristy and Arrow or Lizzie and the cult and so on, but the fact that Fred thought he could step into Dexie's body but not into her life, as if he was just changing an old car for a new one. That's what the title means: he thought he'd been given an empty slate, and was very irritated to find that something was already written there. He wants to scrub it out and start from zero, whatever that would mean.

Instead, he finds that Dexie's life is increasingly complicated and that it's far more connected than anyone thought. She doesn't just have a birth mother; she has a birth mother in a cult. And her birth father (if Sam McCloud is her father) may have been living under an assumed name. Yet another mystery.

I don't care what the answers to all the questions are. In real life, you don't always get the answers to questions like these. What matters (to me) is Fred's attitude to this life he was given.

Hmm, interesting

Kalkin62's picture

Obviously you're the expert on what Kristy's real motivations are (as opposed to what they might have been).

What I see from reading the story is that Kristy is hyper aware of just exactly how much of a womanizer Arrow is. It looks to me like she's positive that Arrow will proposition Fred at the earliest moment the opportunity presents itself. She also knows that Fred has a strong emotional connection to Arrow, and now has a whole new range of options available to explore that connection.

It could certainly be possible Kristy sent Fred to Arrow as a test. Only you can answer that one for us. It's also quite possible that us readers knowing the actual answer might not actually be relevant, maybe the speculation is better.

However, even taking the above possibility into account, there are still several instances when Kristy makes a huge decision which has a major impact on Fred. She doesn't consult with Fred prior to those decisions and then abandons him to the repercussions. Those instances tend to leave me with a negative view of her.

Now ... that may well just be me. Justice is a big deal for me. Justice, reciprocity, balance, Karma. Those are things I'm extremely attuned to, and have a strong reaction to when I see something I interpret as not fitting into my sense of what those should be. From a writing perspective, those are great ways to lead me (the reader) around by the nose. Inspiring an emotional reaction is something that I believe is an important part of writing, of making a story compelling. Making me angry on behalf of the protagonist is an excellent way to get me invested in any story I read.

As for the idea that the story is supposed to be about Fred's consternation at how complex Dexie's life turns out to be ... I guess I sort of lose that particular forest for the trees.

Certainly it's fascinating how deep the rabbit hole of Dexie's life goes. But I can completely empathize with Fred's wish to leave it all alone. I suppose Fred is being somewhat callous about Dexie's life, but ... "what's past is prologue". Fred didn't ask to be inserted into Dexie's life, I'm not sure I can blame him for wanting to treat it as a clean slate (the Tabula Rasa of the title). Some pieces of Dexie's life sound quite dangerous to pursue (perhaps they turn out to be less dangerous, but they do sound pretty dangerous at first). Dexie had so much less than Fred in terms of emotional gravitas, Fred has an entire lifetime of experience to draw upon. For Dexie, who had so little, it made sense to be grasping at the thin threads of her past to try to learn who she was and where she should go and what she should do. That's a huge deal for someone who's 18. But not so huge a deal for someone who's almost 60.

Fred's situation certainly has changed, and s/he does need to spend at least some time figuring it out, but ... even with the body/gender change, much of the experience of almost 60 years of living, of maturity, will still be accessible and still be a valid resource for Fred to draw upon. Fred has perspective that Dexie didn't (or doesn't, depending on where the story goes). I'm okay with the idea of Fred saying "yeah, this is good, I'll go on from here and build what I want." Being 60ish certainly doesn't mean having all the answers, but it does often mean being more comfortable with the fact that you don't have all the answers, and in knowing which questions you probably won't find the answers to no matter how hard you look.

Life has handed Fred the preverbal basket of lemons and s/he is perfectly happy to make lemonade with them. I can't really blame him/her for not feeling motivated to ask "why" or to ask where the lemons came from. Making the lemonade and setting up the lemonade stand business plans would be more than enough to be getting on with in my opinion.

Mind you, that doesn't mean I don't feel sympathy for poor Dexie. But ... she's gone. Fred can't do anything about that. Maybe the Aliens can, but Fred has no personal ability to address that aspect of the story.