XYXX (Camren)

Chapter 2

The scientist paced the floor of the hotel room, face clearly conflicted as she internally debated what to tell Lauren, Camila, and Simon, as they sat on the beds in confusion. Her pacing came to a stop and she took a deep breath before facing the three.

“I’m Ella. I’m part of a research team trying to create a new hyper-reactive drug. It’s a project we’re calling Clownfish, after a species of fish that changes sex as it wills. We’re trying to create something that can literally change the chromosomes of the person who takes it, the genetic makeup of the digester. The pill Lauren took yesterday was the prototype of the drug. The problem is, we were never going to actually have a person digest it – it was supposed to be taken to a lab across the state for more studies. The prototype was our first prototype for a permanent chromosomal shift.”

“Okay, so I just need to take another one.”

“We don’t – we don’t have any more of them, and making another one can take a while, since this prototype wasn’t even supposed to work. We were taking it to the lab to see what made it different from the other pills we made, because this one was supposed to have permanent capabilities, and we didn’t know what exactly we did differently with this one, so –“

“I’m stuck like this? Forever?” Lauren asked, her voice shaking, “How am I supposed to be in a girl group when I’m not even a fucking girl?”

“No! No, no, look. We have pills. We have prototypes of the entire drug itself. The pill you took was the first of the final draft of the drug, but we have these –“ She pulled out a bottle of pills, “They work too, but only in hour increments. They’ll reverse the chromosomal shift for as long as the pill lasts. I don’t suggest taking any more than one to two a day, though, so you’ll have to use them smartly, but you can still do what you need to do until we find out how to permanently reverse this.”

“This is a fucking nightmare.” Lauren groaned as Camila reached over and grabbed her friend in an embrace.

“Well, that’s what we’ll have to do then.” Simon sighed, rubbing his hands on his temples, “We’ll have to work around this, but until they find a way to reverse the damage, we can’t be telling people about this. This is government-related secret research and if we reveal any of it to the world…”

“They’ll have you shut down for good.” The scientist nodded, “I made sure they knew this was an accident, although they tried to send agents and have you all arrested for stealing top-secret research material, but I talked them out of it. We do need you to come in once a week to get tested. We never wanted to test this drug out on a human until we got it right, but now that you’ve already taken it, it can’t hurt to check your vitals and make sure you’re reacting well to the drug, right?”

Simon clapped, and everyone’s attention went to him.

“Right. And I’ve done some quick thinking and I think we’ve got a plan. I will contact your immediate family and have them aware of the situation – under a contract of secrecy, of course – and once the family is briefed, I’ll have it known that Lauren Jauregui’s brother will be tagging along the tour, so your presence doesn’t set off any alarms. We’ll have you take the pills when you do your performances and signings, as to not waste them all, and we’ll let the other girls in on the situation. Lauren, I’m going to have a stylist on you quickly. Don’t freak out, okay? It’ll be fine. Just take it as a really, really strange acting job.” Simon said, before pulling his phone out his pocket, “Are we good?”

“Yeah.” Lauren muttered, still incredibly confused and stressed. “Yeah. Okay. We’re good.”

An hour later, Lauren was in the stylist’s room, hair cut even shorter. The sides were buzzed and the top was long and pushed back, and although Lauren had to admit she liked that sort of Matt Healy-esque hair on guys, she wasn’t sure she quite so much liked it on herself. The stylist threw Lauren a pair of black jeans, white v-neck, and a leather jacket, which she put on as quickly as possible. The breeze from the girl shorts she had on before was not comfortable, especially not in public.

Once she was well trimmed and well dressed, she was thrown into a room where Camila was waiting. The other girls would meet them there after Simon explained the situation to them. The nervousness she felt was definitely clouding up the room, and Camila quickly hurried over and grabbed her hand.

“Look, this whole situation is my fault. I dropped the stupid pills and grabbed the wrong ones and now you’re in this shit situation and I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lauren sighed, running a hand into her hair, “Seriously. It was an accident, and you were trying to do a nice thing. This is all just so insane and I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. Ella said they’re working on reversing this but it’s just so crazy, you know?”

“Trust me, you’re handling it a lot better than I would. I’d probably run down the street buck naked screaming. Imagine the headlines.” Camila laughed, pulling a small smile out of Lauren.

“I could totally imagine that.” Lauren grinned.

The door opened and the three other girls stepped in, almost eagerly, curious to see the new Lauren Simon had just debriefed them about. Once the door closed, the three girls were immediately on Lauren, pulling at her arm and hair.

“Holy crap, he wasn’t kidding.” Dinah muttered, as Lauren tried to pull away from her grip.

Normani grabbed her face, pulling at her cheeks as Lauren winced at the action. She poked at her eyebrows and then at the small beginnings of hairs growing around her mouth. Humming, she pulled her ears and finally stepped back.

“Not a mask.” Normani confirmed.

“No, not a mask.” Lauren grumbled.

“We’re with you on this. Simon told us everything, and we just needed to know he wasn’t pulling a fast one.” Ally reassured, putting a gentle hand on her back.

“Yeah, well, I don’t believe it sometimes either.” Lauren sighed.

“And your voice, oh my God! This feels like I’m in a movie.” Dinah exclaimed, excitedly clapping her hands.

“You’re not making this any easier on me, Dinah.” Lauren said while rolling her eyes. “And now I have to pretend to be my own make-believe brother.”

“You need a name, you know. You can’t just be Lauren. Lauren’s brother Lauren.” Dinah pointed out.

“That’s true. You need a name.”

“Quentin!”

Lauren scoffed at Ally’s suggestion.

“Lame, my mom would never do something like that.”

“Edward.”

“What? No. Ew.”

“Fred?”

“Do I look like a Fred to you?”

“Running-Leaf.”

“Okay, you guys are being ridiculous on purpose. I hate all of you.”

Camila perked up, an idea striking her as she jumped up and spoke for the first time since the girls came in.

“Laurence!”

“Isn’t that, like, a little obvious?” Lauren asked.

“I mean, most people wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that you switched sex overnight, you know. It’s not a common thing.”

“Well, yeah, but –“

“No, seriously, it’s such a cute name!”

“I like it.” Normani shrugged.

“It’s a good name.” Dinah agreed, nodding.

“Plus, it’ll be harder to mess up since it sounds so close to your actual name.”

“It’s settled then. You’re Laurence Jauregui, Lauren’s very Lauren-like-but-totally-isn’t-Lauren brother.” Camila confirmed.

“And if it makes you feel any better, you make a super hot guy.” Normani winked, wrapping an arm around her friend in comfort.

Lauren rolled her eyes at her friends, both annoyed yet relieved that they were all in this crazy situation with her. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with them by her side.