Barbara stood in front of the mirror in shock. She was surprised to see
herself with a masculine face. Hoping that what she saw in the mirror was only
an illusion, Barbara put her hands on her chest to feel for any changes in her
body. To her dismay, she felt muscles where there used to be breasts. She looked
down her sweatshirt, and her eyes confirmed what her hands discovered. Next, she
looked down her pants and underwear, and to her horror, she discovered that she
had a different "plumbing system" than what she was accustomed to. Upon further
inspection of her body, she saw that she had slightly more developed muscles
everywhere, more hair on her arms, legs, chest, back, and armpits. Realizing at
this moment that her masculine body was not an illusion, Barbara knew that she
had met her most horrible fate to date--she had been turned into a man!
At first, she could not believe that Nora would do this to her. Then it dawned on her that Nora would. She realized that Nora viewed men as incompetent and greatly inferior to women. Batgirl was one of the few women Nora hated. She hated her more than she hated any man. Nora had always wanted to "punish" Batgirl for what she felt was siding with the men against Nora's campaign for female domination. 'What better way to get back at me than to turn me into one of the men she swears I "protect?"" Barbara thought as she started to interpret what Nora might have been thinking.
Still in shock, Barbara turned away from the mirror. She slowly exited the bathroom, turning off the light on her way out. She made her way back to the couch. She sat down, putting her face in her hands as she rested her elbows on her thighs. She started to think some more, with the thoughts quickly overwhelming her.
What am I going to do?' was the first panicky question to cross her mind. That was soon replaced by more practical, but scary, concerns.
What am I going to do about Barbara Gordon?' was the first coherent thought that occurred to her as shock was replaced by a gush of fear. How am I going to explain that I am Barbara Gordon now that I am a man? If I would say something about this, would anybody believe me?'
Still sitting on the couch, she rose her head from her hands as she took several deep breathes to try to calm herself. They did calm her physically, but the male voice within those breathes unsettled her even more mentally.
Now that her body was a little more settled down, she continued going through the parade of concerns in her mind.
How am I going to tell Daddy about this?' crossed her mind as she thought about the man who loved her the most. Should I make it look like Barbara Gordon disappeared? How should I do that? Should I just take up a new identity? What am I going to do about my job? What am I going to do about my friends? Should I say anything?' are some of the questions that seemed to dash around in her head at the same time as she once again worked herself up in a panic.
Feeling jittery, Barbara got up off of the couch to pace around. After a few minutes of nervous pacing and getting her bearings straight, she walked over to her bird Charlie's cage.
Treating Charlie as if he were a person and the only one who could ever understand her predicament, she started to talk to him.
"Charlie, what should I do?" was the first thing she asked him. She continued, "Nora has somehow turned me into a man. She also somehow managed to change my clothes and take me here."
On those words, her green eyes widened! "She changed my clothes?!" Barbara said in terror. "That means she took off my costume and unmasked me. I must have been unconscious when she did it. She threatened that I was suppose to unmask myself on public television by midnight or she would have her goons kill all the boys in Gotham City under 21. She also threatened that if I interfered, she would do something to me and continue her plans of mass homicide. I wonder if she unmasked me on TV while I was out!" were the haunting things considered as she talked to Charlie.
She took a moment to pause and look at Charlie. He was squawking, unaware that the strange man speaking to him was really his owner Barbara.
The fact that her pet did not even recognize her bothered Barbara as much as anything. Barbara, stunned, turned away from him and rushed toward the TV. Still standing, she looked at her watch while looking out the window to her left. The watch read almost 5:30. She could see that it was still daylight outside.
She found the remote on her couch and turned on the TV . She flipped to Channel 6, where the news would be coming on shortly.
Two reporters, a middle-aged man with graying blond hair who was wearing a white shirt and a black jacket and tie and a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair who was wearing a red dress, sitting side-by-side at a round wooden desk, appeared on the screen after the introductory music.
"Hello, Gothamites, and welcome to this delightfully warm March afternoon," the male reporter greeted the viewers.
"Here are our top stories," the female reporter continued. "First, police have determined that Nathan Wentworth, the driver of the tractor trailer that changed lanes on Highway 57 and crashed into a minivan and a convertible yesterday, killing three people and hospitalizing four others, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.21 at the time of the crash. Officials for Rank Produce, the company Wentworth drove for, announced today that they have terminated him. Tonight, Wentworth remains in jail."
'How terrible!' Barbara thought to herself, feeling sorry for the crash victims and forgetting her own problems for a moment.
"In other news," the male reporter took off where the female one stopped, "Officials for Gotham State University announced a 4% tuition hike for the upcoming school year. The hike was needed to accommodate the rising costs of computer technologies and faculty salaries."
On this much less grim news, Barbara started to concern herself with her dilemma. She continued to watch the news for the next 15 minutes, believing that if she was unmasked on television, it would be one of the top stories, although she was surprised that it wasn't the first thing mentioned. She watched and listened to the reporters take turns reporting stories such as children collecting money for their school and health tips for seniors. Nothing was said about Batgirl being unmasked.
"Maybe she didn't unmask me on TV after all," Barbara softly said to herself in her masculine voice while turning off the TV with the remote, convinced that was why no unmasking was reported. At the same time, she was very concerned and worried that there was also no mention of Nora's intentions of mass homicide.
Even if I am in a man's body, I must stop Nora before she kills those boys!' she said to herself, starting to figure out how she would do that. But first, I should call Daddy and tell him where she is hiding so the police could get to her before she does anything. I could pretend to be someone who found out when walking by the abandoned Thompson's Lumber warehouse,' she strategized, realizing that she couldn't change into the guise of Batgirl while she was a man.
She picked up the phone beside the couch and started to dial her father's office. Upon dialing, all she got was a busy signal.
Barbara hung up the phone. She dialed again five minutes later, again getting the busy signal.
"I don't have time to wait!" Barbara said to herself in a slightly annoyed male voice. "I'll have to go to his office myself and tell him."
Before she left, she went to a kitchen cabinet to grab a snack, however, when she opened the beige-painted wooden doors, there was no food in her cabinets. She turned to the matching beige kitchen table, where she usually sat her purse when she came home from the library. She saw her white purse was there, appearing untouched. She opened it to see how much money was in her wallet. To her surprise, her wallet wasn't in her purse.
She started wondering if Nora or one of her henchwomen took the wallet. In a few seconds, however, Barbara remembered that she left it locked in the upper right hand drawer of her desk when she went out to lunch earlier that day and forgot to take it out when she left to go home. She looked at her watch, seeing that it was near 6:00.
The library is on the way to Daddy's office, and it closes in one hour,' Barbara began thinking. Maybe I can stop in quickly and get to my desk without Susie seeing me.'
Thinking that this wouldn't be too hard, for Susie tended to get distracted rather easily, Barbara got her keys from the table. Not having time to shave the stubble from her face, she went to the apartment entrance. She slowly opened the door and looked at both directions of the hall outside, making sure that nobody was there to see the man coming out of Barbara's apartment. Relieved in seeing nobody, she turned out the lights, exited the door, and locked it behind her. She walked the hall, took an elevator down to the ground floor, and walked toward the apartment complex's exit.
Walking quickly, Barbara was at the library in less that 15 minutes. She went in, pretending to be a patron coming in to look at books. She passed by the front desk upon her arrival.
"Hi!" Susie greeted the man, having no clue that he was really her boss.
"Hi," Barbara returned the greeting as she made her way to one of the bookshelves.
She pulled a book while standing in the Mythology aisle and pretended to start reading it. It was a book on the Greek gods. While she was there, she was passed by a young man who was making his way to the front desk. She turned her head to see him, and recognized him as Dick Grayson.
Barbara watched him place a pile of Mythology books on the desk in front of Susie. He started speaking to Susie as she checked out the books.
"Hi, Susie!" Dick greeted her, excited to see her for the first time outside of the detention home. "How is this community service program working out for you?"
"Oh, it's going great, she answered. "Sitting here at this desk can be boring most of the time, but it does beat the home!"
Barbara saw that Susie was starting to get engaged in the conversation. Normally, Barbara would be perturbed that Susie was talking to a patron while she was supposed to be checking out books and watching over the aisles. Right now, though, she was glad that Susie was not following the rules. She started weaving in and out of aisles on her way to the office.
"What brings you here tonight?" Barbara, now near her office door, heard Susie ask Dick.
"Bruce made me come here," Dick continued. "He saw my last two Mythology tests, the ones I failed. He got all over me about how I won't graduate and become a worthless bum if my grades don't improve. It's not like I'm going to read these books or anything. I just came here to shut him up!" were the last words Barbara heard as she entered her office.
While the youths were talking, she turned on the lights and went to her desk. She found the key to her desk drawer and put it in the drawer's keyhole. After about three minutes of wiggling the key and yanking the knob of the hard-to-open drawer, she was able to get it open. To her satisfaction, the wallet was there. She took it out of the drawer and spent another two minutes locking the drawer again. Wondering how she would carry the wallet without Dick or Susie seeing it, she was delighted when she felt a back left pocket on her pants. She quickly put the wallet in that pocket, went to the office door, turned out the lights, and locked the door behind her. She started to walk toward the front desk.
Once she got to the front desk, she was greeted by a terrible surprise. She saw Dick sitting on top of the desk, leaning toward Susie while undoing the straps of her sundress while French kissing her! At the same time, Susie, who appeared to be enjoying the kissing and groping, was reaching over Dick and pulling off his dark green Gotham Knights T-shirt from the back, pulling it off of him as he let go of her. The books he just got were spread out on the floor next to the desk.
Barbara stopped in her tracks, appalled at this steamy situation. For the next few moments, she forgot about being a man as her instincts as the head librarian took over.
"Susie, Dick, stop it! Susie, get back to work! Dick, get your books and get out of here!" Barbara angrily commanded the youths as Dick had jumped over the desk to Susie and had begun undoing the button of his faded blue jeans. "Better yet, Dick," she continued, "You stay right here while I call Bruce and have him pick you up!"
Startled, both teenagers immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at Barbara. After a few seconds of dead silence, Dick blurted out "Who the hell are you?"
At once, Barbara remembered that, to the teens, she was a strange man, not Barbara Gordon. She realized that as a stranger, she had no right to yell at them, although she really was the head librarian and they were acting inappropriately. In light of her mistake, she was speechless.
Dick came around the desk and approached her. Now in front of the strange man, who was five inches shorter than he was, he looked down at him (her) and nastily asked, "I said, who the hell are you?"
"You don't understand!" Barbara started in a shaky and slightly fearful male voice. "I'm not who you think I am! I'm not a stranger! I work here. I'm really Barbara Gordon, head librarian! I was turned into a man by Nora Clavicle!" she continued, stepping backward every several words and being so nervous that she didn't realize she spoiled her cover until she did it.
"Liar!" Dick shouted to her as he decked her in the face. As she fell from that punch, her wallet feel out of her pants pocket. Susie, fixing up the straps to her dress, ran over to look at the wallet and its contents.
"Look, he has Barbara's wallet!" Susie excitedly said to Dick as she exposed Barbara's driver's license.
"Ah, so we have a liar, a pervert, and a thief!" Dick quipped in response. "Well, we'll see about that!"
Dick started to beat the living daylights out of Barbara. In self defense, Barbara started beating him back, although she didn't want to. While they were fighting, an old man in the back saw them and seeing that Susie wasn't stopping them, called the police on his cellular phone.
Within moments, the police arrived. The old man greeted them at the front door and pointed to the fight. The police, each with a club in hand, cautiously made their way to the scene.
The two men, each bruised and bleeding, continued fighting. Just before the police got to them, Barbara unintentionally grabbed the back of Dick's jeans and ripped them off of his body, exposing his dark-green boxers with white clouds on them. Surprised and further angered, Dick again decked her in the face.
Next, Dick felt something hard hit his back. He quickly turned around, seeing Chief O'Hara standing above him with a club in his hand, his arm raised above his head and ready to come down. When it did come down, the club hit Dick's face.
"Ouch!" Dick cried out in pain. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" he hollered to the police as he spit blood out of his mouth.
At the same time, two other officers were beating Barbara. Their last hit knocked her unconscious.
Barbara woke up in a small, cold concrete jail cell. She rose her head from the flat, uncomfortable bed, looking at the vertical metal bars blocking the cell's open end. She could see Dick in the cell across form hers, sitting in his bed shivering, for he was only in his boxers and sneakers. His whole face was bruised, and he couldn't open his left eye.
She looked down at her male self next. She could open both of her eyes, but her head ached when she looked up at the light. She lifted up her shirt to see cuts and bruises adorning her front and back. Her right arm ached the most; when she pulled up her sleeve she could see that the arm was purple.
Suddenly, she heard people walking up the hall towards her section of the jail. she recognized them as soon as they came in view of her cell. It was Bruce Wayne, along with Mrs. Cooper and Alfred. Chief O'Hara was with them. They were here to pick up Dick.
"Dick, what the devil is wrong with you?" Bruce started hollering at Dick as soon as Chief O'Hara let him out of his cell. "I wasn't at the stockholders' meeting for 30 minutes when Alfred called me and told me you were here. I don't know what's gotten into you lately! You've been goofing off at school and failing! You've been starting fights wherever you got. You've been getting too close to girls! I don't know what I'm going to do with you! You're a failure!"
"But, but, but..." was all Dick could manage to say as Bruce grabbed his arm and dragged him down the hall. They were followed by Mrs. Cooper, who wept at her nephew's behavior, and Alfred, who remained silent. Chief O'Hara led them to the main office.
Now Barbara was alone. She had time to think about what happened to her. How did Nora change me into a man?' she started thinking. Within a minute, another idea occurred to her. Could Nora have used another Psyche Eggchange Machine to put my mind in a man's body?' she asked herself. If so, then what is this man's mind doing with my body?!' was the last question she would think of before she heard more people coming up the hall.
This time it was Chief O'Hara and Commissioner Gordon, who was holding a woman's wallet. They approached her cell, ready to interrogate her.
"Creep, you have some explaining to do!" the Commissioner angrily shouts at Barbara, with tears streaming from his eyes. "What were you doing with my daughter Barbara Gordon's wallet? What were you doing in her apartment? What have you done with her?" he continued, not giving Barbara a chance to answer one question before the next.
"You don't understand!" Barbara started to answer. "That is my wallet, because I am Barbara Gordon! Somehow Nora Clavicle either turned me into a man or put my mind in a man's body. We got to get Nora! She's planning on killing a million boys tonight!"
"That's hogwash!" Chief O'Hara replied. "I ought to beat you senseless! Then you would probably make sense!"
"Where's Barbara?" the Commissioner shouted.
"I am Barbara!" Barbara replied, knowing nobody would believe her.
"Ah, forget it! We'll get him later!" Chief O'Hara said to the Commissioner as they started to walk back down the hall. The Commissioner turned his head back one more time. Barbara could see a look of both intense anger and heartbreak on his face as he turned around and walked away.
Now she was alone again. She had another chance to think. This time, she started thinking about everyone else's behavior.
That's funny,' she started. I've known Chief O'Hara almost all of my life, and I've never seen him beat anyone or anything, not even a fly! I've known Bruce for almost as long, and even if Dick was a troublemaker who was failing school, he'd never call him a failure and be that harsh toward him. And talking about Dick, I know he can be sensitive to what people say to him, but I've never known him to start fights so easily, and I've never heard him curse either. Even Daddy is acting rather harsh; I've never even seen him as rough with convicted killers as he was with me just earlier.
Something strange is going on here,' she continued. It's as if I were in another world!' Suddenly, her eyes opened wide. That's it! I am in another world! probably a virtual reality world! My mind wasn't put into a man's body! It was put into a strange world where I think it is in a man's body! My body is back in reality, and my mind is stuck in this world!'
Meanwhile, back in the real world, two women came into the old Thompson's Lumber warehouse to see Nora.
"Come in!" Nora excitedly greeted them at the door. "Your rewards are inside!"
Nora led the two women to the entrance near where Batgirl was hooked up to the machine.
"You ladies have done a great job!" Nora congratulated the women as they stared down at Batgirl, who appeared to be in a trance. "Your device worked! I'm curious, how did you do it?"
"It was simple," started one of the women, Sandahl Jones, a top computer programmer. "The hardest part was getting Minerva's Eggplant Jelly Vitamin Scalp Massage Machine out of the police warehouse. Your ladies did a wonderful job with that, by the way. Once we had it, we had to removed the mind-reading equipment from it, for it was damaged when the police took it. We replaced it with virtual reality equipment, and we renamed it the Virtual Reality Brain Stimulator."
"Its premise is simple," the other woman, Grace Bergman, a pre-eminent African-American biochemist, continued. "The cap sends enough voltage to our subject's brain to render her unconscious. Then, the Virtual Reality Brain Stimulator regulates the amount of serotonin in her brain, altering its functions and putting her consciousness in a virtual reality world, one which she thinks is real. If she is fed with an IV, she could remain in that virtual world indefinitely. In the world we programmed for her, she thinks she's a man, and she will stay that way for the rest of her life!"
"I wonder," Nora mused out loud, "Should I feed her, to prolong her suffering, or just let her starve to death?"
"Ah, well, whatever I decide, splendid work!" Nora exclaimed as she headed toward a back room. She returned with two briefcases, one for each woman. She handed each woman her case.
On a table nearby, each woman opened her reward, delighted to find a million dollars inside.
"You ladies deserve it!" Nora told them. Wanting to talk with them some more in private, she asked them, "Why don't we celebrate in my office? I just brewed some tea."
Nora and the scientists went to her office to talk over tea.
About an hour later, Nora heard some of her henchwomen outside of her office.
"Are you ladies ready with the anatomy layouts?" she asked her henchwomen. "I hope you have been practicing the 'touch of death' on the dummies. Remember, you strike one blow on each side of the boy's neck in rapid succession, shutting off the flow of blood to the brain. It is only fitting that we use this technique, developed by an ancient warrior princess and recorded by her faithful female traveling companion, to accomplish our task."
Before she could get an answer, she heard rattling on the other side of the warehouse. She turned around, and to her dismay, she saw only an empty chair! Batgirl was out of the Virtual Reality Brain Stimulator!
"Ladies, where is Batgirl?" Nora glared at her women. "Go find her!"
One young lady found Batgirl in the back room, talking on the phone with the police. She tried to hit Batgirl from behind, but Batgirl sensed her coming and turned to kick her. The young lady shrieked and she fell to the floor. Batgirl quickly got off the phone and tied the woman up.
Seven other woman came to the woman's aid. They immediately started to hit at Batgirl. One tried to spray Batgirl with knockout gas, but to her dismay discovered that the can was empty!
Even though she was a bit disorientated due to her ordeal, Batgirl was able to knock out those seven women. Thinking that she had got the last of them, Batgirl took a deep breath and let her guard down for a moment. Suddenly, two new assailants got a hold of Batgirl, one on each of her sides. These women, Dr. Bergman and Dr. Jones, remained standing with Batgirl between them.
Nora approached the trio. "Just how did you get out of that trap, you disgusting excuse for a woman?" Nora asked Batgirl with great disdain.
"Simple, you wicked crone!" Batgirl quipped. "Once I found out that phony virtual reality world wasn't real, I was able to treat it as fantasy and convince my brain to return to reality. I'm afraid your little gizmo isn't all it's cracked up to be!"
"OK, little girl, I've got something even better for you in this world," Nora threatened Batgirl. "I'll take you down to the Channel 6 station and unmask you live during the 11:00 nightly news!"
Suddenly, the police broke down the front doors of the warehouse. Five male officers came in and started rounding up the tied up and knocked out women. Four female officers approached Nora, Dr. Bergman, Dr. Jones, and Batgirl.
"Freeze!" one of the officers commanded the women.
"I don't know about freezing," Nora said to the officer, "but if I were you, I would worry about breathing!"
Nora grabbed four small spheres from her blazer pocket. She threw them at the officers. Immediately, the spheres broke, releasing dark billowing smoke that quickly filled the room. Dr. Bergman and Dr. Jones let go of Batgirl and threw her into the officers. They, along with Nora, ran toward a hidden back exit and fled outside.
Once the women were outside, they were greeted by the Dynamic Duo.
"Stop, fiendish criminals!" Batman ordered the trio.
Robin, still in a bad mood and anxious to apprehend the women, started to charge toward them. Just as he was about to grab Nora, Drs. Bergman and Jones each grabbed a side of him. Holding him tightly, the women propped him up against the back of the warehouse.
Batman, also charging toward them, stopped in his tracks, fearing any further moves would lead to Robin's harm.
Nora started chuckling. "Well, I guess there is no time like the present to test the touch of death', is there, Dark Nut?" she asked Batman as she approached Robin. "Besides, I know that this masked goofball must be younger than 21, and he would make a perfect first victim!"
"You wouldn't dare! You wouldn't DARE!" Batman harshly warned Nora.
Normally, Batman wouldn't think of physically striking a woman. However, he realized that he had no choice if he wanted Robin to live. Just as Nora turned her back toward Batman and raised her arms to strike, Batman quickly ran behind Nora and struck her in the back, knocking her to the ground.
In response to their leader's fall, Drs. Bergman and Jones let go of Robin to attack Batman. Immediately, Robin grabbed Dr. Bergman by the arm and kicked her in the side, causing her to fall and roll down a small grassy hill nearby. As Dr. Jones turned to see her comrade roll down the hill, Batman kicked her, causing her to fall on top of her decolletage.
Robin started tying up the fallen women. As he put a knot in the rope around Nora, he turned to Batman. "I'm sure glad you got this one when you did," he said to Batman, his moodiness starting to be replaced by thankfulness. "I would have been a goner if you hadn't!"
As the police ran out the back exit to round up the remaining three women, Batman and Robin passed them as they ran into the warehouse. The duo approached Batgirl to see if she was OK. Their ally was still a little unsteady on her feet because of the aftereffect of VR. Batman offered her a ride in the Batmobile to get to her cycle. She accepted; she had to get to sleep soon because she had an engagement after work tomorrow.
It was the next day, March 20. It was even warmer than the day before, getting up to 85 degrees F. It was now 7:30 in the evening.
Many people were gathered in a side room at the Wayne Manor. The last of the decorations were hung. Everyone, including Barbara and her father, Chief O'Hara, Susie, and many of Dick's friends from school and elsewhere, including his out-of-town best friend Wally West, were waiting for the guest of honor. Bruce left the room to fetch him.
Bruce looked in the kitchen, where Dick usually did his homework. He wasn't there. Bruce looked in the Batcave. He wasn't there, either. Bruce looked everywhere, finally finding Dick in his room, still in his school clothes, fast asleep on top of his bed, his books right beside him. Playing a cruel trick, Bruce woke him up.
"Dick," Bruce said softly to Dick as he gently shook his shoulder. "Time for you to get up. You are almost late for dinner. We invited your Mythology teacher over. Because we have a guest, we're going to have dinner in the west side room. Afterwards, she's going to talk to you about your 'B'."
"What?!" Dick exclaimed as he jumped out of bed. "Mrs. Queen's down there now?" he asked Bruce.
"I'm afraid so," Bruce replied.
Dick ran down the stairs and directly into the west side room, which had its lights turned off. As soon as he flipped the switch, everyone jumped out from behind furniture and yelled "Surprise!"
Bruce ran from behind and put a party hat on Dick. Next, he led him to a large round oak table and sat him down, where Mrs. Cooper placed a large birthday cake with 18 burning candles in front of him. At that moment, everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" to him.
"Make a wish and blow out the candles!" Mrs. Cooper said to her nephew, still in shock from seeing such a large gathering on his special day.
Dick looked across the table, seeing his old friend Susie, looking back at him with her big brown eyes and smiling at him. He looked back at the cake and blew out the candles.
"What did you wish for?" his friend Wally asked him. "Did you wish for a new sports car?"
"Nope!" he replied.
"Did you wish for a new stereo?" asked Jake, another classmate who served with Dick on Student Council.
"Nope!" Dick replied again.
"Did you wish for a dream vacation?" Barbara asked Dick.
"Nope!" he said once more.
"What did you ask for, Master Dick?" Alfred asked.
"Well, what I wished for wasn't really for me," Dick answered. "I wish that Susie be allowed to leave the Girls' Home soon. I've been visiting her at the home and at the library and she's been doing so well. I think she's paid her debt to society. She knows that crime doesn't pay and I think it is time to set her free."
"Your wish shall be granted!" Bruce playfully said, although he was a bit surprised to hear his words coming out of Dick's mouth.
Susie excitedly ran around the table. "Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed as she put her arms around Dick and kissed him on the cheek. Barbara almost got too excited. For a moment, she remembered what had occurred between the two in the virtual reality world.
Everyone clapped, including Barbara, who was glad to be back in reality. The party went on . . .
As our season heads towards a shocking climax . . .
YOU will determine what happens!
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