Words murmured just out of earshot made Althea jolt as she crawled onto her stomach. Instead of overly large male cybernetic arms, she had her old spindly-by-comparison arms back. They dragged a massive barrel-like shape behind her that made her progress slow and torturous.

  The same voice repeated the words over and over again.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  Her words echoed through the chamber, rolling back to her as if she lay within a large empty cavern. As soon as the echoes faded, a figure jumped in front of Althea. She looked like herself, whole and natural. She nodded to the Althea on the ground and whispered the words again.

  She took Althea by the cheeks and slowly opened her mouth and spoke. Whatever she said came out as wind rushing through the trees. Her own eyes widened and tears rolled down her cheeks as she screamed, straining her neck and repeating herself until she doubled over.

  When she did, from the ground, Althea could see the implant in the other’s neck. It looked like a mass of tentacles and fearsome writhing insects.

  She screamed as she opened her eyes. Althea could see the top of the Surge ship’s bunk from her prone position. When she tried to rise from laying down, nothing seemed to happen. Panic rolled through her as nothing in her body responded. Erie appeared over her with tears in her eyes.

  She spoke through choking sobs,

  “You know, if you’d had anything to do with his death, I would have killed you. Or maybe dropped your brain and spine into a nightmare generator. But I reviewed the tapes, even the ones I put in your arms. You almost saved him, you were trying even though you activated CC-0. I just thought you should know.”

  Erie’s tears hit Althea’s face. Erie nodded standing over Althea and said,

  “I’ll get you fixed up as soon as I can. The uh, parts are in short supply. I’m real sorry.”

  For the first time since meeting the woman, Erie looked a shadow of her real age. There in the black of her eyes, Althea could almost make out the images of specters from the woman’s past. Her eyes closed as Pontikos whirred online.

  This time, Althea drifted in and out of a dreamless slumber. The few times she woke, a different face greeted her. Once it was Jericho, Boris’s large guard, next Telly, and then a host of unfamiliar faces from the city.

  All of the words people spoke to her should have registered in her mind, but sleep and forced comas kept such considerations far away. The only other factor uniting her brief awakenings was her utter lack of mobility or sensation. Her eyes and ears worked. Her nose worked, if she thought about it. But the rest felt distant and vague.

  When Althea woke and could feel her body, she felt different immediately.

  Pontikos appeared, still looking like a pixie.

  “Hello Mistress. You are officially released from treatment today. I must say, the Surge facilities truly are excellent.”

  Althea tried to stand and the movement came smoothly and naturally to her. She rolled off her gurney with a dextrous landing. She raised her hands to find pale flesh greeting her. The robe over her body showed her nothing else, so she let it fall to the floor, biting her lip as she did.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A body like a child’s doll greeted her below her neck. What might have been breasts or pectoral muscles made her nipple-less skin bulge at her chest. She refused to lean over and try to examine herself, so she sat back down on the table and breathed slowly.

  “What happened?”

  Pontikos said,

  “You now wear an upgraded battle chassis.” An image of her body appeared with her head on it. “This is a CoreMil combat and infiltration model III. The model threes were the first with true primary form malleability, but the model fives can change the shape of their faces significantly. Of course, Surge would not normally be equipped with model fives, being as they were a recent addition to CoreMil arsenal.”

  “Why am I wearing a Surge CoreMil body?”

  “I believe this one belonged to your friend Boris. He must have been shot in the upper head for the chassis to still be viable, how fortuitous…”

  Althea growled,

  “Good child mode. And never speak that way about him again.”

  What should have made her sick, driven her to vomit and rip her own arms off bounced off her psyche like discovering her eggs were slightly drier than she preferred. That thought turned her natural sense of introspection upon herself and she saw the silver-serpent monster wearing her face still within.

  She tried to deactivate the protocol, but from her SEP, the move was impossible, like the final piece of a critical bridge had been cut.

  Seconds after she tried to will the attempt to pass, the whole version of herself reappeared in her AR space, like a ghost who did not belong. Wearing a black skirt and white button-up blouse, she put her hand on her hip and said,

  “You don’t think I am going to let you drive again, do you? I laid a clear path for you from the house, and you avoided it at every junction. First Steve’s boy, and then that idiot with his arena. If you had just run the course like I said, we could have killed the motherfuckers chasing us in one go. Now we have to stick our necks out again to make sure we’re not killed.”

  Pontikos smiled at Althea and kept her hands folded while the alternate version of herself continued to rail against her,

  “And worst, you don’t even know about shush shush shush!”

  The last three words sounded longer than “shush” but all she could hear of them were the mumblings, as if her conscious mind rejected them.

  Althea stood and put her fingers right above the watcher’s eyes.

  “But don’t worry. I am here to protect you and make sure you survive. I know what I am doing. Idiot.”

  Althea felt herself pushed back into her own mind, to sit and watch from her mind space as she walked to stand before a mirror. As if ignoring her, Pontikos addressed the other Althea, and showed her how her new body functioned. Apparently, much of what had been done protected Althea from some of the very mistakes Boris warned her about.

  As she thought of his death, she watched herself activate the body sculpting protocol, shifting back into her original body. Her body seemed to melt like wax and reform as the process completed. Her breasts seemed larger than before, her hips wider and her arms just a hint longer.

  The other Althea in her mind reached her hand out toward the SEP. The fingers of the other version of herself warped as if crossed through a drop of water and pulled her out of her mind space.

  “You need to get moving soon. The people who want us would not have sent cannibals and morons after us. Even if they did get lucky. Don’t get yourself killed, don’t forget what Boris taught you, and honor his death by living. Don’t be an asshole.”

  Althea looked up from the AR space, as if searching for a boom mic and said,

  “Deactivate CC-0 protocol, return Persona to baseline, with maximum trauma adjustment.”

  She looked back at herself and said,

  “You should sit before you confirm those Persona changes.”

  Althea walked calmly and quickly back to her seat, unsure now who was in control of her body. Then, with a single voice, she said,

  “Confirm changes.”

  When Erie found her a few minutes later, Althea looked incredibly close to her old self. She stood about the same height, though her arms were longer and her body looked fuller. Of course, she could never remember curling into a ball and wailing the way she did then.