I flexed my fingers, trying to get a feel for things. It didn't feel like things had changed much, if at all. If you had told me that this body and the old one were the same, I'd believe you. Whether it was? I'd have to run it through the paces. It'd come down to just how cheap these people were.

  Given that Syuen was involved, the odds were high. I knew how good of a drug spite was. Personal experience and all that. So odds were, she was probably feeling very spiteful towards me as well. The problem was, that I was put into a body in an operation I didn't consent to, expected to fight on the front lines of some grand conflict, and was largely considered disposable.

  She was a CEO. Acting spiteful left Syuen with considerably more to lose. Once one reached the top, all that was left was gravity. However, my rock bottom situation could easily prove itself to have a false bottom as well. It wasn't as if those false bottoms already appeared by this point.

  "Of course, a custom frame will take time and data, as to avoid unnecessary damage as much as possible," I listened to the egghead talk as I continued to just, stretch out my body. After being a head, being able to move around felt right. Even though I managed to knock myself unconscious again, I'd rather not have to experience anything like that ever again. I'd rather not experience a lot of things ever again at the moment.

  "However, it will take time before the body is prepared, and during that period, you will notice some adjustments," the man continued as I stopped my flexing. Now if that wasn't ominous, I would eat a hat.

  "And what exactly do you mean by that?" I frowned, giving the man a look. To his credit, unlike most of the people who'd I'd asked questions, he didn't seem to be phased.

  "An individualized body will take time to develop into its own. To an extent, it reflects what you desire to be," the man explained, actually answering a question to my surprise. Telling of what it was like here, that such a basic thing could elicit such a reaction on my part.

  Of course, it also sounded like technobabble bullshit of the highest caliber. How could it not? Try as I might to not think about such matters, Nikke's body wasn't organic. It wasn't something capable of growth. At least, it damn well shouldn't be. Especially if it was based on something as vague and nebulous as desire. What exactly did that mean, anyway? Did that mean that Yuni was older than she looked? Instead of looking like someone who was all of twelve at best?

  I'd still poke fun at her. If she chose to look like a child, then she shouldn't have the right to complain about being called one. If what was really how this worked in the first place? Either way, if that was the worst that happened to her, given what she did to me? I was well within my rights to be worse, and frankly, could have been.

  "That sounds almost farcical," I admitted bluntly, crossing my arms. The man simply chuckled.

  "I imagine it sounds like a tall tale from someone with your perspective," he simply smiled, causing me to raise an eyebrow. A person capable of understanding how messed up this was?

  Alright, what exactly is the catch?

  "I don't know how long it will take, exactly, however. There is a considerable amount of information to consider. Quite possibly, we might not be able to increase resistance to the strain your body is under to make sure maintenance is within standard deviation for a Nikke," he continued, as I nodded.

  "Because the parts need to be resistant to both tension and compression, correct?" I asked as the man gave me a surprised look.

  "I must admit, I didn't expect you to know about the differences in stresses," he said, nodding as he did so. "But yes, that is correct. And while Goddesium is considerably better at such things, I cannot say that it is perfect, especially for internal parts."

  As far as dumb science fiction metals went, I'd heard far crazier things than Goddesium. It fit with the whole Nike association, that Nikke's were supposed to be these Goddesses of Victory. I understood the propaganda value of such things. I did. Humanity in those early days when the Raptures first started invading? Had to be terrified, turning to anything it could to be a vessel of its salvation.

  But whatever dreams that may have been, authentic or otherwise, had long since decayed away. I didn't have a full picture, but what I did see, was not pleasant. The fact that this was allowed for even humanity's so-called "Goddesses" was, just maddening. Syuen was an entitled brat, and it made sense for her to surround herself with those who felt the same way she did.

  Deep down, however, I knew it was more than just Syuen. No matter how much rot cascaded in from the top, there was always a bigger fish. The board being an example of something Syuen had to answer to. The board had no problem with my treatment, other than making it clear that they did not like Syuen possibly wasting an asset.

  Bait. That's what I was now. An upgrade from being a suicide bomb. But not exactly much of one, either. As far as the board was concerned, my only value was how well I could track this Chatterbox, thing. Which was stupid. I doubt just having a somewhat improved body was going to be enough to let us fight that thing on even terms. Beat it in an even fight? Capture it?

  Not a chance in hell. It took one of those Pilgrims to scare Chatterbox off. And what had she even used to take off its arm? A laser canon? A rail gun? Either was powerful. But if the Ark, or just Syuen's company in general, could make something of that caliber, why didn't they? That had concerning implications. Of what had once been possible.

  And how much the Ark had lost over the years. Which did not have promising chances of reclaiming the surface from the Raptures, if humanity had been driven underground. With whom knows how much manufacturing capacity and technology was lost along with it?

  None of this still made any sense to me. How was humanity still alive, despite the clear overmatch of capacity? How had the Raptures not found the Ark yet? What even were the Raptures?

  "I'm sure it's a lot to take in. But at the moment, the approach to Chatterbox is being heavily revised at all levels," I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. How far could I push that now, anyway? The fact that the plan existed in its former form in the first place was already enough to show that these idiots had no idea how to handle the situation.

  "We went in against an enemy that was considerably underestimated, likely from a lack of intelligence on what was considered to be nothing more than just a dumb Rapture. Which nearly led to an elite special operations team being wiped off the map," I scowled. "Call me old-fashioned, but that type of military fuck-up is something that gets people sacked. Not having the same issues that caused the problem the first time, think up a 'better plan'."

  "If it were a military operation, it might," and that was a large part of my problem with this. A military existed. In this situation, how could it not? And yet, Syuen seemed largely free to move as she pleased. Either meaning that she had managed to fly under the radar.

  Or her actions had approval from the military. Or Government. Perhaps, they were the same. I didn't know.

  But given Yuni's words, I didn't have any faith in the military being competent either.

  Sure, I'd be trusting Yuni. But I wouldn't deny that my refusal to trust anything out of her or anyone else's mouth had already bitten me in the ass. She had been honest with me. I didn't have to like either of them to recognize that they were telling me just how terrible the current situation was.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Still, as I understand the current situation, we don't have any record of what your body used to look like, which is typically used as a baseline," he said. I simply nodded my head, before I started taking. Time to find out if some suspicions were correct.

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  "What do you mean, it used to be a guy!" Syuen was thankful that her office was empty and mostly soundproof. Yet another thing about 313N that was going to be a problem. Because of course things couldn't be that simple. Because 313N couldn't stop causing trouble just by simplifying existing.

  "I don't care what you have to do, smother it!" Syuen ordered, her scowl growing worse and worse by the second. 313N had been a perpetual pain in her side. But this? This was a bit more of a problem than just a mass-produced model gone wrong. This was an actual problem. One that could get her in no small bit of trouble. While the records were clear on whom 313N was converted from, even the idea of converting a man into a Nikke would have people looking through their records with a fine comb.

  Never mind that the already increased risk of Mind Switch, a simply likely event that might turn out lucky, to a certainty. That meant any plans she had for 313N were now on a timer. A timer she had no way of knowing how long she had until things went catastrophically wrong.

  Now she was caught between a rock and a hard place. As much as Syuen enjoyed the fact that it was certain 313N would be out of her hair by some point in the future, the board wanted Chatterbox. Originally, she had time to reevaluate and come up with a better plan. Now she was facing a time constraint. One that could end in the next few seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months.

  Ideally, she could capture Chatterbox before any further issues developed, then she could pawn off 313N's mind switch to someone else.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  I wasn't exactly surprised that there wasn't a thing for male Nikke's. I'd never heard of such a thing, as it was kind of clear in the name. Nike was a female Goddess, after all. So life shits on my plate once again. But it was an expected steaming dump on my plate. I felt the darkness in my mind flare up, twisting back to life for a moment before I slugged it in the face. By no standard of measurement was I fine. This just made things worse.

  I didn't know how to approach this. I figured my old life was gone, but it was just, buried. There was nothing I could do to reclaim even that little back. To claw back some resemblance of my old life. Even if only in name. Instead, I was stuck like this. Likely forever.

  It felt like a weight on my chest. One reminder on top of countless others. Threatening to crush my chest into fine powder. Out of all the things I'd lost, it almost seemed trivial. A mound of dirt next to a mountain. Yet it felt like a mountain all the same. Even next to everything else I'd learned.

  The serial number now made more sense in context. Mass-produced. That was what this body was. Something that could be produced easily, and then thrown into the meat grinder. Cannon fodder was a generous description of what I was. It explained why, just the other day, I saw so many people with this exact face.

  Not my face. Not my hair. Literally, something repeated in mass. Disposable. The fact looking back at me was one of dozens, if not hundreds. Possibly into the thousands. Maybe even more. It stared back at me. I could control it, the expressions, how it looked. But it was still not one of a kind. It wasn't my face. It was never going to be my face. Even as it gazed back at me in the mirror. It just wasn't mine.

  I scowled, digging through the drawer near the sink. Screw that. Screw the fact that it wasn't my face. That was something I could change.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "You look like your hair was attacked with a pair of scissors," Yuni's expression made it clear that she intended it to be an insult.

  "Because I did," I said simply, sitting down. Of course, the haircut didn't look good. I was not a stylist by any stretch of the imagination. The ponytail and bangs were gone. Most of my hair was cut short, but very uneven. It was far shorter than even my hair used to be. Even before I was forced into this body. It had earned me a few odd looks, but nobody had said anything.

  "It fits," Mihara said, poking at her food. I wonder how far this I was originally a guy stuff was going to spread. If it had spread in the first place. People probably didn't want that type of thing spreading around. Still, hopefully, there was a bit of time before any more dumb missions from Syuen. I at least wanted to be prepared for what could come next. We got lucky with Chatterbox. Probably with the Raptures in general.

  I didn't want to rely on luck to stay alive.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "They're keeping quiet. But they likely ran into a Pilgrim," the man being given the report nodded. The damage noted by their intelligence was completely contracted by the mission report. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. But the damage was unexpected. Combined with the flurry of meetings from the board and several Misillis higher-ups? It was clear something had happened that the company had considered extremely important.

  "What makes you think a Pilgrim is involved?" the older man asked back, frowning slightly.

  "Given the damage sustained, it's highly unlikely that those involved managed to flee from the Raptures without outside aid," was the response, and the damage reports were detailed and abundantly clear. Those types of damages spread out across an entire squad typically meant said the squad had been wiped out. So unless the damage reports were lying.

  It was unlikely. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Though they were operating under an extreme assumption in that case. They needed something far more solid than just suspicions. The squad in question was Wardress. That didn't give them a lot of options. What exactly Misillis did with the squad was hard to pin down in theory. Even if it wasn't exactly hard to extrapolate things.

  But there was a noteworthy addition. One 313N. Mass-produced. The man flipped through the notes. Mass-produced prototype for the new Product 08 model. Why exactly is a mass-produced doing attached to an elite squad? That didn't make much sense.

  That was an angle. They didn't seem to have much information about the Product 08. But that could be used to get information. Syuen was not exactly known for her treatment of Nikkes. It could be possible to see if she was willing to speak about what was going on with Wardress and their missions. The problem was getting in contact with her.

  As of the moment, she was working in one of Misillis's private squads. That did put her outside the normal chains to an extent. Someone with his rank could push. But pushing Syuen on such matters would not be an effective use of his leverage. There were other ways to pass along a message though.

  "Let me know when Wardress is about to go on a mission next as soon as you hear about one," he ordered.

  "Sir!" The man saluted, before leaving the office.

  It would be a stretch, but he could pull some strings. Possibly get one of his own assigned to the mission, so he could pass along a message. Then it would be on 313N to respond. Ideally, she would. Part of him was banking on Syuen's treatment of 313N to get her to be receptive to alternate ideas of deployment. It was without a shadow of a doubt the CEO was toeing the line. It was more than likely Syuen was stepping over it.

  Solid proof was needed. While the word of a mass-produced Nikke wouldn't be enough, she could point them in the right direction when it came to such matters.