"Did you see the big guy in the suit? Yeah, that one. I passed him on the way over. Black diamond in the ear. Yeah, I'm sure that's what it was, and I'm not repeating it."
Huddled in the corner between the side of the bed and the wall, I shivered and pulled the blankets tighter against my body.
A body that the deepest parts of me were positively purring about. My rational brain was stuck somewhere between being stun locked and screaming incoherently.
I was swaddled from head to toe in the blankets I’d torn off the bed and wrapped myself in like an XXL robe, hood and all. I was cold, but the shivering wasn’t entirely from the cool air temperature. My knees were pressed against my chest, and my arms were wrapped around my legs under my fuzzy outer shell.
The soft press of my giant fucking tits against my knees, and the way they ate up the space in front of me, was something I was trying to push out of my mind. Unfortunately for me, the thing I’d woken up in, and the only thing I was wearing under my blanket-fortress, was a t-shirt that fit me like a dress, coming to my mid-thigh. So every motion I made in the brief amount of time I spent using the facilities and then sequestering myself away in the corner was a reminder. When I stopped moving, other parts of me remained in motion.
I...I jiggled! And it wasn’t just the chest, either. Remembering drew fresh shivers.
I’d kept my hands occupied and my eyes cast below the neck when looking once more in the mirror after washing my hands.
The girl—me—was tiny. My perspective was off for everything, I was having to reach further than instinct guided my hand. Everything was too big. I was too light. I felt like I might blow away from the stiff breeze of an air curtain on a shop’s door.
My fingers of my unoccupied hand kept tracing over the skin of my exposed legs under the blanket. There was a strong cognitive dissonance with the tactile feedback, but I couldn’t stop touching myself. My legs weren’t smooth, or even stubbly, but straight-up furry. But the skin—the skin—drew me back for more.
It was so soft. Supple. More than that: sensitive.
I’d been playing Immsims for years. Female avatars felt right. Fit my style better. Avatars on the good games gave feedback; some “games” specialized in certain kinds of feedback.
It wasn’t anything like this. Having virtual bounce wasn’t the same.
I ran a finger over my lips again.
I needed to distract myself, so I brought my eyes up to look at my surroundings once more.
Alarm bells had been steadily going off in my head since I’d been shocked into full wakefulness in the bathroom.
The bathroom.
I wasn’t in a cube. I was in a real-life apartment with multiple rooms. I didn’t even know apartments existed in 5-3, and yet here I was, in one.
I am still in 5-3, right? Let’s not throw more fuel on the existential meltdown.
The women who’d taken me…
Am I a prisoner? I never even bothered to try the door.
A heavy and a User. Thinking about the heavy made my blood run cold. Thinking about the User made my heart just stop beating entirely. She… She had known I was wanted. Wired in, in the know, ear to the street. Probably more chrome than meat by volume, even though she wasn’t visibly augged out from what I could remember.
It was shameful to admit, but the thing that stood out the most in my memory, other than the dual heaters, was her abs.
The apartment was tastefully decorated. There were several potted plants, the floor was a quality faux wood, and the golden lighting rendered the entire place in warm tones. A big watercolor painting hung on one wall; trees, ocean & two suns.
A loud beep and click sounded from the doorway leading into the other room. I hadn’t left the space I’d been sleeping in.
I gripped my puncher tighter in my hand, both tucked under the blanket. It had been with a pile of my stuff, nothing seemingly missing from what I could remember.
The fact that it pulsed in a ready-state pattern when I’d picked it up was downright ironic. My fucking gun’s ID system recognized me when I didn’t even recognize me. My hand no longer fit comfortably in the grip, and my fingers didn’t make it entirely around the frame. I felt like a kid holding their parents' gun they’d stolen.
My fucking hands were just as tiny and slender as I was. I hated the fact that I loved the fact.
Voices, barely familiar. Crinkling of paper, footsteps. I squeezed the grip tighter to try to steady my hand, but it was a futile effort. My entire body was trembling under the blankets, the cold forgotten about, all nerves.
“...Going to check on her.”
I gulped.
Red skin draped in flowing bands of multi-hued fabric practically flowed into the room. Two rings of bright orange light, the gleam of fangs.
“Oh! You’re awake!” My eyes tunnel-visioned on the upturned lips.
Motion.
Obnoxious rainbow hair entering the room.
The heavy.
The bulky black box-end of my puncher peeked out of the blanket draped over it and my arm, the entire apparatus wobbling and oscillating. I did my best to keep it trained on the heavy.
My bullets wouldn’t do shit against a User. Probably wouldn’t do shit against a heavy, either, but I was more willing to take those chances than the other option.
I hadn’t spoken since screaming earlier. I didn’t recognize the warm, breathy voice greeting my ears. “I’m not going back,” I stated, trying to channel the resolve I didn’t truly possess.
The heavy looked at me with eyes I recognized. Eyes like rolled armor plate, ones that had stopped keeping score a long way back.
“Squeeze and find out what happens,” she said, tone flat as a ribbon cable.
The User placed a claw-tipped hand on the heavy’s exposed bicep. Her voice was velvety and low when she spoke, saying, “Ellen, you think now would be a good time to make the rounds you were talking about on the way back?”
Those eyes lingered overlong before a sniff broke the stillness. Just like that, they were turned away from me. The two shared a quick kiss, and the heavy left the room with barely a sound. A moment later, a click-beep of what I assumed was the outer door.
My heart was thumping away insistently. I hesitated a moment, then lowered my puncher. I might have been a continent away from my comfort zone, but I wasn’t so stupid as to point a gun at a User. That was dumber than pointing a gun at an agent. The agent longed to make an example out of you. There was no telling what the User would do, but any reaction was bound to be disproportionate, be it laughing at you or splashing you against a building.
“What—“ my voice broke. “What did you do to me?” Tears welled up and started leaking.
The smile returned, or maybe it had never left in the first place. She drifted closer, like she was floating. It wouldn’t be unusual for a User if she was.
“Well, I found you in the gutter in rough shape. You needed medical attention rather urgently. I contacted a friend of mine, who fixed the issues you were having. You’ve been asleep for two days following that. You certainly needed it, you look worlds better now.”
“Imrael?” It was the best guess I had as to her motivations. The angels in devil form that graced X-3 with mana medicine and User healing for those in need. Maybe she was off-duty and enjoying herself in 5-3, and took a pity case.
I frowned right as she laughed. The sound lit the room up more than the fancy lighting did.
No, stupid. She’s a fire aspect. Unless she’s one of those wackjobs who trained off-aspect healing abilities with an offensive-type aspect.
“Heavens, no, no. I’m not corporate. I live and work here, in five-three.” She came to a stop in front of me, a step's distance away. I had to crane my neck to look up at her, and I clutched the blanket tightly around my neck to keep my body heat trapped in.
“Am I a prisoner?” I blurted, my lips moving faster than my brain.
She grinned down at me in a way that would have made me shiver, had I not already been. “Do you want to be?” She asked, coyly.
I opened and closed my mouth several times. I was stuck in a loop of thinking about the angles and the plays. I was worth digits. Probably pocket chits for a User, but still, money is money, and digits stack, as they say.
“You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat? I just picked some odds and ends up.” She turned to the side and swept a hand over in the direction of the doorway she’d entered from.
I went to decline, but my stomach thought otherwise. The gurgling growl was embarrassingly loud.
How does someone my size even…
A crimson hand came down, shiny, black, polished claws extending from the fingertips. I glanced up, and it was just the same teasing smile and playful expression on her face that she’d had since entering. I was starting to think that was just her resting facial expression.
I reached up after a moment’s time spent deliberating, and her fingers clasped around my hand firmly. She practically hoisted me off the floor faster than my legs could support me. I felt light as a feather to my own skewed senses. To her, I probably didn’t even register beyond air resistance. My blanket-shawl slipped off because I couldn’t hold it and the gun at the same time, and my half-assed tuck job had lasted less than a second.
I was left standing, gun dangling from one hand, wearing only an Ultimate Force Slayers shirt five sizes too large, and my cheeks glowing.
There wasn’t any way in hell my clothing was going to fit, and I didn’t want to owe a single credit more than what I was already going to be billed for… whatever this was. It wasn’t even stubbornness; I couldn’t give what I didn’t own.
She led me into the other room by my hand with my bare feet slapping on the floor. There was a kitchen with bar stools and a countertop, but I was directed over to a battered sofa instead. I sank into it like it was trying to swallow me, the connection was instant, and one of pure, unadulterated love. It was also quite warm, which was a welcome change. A projector was displaying a topside newsfeed onto the wall opposite of the sofa.
I’d left my puncher behind on the bed. It wasn’t going to do me any good right here, right now. I fidgeted with my fingertips. My mind was racing, but in a tight circle that didn’t accomplish anything, and my eyes were unfocused and staring at nothing.
“Why am I like this?” I asked the room.
Kitchen noise was more audible over the nearly muted newsfeed. A familiar tink, clunk, thud, crinkle that I hadn’t heard in years and was vaguely familiar and uncomfortable at the same time.
“Like what? Cute?” I could hear the grinning smirk without having to look over. She chuckled, and a knife thumped into a cutting block slowly, but surely. “I thought it would have been pretty obvious, but you’ve awoken, dear. Hmm. Since you’re my guest, I suppose it would be proper to exchange names, don’t you think?”
Could have just scanned my CID. Maybe they did, and it’s just making conversation?
I swallowed. I’d been using K for a while now because I didn’t like my other name. I hadn’t actually used my preferred name in meatspace, and I always went by pseudonyms with my characters. My eyes drifted down to the twin swells obstructing the line of sight to my hands. Those weren’t seemingly going anywhere.
“It’s Kiera,” I announced after a brief hesitation.
Her lower half crossed my field of vision, and she took a seat right next to me on the sofa. The lack of support caused me to slide over some, until my hip rested against hers. She was so warm. I knew that Sul’vari had a slightly higher temperature than humans did, but it was still surprising to me. I’d never really interacted with one on a personal basis, only ever at work, and even then, somewhat rarely.
They weren’t rare. There were twenty eight or thirty million of them living in the city, but they skewed heavily to upper levels, and kept pretty tight to 4-3 in X-3. The species being exclusively Users was likely the primary driver of that. Users existed to the side of the class structure, their own special thing, and not bound in any way beyond their own desires and legal status. To be a User in X-3 typically meant that you either chose to be there or, more realistically, you had a record in a Spire database.
I don’t think most people choose to wallow in shit by choice. Some certainly did. Those of us born and raised in that shit tended to have a sense of patriotism about it. To leave X-3 to go corporate was to choose to become a class traitor, and a dangerous proposition if your papers weren’t in order. There was less of a sting for those who worked their way out of the muck to live in X-2. Ostensibly, the middle-class sector, although what constituted a middle class was nebulous at best. Maybe you got a fancier name tag for your wage slavery shifts. Life on X-2 was better by any metric you could possibly draw to compare the two levels. Non-recycled air, real sunlight during the correct hours and weather conditions, and the ability to have anything more than a cube.
But none of that mattered. I was a baseline. Baselines didn’t awaken; the testing was quite accurate. Neither of my parents were Users. That was the single largest contributing factor of all. The change in my eye color was just… as much of a freak accident as the rest of it.
“I’m Vael, and this is for you. Please eat up.” She placed a plate on my lap loaded down with food in shapes, textures, and colors that were alien to me.
Not because she was serving me alien food, but because of what it was. Lettuce and cabbage, chunks of strangely-textured protein block, a white sauce of some kind, in a tortilla wrap. Wedges of orange, white with red skin, purple balls, all in a bowl. Three thick slices of dense, brown, oily bread.
My mouth watered at the smells, my stomach roared, my mind balked. This wasn’t a snack, or even a fancy treat; this was money.
“I can’t… I don’t know how much I already owe; there’s no way I can afford this.”
I looked over at Vael. I had been mistaken about her hair; it wasn’t black, it just looked it. It was a deep wine color up close. She was munching on a slice of fruit, swallowed, licked her lips, and said, “You don’t owe anything. I haven’t really spent anything I wouldn’t have otherwise, and your surgery was someone who owed me a favor. This is just my normal food, don’t sweat it.”
Don’t sweat taking a bite out of more than a week’s income. A damn good week, at that.
I didn’t move. “Surgery?”
She popped another piece of fruit in her mouth and crunched on it while nodding. “Mhm. For your IRS. Had to have your DNI and lattice pulled. If you hadn’t awoken when you did, you’d be fertilizer right now. Basically, the only thing keeping you alive was a half-baked circuit and your aspect.”
She elbowed me somewhat firmly. “Which, by the way, eating will help. You need to eat to recover and finish.”
“I’m not a User!” My voice came out more forcefully than I had intended. I swallowed once, then continued, “I was standard tested twice, my dumb ass got a third one done on my own cred after the school tests.”
Vael gave me a more serious look. I couldn’t look away from the orange glow of her irises. The eyes of any User were captivating. Fire might be considered a pretty basic aspect, very archetypal, but the orange glow of her eyes was gorgeous. I gulped again. “You are,” she said, raising a finger to silence my protests before they could be voiced. “I don’t want to argue objective reality; however, I understand it’s harder for people outside the normal human age ranges. Humor me, at least, and eat. Mana food will only aid your recovery, even if I’m wrong.”
I didn’t know what tomorrow looked like. Live in the moment, was the saying. The smell coming from the bread was tugging at me. I picked up a slice, and it was heavier than it looked. Really dense and thick, a little soft and crumbly, it might have been messy if not for the substance of it. I took a small bite of it.
It was very sweet in a way that was a little strange to my taste buds, with a slightly earthy taste. There were crunchy bits in it, and a few spices I recognized, some I didn’t. Cardamom and ginger, certainly. But something more fragrant, too. The texture was… indulgent. Moist and rich, bursting with flavor. I took a second, much bigger bite, and a moan slipped out. I clapped one hand over my mouth and blushed furiously.
It had sounded lewd.
Vael threw her horn-topped head back and laughed. Her hand patted my shirt-covered thigh, then she resumed eating her own meal.
I tried, I really tried to pace myself. It was a lesson in futility. My hunger lit up and came to life after that first slice of bread, and I tore through the rest. Crisp, sweet, juicy slices of fruit, and the wrap was even better, with tart vinegar, an oil emulsion, and veggies that crunched. Carrots, cabbage, lettuce, some kind of fatty black thing, and the protein that I wasn’t able to place. There had been a lot of food on the plate, big portions. I didn’t leave a crumb. I ran my index finger over the plate and licked the dressing off it.
Vael watched me eat, which normally would have made me self-conscious about it, but she had a pleased look on her face the entire time. She took the plate and returned with two large cold teas in glasses. I gulped the first half, then nursed the remainder. She’d asked to hear about what the story was with me being in 5-3 in the state I was.
I told her, and didn’t bother holding back much. Cee, the heist, my role, the borg. Six Delta, the random price on my head, my cube burning, and my mad dash to get to a safer area. Getting sick, or rather, sicker, and wandering around in a fever dream.
She gave me her perspective: a latent User struggling to awaken, near-dead, and lying in an alleyway for some odd reason or another. Finding out that extraction surgery was needed, getting it done via housecall, and watching a slow metamorphosis unfold over the following day.
That brought me to one of my big questions.
“But I don’t understand, even if I was a User and just… underwent awakening at twenty-seven, why…” I trailed off and gestured at myself.
Mischievousness was glittering in her eyes. “Why do you have curves you didn’t have before?”
I nodded.
“Honestly? Not all that remarkable, with Users. Mutability of the body is one of the defining characteristics all Users share, you know this, yes?”
“I um.” I scratched the back of my head, found a bandage, winced, and lowered my hand. “I played a game where I got to be a User. I was uh, I don’t know, I guess a little bit of a big deal in the world there.” I blushed in embarrassment, cringing internally. “I always used—ah, it’s not important. I know a little about Users, maybe a bit more than the average chummer off the block. I don’t know how true it is. The game was supposed to be very realistic, but…” I glanced down at my chest, remembering the qualitative differences between the Immsim and reality. “Maybe things were a little over- or under-exaggerated. I’ve seen the popular vids, of course, but that’s media…”
I looked up from my chest and over to Vael. To find her eyes were cast down…
Wait, what? Is she… staring at my chest?!
“Uh…”
What am I supposed to do?
Her eyes came up to meet mine, and she smiled. “It’s a very nice chest, but I was looking at your circuit. It just happens to be under your boobs. You’re going to feel some strange sensations any time now. Try to remain calm and clear your mind. It’s important you avoid thinking about things and getting overly emotional.”
I felt a twisting sensation just behind my sternum.
“There it is,” she mused, nodding to herself.
“Urk,” my only reply as I felt myself heating up. Fast enough to be alarming. More twisting, shifting, pulling, and tugging sensations. I really hoped I wasn’t going to throw up after eating all that food.
A pressure built, then it was like a shockwave radiating out in slow-motion, its passage indicated by pins-and-needles sensation, but not just on the skin, but through to the innermost layer, too.
I doubled over and wheezed. It hurt in a sharp stomach-cramping way. I felt her hand rubbing me on my back.
“Just breathe. Try to relax. Focus on your breathing. In to the count of four, out to the count of four.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on counting. I was not a fan of this.