Something many people forget very often is that Samurai are essentially soldiers. Sure, there might be many differences between your average Samurai and your average soldier, but they also share lots of similarities. One commonality is getting startled easily, as this is not caused by any training but rather by being in life or death situations where hesitation can absolutely kill you. Of course, as the Samurai grows older and more powerful, this will mellow out, but if you are close to someone who recently became one, it might be best to avoid loud and or sudden noises around them.
~ Samurai and you, 2046
I woke up the next morning expecting back-pain. I had let Katie take the bed and as comfortable as my couch was for watching movies, gaming or even playing pen and paper rpgs, it was not meant to be slept on.
But Katie had just had their life uprooted and been kicked out of their home. I could not in good conscience make them sleep on the couch. And so I had prepared myself for a morning of asking Lyona for painkillers and/or nano regens, but was positively surprised I wouldn't need that.
Oh right. Class 2 muscles, bones and skin. I should probably talk to Lyona about getting the rest of my organs also upgraded? Was that a good idea? I felt like especially the heart should be able to keep up.
Then again, it was a muscle? Maybe it already was upgraded?
Good morning Luna! I see your sleep was of acceptable quality. Do you wish to discuss the options I mentioned yesterday immediately, or would you rather have breakfast first?
Ah right. I had a voice in my head now. Breakfast honestly sounded good.
"Breakfast please. Uhh can you get me a coffee?"
Trivially. To ensure my data is correct, how do you prefer your coffee?
I didn't use to like coffee, but well, I was at some point in my life doing three STEM-degrees at the same time and just one of those is generally enough to cause a caffeine-addiction, soo...
"As black as my soul."
This input is outside the sensible parameters. Souls do not exist, therefore you do not have one, and therefore I am unable to determine how black your coffee should be.
I sighed. "It's a figure of speech. It means I want my coffee black. Like without milk, creamer or sugar."
Affirmative. I have saved this idiom and shall acquire a list of other idioms, commonly utilized within the surrounding area.
A mug depicting an arctic fox, pouncing into what looked like a scoop of vanilla ice-cream poofed into existence on the couch-table.
"Thanks!" I picked up the mug and took a sip of what was some of the best coffee I ever had. Honestly forget about the whole miracle transition thing, the food alone made this whole killing aliens thing worth it.
After a bit more of the coffee, I felt awake enough to raid the fridge for a slice or three of strawberry pie for a well-balanced breakfast.
I like sweet things, sue me.
"So the stuff we were talking about yesterday should be somewhere in the 25-27 hundred point range, right?"
I sat down at the dining-table. Was it called a dining-table if you ate breakfast on it? I sat down at the breakfasting-table.
Affirmative, with the add-on of also costing one token. The specifications I would recommend do fully use up that budget, but I believe it will be well worth it due to future upgradability and repeatability. Both the Genetic Refractor and Genetic Library Unit can utilize, store and apply genes up to and including Class IX technology, which I predict you will not reach within your lifetime. Should you defy these odds, upgrading to something that can work with higher class genetics will not be an issue, since you will have a very comfortable excess of points by that time. Enough to make a million points seem like a drop in the ocean, much less a few thousand.
Uhhh fair enough?
Lyona was very obviously trying to sell me on this, and if I was being honest with myself, it was working. It fulfilled everything I'd want it to do and then some.
"Alright, fuck it, let's do this."
New Purchase!
Class II Snow Pouncer Genetic Technologies Catalogue - 500 Points 1 Token
Genetic Refractor - 2000 Points
Genetic Library - 100 Points
Genetic Samples Catalogue - 50 Points
Various DNA Samples - 50 Points
New Point total - 1207 Points, 1 Token; Medical emergency reserve - 500 Points
"Holy shit! You were telling the truth?!"
I whipped around. My hand snapped to where the holster of my rail-pistol would be on my armour. I mentally reached out to my swords.
The chair hit the ground.
Oh. Right. Katie.
"Are... Are you okay?"
I breathed out, dropped my hand and cancelled the command to the blades.
"Yeah, yeah I am," I shook my head, "just a bit jumpy I guess? Spent a lot of time in life or death situations yesterday and for the record, I do not recommend it.
“And I suspect my upbringing doesn't exactly help things either..."
That gets a completely equal and opposite reaction from them. Funny how Newton's Third Axiom keeps showing up in social encounters around me.
"Anyways, bit of advice: I've found in situations like this it helps to just immediately change topics. Just completely, full stop, bam new topic. Coffee?"
I have been in the situation where I'm unsure what to say but was pretty sure I had to say something, or else everything would just turn awkward often enough to suspect that's the situation Katie finds themselves in right now.
They begin to nod, but then shake their head.
"Uhh, no, I hate the taste of coffee. I love the smell and could definitely use some caffeine, but I can live without."
They then hesitated but added more quietly, probably thinking I wouldn't be able to hear them, "I mean a hot chocolate that smells like coffee, tastes like hot chocolate and has caffeine would be cool, but that doesn't exist. And it already smells like coffee in here so yeah. No need to bother anyone."
I sighed and held out my hand. Lyona, thankfully, understood the gesture and delivered.
"Here you go," I said, offering the mug to them.
Katie hesitated at first, before taking the mug, only to suspiciously eye it, before finally taking a sip.
"Holy shit this is amazing!"
I nodded in agreement, "Lyona's food and drink and stuff is really good. Best coffee I've ever had. Also do you want breakfast? I mostly only have pie, but it's better than nothing?"
"Wait but don't you have stuff you'd normally eat for breakfast?"
"Well yes, that's pie or snacks/sandwiches at the bakery on the way to uni."
Another fun unintended consequence of my new brain was apparently me being able to discern emotions based on facial expressions better now. Which in this case meant I was pretty sure I watched Katie go through all five stages of grief, before they headed over to the fridge and grabbed a slice of pie.
"So what's all this for?"
They gestured at the boxes that had been teleported onto the table.
"I'm pretty happy with where modern medicine got me, but there definitely is still room for improvement," I nodded to the boxes, "that's the improvement. Among other things this is going to finally give me a tail to match my ears."
Katie - and admittedly me too - then listened intently as Lyona walked me through the process of assembly, which thankfully was not very complicated. The Snow Pouncers, wherever they were, were very good at designing their tech in an intuitive and user-friendly way, it seemed.
When I was done, the contraption looked almost like a weirdly chunky multimeter, except instead of attachments for cables, it had one for an auto-injector and one opening on the other side. Lyona had explained this was for inserting DNA-samples into the library.
It did come pre-installed with all the samples Lyona had bought on my behalf, so all that was left to do was poke the little needle into my index-finger until it drew blood and then insert that blood into the sampler.
Well that and some further customization, that - given this was going to be how I would turn out, without clothes - I had done in my office. Without Katie present. I had a feeling the USB-C port on the little device was an addition Lyona made and not a part of the actual design.
Not that I was complaining. The touch-screen it had worked way better than any phone-screen I'd ever used, but no matter how good the screen was, it could not measure up to a proper PC-screen complete with mouse and keyboard.
I fiddled with the settings for a while, changing minute details here and there, and most importantly taking a minute to laugh at all the idiots who said I would never be a real woman because I'd always have XY chromosomes.
Because 1) no I wouldn't and more pressing 2) I never even had XY-chromosomes to begin with! I was surprised to see it, but the DNA-analysis clearly read 44XX. Almost as if nature, and by extension people, were too complex to be neatly sorted into two clear little boxes.
After I was done laughing, I asked Lyona "So I just hit confirm and then poke myself with this needle?"
Not quite. You should first wait for the nanites to be programmed and deposited in the injector. You will be able to clearly see them, as they will look like a silvery-grey metallic liquid, not dissimilar from molten zinc. Once that is done, you need to remove the auto-injector and then inject yourself with it. I would also advise you to take several nutrient-pills throughout the day, since those nanites are unable to make matter from nothing, and growing an extra appendage will take a sizable amount of energy, not to speak of the raw materials going into your tail. You are certain this is the shape you wish to take for now? You will be able to change your appearance again, however the process will take 24 hours and is by many described as unpleasant.
I looked at the pink-haired beauty staring back at me with the same plain brown eyes I’d see in the mirror every day. Not that I had anything against brown eyes, I was sure there’d be plenty of people with brown eyes, who looked awesome, I just didn’t like them on me.
As an experiment, I set the eye-colour to red, but that didn’t look right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it looked off. Pretty, but not me if that made sense.
I fiddled around with the eye-colour some more, eventually setting on a sapphire-blue iris with little pink sparkles slash highlights in them.
At the risk of sounding vain, I was going to look absolutely adorable. And hot. I had indulged a lot.
Smooth skin with no hair to be found anywhere, except at the top of my head, my ears and of course my tail. All of it a brilliant shade of pink, with a gradient towards white at the tips of my ears as well as my tail.
I had seen little reason to change my height, given I wasn't exactly dysphoric about it, so instead I'd decided to play into the whole tall Amazonian Warrior Goddess look a little. I may have decided to give myself a slight tiny amount of guarantee I would always have visibly toned muscles.
The looks didn't actually matter for functionality, given they were still Class II muscles, but it was a nice look regardless. And as fun as being the petite, smol, little girl that can bench-press a car sounded, I figured if I was going to be a frontline-fighter, I might as well look the part.
"Yes," I said, picking up the Genetic Refractor with finality, "this is it. This is how I want to look. Can you get me some of those nutrient-pills?"
Rather than answer, a black pill, about as large as my thumb was thick, popped into existence in my unoccupied left hand. So naturally, I swallowed the pill, ignoring the bitter taste, and then removed the filled up syringe and injected myself.