The New You
Story by Smorgasbork on SoFurry
This is the exclusive story i wrote for my book: Stories Woven: https://o5ighter.itch.io/storieswoven
After a year, i decided to give it away for free.
Features some really interesting stuff and i'd love to write more like this again.
The Sale
"Ladies, Gentlemen, all in between and beyond. Don't turn this ad off, because I have a proposition for you!", announces a voice like glitter from a speaker. "Does life feel dull? Boring? You already tried Implanted Memories, but knowing it never happened real sucks the magic out of it, doesn't it? I got a better deal for you! Action! Adventure! Love! And best of all, it will be real with no hallucinations involved. We're not putting you on drugs for the experience, that is my personal promise to you! What we'll be doing? Easy! We'll create a new body for you, in your own image and then send you off to a fantastic journey. Why don't you come to one of our branches today and check out your options?"
~ Jack in the Box, Company Spokesperson
West Coast Megacity, Earth, Sol-System
Eric McClanahans job was to sell new faces. Usually with a new body attached too. There was a certain art to it, showmanship was required, not just in rattling off features and possibilities, but make the client believe it was possible. Truth be told, a lot of them were rather dull. Many came asking for genital enhancement, becoming more beautiful. It was one of the reasons why most Company agents like him were not using customized bodies and dressed in well made suits, rather than going wild with where their mood took them. Eric felt, that discipline was very important, and those using his services were lacking that discipline. It made him feel good to think that. It helped dealing with his clients.
Like his current one. Dean Levin, 45, male, worked for several decades in the same job, single. Always had enough money on the side left to spice up his life just about enough. But like a lot of spices, you use too much and it ruins the food. Dean was very open about his life, a fiance he lost in his early twenties, the little addictions he picked up and lost, the ups and downs life can bring you sometimes. And now he needed help getting an actual change from his current life. All that was needed now, was going through the contract and then hit the client with what hooked them from the Ad.
"Our contract also includes a Five-Year-Action guarantee that's not going to be artificually implanted into your mind. I sent a copy to your mailbox if you want to review it."
Dean leaned back, smiling, his eyes lost in the fantasies of the sell he was currently getting. "Sounds like a fair time, especially if I can continue on after the guarantee wears out."
"That is certainly an option, Mr Levin. After the five years, there will be an option to prolong even, but that's best discussed when you're there. You don't want to plan out the rest of your life right now do you?"
"You make it sound like I could."
Now it was Erics moment to make his smile wider. "With The Company, anything can be done. Sounds like you want to proceed?"
"That I do. We haven't talked specifics yet, though. What options do I have for my new customized body?"
"Anything you can imagine, but I guess that this is a lot of choice to make, so let me show you the basics and we can go from there, does that sound okay?"
Dean nodded, leaning forward. Eric pulled up a holographic display that showed a human body. "The basic model that you're familiar with is the biological shell. Has blood, needs oxygen, food, you know the drill, you've done it for more than 40 years. Fantastic self-healing abilities that get enhanced by our basic medical implants. Have you ever seen a lizard grow a new tail? It's kinda like that. Of course, we can leave that out if you wish so, but most of my clients were really happy with it."
The salesman swiped his hand in the direction of the hologram. A mechanical humanoid replaced the human. "Next we have a synthetic shell, are you familiar with them?"
"I've seen them, but most of my experience is from vids and plays. Not a lot use them in my work and living environment. Some see it as a something only cheapskates would use. But go ahead, give me the pitch."
Eric smiled, he thought he had a hook here and he made gestures so the hologram would zoom to the mentioned parts. "You might be familiar with this model then, a basic synthetic shell. Very modular, it can do a little bit of everything while still retaining a humanoid shape. You notice that the design has a lot of smooth lines. That's because it's got the latest myomer-fibre muscle tech right out of our labs. This gives the model an already good strength, without giving you a boxy appearance like some earlier models sport. To be completely honest, those who think a synthetic shell is a cheap option, usually are not aware of all the options." He made another swipe and several copies of the body appeared with different heads. "For example, every one of these heads can give you some advantages and disadvantages. A 360° field of vision, so you'll never be surprised. An almost human face, so you can still emote like a biological human. And those are just two variants. Basically, if you want to be unfettered by the limitations of biology, a synthetic shell is the way to go." Eric saw Dean pull the detailed description of the shells variants into his own heads up display, he smirked to himself. Gotcha.
"Looks like you made your decision, Mr Dean?"
The other man looked up, smiling like a kid that was found with their hand in the cookie jar. "Well, yes, but I have some concerns. I don't want to look like a robot, but keep the utility. Can we do something about that?"
"Absolutely, we could add SynthSkin, which is a layer of epidermis atop the shell. This can be wired so that it'll be warm to the touch and also regrow if it's cut or scratched. One second." He dragged his finger in the air, ordering the hologram to add the SynthSkin. The displayed shell became half the biological shell on the left while keeping the synthetic look on the right. "Of course, that is still before your personal customization options. Are you happy with this as a base?"
Dean was turning the hologram around with a gesture, then nodded. "Yes, how does customization work exactly?"
Eric pointed to door on the side of the showroom. "We got a few private lounges here where you can take your time to create your perfect self. Drinks are provided, some snacks too if you want. A holoprojector there gives you all the options and lets you play around with the shell base. You can even change the shells if you want. And when you're done, you ping me and then take the next few steps."
The other man was already getting up, making his way to the door. "No need to say more, i'll let you know when i'm done." He responded with an excited smile as he vanished into one of the lounges.
The Creation
"And once you've designed that perfect new body for you, we'll fiddle out the details. Delivery date? We can take time off the time it usually takes to get your new body. Financing? Several models available so your wallet won't groan. And as a personal gift, i'll drop in health insurance for the first year so you won't have to worry about falling over because you're not used to five legs."
~ Jack in the Box, Company Spokesperson
Three Days Later - West Coast Megacity, Earth, Sol-System
Thick cables ran along the walls of the round chamber down into a pool of a purple-reddish liquid. Red light signaled anyone who accidentally stumbled in, that the chamber was working. The tubes carried nutrients, energy and tools to create a new body and the liquid was the plate on which the chamber would mold a new body - Deans body. Nanites brought the smallest parts together, ensuring that there were no fault lines in the finished creation. First, a synthetic spine was created, around which a basic synthetic hull was formed, this would be filled with the necessary myomer bundles to give the body the strength to lift and move. Cablestrings were then created by the nanites through it, fusing them to the synthetic muscles where necessary.
Several hives for nanites were created in the torso area, while the cables were busy to shape the cybernetic brain until it was ready to emulate a mind. Once finished, it was connected to the spine and a hard shell in the form of a simple wolf skull was enclosed around it. The chamber worked now to complete the whole bodys exterior, reinforcing the outer shell once finished. Little lightning shot through the artificual nerves, with sensors inside the pools wall recording reactions. It was all part of the quality process. You didn't want to wake up in your new body and find out that the right new just didn't want to bend, didn't you? Over the course of the next week, the non-standard implants were added. The chest inflated during this time, adding breasts to the form. Various implants shifted the shape of the shell around for a more rounded hips and a thinner waist. Later on, the inhabitant of the body would be able to reverse the changes and even modify which genitals the body, all in a weeks work. Now the body looked like a human-wolf hybrid with the skin and fur stripped away, showing synthetic muscle and mechanical sinew. A few sockets were situated around the spinal region and the neck, with a more subtle datajack being implanted behind the right ear.
The chamber checked the body for functionality, running several routines and then initiated the installation of the operating systems. During this process, the cables attached themselves to the sockets, lifting the body out of the water. Slowly, the nanites reworked the fluid together with the nutrients into a layer of muscle, working their way from the right to the left side. Shortly after, skin and grey fur was added over the muscle layer, with some of the cables starting to implant strands of longer hair on the head. A rainbow of color pulsed through the hair as the chamber made sure that the implants worked according to their parameters. In just a few hours, the outer layer of skin and fur was completed. Now all that was left was the finishing the installation of the software suite, test mind emulation and finishing some internal work. At the end of another day, the last of the nanites would die off, leaving the body only with the little robots that were stored dormant in it's own nanohives.
And then it was ready to show the body off to the customer.
The New Lives
"Worried about payment? Don't be. Let our agents know your financial situation. We don't want you to be unable to enjoy your new you, so we'll figure out a solution in all of the accepted methods and then some. Installment plan? We offer that. Indenture? Sure, if you're up for that! We'll find a plan that's right for your situation."
~ Jack in the Box, Company Spokesperson
One Month Later - Hill 54, LTQ-54 Castle, Tenermans Folly System
"Fuck this bullshit! Why did I sign up for this shit?! Mental Health Battalion wants me to keep a diary, so I keep a fucking diary now. Been a month here now on Castle, fourth planet in a 6 planet solar system, some light years out from earth. They informed me, that there's been a wipe of most of my memories from before my arrival to "keep morale up", whatever that fucking means. One month and no one tells me what the fuck I did to deserve this shit. A few days of accelerated training in virtual reality and they put me and my squad into tanks to charge the positions of an enemy whose name I don't even know or why we are fighting them.
First assault was alright, no clear view with all the smoke going around and we got the cheap tanks without IR and other sensor enhancements. 'Trust the command tank', yeah the same tank that ate a rocket right in the beginning of the engagement? Somehow, I managed to get the vehicle maneuvered as my tank commander wanted without getting us all killed. I remember directing the hull mounted machine gun into some movement in the smoke my commander marked as enemy and I hope they were not on our side.
Next day we loaded up again, for the counterattack, our vehicles dug in, waiting for it. Guess who forgot that artillery is a thing? So that was when I first died on this rock. And my luck has it, that they retrieved my backup implant so I can remember the grisly detail of a 50kg high-explosive shell punching through our armor and subsequently anything behind it, including but not limited to my torso. If I survive this war-crap with my mind intact, then i'll make sure to edit that out.
Took me 24 hours of virtual reality therapy to recuperate from the death shock. Therapist AI even congratulated me, that normally people take much longer to do that. So I got recommended for high-risk operations. Translation: Suicide Squad. Next I was in the flesh, I was a huge hunk of meat, all muscles, dermal plating and an attitude thanks to an engineered hormonal imbalance. Can't even tell you what I looked like, I woke up in the body and was airdropped five minutes later with nine other Meathunks. To describe the feeling, imagine you're soaring to the ground, then the gravity-chute of your harness pulls automatically a few dozen meters above ground, pushing all your blood into your lower regions. Then the drug injectors gift you with a cocktail that gives you not only a hard-on, but also enhanced aforementioned attitude. So you rip your harness to shreds without thinking. Not thinking is the theme of the whole operation. I don't even know the goal of the operation, anything was a red haze and that I wanted to kill anything that moved. I think I saw a few people from my childhood in the haze. I heard people describe losing control like that as amazing, but I don't fucking like me without control. Remembering makes me shiver. I think I killed a lot of people in the two hours before I was taken down. I can't remember it this time, I just remember a sharp pain in my head that immediately subsumed. Again, my backup implant was saved. I wish they would fucking ask me. Why did I sign up for this shit?
After I got back mentally from that operation, I got assigned to regular infantry, as this part of the war was calming down and they gave anyone who participated lighter duties. Patrols and sweeps of the hinterlands of the ground we made in the weeks before. I needed control, some semblance of it at least, but the endless scouts and drills without any answers were fruitless. I wondered if the rest of the squad felt like that, but we never talked about it, even when we were sure that no one would hear us. I know now why, but back then? It was scary. I felt like the only sane person going slowly insane on this whole damn planet. During one of our scouting patrols, I snuck off and put my rifle in my mouth to kill myself. I hoped a shot like that would hit the backup implant and destroy it. That would have been great. But the trigger wouldn't pull. The gun was secured. I flipped the switch to unsecure it and pulled again, but the security switch was active again when I did. Embarassed, i kicked the trees and bushes around me, flailing against the alien flora. Bastards secured the guns when aimed at a friendly target, of course. I would need to get a weapon from one of our enemies. So that became my plan.
This lead to the first time i've been revived from a backup stored in base. My therapist gave me some details. We found a small guerilla force and engaged them, with me flanking around. When my squad leader found me later, my throat and neck slit, implant missing and a dead enemy was beside me. I think that I did it. So I can take myself out if I want to. I felt elation at the thought. I have started imagining the scene in my head. I cost the army money, so that's a plus in my book.
Because fuck this war, fuck the company, fuck this army, fuck our enemy. I'm going to make them pay hard for the privilege of using me. And now i'll burn this paper."
Annotation by Therapist Aaron Panadin:
Therapeutic measures to reduce stress in D3-N were successfull, we managed to keep the soldier under the illusion that the writing of his diary happened outside of virtual reality. This gave us good clues on how his mental process works and while it is unfortunate that we haven't caught his suicidal tendencies earlier, in the future we will incorporate self-inflicted death scenarios into his therapy sessions.
Currently, Medical & Retrieval has not yet found a trace of the backup implant lost during the scouting patrol the soldier has mentioned, but considering that the soldier recuperated well, we recommend to destroy it as soon as found.
At the same time, West Coast Megacity, Earth, Sol-System
"This last month was a blast. Being in a female body needed some getting adjusted to, but my friends were all happy for me to make the change. Post-Transfer assistance with The Company is still running and they asked me to keep a diary, so here it goes. When I first saw the body I was in awe. She was pretty, exactly like I created her. I didn't even need fine-adjustments. We scheduled the mind-transfer for the next day. My birth-body would be kept on ice for a time, then I could either have it sold off to cover part of the cost of my new body or keep it in a Company body bank for a rental fee. Pretty awesome deal all around! Oh yeah, the agent offered was fantastic. Affordable initial payment and no ongoing bills to cover. I can literally pick up where I left off and continue as the new me.
The process was a bit weird. When i laid down on the mind-bridge, my new body beside me, I wasn't sure if it was the right decision. Then the process started, and for a short moment, I saw through two different sets of eyes. It was pretty disorienting and I nearly fell off the bed. Once the transfer was complete, the medics asked me to get up, do some rudimentary tests. The weirdest thing with that was hearing. Having ears on the top of your head and having them move instinctively is something i'm still getting used to. The best thing was hearing my new voice, though! I haven't put much thought into it, so I only gave them rudimentary instructions and whoever synthesized my voice is a genius. My original body carried a deep and raspy voice, but with this one, it's like talking through a cloud, for lack of better words.
I was discharged a few hours later, certified that the body was working as it should. First order of the day was buying new clothes. Most of my old clothes would still fit because the frame was smaller, but I wasn't sure if that would work with my new breasts. Just to be on the safe side, I went clothes shopping and had a few new pants ordered that accounted for my new fluffy tail. I found a great looking top that should mesh well with the color of my fur. Also, thanks to my new feet, I wouldn't need shoes in most cases, so that's money saved! When I got home, I felt much better than I ever had in the past five years. Even the implanted memories didn't give me a feeling like that.
The following week was full with events. I still had vacation days open, so I went around my close friends to show off the new me. Most took it well. Some… didn't. The roughest was with Dave, an old friend. I went to his house and he wouldn't even invite me in, saying that this wasn't me anymore, that i'm a piece of software that tries to be Dean. I didn't go anywhere else that day, opting to get drunk instead. I knew he would react like that, but i hoped that after I went through, we'd at least stay friends. But it looks like he blocked me everywhere. I've gotten over it, I think. Time will tell, right?
I haven't yet felt comfortable to explore sex with others, but masturbating got interesting. A bit of a learning curve since I never got that direct a response before. Just need some more time getting used to the body overall before going all-out. I've heard of people changing bodies who then went to orgies, but that just didn't seem the right course for me.
So yeah, that was my experiences from my first month. I don't regret anything and i'm glad I made this step. I recommended it to a few of my friends, especially after they heard of my payment deal. Licensing off an unlimited copy of my mind to the company for a time isn't too bad a trade."