@fargate @0x7700e6

I think I’m getting a lot more comfortable writing! this wasn’t anywhere near as draining as the last two parts, and I only had to stop because I ran out of time. anyway pinging both of y’all since you both expressed interest 💙

“How am I breathing?”

“Oh! I thought you might be overwhelmed by the transfer, since you’ve been in that old morph- uhh… your body… for your entire life so far. So I installed some biosims to your new synthmorph. You can breathe, your heart will beat in response to your emotions and physical activity, and you can even feel and move your mouth, lips, tongue, and eyelids! And those will be drawn on your visor, too.”

I breathe, blink, and lick my lips, then feel my face with my hands. Nothing but smooth glass-like material. I should be terrified by this. I was taught my entire life that consciousness isn’t transferred - people are killed and replaced by soulless machines. And yet here I am. I look up at the robot who has been so compassionate with me. Do I look like it does now?

“You seem pretty overwhelmed,” she says, “but we can take this as slowly as you need to. You’re the first Jovian we’ve resleeved, and I wasn’t sure how someone like you might adapt, so I have the rest of the day to spend with you if you need it. Oh and don’t worry - the Outlook that was suppressing your fear is already being faded out. It will be completely gone if you’re still this calm in a few minutes.”

I stand up slowly - expecting to be unsteady on my feet. Instead every motion feels graceful and effortless - as if I weigh nothing at all. I walk silently up to… me. Laying on the table. The body is still breathing - probably to preserve it. The petals have retreated back into the machine and I can see my own face, peaceful as though asleep. I expect to feel horror or revulsion but instead I feel a numb kind of relief. I’ll never have to feel pain again, and they say that I can live forever like this.

The robot seems sad. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t save it. I know that body must have meant a lot to you. But I’m going to be recording everything I can about it - including genetics and epigenetics - if you ever want to clone it, or take its appearance.”

“What’s your name?” I turn to it, realizing that I know nothing about this thing that has been so compassionate and helpful through one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

“Oh?” It seems confused. It pauses for a moment. “Oh! Right! Is it okay if I activate your entoptics?”

I have no idea what she’s saying. “Okay.”

Suddenly my vision swims with information. Every single piece of equipment in the lab blooms with text and boxes and graphs and images. The walls are crawling with notices, solar storm reports, task schedules, and navigational aids. But something in my new body must have recognized how overwhelmed I was, because they all quickly disappear and my attention is drawn to the robot who’s been helping me all this time. As I look at her, I notice two things simultaneously - neither interfering with the other: I see her, exactly as she was. But her body has text associated with it. I can feel it, more than see it.

Afi Serwaa (she/her, they/them, ve/vis)

Muse: SAKAR i.74829-22418 (it/its)
Muse note: it likes to be called seventy-four

Status: Do not disturb (I'm in an important conversation right now!)
Next available: Unknown

Station role: Synthmorph maintenance, nanofab schematic design and programming, exomod troubleshooting and development
Emergency station role: I'm helping the Jovian refugees stay healthy and adapt to the station!

The text keeps going from there but that’s all that I can process. Even this amount leaves me with more questions than answers, but at least now I know: “So… your name is Afi?”

It- they take an exaggerated pose of joy as they say “You got it! I’m glad you’re picking things up so fast. Now… I don’t want to overwhelm you too much but this is what I actually look like.”

A 2D animated character - with the same art style that was displayed on her visor - appears on top of her mechanical body. I can still clearly see her as she was before, but somehow I also see this character, overlayed on top. I have no idea how the conflicting information isn’t driving me insane, but I’m somehow taking it in stride. “You have… the ears of an animal?” I say dumbly. They remind me of the TARAs we used in the mines - reconnaissance animals bred to warn of danger.

“I also have a tail!” Afi announces joyfully, and the character swishes it back and forth behind her as the tailless mechanical body mirrors her movements. “I’m a fox,” she adds, as if that explains anything.

The robot seems surprised - though I’m still learning how to interpret the stylized faces they draw on their visors. “You don’t… have any questions, or concerns? Maybe I could give you an anxiolytic? I thought that, as a refugee…”

I sit in the chair, my heart pounding in my chest. “If we wait any longer I’m not going to be able to do this.”

She pauses for a moment, her visor displaying some stylized emotion that I don’t recognize. Probably hesitant acceptance, because the next thing she does is recline my chair and press something large and cold against the back of my head. “Would you like to be awake for the transfer?”

My chest is aching now. I’m not sure how much more of this my heart can take. My mouth is dry as I choke out: “Yes.” I have to know that I’ll still be me. I have to feel that I haven’t died in the transfer.

The… woman must have activated something, because I can feel the metal thing blooming around my head like a flower. And then the petals enclose it completely - my vision becoming pure black. An instant later, I’m drowning in dry fluid. It’s pouring into me - invading me. I try to struggle in a blind panic, but my limbs won’t move. I’m drowning. It’s eating me. It’s-

My vision suddenly returns. I’m laying in the other chair - still completely unable to move. Someone is coughing and gasping frantically. Is that my voice? The robot is above me in a panic, saying “You’re safe! I promise you’re safe! Look - you’re already 70% transferred!” Everything feels wrong. I’m still breathing. How am I still breathing? I can feel my heart beating frantically.

The robot’s visor shows tears and worry as it says “Please let me calm you down! This doesn’t have to be so scary!”

I finally have enough control of my new body to clumsily nod once. The robot’s expression changes to one of relief as I’m hit by a sudden wave of calm.

I take a moment just to breathe. This is real. My body - my human, flesh-and-blood body - is lying on a chair next to me. And I’ve left it. Or… some of me has. “70%?” I ask numbly.

“Well, it’s about 90% now. Your exoself is always the fastest to scan and that makes up about 70% of most sophonts’ brains.”

“So… some of me… is still in there?” I glance weakly at my now-limp body, lying in the other chair, its head still enveloped in cold metallic petals.

The robot’s visor displays what I think is sadness and disappointment. “They didn’t do a good job of explaining how this works, did they? Is that why you were so scared?” I don’t respond, so she continues: “The nanobots gradually scan parts of your brain and replace them with software, which runs on your new body. They relay signals between your new and old bodies until none of your old body is needed anymore. That way your consciousness is never interrupted during the transfer. You gradually transfer - one piece at a time. And speaking of which… it looks like you’re fully transferred now. Could you try moving around a bit?”

My chair begins to straighten itself as I look down at the machine that is now me. I raise its hand to its eyes and flex its fingers. Every motion is smooth and effortless - as if its limbs weigh nothing. And I can see so much more: My peripheral vision has nearly as much detail as what I’m looking at. I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding in and then pause, confused.

(I’ll continue this when I have more energy!)

GitHub is apparently going to start using your data for model training unless you intentionally opt out of it: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/updates-to-github-copilot-interaction-data-usage-policy/

It looks like this is mostly just limited to interactions with Copilot itself, but I'd turn it off anyway just to be safe...

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@amy

RE: https://spookygirl.boo/notes/ak99rdesve7y9rei

self-oh during a discussion about bottom configurations:
"My ideal mechanical body would be extremely hot-swappable."

I'd be like Tony Stark with a few dozen unique purpose-built genitals for every conceivable occasion. Including the sperm donor robo-cock for when conceiving is the occasion.

I wake with a start as the room is filled with cold metallic beeping. I scramble deliriously, my vision still blurry in the light: The guards will be here any second. They’ll punish me if I’m not ready for my shift. Where is my uniform? I can’t disappoint them again.

A device around my neck detects my rising panic and blasts my face with ice cold air for a few moments. The sudden shock brings me to my senses and I gradually steady my shaky breathing.

The familiar searing pain in my head helps to wake me up the rest of the way as I reach for the information rectangle on my bedside table. I forget what the Autonomists called this thing, but it doesn’t matter. It’s more of their incredible technology: A featureless box that fits in my palm. It responds to my voice and my touch, and presents information to me when I ask for it. It seems to know everything.

The rectangle beeps in recognition as I touch it, and its front face displays the text: “A synthmorph is ready in the resleeving lab. Follow the indicated path.” I marvel for a moment that I didn’t even need to ask it a question - it somehow knew what I wanted to know.

I was taught to fear this technology, but I’m done being a prisoner to fear. I hold the rectangle in front of me like a magnifying glass, and it changes to become transparent - as if it were made of glass. But when I look through it, I see a blue line on the floor. The “indicated path”. Incredible.

I follow it out of the door of… my new home… and into the bustle of the common area. I feel a wave of nausea and my headache redoubles as I try to process my surroundings. Dizzyingly patterned art on every wall, people and beings with appearances beyond what I can imagine, flashes of color and light, and deafening sounds (music?) made using more of their electronic technology. My room must have hidden the sound from me. I don’t even bother questioning how.

I grit my teeth and follow the blue line - trying not to notice anything else. Eventually I find myself walking into a cluttered metal room, full of instruments and machinery. I sigh in relief as the door closes and the cacophony of color and noise is gone again.

“Are you okay?” asks a concerned robot, which takes a step toward me and then pauses, unsure of how to help.

I close my eyes and take a few moments to steady myself in the cold air of the lab, my head throbbing in rhythm with the pumping of my heart, before finally replying, “My head hurts.”

“Oh! Of course it does! Barotraumagenic neuropathy, isn’t it…? Inconsistent life support conditions on the asteroid mines leading to…” It speaks quickly and shyly, seeming to mostly be talking to itself. “I can fix that! Can I fix that?” It looks at me expectantly.

“Please.”, I say. The pain is always worse when I’m stressed, and I couldn’t be more stressed about what’s waiting for me in this lab. My eyes are drawn to a motionless mechanical body - not too different from the one the other robot is using - laying motionless on a padded reclined chair. Next to it is a second chair, this one upright and empty.

“Um…” the robot is sheepishly clutching a tool made of the same kind of matte plasticky substance that most of their technology seems to use. “This might feel a little weird, but I promise it’s going to help, and it’s not going to hurt. Okay?”

Without waiting for a response, it… she? Sprays me in the face with the tool. Thousands of droplets of dry moisture melt painlessly into my skin. I jerk back in alarm but suddenly… The pain is gone. It’s just gone.

“I disabled your ability to feel neuropathic pain, but sometimes there can be false positives and genuine pain can be suppressed too, so please be careful until we complete the resleeving process.”

I want to cry tears of relief. Nothing hurts. For the first time in my life, nothing hurts at all. But I don’t allow myself the luxury of tears. I need to stay strong for just a little bit longer. “Okay,” I say, tasting the cold lab air as if these will be my last moments alive. “Put me in that damned machine.”

The cuffs tighten against my wrists, some kind of inflating rubber gripping. Experimentally I let go of the bar with one hand and I don’t move an inch. My wrist is supported without me needing to use any grip strength.

As I dangle in the dark, the cart following the track, I relax. The hard part is done, nothing to do now but wait and endure what ever happens. None of the descriptions I’d read about the process said it was painful, though of course all of the descriptions come from drones who’ve been through it, and they are clearly trying to sell the process. So there isn’t an objective observer here.

Still what ever happens being part of a hive is going to be better than the life I had before. Belonging to something. A part of an unbreakable whole, not some unknown replaceable worker in a corporate hell scape.

It may seem the same from the outside, one you’re just a number, one of thousands of identical units, down to your skin and face. The other your boss tries to pretend you are. At least the drones are honest.

A light comes on over me and the cart stops, I see a robot arm approach out of the gloom. It attaches a large bag of purple glittery fluid to the cart. Then another comes in and I feel a pick as a needle is jabbed into my arm. A clear tube lets me see the fluid flowing into me. The light goes off and the cart moves again.

My thoughts drift, what’s the fluid that’s flowing in to me? I wonder if I’ll see any one I know afterwards? Will they know? I wonder what my boss will say when I don’t turn up for work tomorrow? Will he even notice? I doubt it.

I start to feel drunk. You know that moment you’re a couple of pints in and you get up to go to the loo and suddenly realise just how drunk you are? Must be something in the fluid they are putting in me. I was stone sober when I walked in here.

The cart clunks to a stop. It’s still dark so I’ve no idea what is around me. A couple if slightly ominous red LEDs snap into life and then strange sounds build up slowly, like a radio moving closer. It sounds like someone speaking another language in the next room. I can tell it’s meant to be speech but I don’t understand any of it.

The volume rises to a point its like standing on a crowded subway train, dozens of voices saying things I don’t understand all around me. Screens bloom to life all around me. So bright my vision whites out for a moment. Like that point when you turn on the bathroom light first thing in the morning, almost painful.

Eventually I can resolve colours and patterns swerling across the screens. I turn my head and can see the pattern extends all around me.

I lose track of time. The voices and lights doing something to our brain, along with what ever chemicals we are pumping into us. Every so often we hear the number assigned to us. 860523. Then we start to pick out different words in the cacophony of voices.

“Us”
“We”
“Home”
“Together”
“Whole”

We do not know how long passes in the moment. Eventually full phrases are comprehensible in the noise

“One of us”
“We are all”
“Hive is home”
“Together we are whole”

We don’t notice robot arms replace the bag of fluid hanging from the cart, several times. We stopped holding onto the bar long ago. Dangling there, relaxed, our brain long gone. What we once were no more. We definitely don’t notice that our skin has turned entirely black and smooth, like a coating of latex, every pore, blemish, hair, and scar turned in to a shiny smooth surface.

The screens fade out, leaving us in darkness again. Our head empty, no thoughts to worry us, no fears. We don’t flinch as the cart moves again. Not a blink as a robot arm holds our new face plate up to us. Another arm guiding the tube down our throat, and the air lines into our nostrils. The mask then held to our face, our new latex like skin shifting and joining to the edges, sealing it and making it part of us.

The cart stops a final time, a small room, a platform rises up under us. Our feet balancing, our limbs taking our weight for the first time. The cuffs release and our arms fall to our sides. We don’t move, there is no need we have no task yet.

A thousand voices whisper in our head all at once, like turning on the TV to a scene showing a crowded market with a hundred people trying to sell you melons. Except, we realise, they aren’t trying to sell us things. They are whispering words of encouragement and support to each other. We’d smile if we were still capable of doing so.

“Welcome to the hive 860523” a much louder and more authoritative voice booms in our head, the rest of the voices stop, “proceed to storage bay six. Assist in freight distribution.”

I mean..

#altAfterDark #fishnet #butt

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@fargate omgg that is a horrifying thought lol

I’m ngl I think FFXIV needs to make all of ARR skippable and if you choose to skip it then you’re just able to watch all of the cutscenes if you want story context on what happened