Wallbreak
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Setting up the probe for the trip is very easy, but I can’t stop misgivings from rumbling around. After I record a sentence to ask them to come closer, I turn and look straight at Sylvia. “We need to discuss this properly. We are in charge, but we’re responsible for everyone in this system and beyond right now.”

“That is correct,” Sylvie nods. “What has you so worried?”

“We are about to throw an object that, as you noted, might be suspected as a weapon, and throw it nearly directly at an alien force which could retaliate and probably kill us before we have much warning. Are we certain they will not mistake our probe for a weapon? Are we willing to take that risk?”

“I... Hm.” Sylvie scrunches up her eyebrows in thought.

“And,” I keep going, untethered now from the silence of momentum, “What if their translation is wrong? They may be honourable warrior types, what if they saw our request for peace as a formal declaration of warlike intent? We honestly gave them so little in our first message! I’m inclined to trust them, but then they come back with a small fleet!”

“The fleet, at least, could be them thinking the same thing, where they think we were saying peace but want to be safe.”

“But I don’t know! How can I know?” Even if all of these people are just programming, I don’t want to doom them. The game can’t have been built for that path, but it sure has given me that much freedom.

“What if we don’t send the probe?”

“Then maybe they wait forever. Maybe they start moving slowly. Maybe the war starts before we can see it. And, Syl... I don’t think anyone wants the third option. And while it might happen either way, it seems... safer to not send the probe.”

“I think I agree. But let’s still note that it could be done for the next watch, sound good?”

I nod. “If we also note we don’t want to start a war, yeah. If they just keep sitting there, then maybe send out the probe.”

== * ==

Even as the next shift takes over, each moment feels unsettled. There is nothing to do which might change the outcome of the day, and yet my thoughts race in circles even so.

The walk back to our shared quarters is interminable. Even when we arrive, it feels like I’m still walking down hallways.

I guess even as a girl, listlissness is a thing. How wonderful.

It still catches me by surprise when the world greys and pauses mid-moment – the sign that the VR environment is being shut down because I am being woken up.

This is okay, though. Even though my body will suck, even though it will be chilly and dark and devoid of people, I will only need to do a small tweak, and then I can quickly return to this dream, where I have found myself.

I curl into a ball, and hug myself, relishing the drawing moment of my body’s correctness.

But the moment doesn’t seem to end?

I take a deep breath, trying to will my eyes open, to shake off this lingering shadow of virtual reality. I let it out, and feel my back settle back into the moulded cushions, except it doesn’t fit perfectly? And I still feel my body - Ash’s body, I mean.

I look down, and I see my arms, and my legs, and my torso, or, well. The top part of my torso. My shirt is filled by Ash’s body. My arms are Ash’s. What, around Sol, has happened?!

I push those thoughts down. There is an object which might hit us. The sooner I chart the course change, the less fuel we use, and the better bonus I’ll get at the other end.

I don’t really know how much I care about a bonus anymore. Because it seems like I’m actually a girl. In heart, and in body. And that is kinda amazing, despite the fact that I knew nothing about this part of myself, so recently.

I line up, and propel myself through the cabin to the navigation console, taking the moment to question why exactly this ship had so much empty cabin space anyways. Most ships barely have a different location for the Virtual Cryo interface. But I coast through the space, which really would be considered a small room in a gravity environment, preparing to catch myself on the navigator’s chair. I misestimate my weight, and while crumpling, trying to stop myself from bouncing around the room, I manage to ram my new boobs against the chair. And, uh. Ow. Still, worth having a wonderful body, even with bodyparts which can hurt so much, so exposed. It is harder to get the... other thing to hit walls, or chairs.

I stabilise myself, though, and try to gently rub the sting out of my breast, and it feels really weird. I guess I never really explored Ash’s body.

Am I Ash?

Again, I smush those thoughts down. Work first. Bottomless pit of questions and explorations and all of that, later. Please, brain, work with me here.

The object which is charted to hit us is very small (which is usually how this works), so I chart a very small inclination change, which will swing the ship more than 500 kilometres past the detected body. Since it hasn’t been observed before, it will not really interfere at that distance. I double-check my numbers, and then push away from the console, drifting back into the chair fully, as the rotational thrusters start applying microgravity.

Breasts in microgravity are weird. But I am smiling, almost so hard my cheeks hurt. My hair doesn’t rotate with the ship, and I get hair in my face, but I jerk-twist my head and it swings back away. Okay now my cheeks are hurting from my smile.

The main engines start to kick in, and the real gravity pulls me into the chair. Sure, it isn’t actually much gravity, maybe one tenth of Earth’s, but it is enough to make the floor a floor, rather than just the downwards wall.

But for the moment, I just sit. My body is right. I had worried about making my body right, I had assumed it would cost too much money to make it feel as good as Ash’s body did. But now I wake up and I find the task already done, without my being aware of it. Unless...

I stand up and rush to the VC chair. There, velcro’d to its side this whole time, is the manual. And, at the back of the booklet, there is the addendum for the “physical reinforcement” system.

“This system,” I read aloud, mostly just to relish my voice, because my voice! Yes! My voice sounds so right! Maybe no better than in the game, but, still. “This system will freely alter the user’s body, using... all sorts of weird jargon, yadda yadda, until the user fully biologically matches the avatar, respecting bounds of human species. Upon completion of this process, perception of sensory input will be significantly improved. Note: consultation with therapist recommended before use. Note: use of this technology will archive a bio-sig delta with the Solar Population Registry automatically, uploaded immediately upon arrival at the next beam-locked station, per regulation 32A-5:b-15 Virtual Cryo Alteration.”

The engines begin to cut as I read the last word out. As a side note, my voice is super fun to play with now. I toss the booklet back onto its velcro, and use the spin I gave myself to point my feet at what was just the ceiling, as I was floating that way now that the ship was drifting once again in the black.

So. I was now, in body, Ash. What should I do with, well, me? Am I still Caleb? Only my bio-sig has been altered. Or, will have been altered. But names always were easier to change than bodies. My curve-sig will be the same, obviously. Basic security: something you have, something you know. I have my bio-sig, I know my curve-sig.

But who’s bio-sig is it?

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