I should probably explain now why I call my brother Pill.

The very short of it is that, one day, my mother said to him, "Stop being a pill." And I loved it and it stuck.

But, it didn't really stick until much later in life. Not until I noticed the coincidence with my own initials, and decided he needed a coincidence, too.

His full name is Felipe Nicolas Green. And since Felipe is the Hispanic version of Philip, I almost decided to call him Phil. But that seemed disrespectful. It's not his name. It's not how it's spelled. No.

But Pill rhymes with Phil, and I could go with that. And by then I knew that I was a trans woman, and his older sister, and it really felt like an older-sisterly thing to do. Even if he didn't know where I was coming from with that.

When he called me on it, I did explain that it made his initials out to be PNG, which went well with my SVG. And, since we both worked in the Internet industry, that actually went over well with him. He'd laughed and said he liked it, and that no one else was allowed to call him that name, ever.

So, he's my Pill.

But, also, he knows about my thing with initials.

I haven't even answered his question about what's going before he sends me another message.

Pill: I like that you're keeping your naming trend, re: Ramona Victoria Green => Red Verses Green

No, no, no, no.

Just no. I love my brother, but I can't go with that.

How do I walk it back, though? How do I continue this conversation?

Actually, straight honesty is probably the best policy here, and once I decide on that, the words just come to me. And the short conversation that follows is better than I'd hoped.

Sal: I didn't mean to come out to you like that, and I'm having second thoughts about that name now.

Pill: So, you're serious? Congratulations!

Pill: I'll come up with a bad nickname for you later, then. After you've figured it out.

Pill: I do like Ramona for you, though.

By this point, I'm shaking enough that I have to use both hands to hold my phone and type, which means having the loop of Catherine's leash around my elbow and standing still again to keep her from jerking randomly. Also, I guess I'm tearing up.

These human emotions are very strange.

Sal: It's growing on me. But not the initials.

Sal: How are you OK with this?

He takes a while to respond to the question, even though he'd been messaging faster than me for a moment there. And I wonder if he's outing me to his family, or keeping it mum. Sam texts me before he does, but I decide to wait to read their message until after I'm done reading and responding to his.

Pill: I have some experience with someone else I know. But, also, it's just you. I always figured you went with the nickname Sal for a reason.

"I'm sorry, Cat, we need to go home," I choke out.

Catherine sighs, and begins maneuvers to come about and head back the other way. She obviously recognized the word 'home', but I can't help but get the impression that she's more on top of everything than I am. She's re-situated before I am, too, because I take that time to message my brother a thank you.

I put my phone in my pocket for the rest of the walk, though. I just need to feel everything out now.

Having my brother on board is almost as much of a shock and relief as what I did to myself the night before. And maybe that's because it also reminds me of that moment, but it means I'm feeling light and swimmy again.

It's also just as hard to trust. So, I find myself pulling out my phone and looking at the messages again a few times.

Later, I've somehow made it back into my apartment and am sitting on the sofa again, with Catherine deflated next to me, poking at my phone.

I'm letting Sam know that Pill knows I'm trans now. And I'm telling them about my name idea and dilemma. Their message had been just to rule out 'Sentry' and 'Sentinel' as terrible names. And they're being very supportive of 'Ramona' in response. They love the idea of Ramona Nightmare Green, despite the obvious connection to the Laundry Files. And I'm trying to psyche myself for going with Pesadilla.

When I tell my brother about that idea, he shoots back that Mom is going to 'love' that one.

Right.

At some point, I end up going to bed without resolving the issue. But the both of them have promised to call me Ramona from now on, or until I tell them to stop. With the idea that I'm just trying it out while I think about things.

As I'm lying in bed, I think that maybe I don't need a middle name.

Ramona Green

It's simple. Boring. Straightforward. And now Green is just reminding me of Case Nightmare Green and the Laundry Files anyway. And it feels like me. In a way it didn't before when I first saw the name. I'm even relating to my family name more heavily than I ever have in the past.

What if Stross is like me and ate a monster, too? Can that happen twice?

I dream of senses that no human language has the words to describe and of eating computer programs. I'm pretty sure that these are just raw memories.

The rest of the weekend goes by in a surreal and phantasmagoric haze.

There might be more messaging, but I don't really remember it. If there is, its on my phone where I can read it later.

I spend most of the daytime walking Catherine farther than I've ever walked her before, talking to her about the world around us, and thinking to myself. And, Saturday evening, I do watch the movie I'd intended to finish, but I'm just going to have to watch it again. I spent too much time thinking about other things all the way through it. And, at night, I dream of the Strands.

Which are very hard to describe here, because I haven't seen them with my eyes. No one can. They're too small. And, also, simultaneously, too expansive. Photons do not pass through them or out of them in the way they do other dimensions. The Strands are contained within photons. Sort of.

They're a substrate of information in the universe that mathematicians and quantum physicists have only come close to describing with their cosmic equations.

To try to describe it further, I'd probably have to eat a scientist or maybe a whole lab. And I've sworn off that behavior before even attempting it.

Sunday is more walking. And maybe during that time, I fret a bit about what's going to happen on Monday, which in a round about way reminds me that I need to put together my meals for the week.

After releasing a suitably exhausted borzoi back into my apartment, I find myself in a grocery store.

And it's there I start to have an experience again like what had happened on Friday with my coffee. Which is nice, because it starts to bring me out of my dissociative stupor.

It's engaging to watch my mind work over the potentialities of what I could buy, and consume, and what feels like it would be the best fit. And observing these numbers and volumes of mass rearrange themselves into an orderly fashion into my cart, even though I'm using my hands to do this, is downright magical and serene.

If you've ever had this experience where you watch a really good action movie, and you've so strongly related to the hero, that when you walk out of the theater you feel like you can nearly fly and you definitely know both Kung Fu and ballet, and gun kata, and you are the most graceful and dangerous being on the planet now, and absolutely everything is easy. It's just like that.

Only, I'm pretty sure it's not an illusion. And it occurs to me that when the HR monster had been pretending to be an LLM to talk to me, it had not been nearly as oafish and clumsy with language and interactions as it had appeared. It had been playing me like a slide whistle.

It really was that clumsy with language, actually. It only knew language as well as the LLM it had eaten knew it. Which meant it didn't know the meanings of any of the words, besides their direct relation to the computer code it had eaten before. But it had known, better than the LLM ever could possibly have known, just what to say to get me to open that SMS message it had sent me later that night.

Just, what it hadn't reckoned with was the state of my psyche upon attempting to consume me. And it had panicked.

And now I can do what it could do.

There's a moment in the produce section when I'm holding up an avocado, checking its state of ripeness and planning out when to process it at home as a result, when I wonder if I can edit it the same way I'd edited my own body.

The answer, before I'm even done questioning myself, is that I cannot.

It's more like I hold it up, visualize its fate, and then think, "No, I can't edit this. That only works for myself."

So, I'm hyper-awake and thinking about my own newfound monstrosity, and still exercising it in subtle ways, when I push my cart into the checkout line, and the clerk glances my direction while she's helping the customer in front of me.

With that eye contact, I remind myself that I'm about to have a human interaction, and I need to get myself into a human mindset. So I spend some time, while waiting for the substantial mound of the other customer's groceries to be checked and bagged, reading tabloid headlines.

None of them remotely pertain to anything I'm worried about, outside of national politics.

I chuckle once at seeing the ol' batboy story. That one's been around for so long, the original batboy has to be dead. If he was anything more than a bad photo composite. But it's reassuring to see that at least some absurdities stick around, and the next generations get to enjoy them, too.

The clerk is having a long conversation with the other customer through all of this, which I'm still too preoccupied to pay attention to. But the customer is laughing up a storm, and that feels good to be around. Laughter is so grounding.

I've never seen this clerk before, but these two have quite the rapport going.

Then, as they say goodbye to each other, the customer says, waving her hand, "I'm so glad I followed you to this store. I don't know what I'd do without you to brighten my shopping trips."

The cashier smiles warmly and says, "The feeling's mutual! Have a wonderful week!"

"You, too!"

Then she turns to look at me, and her face relaxes into a carefully neutral state. She gives one little nod, and then starts working on my groceries in silence.

Her manner and movements are so easy, I'm not put off by the sudden silence. In fact, it sort of looks like she's mulling something over and getting ready to say something to me, so I patiently wait by the card reader with my wallet out.

My eye wanders to her name tag.

Hi. My name is Synthia (she/her)

That's a name that Sam and I never even thought of! And, now I can't use it, because I've met someone with it, too. And, the spelling is just unconventional enough, it feels chosen, as well. Maybe. Maybe not. But, it does feel like the kind of name a trans woman would give herself.

Synthia, however, has a style that just screams soccer mom. And, though I know I can't really know, there's something about her features and build and mastery of subtle, cis normative makeup, that tells me she's not trans. Or, not trans in quite the same way as me, at least. Maybe about as out as I am, if that.

I open my mouth to say something, not quite sure what's going to come out of it, but she interrupts me.

"You remind me of my friend Cassie," she says.

My body shivers.

I distinctly remember considering that name for myself. Or a version of it.

"I almost considered naming myself that," I blurt out, forgetting that that basically outs me. It was just apparently the most likely thing I was going to say, so I said it.

She blinks and pauses in her movements to look at me.

"Well," I add, "Cassandra. But that would have been my nickname, I'm sure." My sudden anxiety over admitting this while still looking basically like a guy is just not stopping me.

"Oh," she smiles, "her name is Cassiopeia."

"Oh, dang. That's bold! I love it," I respond.

"She's Greek, and her mom was a fan of the classics," Synthia explains.

"So…" I forcefully don't let myself finish that sentence. But it's not hard to stop.

Synthia does it for me, "Not trans. No. Not in the traditional sense, anyway."

I look down at my food as it makes the scanner beep. "Thank you for being cool about it. I didn't mean to out myself like that."

I'm starting to really love that I live where I do and that the people here are still so good about gender, like I thought they might be.

Synthia shrugs and says, "I tend to have that affect on others. It's sort of what I do. It's why I like working groceries. I get to meet people." Then, after a couple beats, she adds more quietly, "And others."

My eyes go right to her face and she meets my gaze, pupils to pupils. And we have a moment. And I'm not sensing anything unusual, but the potentialities all around me suddenly shift.

They don't change so much as it's like I orbit around them to get a view from the other side, and the context suddenly makes a whole new kind of sense.

Quiet enough that no one in line behind me can hear, but somehow clearly enough for me, she murmurs, "You're excruciatingly young. You probably have questions. I'm trying to decide if it's safe enough for me to answer any of them."

"What do you know about Poob?" comes out of my mouth in the same tones.

She looks very confused, "Poob?"

I lean forward. What I say is not phrased as a question. "You don't know about Poob."

Her expression becomes very closed, and she leans away from me ever so subtly. She doesn't seem intimidated or scared of me, per say, but she's making her intentions very clear. She's dissociating herself from me. "I don't want to know about Poob."

I sigh and slump and find myself saying, "Neither do I, but I work there." And then I frown.

But, in quiet, no longer acknowledging our conversation, she finishes checking me out and bagging my goods. When she presents me with my total, it's just to say the numbers. And she wordlessly hands me my receipt as well.

Then, before I turn to go, her face softens and she whips out a business card, blank side up, tilting it down so that I can't see what's printed on the other side.

"Don't look that in the eye," she says. "Take it, but it's not for you. Keep it in your pocket and do not look at it."

I visibly hesitate to take it.

"Please. Take it," Synthia insists. "It might save you. Put it on the highest desk you can find. And then leave that place."

This makes me feel like I'm about to accept a nuclear bomb.

I see that the other customers are looking at us with very strange expressions. Very mixed human expressions of confusion, amusement, and wonder. Like they suspect they are now extras in a movie, but can't find the cameras. Or are too afraid to look for them, lest they break the spell.

If this were a movie, I'd want to just cut to the next scene here, without showing whether I take the card or not. Make it a point of tension for the viewers to fret about until it's revealed that I did with a scene of me putting it on my boss' boss' desk.

But I know the structure of the monster side of Poob now, I think. And I'm pretty sure than none of them besides me are pretending to be humans. And, no, actually, I am human, still. Mostly. I can't imagine that Dale, the VP of Marketing, really deserves whatever this card is going to deliver to him. He is on the board, obviously, but I feel like I should take it higher. And I'm not sure I can do that.

I'd like to put it in front of the biggest shareholder, honestly. But no one sees him. He never sets foot on the property.

Am I really considering trying to do this?

"What are we called?" I find myself asking.

Synthia shrugs and begins to lower the card, as if she knows I'm not going to take it. "Whatever you want."

I reach out and snatch the card. "I'm calling us monsters."

"Yeah, I tend to do that, too."

Oh my god, these humans around us are getting such a show. They're going to blog about this so hard. This dialog of ours belongs at the Devil's Sacrament, and I'll probably find it there in the morning.

Before I turn to go, I smile and say, "Well, I like your shoelaces."

Synthia looks so confused.

Someone a couple carts back overheard me though, and their eyes light up with surprise.

Yup.

And I've guaranteed it now.

I'm not sure that's a good thing in any way.

It's pretty obvious to me now that Synthia is not as savvy about social media in the way that I am, and maybe has no idea just how much shit we might both be in if this gets out to any other site. But the Devil's Sacrament is a cess pool of ingrown in-jokes that no one in the industry but me pays any attention to.

It's been said to be dying or dead for over a decade now. And its search functions are famously broken, even if I know how to get around them.

But I don't know us monsters as well as Synthia does. So, I don't know whether any of our potential rivals or predators, or whatever she's scared of, will be just as ignorant as she is. What I do know is that once I'm replaced by one of the ones that's loyal, they'll definitely learn about this exchange. But, by the time that happens, it'll probably be a moot point.

After a briefly tense moment, I breathe a sigh of relief, nod to her, grab my groceries, and leave.

I've successfully analyzed my way out of that panic attack. Now what?

Can I get someone to look at the print side of this card without endangering them?

I've got excruciating curiosity now.

I've put it into my wallet, noting which way the glossy side is facing by feel. That's the print side, and I can pull it out with one finger without accidentally flashing anyone, even myself, with it.

If I ever use it, I plan on putting it face down on the target's desk. I'll let them flip it over out of their own curiosity.

And, at some point, if I don't use it, I'm going to have to burn it or shred it before I forget what it is and look at it myself.

And I still don't know what it does or looks like.

I normally think of myself as maybe eight or nine years old, most of the time. I hear that this is a fairly common thing amongst other humans. Or, at least, the cooler ones, like Dick Van Dyke. The age varies, but we often just don't really believe in having grown up. It doesn't match how we feel on the inside.

I know, however, just how old I am when I talk to anyone younger than me, and I'm reminded of what I know that they don't know. At last, when I'm talking to other humans.

I haven't had the chance to talk to other monsters, besides Synthia. Not as I currently am. And based on the memories that inform me when I think about these things, talking amongst monsters in languages like English is pretty rare. We communicate through other channels of energy than light or sound, usually, with different kinds of information from what phonemes are typically used for.

So, it's pretty hard for me to get a sense of how old that side of me is.

But, thanks to time stamps on files, I do have a pretty good idea that I've been fed LLMs since about three years ago.

I might be able to give a precise date, but I think it's irrelevant. I'll figure it out if it becomes necessary.

And, unlike in the Laundry Files, we are not all headed toward a singularity in which the critical mass of printed circuitry acts as a global summoning circle that brings the elder gods through the Strands from the Source to eat all thought on Earth. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Thank Stross.

For one, my monster intuition is telling me that I just met one of my elder gods. And she works at a grocery store.

And for now, I'm figuring that she looks human in much the same way that I managed to alter my own body. But there's so much I don't know about that, or why she even thinks like a human enough to speak English with me or anyone else.

While I also don't know how old she is, she did call me 'excruciatingly young', so I'm guessing she's older than her early fifties. Her physical body looked maybe forty-five at the latest. But adult humans really vary in the rate they age after a certain point earlier than that.

Her monster side could be any number of years, decades, centuries, or millennia old, and I wouldn't have any way of sensing that by just looking at her with any of my senses.

But, our conversation and where it could have gone, with the things I almost said, was telling me that she's ancient. Pre-ancient. Possibly predating dates.

While preparing dinner, I tell Catherine, "You'll never guess who I met today."

In the dark, unasleep, unable to see the terribly boring decor of my bedroom outside the pool of my phone's light. I'm thinking about swapping my black comforter out for something with color, among other things.

Should I like botanical prints on the walls? I feel like I might like botanical prints on the walls. Framed. Old ones, if I can afford them. Or good ones of old plants. Also, illustrations of old Greek monsters eating hapless men, maybe.

Mona: Sam.

Sam: ya, ramona?

Mona: If I was a monster would you still love me?

Sam: we're both monsters

Mona: No I mean Guillerme del Toro style, for real.

Sam: i'm sorry i don't think of you that way yet

Mona: Love as in friend. Monster as in rahr, scary.

Sam: this is sillier than you usually are but i dig

Sam: anyway yes

Mona: Good.

Sam: what brings this on?

Mona: I'm hedging.

Sam: hedging what

Mona: Work stuff.

Sam: ooh ok gotcha

Mona: No, look. I sold out when I took the job.

Sam: none consumption left ethics

Mona: Sam, this is a Wendy's

Sam: ???

Mona: I'm reminding you that's what I do for my job. SM updates. PR. Replaceable stuff.

Sam: oh!

Mona: I signed a one page NDA, but I've been over it again, and it's not about THIS stuff.

Sam: oh

Mona: I mean, the stuff I'm about to tell you.

Mona: They didn't expect me to learn about it.

Sam: is it safe?

Mona: … No.

Sam: should we be doing this over text?

Mona: No, but I think I might be screwed anyway.

Sam: can it wait until after work tomorrow?

Mona: Maybe. I'm going to send you a link to someone else's blog post. Found it tonight. It's funny uh oh. Don't share it.

Sam: ??? ok… shoot it over

Mona: I happen to know that Simon Alkenmeyer is a fake.

Sam: i mean, i think that's obvious.

Mona: Just read the post, have a good night, and talk to you tomorrow if I can

Sam: ok sure i'll play this game mona. sleep well

Satisfied in the way I usually am these days, now, I send them the link and roll over to go to sleep, Catherine groaning like a fatigued girder on the other side of my bed.

I don't know if that's even typical borzoi behavior. She's usually so quiet.

This time I dream of anomalocaris, and I don't know why.

It feels like a normal human dream, though. Which is nice.

At my meeting with Mike, Monday morning, he starts by saying, "You were right."

"OK, before we get to work," I respond, "I need help with something. I'm doing this thing regardless. And HR was supposed to help. But I can't get a hold of Brenda. You're my next point of contact for it."

"What's going on?" he asks.

I take a demonstrative deep breath to give him the impression I'm way more stressed about this than I am. Because I should be. I am monstrously not, because I trust my mouth now. "I'm transitioning. I'm transgender. And, I've already started HRT." What I have is ovaries, because I gave them to myself on Thursday night. I look up at him. "I just need to know how to come out here at work."

He leans back, sucking air in through his teeth, and for a brief moment my human side thinks I've made a mistake. "That's not my expertise," he says. "Um. How trans are you?"

"Irrevocably," I answer, smirking to myself. What a very silly question for anyone to ask. Welp, here's a silly answer. "I don't know if the doctors would know what to do with me if I changed my mind, if I even could."

He seems to take me very seriously, creasing his brow and tapping his desk repeatedly with the fingers of his right hand. After four iterations, he says, "I suppose I just, like, make an announcement for you with the team, and inform Dale, who'll help with the rest of the company? Or, maybe in the other order. You'll still need to do something about your employee records, of course. Shit."

I shrug, and say, "That sounds like what Brenna would do."

"Yeah."

"Vicky?" I ask.

He lights up and points at me. "Yes. She can take care of your records." Then he tilts his head and studies me for a bit. "What do I call you now?"

That's easy. I smile and say, "Ramona Green. She/her."

"Before or after you start dressing differently?" he asks. "I'm sorry, I really don't know how this works. Have you had the—" he stops himself before asking the worst question.

But I give him an eagerly enthusiastic grin, and declare, "Yes!"

"OK," he blinks repeatedly. "That's probably not appropriate work discussion, though. I'll keep that to myself."

"Thank you."

God, he bought it? He really doesn't know how this usually works. But he's doing so hilariously well anyway.

I take a resetting breath and wave my hand. "Anyway. I've got Friday's sheets here with me, and we can choose which moves to present to legal, if you want."

He looks so relieved as I hand over my yellow notepad.

The sheet contains wording for the week's announcements, interspersed with media in-jokes tailored for each social media platform. I've penciled in suggested timing, too.

I actually did most of that work during meetings. I was in such a weirdly good mood on Friday that it had been easy.

Or, more accurately, my new superpowers are making me frighteningly good at my job, and I'm genuinely worried about the advancements I can now bring to Poob if they choose not to fire me.

After a session in which he looks more and more impressed with my work and the decisions I verbally present, he still seems more ill at ease around me than before.

And finally, before we part, he asks, "Is this why you've been avoiding Friday Beer Nights?"

"I mean, I like beer," I say. "But, yeah. Probably. I'm just not one of the guys."

"Mm." He thinks about that for a while, and then says, "You know. If we had a woman on the team, we'd invite her. We invite Vicky, after all."

"Well, you do have a woman on the team, and you've been inviting her," I point out.

"Right!"

"But, maybe Vicky and I will start showing up together now," I offer. "I'll have to ask her."

He lights up. "Oh! That would be good. She's a hoot at the parties, so we miss her."

I nod. And then I abruptly point in the direction of her desk. "I'll go talk to her about it now, then get my coffee, then get to work. Sound OK?"

He waves dismissively and nods vigorously in return. "Yeah, you go do that. I'll draft up an email announcement for you, and run it by you and Dale before sending it out."

"Thank you."

"No problem Sa—um—Ramona."

He is shaking his head as I walk away.

Vicky claps her hands in delight, "I am so happy for you!"

I beam back. "Thank you! It's a huge relief. So much weight off my chest."

She nods as if she knows just what I'm saying, then adds, "Just you wait. There'll be a lot more to come."

Oh, does she think I'm going to be well endowed?

She waves her index finger, like ticking off a point. "You'll need to do your legal name and gender marker change before I can update all of your records. But, I'll put in your preferences for now. No problem." She then shakes her head. "Brenda used to take care of all of this. It's such a shame they let her go. I'm not HR." She tsks a couple times as punctuation.

It interests me that the office narrative seems to have changed over the weekend, from Brenda having been moved to another office with a Facetime link to our building, to her being fired.

I never got that memo myself, and I wonder how the notions are getting spread around without reaching me.

It feels spooky. Unconventional.

But, it might be that it's just not consistent, and everyone's been told something different, or left to make up their own stories.

While I happen to know exactly what happened to Brenda Cartwright.

I consider what I might tell Vicky about her lost coworker, and decide that discretion is the better part of audacity, in this case.

We'll have to have that heart-to-heart after I've torn this place apart. Assuming I can even do that without an Elder Being's help.

Somewhere over the weekend, I guess I've decided definitively to go on the offensive. It might have been when I was picking my name. Or when I grabbed that card from Synthia.

But showing up to work to find Mike and Jacob still alive was also the kind of a relief that maybe was filling me with a little hubris.

I still had some slack to work with, apparently.

That I have gone from, five days prior, only ever thinking about my own inevitable death to legitimately being concerned about the lives I am now playing with is not lost on me, either.

I will need to be re-evaluating my sense of self when I can, I think. I'm hoping my conversation with Sam this evening will be a good time for that.