The walk home was notably less eventful, just had someone bump into me as I got on the train back. In total it took less than an hour after leaving Jesse's apartment to get back. The garage was closed so I opened the regular door only to find Trix waiting for me. She was leaning against the right wall of the entryway while flipping through her commlink. 

She looked over to me. “Hey, I got the information from Jesse.” She put her commlink in her jeans pocket and held a hand out. “Gimme the commlink he gave you, I'll find where those fucks are.”

I pulled the device out and placed it in her palm. “Here.” Trix took out a cable and plugged it into the commlink. “Trix, where's Dust?” 

She paused, the cable a short distance from her datajack. “She's off meeting someone for an early dinner, she said to leave her tea in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, I'll talk to you later, Trix.” 

“Yea, glad you're safe.” She plugged the cable into her datajack. “Let's see what's going on in here.”

I waved, but she was already into her work so I stepped away and over to the kitchen. Someone had done the dishes that were piled in the sink earlier today and by dishes I mean the various reusable plastic items like take out bowls, utensils and Soykaf cups. I smiled and set the jar of loose tea next to one of the few actual mugs before heading up to the second floor. I paused at the front of the hallway and stared down its dimly lit length, it had been a long day and I could still smell the blood on me. 

I walked forward and turned right into the bathroom where I looked myself over. Dark hair framed my face and my clothing sat awkwardly on my body. I tossed my clothes off and set them in a heap against the door. Before hopping into the shower I looked over myself again. There was a fresh scar on my stomach, as if it had been there for a week or so. 

“Maybe…” I walked over and grabbed my shirt to examine. “No fucking way.” I found a hole with signs of a gunshot. 

There was no way. I'd have known if I was shot, even with the pain dampeners active. I slid the shirt back on and the hole matched up perfectly with my scar, or it would have if the scar wasn't rapidly fading away to smooth skin. 

“I'm not hallucinating am I?” I slowly deployed my right arm blade. “Just going to check, a small cut and I'll know.”

I slid the edge of my blade over the pale flesh of my left thigh. Beads of blood formed over the cut then began to dry. I took a hand and wiped them away, beneath was unmarked smooth skin. The gears began to turn in my skull. The patches, the note… I should call her.

“It's not like it's hurting me.” I glanced over to the shower. “I'll just clean up and give her a call on a spare burner, yea.” I threw my shirt back off after retracting the blade.

I ran the shower for a moment before stepping in, as the heater would produce scalding water before settling into an endurable room temperature. Even with the lukewarm water it was nice to clean off the day, especially given the one I'd had. I stepped out feeling refreshed, grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around myself at chest height before picking up my clothing and going back to my room.

Once there I tossed my clothes into the dirty pile before going over to my desk. The desk itself was mostly home to empty bottles and things that I thought might have been useful eventually; they were not. There was even my old Ares Predator II pistol laying in disassembled pieces. I hadn’t fired it for a few years, not since I got my integral blades. I smiled remembering when Trix first drilled me on how to handle it. The recoil felt like it was gonna break my wrist back then, my BTL abuse really left my body in a bad state. Either way I needed to get that burner out since I was definitely not going to call her on something I used routinely.

I leaned down and pulled a drawer out to look for the spare burner. “Where the drek is it?” I removed papers, bullets and my Savalette Guardian from the drawer. “I really should carry that on me, it was a gift after all.” After getting enough clutter out I had revealed the false bottom. “No one comes in here, why do I even bother with this part?” I flipped up the panel and grabbed the small commlink.

It was a pretty old one, should have just enough prepaid time on it for a call to the woman from the lab. I wouldn't have to worry about getting traced either, Trix had pulled any method of geolocating out of it for me and the number was registered to some random asshole we knocked off in a run. I knelt down next to the plastic container with the Banshee patches and the card with the scientist's number, flipped up the clamps that held it's clear plastic top on and thumbed through the patches. I found the card after a few moments and examined it. Sylvia Esteed, huh? I hadn't noticed her ID back at the Evo Corp lab. After sitting down on my mattress I entered the number she'd written down and idly flipped the card between my fingers while it rang.

Someone picked up after the second ring. “Hello, runner.” Her voice was just as calm as it was back at the lab.

“Hey… Sylvia?”

The woman on the line chuckled. “Yes, yes. I'm a little surprised you called this early.” There was a shuffling of papers on her end. “So, how has 113 been treating you?” 

I ran a hand through my now shoulder length hair. There was a feeling there, a good one, but tainted by bitter memories. “I got shot today, didn't notice it until I saw the scar heal over.” My fingers brushed my smooth chin. “So what is this stuff, really?” I took a patch out and turned it around in the light, none of which passed through it. 

Sylvia's voice crackled from the burner. “Ask your decker, she can see the files.” I could hear a smirk in her voice. “But since I've got a direct line to you I might as well explain. It's a packet of short lived nanites that break down into easily metabolized components once their fuel cells burn out.”

I blinked. “So it…”

She cut in. “Stitches you back together and aids in various bodily functions through a neural hook up based off the Ares smartlink system.”

I looked back over to the Predator II that laid in pieces on my desk. I’d used smartlinks before, they adjusted aim using sensory data your mind was processing. 

I rubbed a thumb over the patch. “How long do they last and that doesn't explain the chills and pain when I used one last night.”

Sylvia paused and flipped through some papers. “First dose will create a full body and mental map then sync with the remaining set of unused patches. Your next use shouldn't hurt.” There was more rustling of papers. “As for duration per patch… about two to three days depending on the workload the nanites are under.” She set the papers down. “Has there been anything else?”

I bit my lip. “There's been some physical changes.”

“That is to be expected as it tries to overlay the mental model onto the physical one. Is there something off about the result?” She tapped a pen on what I assumed was a desk.

I exhaled. “No. I'm going to hang up. I'll call again if anything changes.” There was no way I was mentioning the other changes to her, not after that explanation.

“Please do continue to use the patches, field data is invaluable.” I could hear her scribble something down. “There would also be some nuyen in it for you if you continued and sent some data my way.”

“I'll keep in touch, yea.” She started to speak, but I terminated the call.

I stared at the patch then set it down. “Mental model, huh?” 

I stood up and looked down at my body. I was more slim and slight than I'd been since I was a teen, the emaciation from being on BTLs aside. The only body hair that was present was very fine and thin. I raised a hand in front of myself and spread my fingers apart. They were thin and tapered. With a thought I deployed the blade in that arm, it slid out of my wrist with ease then clicked into the locked position. A shudder ran through me as I remembered the Howler's arm shattering back at Jesse’s. Shaking my head I retracted the blade and it slid back into my arm. 

I stared at the ceiling. “It's almost like it's trying to make my body like…” I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. The mental model I had of myself or at least the one the patches’ nanites had picked up on was- NO. I swallowed hard. “That was the BTLs. It's not me.”

I had to admit though, it was nice being inside the BTLs, inside those other lives. I liked it. It felt good. It felt right. None of it meant anything though. It couldn’t, shouldn’t mean a damn thing. Against my wishes the sensations came flooding back and I shifted on the bed as I remembered them. My hands searched my body for something that just wasn’t there.

My mind drifted to the memory of the first BTL I slotted. A friend from high school brought a handful of the chips, we’d been using Cal-Hots before and he- he knew my tastes. In it I was a young woman on a date with another woman. I remember being enraptured by her personality and later her body in a more intimate setting. I could still smell her perfume all these years later and still remember the feeling of her hands touching me. My body moved on its own, legs trying to clamp around the phantom sensation. But couldn’t get any more of the feeling as reality reasserted itself. 

I was back in my mess of a room. 

Laying on my shitty mattress. 

With my male body.

Tears formed in the corners of my eyes. “Hah, this is such bullshit.” I wiped my eyes and sat up to stare at the patch. “I thought I was done with all those feelings. I even got clean, they should be gone.” I picked it up. “If I just used this I could have all that again, but outside the chips, have it for real.” I started to peel the plastic cover from the patch then tossed it across the room.

I stood up. “What the fuck am I doing?” My body walked over and picked up the patch. “No, I’m fine. I’m always fine. That’s what I am; fine.” I placed the patch on my desk and looked out the window. “It’s barely even dark out.” I flopped back onto my crappy mattress. “Gonna just try and sleep, forget all this.”