III. Cold sweat

1

Pamela twitched, then sat back in her armchair with a start. She’d fallen asleep while the 600th Anniversary documentary was playing on the big screen in front of her. She blinked a few times and flicked a little switch on the table beside her to turn off her entertainment set. The screen went black and the room suddenly was engulfed by darkness, Pam grumbled and flicked an other switch on the table to turn a dim light over her armchair on. She looked around her, not quite awake. everything was quiet in her apartment, her vintage wooden clock showed one in the morning.

“Shit.”

She had to go to work early in the morning and she could feel that she wasn’t going to get enough sleep, her mind felt muddy and empty. She slowly straightened up and left her chair, moving slowly in direction of her bedroom. As she entered it, a similar dim light over her bed automatically turned on, while the one in her living room turned off. She undressed completely and and let herself fall heavily onto her bed after manually switching the light off. Her mind was full of images of Old Society humans, gorillas... A particular face seemed to float in front of her eyes, Haneul. Everyone knew his face, even six hundred years after his birth, he was everywhere. Of course in history books and documentaries but he had become such an icon that his face was used in advertisement and all sorts of popular media. She tried to imagine him as a person, but only his face, slightly distorting, came to mind. Funny how fame can make you lose all of your humanity, she could connect so many names with scientific discoveries or philosophy, books... But not with actual people.

She snuggled under the covers and fell asleep again, her mind full of strange images.

*

“Sophie!”

“...”

“SOPHIE!!”

Her eyes opened wide, she felt cold and wet.

“What?”

She looked around her, startled. The room was empty and still dark, everything was silent. She fell down on her back, her body felt normal again, warm and dry. The voice was echoing in her head, she couldn’t remember whose it was. She remember a feeling of falling, the smell of grass and a sentiment of visceral fear. She checked herself, making sure all of her sensors were functioning correctly. Everything was normal, but these memories of feelings she couldn’t have lingered. A pain in her belly like a knot made too tight, her chest going up and down in quickened breathing... It took her a few minutes to feel at ease again. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, plus she had to get up in about an hour anyways, might as well do something useful. Work was going to be hell with that little rest.

“Aili!” Pam called from her bed.

No answer, she remembered Aili wasn’t there anymore. She had finally decided to go back to her usual form, which would take her a few days at least before she could go back to her day to day affairs. She had stayed with Pamela for about two weeks in her black panther form, until she admitted that it was becoming very inconvenient in the city and decided to switch back. She had moved out the day before.

Pam had loved living alone since she’d moved in in her new apartment but it felt strangely quiet now that Aili wasn’t there. The two weeks of cohabitation had been quite chaotic but also comforting. The two women shared a very strong bond, and having Aili around always made Pam inexplicably happy. She didn’t have that many nightmares with the huge warm beast on her bed beside her. And the one time she had woken up in the middle of the night, snuggling against her fur and hearing her slow breathing had soothed her back to sleep in a few seconds.

She was happy Aili actually planned on keeping the form as a pet, she had grown very attached to it in a very short time. The big green eyes and low purr, just seeing the beast lying on her carpet gave the whole apartment a completely different feel.

She got up, put on a light night gown, the pastel pink color contrasting on her dark skin, and went to the kitchen. She poured herself a big glass of cold juice and went to her computer. She opened a file and started dictating her dream while sipping the juice, slowly waking her internal sensors.

2

Aili felt cold all the time. Changing bodies was never fun, your brain had to be connected to a different sensory apparatus, and it always took a few days to a few weeks to find your marks. Luckily she was switching back to a body she had used for about fifty years and knew well, but it was still harsh. Having her bare skin exposed and not protected by thick fur, having to walk on two legs and find balance with each step, having to use her hands to get food to her mouth... It was all feelings she had to get back into. Of course she didn’t have to do it alone, there were institutions created for this purpose, that took care of transferring the brain, and helped you out with the physical transition. But it was never a good time.

She was sitting in a comfortable sofa in the common room of the “back to human” transitions as they called them. Everyone here had had a non-humanoid form for a while and interactions were as awkward as expected. Aili tended to curl up on herself to sleep, or growl when someone unexpectedly approached her. Mike, a man arrived the same day she had sat in a corner all day, doing basic motions and trying to articulate words. He had been a incorp for more than two decades, and his body was entirely new to him. He had a box equipped with basic sensors similar to the ones he had had as an incorp, that he could connect to to communicate with more ease. But to facilitate transition he was only allowed to use it a certain amount of time every day. He had told Aili that his partner and he had decided to have a child, and laws only permit to have children when all of the caretakers have humanoid forms, they can switch back to other forms from the tenth year of life of the child on, but can’t be incorps until the child turns twenty years old. These laws were strictly enforced as the sensory education of a child was deemed essential, and growing up in a dysphoric family, where the child couldn’t copy or rely on the behavior of his caretakers, usually led to psychological disturbances. The standard was set to humanoid, just to make sure that the child would become a functioning member of human society. But from his twentieth year on, the now young adult was allowed to chose his form as he pleased. Most people experimented with variations of the humanoid form, with the spectrum of gender and even adding or removing limbs. But some chose to live in entirely different form, sometimes even none at all becoming incorporeals, or incorps.

This had been the case of Mike, who had lived all of his adult life in a floating sphere with only very basic sensory capacity. He had a few forms in his house that he could connect to to interact with people or objects but was quite happy just floating around and concentrating on his own thoughts. He had explained to Aili that the inner world he had developed was extremely rich, closer to virtual reality than most mindscapes. He had been fascinated by mathematics since he was very young, and he found that being immersed in his own thoughts as much as possible was the best way for him to work and concentrate. He had almost never thought about being anything else than an incorp, and became one as soon as he could. His partner was very different, having always lived in a humanoid form, except for a few month. He had taken part in a program some years back for corporeals who wanted to try the incorp experience without committing to it. The six month of the program were mostly getting eased into the lack of sensors, learning how to interact through secondary forms and enriching their mindscapes.

“He hated it,” said Mike, “but he did it to understand me better, and it made us even closer.” After which, he trained his face to make a smile for the rest of the day.

Aili really liked Mike, he was a very down to earth, nice person and didn’t complain once about his transition, even though it was much more difficult than hers. She always went to see him when he was allowed to use his sensory box, and liked to help him with basic motion training. He even took his first step in more than twenty years with her. As she was sitting on the couch, looking at him slowly moving his fingers in the corner of the room, she was flooded with memories of the time she and her two partners had decided to have a child too. It had been more than forty-five years... What an adventure.

And Pamela had turned out great too, it made her smile. At that moment, Mike turned his head towards her and seeing her smiling, smiled back. It made her grin even more and she gave him a thumbs up from the couch. It took him a few minutes to get his fingers to do what he wanted but the eventually managed to mimic the gesture as well.

“He’s going to be a great parent,” she thought.

He was so dedicated to it, going through the inconvenience of procuring a new body, and getting used to it. He would stay at the transitioning center way longer than she would, and even though his partner visited him almost every day, it was still a remarkable achievement. She would make sure to get some contact information next time his partner came to visit to be sure to stay in contact. After all, she would be leaving soon.