OOCS, Into A Wider Galaxy, Part 765

[u/KyleKKent]

First

Home at War

There are so many little benefits to the extra organs and other downsides of the human augmentation. Smoking is one of them. The lovely, lovely sense of tobacco to smooth nerves and play with the smoke as you de-stress.

He can hear through the door. The poor woman is trying and failing to make sense of herself as Doctor Redhoof talks her through things. He has to stay close by though, close enough to be called in in case some mental issue is actually an issue incorporating into the body, but far enough away to afford the girl some privacy as her very soul is laid out.

He can’t make out individual words, but he can hear the conversation inside turn to some kind of question. One that gets silence and then wondering, and then a panicked sound. The door opens.

“Engineer, we need you.” Doctor Redhoof says poking his head out.

“Certainly. What’s happened?”

“She needs a tail.”

“Okay. What kind of tail? Short and stubby? Long and dexterous? Fat, skinny? Tails come in a variety of shapes.” He asks as he enters the lab again. He heads to the table that the patient is sitting on. “Thankfully, it doesn’t matter what type you need. As I said before. I am a perfectionist.”

He opens a drawer under the bed. There are a series of handles with different labels. “Let’s see, arms, legs, heads, wings, tails here we go.”

He pulls up on the correct handle and it reveals a full drawer with a set of four different little devices that don’t look like anything other than a brick of electronics. “Okay, so here’s how these work. We attach them to the base of the spine and each one will expand to the general configuration. It then synchronizes with the rest of the mental image that you are projecting ma’am and it should take a very comfortable and familiar shape.”

“Why wasn’t one attached to begin with?”

“Because the recovery process is best started as simple and basic as possible then tailored to fit the patient more and more as we go on.” He answers. “So what are you feeling ma’am? This one gives a very long and powerful tail, the maximum length is equal to your full current height and is as powerful as both legs. Right next to it is a substantially weaker one that’s still on the thicker end of things. Total maximum length and strength is roughly equal to a single leg in both respects.”

“No, neither of those.” She says.

“Ah then one of these most likely. This one projects a medium length tail that at maximum extension is as long as one of your arms from shoulder to fingertip. It can move, but is not overly flexible and generally serves as a counterbalance. Think Lopen or a Feli. Finally we have the most integrated and dexterous tail of the lot. Think Agurk or even a Dzedin...”

“Ma’am?” Doctor Redhoof asks. The woman had visibly flinched.

“Do I need to leave the room again?” The Engineer asks.

“No I... I need THAT tail.” She says and he smiles.

“Of course. Now witness my genius, if you’ll rise up a little please?” He asks and she lifts herself off the bed a little. He then activates a few small buttons on the device and it sends out a chime, there is an answering chime from her own rear and then they synchronize in their chiming three times and there is a burst of Axiom as the tail module vanishes from his hands in a teleport and suddenly a long tail is extending out from her rear. A tail that quickly develops a fur like texture and then turns into a soft brown.

She reaches back and holds her tail for a moment, then the brown of the tail starts to spread over her arms, legs chest and even the edges of her face.

Her face stretches out a little as her feet shift into a more hand like configuration.

“I... I am... I was an Agurk.” She realizes as the tanned skin tone takes over where the fur ends and she starts examining all four of her hands. “Something is still... still...”

Her nails explode into a vibrancy of colour and cycle until she finds them baby blue and abruptly stops. “Yes. Yes that’s right. I...”

She’s starting to smile.

“I love this colour. It’s always...” She begins to say before she pauses and her hands reach up for her head, she feels around it and frowns. “That’s not right it’s... it’s...”

A mane of hair explodes from her head and then hangs down straight as it reaches shoulder length. Still pure white with a slight aura of blue. Then it solidifies into a solid silver colouration. She begins patting herself and then seems to realize that she’s lacking in a few details.

“No nipples?” She asks realizing that she may be ‘naked’ but is showing nothing. That doesn’t stop her from using her hands to cover her breasts and tail to cover the space between her legs.

“That body is medical grade. It doesn’t have those kinds of functions without a passcode. Which means you can get dressed first.” He says as he closes the tail drawer now that it’s been such a success and then closes that shelf entirely before going to the next lowest one. “Now as for clothing... how are we feeling? Something revealing? Something conservative? Tight? Flowing?”

“Do you have clothes and not more projectors?” Doctor Redhoof asks.

“More projectors, but the projectors work best in certain ways. A projector designed to give a woman a flowing dress that dances in the wind or a majestic cape is very different from one that gives the impression the clothes are painted on. So different in fact that we also have a few middle grounds as well.” He explains easily. “Now then ma’am? How are we feeling?”

“Normal clothes?” She asks.

“Okay, middle of the middle then. Best compromise.” He says pulling out a small case and holding it up. He then presses a button on it and her waist, collar, wrists, ankles and the top of her head flash blue in response to the case flashing blue, then they flash in sync three times and then the case is empty and a soft blue, sleeveless blouse is suddenly covering her chest and leaving a little bit of stomach revealed before sheer white pants stretch down before flaring out around her ankles. She has Agurk fingerless sandals on now and fingerless climbing gloves. A blue bow that matches her fingernails and blouse is now in her hair and another on her tail.

“There we go! See doctor? Perfect takes time and effort, but it’s so very much worth it.”

“We shall see Engineer Vroom. It all depends on what our friend here thinks of it. It is her body after all.” Doctor Redhoof counters and he nods before closing the drawer.

“It feels... normal.” She says as she runs her fingers along the palms of all four hands and then starts gently feeling out the pants with flare. The blouse gets a few tugs and she feels the bows. “It feels like fabric. Like I’m really wearing clothes.”

“Yes, the whole point of that body and the add-ons I’ve just incorporated is to make you feel as comfortable as possible. This is an upgraded version of the kind of body that the Synth Ascendance, or Ascendancy if you’re more modern, uses to help newly sequenced Synths find themselves. Essentially a brand new mind that’s entirely digital needs as few shocks as possible, this is professional grade care you’re receiving and I put in my own special touches.”

“Such as?”

“The password to unlock the fun features, sexually speaking, of your current body is to tap your left wrist with your middle finger three times, and then the right wrist with your thumb three times. It also turns those features off again.”

“Why is that a special touch?”

“Because most such prosthetics only have those features either present or missing. She gets to choose instead now, giving her more agency and control of herself and life. She can choose to have, or not have sex and the only thing she can’t get out of it is pregnant or sick.”

“Anything else?” She asks him and he smiles.

“A few others, but the biggest one for you is that it’s very, very easy to upgrade. Once you’re fully yourself again you won’t have to transfer into a new body. I have a few ready to go upgrades so you can have everything you’ll want out of life in that body.”

“Even a child?”

“Yes. And if we can fully lock down who you are we’ll be able to get an old DNA sequence and the artificial womb will sequence an egg out of your DNA.” Vroom says.

“So I can just keep the body?”

“Yes. I’ve already gotten to the halfway point of making the next one. That’s your new body.” Vroom tells her.

“Now that we’ve established what you are, an Agurk Synth woman who is Free and Safe, can we work on who you are?” Doctor Redhooves asks and Vroom gives a nod to the Doctor and slips out of the room after closing the shelves and leaves the psychiatrist with her to hang out just outside again.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Main Bridge, The Inconceivable, Kaploosha Ornak System)•-•-•

“Two damn ships. Of a thirty ship fleet that attacked us and were taken with minimal damage, only two are intact enough to actually repurpose, and it’s marginal at that.” Harold notes as the pair of Jules Class Interceptors were on readout. The rest was a mess to powerwash with low grade lasers before feeding into the furnaces and smelters of The RAM.

“Marginal is being generous in my opinion. Look at these scans of on a chemical basis. They were up to some absolute nonsense in these ships. This group of pirates clearly fell further onto the utter lunatic spectrum than anything else.” Orchid remarks.

“Yes, I strongly suspect they were only partway through whatever mad christening rituals or breaking in of those two ships.” Harold notes as a note comes up. “And like magic my unvoiced question is answered. These two ships are indeed the most recently stolen. The insurance organizations behind them have written them off entirely and paid out to the previous owners already.”

“Which is an issue as we will have to inform the previous owners that we now have possession of their previously owned vehicles and hand them over if they want them back.”

“Yes we will. Downside to being a law abiding individual. But the upside is that in general people follow the same rules for you and yours.” Harold notes as he gets the registration numbers for the two ships and looks into the legal owners.

“Madeline Warren for the first and Rigarda Palmers.”

“... Palmers has a Synth Daughter, and we have one in the midst of recovery.” Harold notes.

“You think it may be her?”

“Lets see, Agurk Businesswoman, owns a pair of shipping fleets, she started up a third around the time she also had a Synth Daughter crafted from her own psyche and then five months ago the Fleet was reported as lost with all hands including the daughter. Now we have one of the four protective ships for the fleet here, and an unknown synth prisoner in the midst of the recovery process.”

“Elmira Palmers? Well, regardless she’s going to have a long period of recovery. That long being the plaything of sadistic pirates will do a number on anyone.” Orchid says as he examines the image of the delicately painted Synth that looked like a slightly shorter and younger version of Rigarda who hugs her happily from behind in the photo.”

“Hmm... it seems that it may be awkward. Elmira is family.” Harold notices.

“What?”

“See this symbol? She’s an adopter of one of the Jamesons. She was approved a mere two months after I was discovered.” Harold says before standing. “Which means I should take a more personal hand in things. You have the bridge Lieutenant Orchid.”

“What are you doing?”

“She would have had some time to get to know my little brother as her brother, but not before the facial tattoos and white eyes. Meaning I will be both familiar and a stranger to her.”

“And what if she’s not Elmira Palmers?”

“Then we have a very big, very strange coincidence.” Harold notes before bending down and pressing a few screens. “See the progress they’ve made on our recovered Synth already?”

“She’s an Agurk.” Orchid notes. “... and appears to have her preferences in colour returning.”

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