“Hey Everyone it’s your online more-than-just-computer mouse Bridget! I know I don’t usually upload videos on monday, not even for Patrons plug plug youtube won’t monetise girls like me help a gal out. But, uhm, I’m certain a sizeable number of you has noticed what happened today. And some of you got worried over my safety on twitter after the… dragon, situation, poor individual whoever they were. So here’s my story of tonight.” The avatar of the ginger mouse girl in the video made a show of clearing her throat. She wasn’t a virtual youtuber, she was just a cover for a girl who didn’t want to show her face. Surprising the house of mouse didn’t sue her cute aproned skirt off for clearly ripping off a mouse girl from a relatively popular afternoon cartoon. The girl is me. I’m the one behind her. The video continued as I checked it over the final render.
“I was luckily relaxing at home, resting while planning my next project to work on, when it happened. The weird glow cloud storm. I was expecting secret police to bust down my door and steal all my bread if you know what I mean. But, instead, what I got was a blinding flash of light, and then something very surprising. Fate has got a twisted sense of irony.” I was proud of the effect I managed for the next part of the video, as the animated model and background shifted over to real life footage revealing my new form. The ginger hair wasn’t quite as long and fluffy, but the ears and tail and everything else was there. I pretty much turned into my creator avatar.
“Yeah so Bridget can now visit VidCon in person instead of sending in a weird robot to project onto. You’re still gonna get the same content from me as before, don’t worry, but I’m okay with showing my face now. Because it feels like my face. Oh, right, uhm, I guess confession time. I didn’t use software to change my voice, I figured out a choker for it, even though it’s quite bulky it’s less tedious than fiddling with software. And if it hadn’t been clear from my nails during pride month, I’m trans. Oh there goes that youtube money for sure. Anyways, just wanted to make sure you all knew that I was safe, I’m at home, and so far I seem to only have gained the power of being a cute mouse girl. But yeah, that’s it for this quick but important update. So without further ado even though they try to wipe me away, remember the algorithm, find me elsewhere on the internet, and remember to love yourself and that pretty much everything can be fixed.”
The video looked solid, I quickly uploaded it and made my way over to my lounging chair from my working chair. I had to wonder how other people were faring. I mean, not everyone is a relatively famous tech youtuber. Some poor lost souls wandering the streets, powers kicking in, bodies changing, they don’t know what’s happening.
“And you’re just sitting there, waiting to be finished, aren’t you Dare?” Upon my workbench sat a barely started work in progress robotic pet, something I got dared to do to deal with loneliness. I always had trouble figuring out how to make the limbs move smoothly and naturally. I was going for something of a feline appearance. Okay no that was a big lie I was working on something closer to a fox dragon thing in shape, with thumbs on it’s front paws. When I read the design for that creature I just knew I wanted one to cuddle.
“...The base structure is wrong. I was considering what motors and gears and batteries I had to work with. If I manufacture those myself though I could avoid all that. Make a wireless charging station bed for it to just lay on when it needs to. I wonder if the online stores have what I need.” A pen in hand and paper on the desk, I started sketching. Swiftly, with purpose, writing down what I needed. What I had to get. And then it hit me. “Wait, what, how, uh… What? Did I just… This looks like something straight out of comic books or mangas but I… I got it all written down here? The process and the equipment and what… the actual royal fuck.” I put down the pencil and checked the document before me. “...I wonder if I could make a jetpack.”
Good news: I was able to make designs sketches for a jetpack, just like I had done with Dare. Bad news: Making a jetpack is dumb and dangerous. Hard to control and pilot. Vulture’s wingsuit sounds more reasonable. Either way, it wasn’t the only thing I sketched out. Or wrote out. Materials, components, electronics. I was running out of paper. I started writing stuff on my project laptop. I had stripped that one of networking capability and kept a lot of other work stuff on external drives. quadruple backups and such. Some friends laughed about it but others responded with “fuck I should do that too” type of stuff.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Now that I was Tony Stark but Mouse girl, protecting stuff like that made even more sense. My twitter feed was a string of support, some people asking for details on the voice change choker. General transphobia and now calling me even more of a freak with the mouse features. The usual. And there was of course the news. The US declared a state of emergency and were cordoning people off. But, over here in Europe, there was a lot of talk, not much being actively done. Probably because several notable cities on the coast of the Mediterranean were hit pretty hard. Athens changed overnight, all the landmarks filled with books in unknown script. Sparta too, had been changed. Something like a barracks sprung up close to it, with a vault of what was presumed to be full of weapons. The Vatican lost all the gold it had in it's architecture, as it formed a strange statue in the center. All stuff that made me think Milo Thatch should show up with a book found in Iceland to be a linguist for an expedition to them.
And, well, one of them was a stone’s throw from my home. Relatively small compared to the others, about the size of a castle. In fact it did replace a castle on a hill. Pálava had gotten itself a new weird monument.
I hadn’t had the chance to go over there, heck I was worried cops were gonna take me away or something for loitering. It’s not like I had an ID on me I could use. Only option to do, we were told, was to show up with our IDs and fill out a questionnaire and just wait and see what happens. Probably the funniest part was hearing that someone had turned into a stone statue of Saint Wenceslaw and could make golems for an army. All the dude was missing was a horse to ride out on in our country’s’ hour of need.
It was two more days before I left the house to deal with government nonsense. Luckily there was still some family resemblance and considering I had to go to the neighboring town for family registry stuff, I wasn’t in too much trouble. Hell, probably the only emerged person my locale would have to deal with. But god was it annoying to prove I was who I was saying. Wanted me to have a full physical as well to confirm stuff. The GP joking whether he should call a veterinarian as well wasn’t very nice. But, well, I hit up the patent office on my way to hand in my designs. No way am I letting someone steal these.
My classic intro of a computer mouse transforming into my animated avatar and grabbing a soldering iron played. The major difference to my previous videos, however, was the fact I was standing in my workshop in person in front of the camera. “Hey Everyone, it’s your online more-than-just-computer mouse Bridget! What a week huh? I hope everyone is doing okay, especially folks finding themselves with extras like myself. You know for fun I ran a poll on twitter to see how many folks figured out they were trans thanks to the emergence. What an honestly overwhelming number of replies and responses. I’m surprised you all were as safe as me over here.”
“Anyways, onto today’s project. A lot of you asked about my voice change choker and honestly the old one was EXTREMELY bulky, but, weirdly enough? It seems the emergence made me a super techie or something. So a link to the PDF file with the plans for it and how to make version 2 yourself is in the description, patreon is gonna get a bonus video of me making it so stay tuned for that. What I’m making though is continuing our prosthetics project. I showed you the techniques to make a simple one to just wear, a more complex one that reacts to walking, and well today… Today we’re gonna be making straight up Automail. So strap yourself in because this noggin has figured out interfacing.”
Was it stupid for me to release this video? Probably. Was I expecting a knock on my door not even 2 hours later of some guys in suits? I should have. Five different company logos, they clogged up the street of my small village in front of my family home. “...You guys are late, I patented all my stuff yesterday. Including the arm. Tell you what, you lot have a deathmatch or something and the winner gets to kidnap me for their nefarious deeds. Sounds good? Because if you haven’t realised, you’re in the Czech Republic. We didn’t get a state of emergency, and I exist as a person. So please, send an email in with offers and I’ll consider it.”
I shut the door in their faces. Locking it. My paintball turret turned on. That one was an extremely fun project. And hey, I got to upgrade the targeting software by making it easier to discern me. One near every entrance. windows on the first floor sealed up. I had armored up my house as part of a project into home defense. I figured this probably wouldn’t cut it nowadays, but to hell with it, it works for now. Stairs replaced with an elevator on an internal generator on the upper floor, that one was for an accessibility video. Really, they’d need to chopper in from the second floor or something to get me.