Suddenly wide awake, I sat up quickly accompanied by a mixture of hisses, clanks, and that whirring noise from before. As the duvet fell away quickly became obvious things were… different even in this low light.
Last I checked I had skin inside my elbows, not a collection of exposed pistons and pivots.
The ‘skin’ that began on either side of the joint looked almost white and far more like plastic than skin, and that’s before there were a few too many exposed screw heads and metal seams to be normal. This continued down the rest of my arms as well, with my hands being a complex work of visible joints and actuators separating panels of skin approximating the form of the human hand ending in fingernails of brushed metal. I wasn’t sure without anything to reference against, but they seemed much smaller than I was used to as well, I’m sure I could hold my phone further away from my face normally. There were all the sounds as I moved my limbs too, hissing sounds that accompanied the movement of actuators and the clank of metal on metal as they reached the end of their ranges of motion. All multiplied a millionfold by how many of them there were.
Scrabbling out of the rest of my bedding and letting my phone tumble from my hand, I rushed to the mirror a previous tenant had attached to the back of the door. Not daring to look without good light, I reached up and flicked the light switch beside the door frame, it appeared so much higher then I was used to. After delaying a long moment staring at my hand on the switch, I braced myself and looked in the mirror
Facing me was some sort of… automaton. Instead of my usual five-foot-ten CS nerd frame, they appeared to be closer to four eight or four ten given there was a good chunk more space above their… my… head than before. My face appears to be structured more like my sister now, being narrower than what I was used to seeing reflected. Although the similarities were broken by my skin being alabaster-white plastic occasionally divided by thin gaps lined with shiny metal, and then my head is framed with metallic blue… no purple hair instead of the brown I would have expected on my sister. It was styled differently too, Kat liked to have hers in a ponytail or bun, but mine hung straight down without any curl and ended at about jaw level other than over my face where it had a simple curve cut to trace a line over my eyebrows exposing my forehead a bit.
My eyes still have white sclera, but perfectly white without a single blood vessel. Instead of my brown irises are leaves of dull grey metal like in a camera, and I could feel them move as I focused on different spots on my face. Continuing to look down revealed further changes I had started to guess from what I had already seen; my shirt did not hang like it did on a dude and the waistband of my pajamas seemed to be at its limit. Not actually past it, so my hips weren’t much wider than before nor was my shirt tenting to any extreme degree, but I now clearly had more traditionally feminine proportions.
The whirring noise, which I guess was coming from my head now that I think about it, was starting to accelerate.
Experimentally poking a boob with my right hand resulted in a clank without much give, which prompted me to press my fingers together in front of my eyes revealing that the ‘skin’ seemed to be an extremely thin layer over the metal but that I still seem to have a sense of touch and pressure sensitivity with it.
Huh.
Wait, shouldn’t I be freaking out by now? This is rather a lot to take in, but I didn’t feel the accelerated heartbeat or disrupted breathing I would have expected. For that matter I didn’t seem to have a breathing cycle to disrupt, I could feel the air entering my nose and… face but in a continuous flow.
I realized the whirring sound had been getting louder and faster and now was accompanied by clatters like many small gearboxes jumping in and out of gear. I think my… brain is starting to get outside of the normal RPM range, and the motions of my eyes and hand in front of me are getting jerky and disorganized looking.
Oh hey, I think there it is, I’m just freaking out differently. Even my vision is starting to vibrate with my brain.
Evidently, the noises I was making weren’t just loud to me, as suddenly my door started to be shoved open, seeing it and the mirror swinging towards my face was apparently more important than my rising freak out as I was able to back peddle quickly if jerkily.
“Come on Sam.” a bleary-eyed Mike was saying. “I was gonna sleep in until like… oh.”
I tried to say… something, but I didn’t seem to be able to form words at all. I could feel my mouth moving and the air rushing through my voice chamber, but it was just a vague sound, and I couldn’t seem to figure out what I was supposed to be saying.
“…Sam is that you?”
This seems to have been a tipping point as suddenly a piercing shriek of an overpressure valve went somewhere in my torso, and I started to collapse like a marionette with its strings cut. I could see the floor rushing towards me before my sight suddenly cut out before impact. I had a few frantic moments of feeling myself able to think without any outside inp-
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-puts, wait something is different. I could feel my brain slowly spinning, and I can think but I don’t feel the absence of senses anymore. Instead, there’s an expectation of them in some ambiguous later that for some reason means I’m not scared by the wait.
Fshh, click, click, fwoomp
Oh, I heard something. The… human part of my mind says I shouldn’t recognize that noise, but I know it’s burners in my firebox igniting. For an indeterminate time, all I can hear is the steady sound of the burners and the bubbling of water as it boils around the flues leaving my firebox.
Fweeeeeeee…
Eventually, the tiny turbine siphoning steam from my main lines is starting to get sufficient pressure to generate electricity, bringing my still sluggish brain off stored power.
Virrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
I can feel my brain bring itself up to nominal operating RPMs, along with a rush of sensations now that it has sufficient power to process inputs. I’m laying on something somewhat soft, a bed perhaps.
I open my eyes slowly, initially their focus is completely out and all I can see is a fuzzy blob of brown on white, then my eyes buzz into focus to reveal a dark-skinned, balding silver-haired man looking down on me with a plain white ceiling behind him.
“Oh good. I hope this means you are awake then.” He said. “Can you understand me?”
I blink a couple of times, trying to get air into my voice chamber and remember how to speak. Which muscle memory, for lack of a better description, seemed to be able to provide now that I wasn’t currently in the midst of a panic attack.
“…Yes?”
This prompted another second of confused blinking while I tried to align the voice as being mine, it didn’t quite sound, well human. While clearly understandable, it was a feminine voice that seemed like it was being assembled out of the collected sounds emitted by the reed section of an orchestra. It didn’t seem wrong to be coming out of my mouth, but not something I was used to.
He didn’t seem bothered by either the hesitation or that my voice was odd. “Is there anything I can get you right away?”
This elicited another pause from me as I tried to figure out if I did, I did feel like my water tank was getting low. It wasn’t like I was thirsty as I remembered it really, my mouth still felt damp from condensation the air of my voice left but I could feel like there just wasn’t as much as I would prefer present.
“Some water please?” I hesitantly asked.
“Is tap water fine?” He inquired while standing up.
“…yes?” I answered not certain, but not feeling like it was wrong either
“Give me a moment then.” He said while leaving my field of view.
While he was gone, I gingerly sat up on the bed and tried to figure out where I was exactly, the man’s white coat made me think hospital. Looking around brought more circumstantial evidence, I seemed to have been laying in a hospital bed that had a small chest of drawers next to it in a room that otherwise only had a lonely chair in its center, a sink, and a few cabinets beside the door.
The noises I made while moving didn’t seem quite as deafening as when I last woke up, but I still wasn’t used to all the small hisses and metal-on-metal noises though. I also realized that I seemed to be in a hospital smock, as the cheap fabric moved on me and caught in my joints uncomfortably. When I looked down and tugged on it a little, I realized it had only been laid atop me and wasn’t tied in the back.
“My apologies about your state of dress.” The man started as he walked back from the sink. “The EMTs had difficulty extracting you from the position you were in when you collapsed, it resulted in some tearing to your clothes.”
While he spoke, I reached back and tied the smock closed. I was sure the motion should be difficult with my completely different proportions, but I guess whatever let me speak accounted for that too.
“I made the decision that you would hopefully prefer something intact, although I was reluctant to move you any more than they already had to prevent causing damage.” He finished while offering a paper cup of water as he sat down on the chair.
“Thank you,” I said accepting it with both hands, and not sure how I was supposed to respond to his explanation. “Uh, for both.”
When I brought it to my lips it prompted an audible clack somewhere at the back of my throat as the gate there switched to feeding my water tank. As I drank It felt a bit odd that not only did it seem to be going down a different tube than my voice had come out of, but that it was also small enough that I had to sip slowly. When I finished, he took the cup and placed it on top of the chest of drawers, where it joined a tablet and some papers.
“My name is Dr. Martin Summers, but I prefer just Summers.” The man said while offering his hand before continuing as I hesitantly took it.
“Sam” I responded awkwardly, before thinking about it again. “…uh Samuel Woodward.”
Is saying Samuel weird? I didn’t seem to be a guy anymore.
“It is nice to meet you, Sam,” He said smiling. “I am going to be helping you with adapting to the changes you are currently experiencing. Before getting into that do you feel hungry or have an immediate need for anything else?”
I paused to consider his question. This time I had a bit more of an audible whirr as I considered my current state, my lubrication oil felt fresh, my coolant water was topped up and didn’t have any contaminants, and I wasn’t lacking in spare materials, but my fuel bunkers were a little low.
“I could use something to eat at some point… although I guess burn is more accurate?” I said feeling a little odd that I was even aware of these things.
“What would be suitable for you?” He saw me start to think again and interrupted with a raised hand. “Don’t think about it too much, for most of my patents it’s better to start with whatever comes to mind immediately.”
“Anything that burns really, preferably with a good calorific density. I dunno, oil or coal or something?” I spoke uncertainly, not sure where the answer came from.
“I will ask someone to fetch something, let me tell your family you are awake now as well.” He said as he stood up again.
Now that concept caused my burners to flutter, which I guess is how I feel dread now. Either he could hear this or my face betrayed my uncertainty because he paused.
“Don’t worry, your family will just be happy you are safe. I have already been talking to them, they seem like good people, and I will give them all the help they need to support you.” He said while standing up again. “I won’t be long.”
They must have been nearby because he had only been gone for a minute or two before I could hear voices and footsteps returning. I found myself looking anywhere but the door and settled staring at my hands sitting on my lap.
I didn’t want to see whatever their reactions were going to be, I wasn’t even a human anymore.
I could hear them enter and there was a long moment of what would have been silence previously but was broken by the whir of my brain and the sounds of steam generation in my torso. I was so distracted by my thoughts that I was surprised by a hand on my shoulder, and then mom was gently lifting my head and turning it towards her so that she could meet my eyes while tears formed in hers.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“No matter what changed you’re still our Sam.” She said unsteadily and then pulled me into a hug. I could just about see dad and Kat over her shoulder, but my vision was obscured by tears.
Seems like I can still cry.
After an indeterminate time of us collectively bawling our eyes out, followed by the quiet assurances that everything will be ok one gets from family in a hospital. Dr. Summers stepped in again apparently adept at knowing when would be appropriate, he had a pile of booklets and papers in one hand and a clinking plastic tote bag in his other. When dad started to get up from the chair, Summers waved him off while placing the bag on the edge of the sink. As he approached, he pulled off a trio of identical booklets from the top of his pile and began handing them out to my family. Kat started glancing through hers immediately from her spot on my right, while mom preferred to focus on Summers and leave an arm wrapped around me.
“Those are a bunch of resources for you folks, a mixture of general info and where to find guides on helping accept changes in loved ones, something I don’t think you have to be too worried about.” He said with a smile, then gesturing to the remaining stack of papers. “As for you Sam, this is going to be a bit more involved as we need to establish some basic info so I can ensure we get any resources you need.”
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The next few hours were a mixture of informative and extremely awkward, it started with Summers bringing us into a nearby room with more assorted equipment so we could get some basic physical measurements. Kat made a half-hearted joke about me being a short ass when we determined I was about 147cm tall, but she seemed too concerned for it to have any bite. We also decided I must be made of less metal than initially guessed or have some physics warping going on since I was ‘only’ 115kg despite appearing to be densely constructed. We found that I seemed to have a surface temperature roughly in the normal human range if a bit on the high side, presumably from all the steam lines running through my body.
We ended up possibly having the most embarrassing and confusing conversation with my family in my life when it came to the point of discussing what my body looked like under the gown. To which they practically had to drag out of me that I hadn’t seen anything before I had gotten knocked out by the overpressure valve opening. Dad had to make it worse by pointing out I clearly didn’t have any ‘dangly bits’ as the hospital gown wasn’t leaving too much to the imagination when walking to this room, the sound of mom’s elbow digging into his belly was audible.
Summers had implied that he already knew but that he felt it appropriate I learn for myself rather than have a clinical description. I relented to letting Kat accompany me to the oversized washroom that was associated with this room so that I could check for myself, I couldn’t convince them to allow me to be alone and it felt less awkward than mom checking for some reason.
It ended up being anti-climatic, both my breasts and groin were pretty much featureless with just a slight hump in the crotch as an implication of the vulva, although inexplicably I have a belly button for whatever reason. The revelation of not really having anything left me empty and confused, and I just sort of stood there naked in front of the mirror not sure what I should be feeling. Kat stepped over to give me a one-armed hug from beside me, practically towering over me now.
“Do you know how you want us to refer to you?” She asked quietly after a bit.
“What as in pronouns or my name or something.” I responded flatly, just staring at my face reflected back at me.
“Any of it.”
“I don’t know Kat; I really don’t know.” I admitted quietly before looking down at the featureless piece of plastic skin that covered my groin.
“Are you OK with Sam and they while you figure it out?”
“Sure…” I answered uncertainly before bending to pick the gown up again, deciding I preferred to be covered and then consider whatever my naked body implied.
Once we left the bathroom Kat guided me to a nearby chair, before walking over to have a heated but whispered conversation with mom and dad. Meanwhile, Summers came over and softly explained that I didn’t need to decide anything yet and with such dramatic changes I would need time to figure myself out and that any confusion I had was nothing to be ashamed of. Eventually, the argument wound down and Summers moved us to the next topic of investigation, food and what that means for me.
Summer’s bag from earlier was fetched from the other room, as he emptied it onto a table It ended up containing an assortment of containers of fuels like oil, gasoline, coal, and even wood chips. Thinking back, he was able to turn up with it awfully quickly, so I guess they assumed it would be relevant for my… unique constitution while I was still unconscious. Unfortunately, this is also where we hit the first snag. As it turns out, I am the first human to non-biological change that’s recorded so far, which means we had no idea how to figure out what I can eat. The usual battery of tests was just irrelevant to my body and there wasn’t any sort of fallback for a… robot or whatever I was.
My fuel bunkers were getting uncomfortably low though, and while it didn’t feel like a life-or-death thing, I also had no desire to learn what happens when I run out of fuel, so we went straight to a basic sniff and taste test. Discovering the way my sense of smell works was a little odd, my nose still seemed to host olfactory senses, but the continuous flow of air meant I just kinda put my nose near something to smell it. I could still do something that felt like a sniff, but it just involved pulling air in through my entire face rather than just my nose, making it irrelevant to my senses. Taste only seemed to be present on a few distinct panels where whatever is capturing taste was present as little visible divots spread on the surface of my dark grey segmented tongue. The inside of my mouth otherwise made an attempt to appear human, I had white teeth, and it was sort of pink-colored but it appeared to be painted or enameled like that instead of having fake skin.
How my senses interpreted the fuels was interesting, they were all distinct with unique characteristics that didn’t match up to my memories of them at all. The fuel oil smelled like the kitchen when one of those over-the-top holiday meals is cooking - a rich combination of smells without necessarily placeable parts, whereas wood is more like rice cooking mixed with fresh vegetables - simple but pleasant. I was not expecting gasoline to taste like a dozen deserts blended together, or to be able to just take a bite into a chunk of coal and have it remind me of a granola bar in texture and flavor. I think the coal got the most reaction from the others, even Summers flinched at the sound, whereas the other fuels were mostly just stuff I drank.
My dad had run off to get food from the hospital Tims for everyone else at some point, so I got to find out what normal food smelled and tasted like too. It was disappointing honestly; the bites of bagel were basically tasteless, odorless, and textureless nor did it really feel like I ate anything. Summers said this probably meant my body wasn’t intended to consume those things, but that they probably weren’t actively harmful.
I mostly filled up oil and coal once Summers decided there probably wasn’t any point in holding off, as they seemed the most appealing at the moment. I seemed to have a limited capacity given that after about 250ml of oil and a handful of pieces of coal I just entirely lost the desire to eat more, it doesn’t appear I have any degree of flexibility to that capacity either as I literally couldn’t force myself to eat.
After lunch Summers asked me if I had a driver’s license, and when I sheepishly said no, he waved off my concern. Turns out it just meant we didn’t need to do any physical ability tests today, otherwise he would have done some visual and reaction tests to see if it was safe for me to drive. He then pointed out that any physical tests can be unreliable for weeks since it can take a while for the mind to adapt to moving in its new form.
We had also apparently run out of most of the normal tests they would do since most of them ended up being impractical or irrelevant without biology to test. He did have some impromptu tests stuff like using safety gear for measuring carbon monoxide or CO2 concentrations to see if I had emissions that might threaten those around me. It seemed like I was emitting much more CO2 than a human but probably not enough to be an issue in a reasonably ventilated environment. We did have a partial answer as to what happened to the combustion by-products when I realized I felt the urge to go to the washroom, it appears the ash and smoke are captured by some system inside my torso and then I can… dispose of it.
After that round of embarrassment, Summers then said he needed to run some paperwork and set up some appointments for me and that we had a bit of time before he would be back to answer any questions I had. Since the room we were in had other purposes too, he suggested we move to a nearby lobby to wait for him.
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Dang, these aren’t that much more comfortable than the gown. Mom had grabbed some stuff that roughly fit from the little store these hospitals seem to have, it was just an oversize sweatshirt, some pajamas, and slippers. At least I didn’t feel almost naked when the people occasionally passing through the lobby couldn’t resist glancing or outright staring at me as they went by.
I will say I hate the feeling of the cloth getting pulled into my joints as I move, even just fidgeting on this bench results in a million small rubbing feelings.
“Ah right, I have your phone with me!” Kat suddenly exclaimed while I was pulling the pajamas out of my knee, again. Then she went digging into her backpack and seeing the laptop and papers in it suddenly reminded me of the date today.
“Wait Kat, didn’t you have something for your dissertation today?” I asked worriedly.
She waved me off with a chuckle.
“You are far more important than that, favorite sibling of mine. Besides they said they will delay it to accommodate any help I need to offer you.” She responded while still looking through the bag.
“Last I checked I was your only sibling.” I said with a snort of steam from my torso, fuck it’s weird having sounds like that not come from my mouth anymore. I’d noticed that when speaking I didn’t really use my mouth as much for my voice either, my tongue couldn’t flex as much so it just didn’t seem to get involved in the same way.
“Doesn’t make it any less true!” She said before triumphantly pulling my phone from her backpack and offering it to me.
“Thank you, I should probably let my roommates know I am… fine.” Mom hugged me a bit closer on the couch at the uncertainty in my voice.
I wasn’t entirely sure I would be able to use my phone’s touchscreen, but fortunately, it seemed to respond about as normal. I couldn’t use the fingerprint scanner with the featureless surface of my skin, but the pattern worked fine for unlocking it.
Opening our discord server revealed that I had missed a flurry of messages since the morning, skimming over them it seemed to be a mix of worrying about me with the odd interlude about normal class stuff.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Hey
It looks like they had been watching for any messages from me since responses arrived before I could think of what to say next.
supJim (Mike): your alive!
TheOneMoose (Jake): Sam!
BellingMouse (River): You O.K?
IndustrialCat (Sam): Maybe, not sure
IndustrialCat (Sam): Too much
TheOneMoose (Jake): Is there anything you need from us?
IndustrialCat (Sam): Not sure
supJim (Mike): you hanging in there man?
supJim (Mike): uh
BellingMouse (River): MIKE
supJim (Mike): oops
IndustrialCat (Sam): ?
IndustrialCat (Sam): Oh
IndustrialCat (Sam): It’s ok
BellingMouse (River): Probably not but we can talk about that when you are feeling better
BellingMouse (River): Do you think you will be back here today
BellingMouse (River): Or will you be going back to your parents place?
IndustrialCat (Sam): I think we might pick up my laptop at least
IndustrialCat (Sam): Oh right
IndustrialCat (Sam): Any food of mine is up for grabs
supJim (Mike): dibs on the ice cream
TheOneMoose (Jake): I am pretty sure that’s our collective ice cream, I bought it on the last grocery run
supJim (Mike): dibs anyway
IndustrialCat (Sam): I more meant the snacks in my room
TheOneMoose (Jake): Oh, can you not eat food anymore?
IndustrialCat (Sam): It’s bland and not filling now
supJim (Mike): lame
BellingMouse (River): Don’t make Sam feel bad!
Mom tapped my shoulder and I turned to see Summers coming down a hall.
IndustrialCat (Sam): Doctors back, later
TheOneMoose (Jake): TTYS
supJim (Mike): k
BellingMouse (River): Let us know if we can do anything!
Summers had with him a folder of papers and a few booklets that he handed off to me upon arriving. He talked us through the contents of the folder, most of it was stuff like copies of his notes from today, a series of appointments for further tests, more booklets on adapting to changes, etc.
“When you are leaving give this sheet to someone at the front desk.” He said while setting one aside. “I had someone collect some more fuel so you would have enough for the next few days at least, it should be on a cart there already.”
“Ah, this one I would say is the most important option for you to consider in the near term.” He said while pulling the last sheet in the folder out. “It’s a bi-weekly meeting of those with more extreme changes hosted in the downtown rec center, the next one is Tuesday night.”
“It’s a good bunch of folks that know how confusing this can be, but I won’t force you to go as I know it might be an ordinal just to get there for a bit.” He said smiling and patting me on the arm, which resulted in a slightly disconcerting clong noise with each impact. “Now did you have any questions before you go and get some rest?”
“Is there anyone else who changed… like I did?” I asked a bit hesitantly, he sighed a bit and shrugged.
“We won’t know for certain for days or weeks, I did briefly check in with some of my colleagues to see if they heard anything but in the initial reports I have the closest is someone had their prosthetic arm replaced with something of similar tech down in Texas.” Pausing for a moment, he then continued. “I don’t know how much people are aware of it, but the percentage of people affected by any particular clash is decreasing similarly to the number of clashes.”
“We might yet hear something out of the rest of the world though, usually it takes time to propagate through the systems.” He continued while looking to be in thought. “Unfortunately, as far as I am aware you are the only synthetic or inorganic changee right now.”
“It looks like this was probably a world not dissimilar to our own, beyond technologically, as the other known changees just got standard lower differentiation ones.” He shrugged again. “I would guess synthetic life just didn’t make up enough of the population for there to be many opportunities for an overlap.”
“Oh…” I said looking down at my hands and considering what he had said. “Am I alive?”
“I am sorry?” He sounded a bit aghast, and I could feel mom trying to pull me closer into a hug.
“You said ‘synthetic life’ but aren’t I like an automaton or a robot now?” I asked a bit unsteadily and my eyes were starting to water up again. “I can hear myself think and living things don’t run off burning fossil fuels, that’s like the thing that’s killing off life on earth.”
“It’s not even like I have the bits for life as a self-perpetuating thing…” I mumbled off into relative silence as I can hear my tears plinking as they fell against my hands and the omnipresent mechanical noises from within me.
“Listen to me, Sam.” He gently said while crouching down in front of me to look me in the eyes. “None of that matters really, you are still a person who feels emotions and is racked by confusion at what they are experiencing.”
“Even if you ran on a barrel of oil a day and were just throwing raw exhaust to the heavens, that would be my responsibility to figure out.” He continued. “Offsetting your needs is something society should be able to handle, same as how we should be able to resolve the climate crisis even if we aren’t.”
“I might not be able to fix the world’s climate problems, but I will plant the trees needed to offset you myself if that will make you feel better.” He then got a mischievous grin. “I have an unlimited budget for a reason you know!”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and I assumed the budget thing was a joke, so I just nodded shakily a few times.
“You’ve had a long day, it’s probably best to get yourself on the way home.” He said while standing up. “Don’t worry about the university, I will be in contact with them.”