“Are you sure you want to go?” Mike was asking as I was finishing up tying my laces.

“Well, I think I would hate the suspense of waiting a couple of weeks more than going.” I said while fiddling with the unfamiliar handbag, still not quite comfortable with having both my phone and wallet in something that felt easily forgotten.

“Even after… earlier?” Asked River.

“Yep, I am not exactly feeling great, but I think I would like to know what other people’s experience of any of this was. I still haven’t met another changee I recognized as such since the clash, you know?”

“Do you know how many people will be there?” Mike asked.

“Well, if you round our city to being four hundred and fifty thousand people, against approximately one million people total who have significant changes, assuming eight billion people worldwide…” I started, then waited for the answer to process.

Ding.

“We probably only have like fifty-six people with significant changes locally, of which probably only a minority will come.”

I pulled the pamphlet for it out of my handbag

“Looks like it’s pretty open about bringing other people plus they invite those changees with more minor differences, so who knows how many people will be there.” I said shrugging.

“Would you like us to come?” Mike asked.

I hadn’t even thought of it honestly.

“I dunno, don’t you both have a lot to do already?” I asked uncertainly.

“Not anymore.” Mike grunted out, immediately shoving his shoes on.

“Some things are more important than school Sam, just let me just get my wallet and keys.” River added before rushing upstairs.

As we wandered off towards the other bus stop, I wondered how ridiculous it must look to have those two bundled to the nines and still shivering when I am just fine with nothing more than a purple skirt and a white sleeveless button-up shirt.

“I really am not sure how well I am gonna do once it gets hot, given how comfortable I am with this temperature.” I wondered aloud while we waited for the bus.

“How is it in the lecture halls? Some of those get pretty toasty.” Mike asked.

“Fine I guess, I haven’t really tried doing anything but walking or sitting though, so I dunno about physical activity.” I said with a shrug.

“I am sure it will be fine.” River said, then paused and looked at me sheepishly. “Actually, would you be ok if I touched your arm?”

“Of course it is, why?”

“Because I don’t have gloves and my hands are cold.” They answered with a guilty smile.

I laughed and offered my arm.

“Oh, you’re warm.” They said gratefully.

“Well, given I am burning stuff for energy and have steam lines all over, so I probably have a bunch of extra heat.” I said with a smile.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, the bus trundled up to us. The lady driving didn’t even bat an eye at me as I tapped my pass, and we piled up on one of the wall benches for the ride to the rec center. An amalgamation of architecture from a couple of expansions over the years, the confusingly mismatched building stood before us with a mostly empty parking lot. This was the small one in the city so I guess it’s not surprising there’s very little going on, I think a lot of groups moved after it was threatened with closure a couple of years ago.

“I guess it’s a fairly quiet meet.” I said not sure if I was disappointed or glad.

“Something like that, come on it’s past eight already.” Mike said while nudging me along.

When we entered the brightly lit lobby was deserted other than a grey-haired woman at a desk near one wall.

“Hello dears, I think you want the doors to your right just past the drinking fountain.” She said unprompted pointing down the main hall of the building.

“Thank you.” I said a little startled.

“You’re welcome. You have a lovely voice, dear.” She said with a smile before returning to looking at her computer.

“Oh, uh, thanks.” I said steaming up a bit.

Arriving at the double-wide doors, I hesitated, feeling a bit nervous to go through before River gently put their hand on my back and walked towards it. Pulling the door open let a steady hum of cheerful conversation emerge from within, and while blinking a bit at the contrast with the otherwise silent hall I walked in uncertainty.

There seemed to be quite a variety of people sitting on folding chairs in a vague circle near the center of the room, right in front of me that person seems to be a octo-

“Don’t try to take us all in at once! You’ll pull something!” Boomed a masculine voice to my left, and I found myself quickly turning to face them.

They turned out to look like anyone you might see on the street, with a cheerful face, dark skin, and middle eastern features but with pointy ears.

He was also like two-thirds my height.

Evidently, he had been going to a row of coffee containers and donuts sitting on a table just to the left of the door judging by the Tims cup in his hand.

He offered a hand and a grin, which I took carefully. “Sabri, don’t worry I’m not that delicate!”

“Sam.” I said uncertainly.

“Pull up a chair with your friends and I will introduce you!” He said while gesturing with the cup in his other hand at a stack of folding chairs beside the refreshment table.

Once we found ourselves seated with the group, Sabri piped up again. “Usually what we do with new people is just go in a circle saying who we are and any sort of introduction one might feel comfortable with.”

“You’ve already met me, Sabri, but my intro is that I am basically just small and that’s all!” He said with a chuckle before continuing cheerfully. “I won’t force you to do the whole thing, but it would be great for everyone to know your name at least.” H

“Uh, hi. I’m Sam. I guess I’m a…” I hesitated while trying to decide what to say. “Automaton? Um, these are two of my roommates, River and Mike.”

“Hi.” Said River quietly, they seemed not to like my self-description but didn’t voice it.

“Hello!” Mike said cheerfully.

“Nice to meet you all! Now I will pass it to my friend on your left.” Sabri said while gesturing to a young man with what appeared to be five hog-nosed snakes for hair.

“Hi there, I’m Leo. I’ve been saying I’m a Medusa from the neck up.” He said with a small wave.

“Hi Sam, I have Gravity powers and I’m called Molly! I am in your complex variables class!” I took a double-take at the blue-eyed girl with a hint of blonde hair sticking out under her beanie and tried to remember if I had seen her before, maybe?

“Ha. Don’t worry about it, there are a lot of people in the class, and I try not to stick out!” She said at my visible confusion.

“Hello!” Warbled a rubbery-skinned Octopus-headed person with a handful of tentacles emerging from each sleeve of their shirt, and as he spoke, he changed color from a red-brown to yellow. “I’m Roger, and I’m Octo-Dad!”

“Do you always have to do that intro?” Asked a middle-aged dark-skinned man beside him who was wearing a yellow jumpsuit. “It makes no sense for anyone who hasn’t played those games.”

He sighed, then turned to face me.

“I’m Steve. Don’t worry about what I look like, this is just a temporary body. You’ll see a new one in like twenty minutes, so look for the jumpsuit.”

I stared at him for a second, but the next person piped up before I could get too confused.

“Hi. I am Luke. I am a teleporting bug.” He said while appearing to be the replication of a human but insectile. Hard green-brown carapace with patterns that reminded me of a grasshopper, roughly human mouth besides dividing either side of his lips. He had no nose but remarkably human eyes, and his head was topped with a fan of black.

I smiled and nodded at him.

There seemed to be a long silence and I looked at the second last person wondering what I was missing. They looked like a grey beach ball honestly. I couldn’t differentiate any features besides a ring of small black dots around a circular open ‘mouth’ filled with tiny tentacles. They were looking at me I was assuming since the ring of what I guessed were eyes were pointing at me.

“That’s so cool!” River said beside me. “So, it works regardless of their native language?”

Huh?

“I’m sorry, I think I might be missing something?” I asked embarrassed with a raised hand.

“Wait can you not hear her Sam?” Asked Molly.

“Um, no?” I asked confused.

“Oh no.” Said River quietly looking at the beach ball as they put it together. “Its telepathy, but you’re activating the person’s speech center neurons, Sam’s brain is mechanical.”

Oh. Shit.

“Sorry…” I mumbled while looking down.

“Not your fault.” Said Luke quickly. “I can speak for her.”

He cleared his throat.

“Hello Sam, I’m Ivy. Sorry about that, as you know now, I am a telepath. I also have something like telekinesis so I can interact with the world and move. I’m in bio at Turner.” Luke relayed in a completely different voice and tone; a gentile feminine one instead of his previous clipped one.

I guess the surprise showed on my face because he grinned.

“Like a parrot!” He said.

Then a timbit floated by while it flew to Ivy’s mouth, where the little tentacles started pulling bits off.

Well, there’s the telekinesis, I guess.

“That just leaves me then.” Started a pale brown-haired guy with a lab coat of all things over a t-shirt and jeans. “I’m Peter. I am in chem at Turner, and I can pull gadgets out of lab coat pockets. “

His hand emerged from a pocket with what appeared to be a grapple hook gun, there’s no way that could possibly fit in the pocket.

“They only hang around for like five minutes and I only have loose control of what appears. And no, I don’t know where they come from.”

“Well, with that out of the way.” Sabri started cheerfully. “We don’t usually have a schedule or specific talking point unless someone wants one, we had been on the topic of recent meals, but I won’t force it back there.”

“Did you have anything, in particular, you wanted to start with?”

Fuck. Uh. Shit.

“I uh don’t, um maybe how it went after. You know, the clash, in your experiences.” I mumbled. “It’s been confusing…”

River wrapped an arm around me.

“Ha, I imagine so!” Said Leo with a grin. ”All that was new for me was these guys, and I spent the first week at my parents while they argued with each other. Turns out they had no memories at all, so while I’m there wondering what the fuck is going on they are coming to terms with even existing.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Are they independent minds?” I asked my curiosity overcoming my uncertainty.

“Yep! They are each like, parrot smart. I do have a pretty good idea how they are feeling, and I understand their hissing little chatter.”

One of them turned from looking at me to hiss at him… reproachfully?

“Alright, Alright, you’re smarter than some bird!” he said with a chuckle and reached up to stroke them under the chin. “Luckily the initial support laws were in place, so I didn’t even need to take vacation time.”

“I had it really easy, I only discovered I was a changee in a slightly awkward lab last year,” Peter said with a lopsided grin and a raised hand. “I put a pencil in my pocket and then kept on pulling out random crap instead.”

“It’s a bit of a long story for me.” Luke piped up after Peter. “Quick version. I spent a month screaming in my cabin. Molly said you were in class already?”

I nodded a bit uncomfortable.

“I am impressed.”

“I’ve had a few people say something like that,” I admitted shuffling in my seat. “I just sorta thought I could, and what else was I going to do? Here is where my friends are, and I was going to have to go at some point if I wanted to finish school, so I just got on.”

“River keeps asking if I am forcing myself, but it doesn’t feel like it…“ I trailed off with an awkward shrug.

“I took a semester off actually,” Ivy said through Luke. “It took weeks to get used to just moving around and stuff, plus as much as I want to finish my degree, we have time.”

“Ah...” I said considering my acute lack of spare parts.

“Sam might not have that luxury,” Mike spoke up, Ivy turned rapidly on the spot to face him presumably in surprise but he was looking at me expectantly.

“I don’t know how long it is till I uh, wear out,” I admitted. “I don’t have any spare parts nor is there any of my documentation, so…”

Ivy’s tentacles started waving widely and the timbit went flying somewhere.

“I’m so sorry!” Luke relayed, looking a bit distressed himself.

“It’s not something people would need to think of normally, so don’t worry,” I said waving it off while ducking my head a little. “I was going to talk to Dr. Summers on Thursday about it, it’s probably possible to image stuff as I am now and use that to replicate new ones.”

“I do have some degree of self-repair too.” I finished trying to give her a smile, but she didn’t respond in guilt I was guessing.

“Summers can probably figure something out,” Roger interjected into the pause. “He got what’s basically a seawater aquarium built onto my house in a week. I’m sure he's already got someone looking into it. As for adapting, most changees will have something along the lines of hiding away, being unaware, or embracing it. I don’t think there’s a right experience or something like that, so I hope you won’t judge yourself regardless of how your actions differ.”

There was a general murmur of agreement from the others.

“It’s a tricky situation that can be unique. I know of others like myself and have even met a few, but we all had wildly divergent experiences. Hell, I had a three-week-old kid and my wife went through hell getting used to me and the baby at the same time. “

After the barest minimum pause, roger continued. “Now this is the point where I don’t even pretend to do a proper segue to give you a break from heavy topics for a minute. Steve, I know you’ve been painting, care to share your progress again?”

“Sure thing, let me just turn on the projector…”

Turns out Steve does nice landscapes in oils as a hobby, he invited us to visit to see them in person at some point. The rest of the meeting ended up being similarly frivolous but pleasant conversations on hobbies or stuff they had done, just interspersed with shared experiences as changees.

It had been a bit alarming when Steve suddenly stood up and declared he was gonna be dead for a bit and with no one so much as batting an eye when he just straight-up melted into iridescent goop that just faded out of existence over a minute. The others assured us this was normal, and then a few minutes later a young woman with Japanese features walked in through the door wearing a yellow jumpsuit and just rejoined the conversation.

Steve said not to worry about it, and that he still preferred masculine pronouns regardless of the body he was in at the time.

Neat.

Molly told us that she mostly didn’t let people know about her Gravity stuff because people automatically assume that means you are gonna want to be or are a superhero. Turns out that for the majority of ‘supers’ like her the powers aren’t consistent in strength or availability. So, some days she might be able to make a locomotive weigh nothing and the next wouldn’t be able to affect a dried leaf.

Apparently, sometimes it would also just randomly apply to her hair hence why she kept it short and under a beanie, thinking back I think I have seen the beanie in front of me in class a few times

At one point River asked if it had been fine that Mike and they had tagged along, but there was general dismissal of their concerns. Apparently, it was not irregular for people’s friends and relatives to come by for irregular events they would have every few months, and my roommates were always welcome to tag along regardless. Ivy was glad that mine were so supportive, as her roommate at the time of her change had basically refused to do anything with her anymore.

It seemed like I had been high strung for going to the meet because as I relaxed a bit, I started to feel tired, which wasn’t something I was used to feeling post-change. Up to this point, I had just kinda gone to bed off the clock. For some reason, I also waited until my brain was barely functional to talk about having been a dude before. Somehow this managed to get into a debate as to what I would look good in between Molly and Ivy, while I was sitting there basically falling asleep. I don’t really remember the conclusion to the debate other than it is involving me agreeing to do… something with them involving clothes in the next week or two.

Roger ended up giving us a ride back as the group was worried that if I fell fully asleep on the bus my two roommates wouldn’t be enough to haul me back to the house from the bus stop.

----------------------------------------

The next morning as our little group walked toward the Brick heading for our Wednesday soft eng lecture we took the opportunity to bring Jake up to date about the previous night’s meeting. I was in the middle of relaying a story Roger had told us about amusing his kid with texture and color changes when I was surprised by a greeting from behind me.

“Sam!”

Turning revealed a beaming Anna rushing to catch up.

Huh, she’s significantly taller than me too.

“Good morning! Mind if I join you?” She asked excitedly.

Dang, she’s cute.

“Feel free.” I said trying to keep my brain in gear.

“Hello, I’m Anna! I haven’t introduced myself before!” She said cheerfully to my companions, between which there was a round of greetings and introductions.

“How were your other classes so far, since you know…” She asked as we continued walking to the lecture hall.

“Eh, fine. Some awkward moments like when I learned my brain is loud when working on math.” I answered.

“That sucks, was there any backlash over it?”

“Thankfully not. It’s sort of neat being able to work with ridiculous numbers in my head though.”

“Wait do you have like a built-in calculator or something? That’s rad!”

“Yep, it’s pretty slow so it’s not really an advantage over just using my phone or something except in laziness.” I admitted with a shrug.

“That’s still cool though! Oh wait I have been asking you a ton of stuff, but I never asked if you were fine with it. Sorry!” She said while holding up a hand side on relative to her face.

I am like ninety percent sure that’s from an anime.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it!” I said my amusement at the gesture slipping through

“I will still make it up for you still! Do you have any questions for Lil ole me?” She asked with a wide grin leaning towards me, the fact she was still taller than me did not seem lost on her.

“Well, you’ve heard my week so far, how about you, how’s it been?” I asked.

“Booooring. Nah, it’s been fine.” She hesitated a bit. “Been busy prepping.”

“Oh? Prepping for what?”

She looked uncomfortable.

“…a con.“ She inaudibly whispered.

“Sorry?”

“A con.” She said a bit red.

“Oh, like a convention?” I asked.

“Yeah. I uh…” She paused. “Cosplay at them.”

“Oh, that’s rad, is it a lot of work?” She relaxed a bit at my response, I guess she had been expecting a negative reaction.

I noticed then that the others had drawn suspiciously far ahead, clearly intending to leave us space for a conversation.

Sneaky, sneaky.

“Yeah, I uh do a variety of… specific types of characters and some original stuff, and it’s almost all from scratch.” She said a bit evasively, then with a hint of hope in her voice. “How about you, have you ever been to a con?”

“I can’t say I have.” Her face fell a bit. “But one of my sister’s friends was talking about getting me to go to one.”

“Oh, oh, would you want to try cosplaying oh you could be incredible.” The words spilled out of her, before clapping a hand on her mouth.

“Sure, why not, I already would be dramatic anyway.” I said with a gesture to myself.

Ok, if I will be honest this might be hamming it up a bit, but she’s so cute, I can’t say no!

“HELL YEAH!” She shouted out and grabbed me in a hug.

Rad.

“Oh sorry!” She said releasing me and cleared her throat. “I would have to plan something out and make it, so it won’t be this weekend’s but there’s one in Toronto at the end of next month that might work!”

“Sounds good.” I said with a smile. “I am happy to help if I can.”

“Let me get this one out of the way then I am gonna kidnap you to help!” She was practically bouncing with excitement, correction she was bouncing.

“Come on you two!” Mike shouted at us.

Classes that day were… mundane.

I was a little leary of the proofs course, as I was unsure if that would set my math unit off, but it seemed to be out of its jurisdiction for the bit we were on at least. Phew.

I didn’t seem to have any life-altering moments of self-discovery in class or on the bus so that’s… something.

Mike and I tried a few things with my food, testing combinations of flavors and seeing how stuff mixed. It was disappointing honestly, most of the fuels had such distinct flavors that they were a bit gross together. A bag of sawdust on the pallet was neutral enough that adding it to oil as a thickener for like a dip was decent, not amazing but fine.

We played more fighting games after dinner, I haven’t really been playing any other games lately. The weapons tracking thing was extremely distracting in shooters which is mostly what I normally played, I had kind of bounced off the other stuff I could play. Plus, my roommates were going to be playing anyway so socializing for the win.

I am also slightly less crap at them now!

Go me.

I went to work on assignments for a bit and discovered my brain doing math could sometimes be heard through the walls to my chagrin. River didn’t mind but I guess it means no late-night math for me, not gonna fight that fight, to be honest. After making enough progress on the math, I fired off a message to ask if Kat was down for a run after I met Summers tomorrow.

Now what.

Uh.

I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror today, any revelations there?

Nope, it’s a me, Sam.

Weird how used to having this appearance I am now, it’s not even a full week yet but the person in the mirror is definitely me.

Looking like anything else would be weird.

The mind is a hell of an adaptable thing, or at least mine is.

Ah dang, my hair is all messed up I need to get in the habit of checking on that. I was in the middle of combing the back when I kept on feeling the tines catch and flick on something in an annoying sound and feel. I only had the one mirror so I wouldn’t be able to check what it is myself.

“Hey River, you free for a moment?” I asked while leaning my head out of my room.

“Yeah?”

“I think there might be something on the back of my head, but I can’t see back there.”

“Ok, one moment.”

A few minutes later and they were pushing aside the hair at the back of my head to try and find what I was feeling.

“Your hair feels neat, it’s not really like human hair but it’s surprisingly soft.” They commented.

“Thanks,” I said a bit embarrassed. “I am surprisingly fond of it already, even the style feels normal now.”

“Hold that thought, I think I found it.” River said, then hesitated for a moment. “Oh. Not sure you’ll like this, but there are questions we might have answers to now.”

Uh oh.

“What is it?” I asked suddenly worried.

“A manufacturer’s plate. Let me read it out.” They said before clearing their throat.

“Battle-Maid Systems, ‘The peak of domestic and combat synthetics since 1997’, Model Number: Mark Seven Prototype.”

“I’m a fucking maid?!”

“Apparently a battle one, whatever that means.”

“Something wrong?” Mike asked leaning in the door, having been drawn by my shout.

“Wait is that company name a joke? Like a made-in-battle one?” I asked River ignoring Mike’s question.

“Probably.”

“Fuck, well I guess that explains why my brain is obsessed with weapons,” I complained while gesticulating with raised arms for a moment. “OK, honestly I am probably less angry about this than I should be.”

“Fuck it, whatever.“ I grumbled.

“I still don’t know what’s going on.” Mike commented as Jake joined us.

“The seven is in roman numerals, and the prototype is writing in nice fancy cursive. Looks hand done too, very fancy.” River added ignoring them for the moment.

“Great. Perfect!” I continued to grouse.

“Now to answer your question, Mike.” River said patting my head. “It would appear our dear friend is a Battle-Maid Mark Seven Prototype.”

He just stared at them for a long moment, then ripped into laughter.

“Well, that explains a lot!” He said between guffaws. “What else would combine fucking complete awareness of weapons and being able to cook in a robot!”

“I could already cook!” I countered.

“Yeah, but like you did it without anyone asking and did a full meal.” He continued.

“Hey! I wasn’t that lazy!”

“Ok, but like you wouldn’t even eat it!”

Ah. He’s got a point there.

“Fuck. Ok! Fine!” I said exasperated and started doing a half-facepalm. “What the fuck, am I actually a fucking maid now. What’s next, am I going to randomly start doing people’s laundry?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no.” Mike said with a grin.

“Wait is my brain making decisions differently then, that would throw a pretty big part of one of my q-question cha-chains.” I asked suddenly anxious with a thrashing sound in my head.

Suddenly River moved around to look me in the face.

“Sam, you said you felt better and enjoyed your food more when having people enjoying their meal around you right?” They asked gently.

“Ye-yes.” I couldn’t speak well for some reason; oh, I guess I’m having a panic attack.

“Then did you do the meal so you could experience that?”

“Pro-Proba--ably.”

“Then you are just making decisions based on your recent memories.” They gently explained. “It’s not like you were just randomly doing it from when you woke up.”

Oh. That works.

Starting chain revision

Do I make choices based on memories from before my body changed?

Yes. For example, I call Katherine by Kat because that’s what I have done since we were little kids.

If why I make any individual choice has not changed, does the hardware used to process that choice change who I am?

No.

Begin insert.

Do I make choices based on memories from before my body changed?

Yes. For example, I call Katherine by Kat because that’s what I have done since we were little kids.

Do I make choices based on memories from after my body changed?

Yes. For example, to get the warm feeling of my roommates enjoying a meal I made them.

If why I make any individual choice has not changed, does the hardware used to process that choice change who I am?

No.

End insert. Resume normal process.

What was I doing?

I was talking to River about something.

Oh, they’re in front of me still.

“Are you ok River? You look worried.” I asked.

They had tears in their eyes but started to choke something out. “I was worried about you Sam. You went nonresponsive for a long time and there was a dreadful noise.”

“Oh.”

Ah, that’s what I was doing.

“Sorry, it’s a… question chain thing.” I hesitated a bit. “I was in my first one for at least twenty minutes according to Kat.”

They gave me a hug, which I awkwardly returned still disorientated.

“Can you warn us about them?” They asked.

“I don’t think so, but I only have three right now, so I don’t know much about them.”

Mike and Jake were watching in from the door with concern visibly ebbing out of them.

“Could you remind me of what they are again?”

I could feel a pull on my mind like entering a question chain.

“Currently enabled chains, chain one ‘can I wear feminine clothing’, conclusion yes, updates none”

Sam?

“Sub chain one ‘do I want to slash can I call myself female’, conclusion yes, updates one”

Oh Sam.

“Chain two ‘am I the same-

I think we just have to wait for her to be back.

“person’, conclusion yes, updates one”

“Resuming normal process.”

Ok. Now they are all worried again.

Shit, did they trigger a diagnostics mode?

“Sorry…” I said quietly. “I-I don’t control those.”

“Fuck, it just forces you to lay your soul bare there.” Mike said.

“Sam, you had to update the chain for saying you’re female. Was it so you could say yes?” River asked gently.

I nodded not wanting to speak.

“I see.” They said without pressing further. “It’s getting late, and we all have classes tomorrow, I think we have already pushed you too far tonight, Sam. Do you think you can get some sleep?”

“Yeah.” I said with a sniffing sputter in my burners.

“Ok, we will let you get ready for bed then.” They said while giving me a hug.