Quentin
That simulation was an addiction to her. That was the only explanation I had for why she was so obsessed with it. I would take up her offer to formulate a plan to help her. I felt guilty for creating it in the first place. I should’ve been aware of the dangers, but I was too carried away by my wish to be a good friend. It was time to fix one of my mistakes.
I reached the simulation room, passing by a training session between Gruma and Harry. I ignored them. There were more important things to do.
The door to the room was open, allowing me to walk in and sit down next to Scarlett. She already had the helmet on and so I followed suit. I placed the helmet on my head and entered the simulation.
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When I awoke in the simulation, I could feel a cool breeze against my skin. The sun was high in the sky with some cloud cover. Birds sang from nearby trees as I approached the edge of the woods I was in. It was slightly different from what I remembered programming. Then again, I didn’t exactly program it from scratch. I just used a simulation programming tool that came on the ship. Which meant it wouldn’t have been too hard for Scarlett to change it.
Once I crossed the edge of the woods, noticed a hedge surrounding a backyard to a mansion. It was probably worth thirty million dollars if I was to make an estimate. I heard muffled talking from the other side of the hedge. Not wanting to risk a confrontation before I was in the right position, I walked into the hedge, careful to avoid making too much sound.
“Mom, Dad, I’m back,” I heard Scarlett’s voice say from the other side of the hedge. I widened a big enough hole to see what was going on. A human Scarlett waved a hand towards two people I presumed were her parents. They were different than I programmed, which confirmed that she meddled with the simulation.
“Scarlett!” they cried in unison as they hugged her tightly. I couldn’t bring myself to break it up. It was very touching. In a way, it made me want to make a simulation of my family reuniting with me. However, the reason I didn’t was that I wouldn’t have difficulties being accepted. Since I was still human and looked like myself a year ago, I didn’t need practice.
Scarlett broke off the hug and smiled. “But there’s someone I want to introduce to you. Because I didn’t just return home by myself. I had a lot of help from this man.” I was startled when I felt someone pull me out of the bushes. I looked to see that it was Scarlett who was pulling me out. For some reason that eluded me, she must’ve increased her strength in the simulation.
When I was dropped, I picked myself up to see her parents looking at me. A chill ran down my spine as I felt inadequate. Rich people often had high standards. Standards that I failed. My family was affluent, not rich. I was neither a prodigy, hunk, nor athlete. My charisma was often insufficient. The fact that I still led this group was a mystery that eluded me.
Their reaction wasn’t what I expected. They sighed in relief. Mr. Campbell extended his hand and said, “So you’re the man that my daughter loves? It’s good to finally meet you.”
I shook his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Your daughter is an amazing person. She’s smart, kind, and beautiful. I’m lucky that I was able to date her during my journey. That said, while I’d be sad to break up with her, if you desire that I didn’t speak to her again, I’ll leave.” I looked down, expecting to get kicked out of her life. It would make sense. By dating me, she was dating outside of money. That often had the rich scared of losing their wealth. It was stupid, but it was what they’d do.
“Young man, why are you saying that? Are you afraid that we’re petty and hate you?” Mrs. Campbell asked as she walked up to me. She put her hands on her hips and said, “I’ll have you know, we’re not elitists. If our daughter wished to date a poor man, we’d let her. Besides, you’re not that poor. And you are well-behaved. Maybe except for spying on us through the bushes. Otherwise, I could tell you’re a good man.”
Scarlett held my hand and said, “Don’t worry, Quentin. I told them all about you. They know how sweet you are.” She winked at me, making me wink back. I must admit, Scarlett was beautiful no matter what she was. She was either conventionally attractive or exotically attractive. It was odd to think, considering how she didn’t look human normally. Regardless, being human was what she wanted, so I was willing to do what it took to restore her humanity.
I decided it was time to make her realize what this simulation was supposed to be. I looked at her parents and said, “When I met your daughter, she was very different than she is now.”
“Did you meet her right after she was abducted?” Mrs. Campbell asked as she looked at us. I shook my head before pulling a picture out of my pocket. It was a backup plan I programmed for an instance like this.
“This was how your daughter looked when I met her,” I explained as I showed the picture of mutant Scarlett. The picture of their daughter as a foxwoman was shocking to them. Their response wasn’t unexpected.
Mr. Campbell laughed. “That’s a good one! What cartoon is that from?”
“Real life,” I replied as I pulled out another picture. This time, it was a picture of the two of us. “And before you ask, I had no access Photoshop.”
“But that was just an alien! He’s quite a comedian, isn’t he?” Scarlett hastily interjected as she grabbed the picture and shoved it into her pocket.
I looked at the sky and clapped my hands. At once, everything except the two of us froze. Scarlett’s avatar switched from human back to her foxlike appearance. She looked at me and asked, “Why did you do this? I was reconnecting with my family after fourteen years from home, and then you decided to kill the moment! Why can’t you let me have some peace in my life?”
“First off, you invited me to join the simulation. Secondly, they aren’t actually your family. They’re a simulation meant to act like your family in order to train yourself. The purpose of this simulation was for you to eventually work your way up to explaining why you’re a ‘fox’ now. By starting off with the less ludicrous human from outer space, you’d slowly train your way up. However, I can now see that it has become a crutch,” I explained as I opened up a console menu and started modifying it. “If you aren’t willing to introduce yourself as a mutant, you need to be experienced in introducing one to your parents somehow.”
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Scarlett scowled at me. “Quentin, while I appreciate your concern, I don’t know how you could help. I wouldn’t even know how you could help. Besides, like I said before, I intend to be human again when I meet them. Why does it matter to you anyways?”
Before our eyes, the environment changed. Instead of being in the backyard of her parents’ mansion, we were on the other side of a fence nowhere near her house. Scarlett was back to being her human avatar. She smirked before she saw me. For I changed my avatar into a vulpine form like Scarlett’s true form. I felt the fur on me and said, “So this is what it feels like to be you? To be honest, it’s not that bad.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s also just an avatar in a simulation. The issues are more mental. How would you feel if your self-image was different than your actual one? Also, did you just want to pretend to be like me?”
I didn’t reply as I put on a cloak and hood along with a pair of gloves. Once there was no part of my body showing, I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. I took a deep breath. I had to remember that I wasn’t my normal self. This was a demonstration for a very stubborn woman.
The door swung open to reveal my father standing there. “Great. Now a cultist is trying to recruit me.”
“Mr. Smith, you may not recognize me, but I know who you are,” I said in a solemn voice as I looked into the house. My mother was sitting on the couch watching television. Neither of my brothers were here, but that was because my older one had a job while my younger one was in college.
“Quentin? Is that you?” my father asked as he looked at me with longing.
I extended a gloved hand and explained, “Yes, dad, I’m Quentin. However, I’ve been turned into something unfamiliar to you. I don’t want you to reject me for what I’ve become.”
“My son, what could possibly have happened that would make us reject you?” my father asked as he looked confused. I whistled for Scarlett to come over. When she got close, we all walked inside and locked the door behind us.
I walked over to an armchair and sat down on it. Once everyone was seated in the living room, I said, “Prepare yourselves. I don’t even look human anymore.”
“No matter what happened to you, remember that you’re still our son and we love you,” my mother said as she put her hand on top of my father’s. I sighed before grabbing the hood of the cloak.
I pulled the hood down, exposing my avatar’s foxlike head. My parents flinched in shock before examining it. I chuckled. “When I said I didn’t look human anymore, I wasn’t lying. I’m a freak now.”
Scarlett looked at me with interest as she waited to see how my parents would react. I was also nervous that they would reject me. For all I knew, what they said earlier could’ve been worthless platitudes. However, my introspection was interrupted when they hugged me.
“Quentin, it’s good to see that you’re still in there!” my mother cried as she hugged me tighter. My father seemed a bit uncomfortable about how tight the group hug was getting, but he didn’t comment.
“Thank you. But I won’t be for much longer if you keep suffocating me,” I replied. Thankfully, they let go, giving me the opportunity to get some air in my lungs. Once I got my breath back, I took off the cloak, exposing my avatar’s neck and arms. I took off my gloves and explained, “This sounds a bit crazy, but I was abducted by aliens and experimented on. Turned into the mutant you see before you.”
They stared for a while before my father laughed heartily. He looked at me and said, “My son, what the aliens did to you is more unbelievable than the fact that aliens exist and abducted you. Having physical evidence of the former makes the latter easier to believe.” He calmed down before asking, “Now then, how does it feel to be a fox?”
Scarlett butted in to answer, “Actually, he’s still a human. Sure, he’s a different subspecies, but not an entirely different species. Creating an entirely new species is much harder than creating a new subspecies. The aliens did the latter to him.”
My parents looked at her with interest. “How do you know that?” my mother asked as she turned off the TV.
She tapped her fingers together and bit her lip. After a few seconds, she said, “We raided the aliens’ records and read their reports on him. He was overjoyed to discover he was still technically human. It made our relationship easier.”
“Relationship?” my mother asked as she looked at the two of us. She smiled wide as she looked at me. “Son, you’re very fortunate! I daresay, she’s out of your league.”
“Mrs. Smith, that’s very rude. Despite his unique appearance, he’s still smart, kind, and handsome in his own way. He may be a dork, but he’s my dork,” Scarlett said as she held my hand. I could tell it was odd for her, but she didn’t break.
We sat there for a while, enjoying each other’s company. After a while, I paused the simulation. The background changed to a white void as I regained my human appearance and Scarlett regained her foxlike one. I pointed to her and said, “That’s how we do the practice. I set it to an easy mode for the purpose of a demonstration. As you could see, it took some preparation to make it work. If I knocked on the door with the mutant appearance on full display, they would’ve rejected me on the spot. I had to give them a sign that it was me.”
“Thank you, Quentin. I may try to do the practice. But how do I keep myself from falling back into the pleasurable simulation? As long as it’s around, I’ll keep going back,” she said as she realized how often she went to that one.
“I modified it and locked the controls. However, I made some more simulations that will let you enjoy the pleasures of humanity while keeping a time limit on them. You have one hour a day to use the enjoyable simulations before they end. They’ll focus on more mundane things. Mostly the feeling of sun hitting your skin or a cool breeze. I could join you sometimes. The most important thing is to not lose yourself in your longing,” I said before taking off my helmet.
We returned to the simulation room. I walked towards the door before Scarlett cleared her throat. “Quentin, there’s something I want to ask,” she said as she got up and scratched the back of her neck. She walked up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Are you embarrassed that your girlfriend is a fox lady? I know you’re out of my league and I sometimes feel like I’m holding you back from women you’d truly love. I’m pretty, but not in a sense that most humans would feel it. Would you feel happier if you could have a supermodel?”
I looked back at her and said, “Scarlet, truthfully, I was a bit ashamed of being attracted to you when I met you. I felt like a disgusting man. But then you helped me realize that it wasn’t the case. You’re a woman. Furthermore, you only superficially resemble a fox. Your body’s shape is still human. The reason for the attraction was that you are a human woman with some exotic traits. And then there’s your personality. You can be a handful sometimes, but at your core, you’re kind and caring. Your sarcasm is a coping mechanism to deal with the trauma of experimentation and slavery. And to answer your question, I’m not out of your league. We’re equals, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I tapped her nose playfully, making her laugh.
As we walked back to the living room, I thought back to my family. They were always supportive to me, but would they be supportive of our relationship? Then again, I didn’t know if it would last long enough that we’d reach Earth with it. Besides, Scarlett seemed like she knew how to become human again. It wasn’t something to worry about, and I was fine with that.