"If we hadn't killed capitalism with a rusty fire axe, I'm 100% sure someone would have found a way to sell condoms to a robot."

-Alberto Sánchez, 2111, Post-talk of the Paragon of Economy Election

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I was greeted by a white ceiling as I opened my eyes, then a woman lying next to me. Oh woah, that was fast.

"You are already connected?" I asked and considered the following silence answer enough. "You could have at least dried yourself." I squinted my eyes at the half-drenched bed. "Well, I guess it wasn't exactly dry before."

I jumped out of bed and groaned. I had spent only a few minutes on Parallel though it felt way longer than that. All the psychological stress had been transported into my body into physical stress. More than one joint in my body cracked, but I didn't feel any pain from the gestures. In a way, I felt more revigorated than ever. Without knowing it, I had removed a splinter I never knew it existed.

As I was already dressed from my little outing to the bakery, I just dusted my clothes before going to my quarter's entrance.

"Sandra, If Mérida asks, tell her I am at Gloria's," I announced to my assistant.

"Understood," The room shortly lighted up in acknowledgment and I made my way out.

I found myself humming knowing that Makoto was in safe hands now. Mérida was way more competent than I in social aspects. Or more like, everything that didn't involve robotics and low-level programming. Hyperspecialization tended to do that to a person, and whilst she spoke around 5 languages, Mérida was far from a real linguist, meaning her time hadn't been focused on a single aspect.

No surprise was shown in my visage as I found Gloria's Extravaganza devoid of customers. The seamstress waved at me with her many hands looking slightly older than average. Considering how I had been scolded barely an hour ago for talking about a woman's age, I decided to abstain from any comments relating to her apparent overnight aging. It has to be a conscious change because we don't age.

"Ah, my favorite customer~" The seamstress announced melodiously as she wove threads with her modified fingernails. "What sends you here, Lorem?"

"Same old, I would like to say," I responded with a shrug.

"Same old? I don't know if there's enough reiteration and routine to say that."

"Thrice's a pattern. Frice a routine." I pressed my forearms against the shop's counter.

"Frice? Really?" She crossed her upper pair of arms whilst she kept working with her lower ones.

"It's grammatically correct." I shrugged without raising my arms from the counter.

"You are lying."

"Check it out."

A second later I could see her gaze lost in thought, the sign of someone using their interface and navigating through the QEF.

"Motherfucker." Gloria swore out of nowhere. "When did that even exist?"

"Always?" I said still startled by Gloria's impromptu language.

"You guess after living that long I would know that, but no." She sighed. "And what brings you here, more training?"

"Yes, but I first had a doubt I would like to have cleared up."

"If I can resolve it, feel free to ask away."

"You knew that Makoto was going to choose virtualization." It wasn't a question, but a statement. I had no doubt in my mind.

"So she did it?" Her impassive questioning told me more than enough.

"He." I corrected her.

"Sorry, he. Not that I can know that in advance." She shrugged with her upper arms. Not that it was possible with her lower due to the lack of shoulders. "If I had a compute for every time someone I knew changed their gender on ascension, I would have more than enough fingers to count them, which is not much, but certainly more than most people count up to."

I snickered at the dumb joke. "Did you change gender yourself?"

"No, I value my lady parts too much. And I will not tell you which ones." Gloria covered the chest window of her dress with her hand in a playful manner. "Though I can't deny that before evolving myself I thought to maybe become a man during those days of the month. Then I soon found out that biological humans don't go around discarding their uteruses like candy. If not the happiest day of my life, certainly up there."

"I never thought about that, but I guess it makes sense. A biological human woman only ovulates when she wants."

"Well, you had your reasons to not think about that. I would have rather not experienced that fact for a whole decade, even if it was so long ago. I still believe that students should be sterilized to avoid that."

"I… think that's a bit extreme."

"What?" Gloria looked at me in confusion. "It's not like people are having kids at age 25. Even in my time, people weren't having one until you were like 40 or something."

"It's more about having that choice, to begin with. Forced sterilization is a bit too… dystopic."

"Oh, sure, and the neuronal implants, the enforced evolution processes that demand aggressive surgical procedures, the responsibility of space colonies, and mandatory graduation projects are not dystopic in any shape or form."

"I don't think you can compare a school project to medical procedures."

"If it's mandatory, yes. Yes, I can." She replied. "And you don't see it that way because you've been indoctrinated. Maybe the capitol needs another torching."

The worst part was that I knew she wasn't joking. One thing I discovered was that people were very serious when they talked about lighting up the capitol.

"I think our conversation has derailed a bit too much." I interrupted her. "I never thought I would see you getting this political."

"Well, that's Gloria Candente for you, Lorem." The seamstress put all her four hands on her hips and sighed. "I wish I could be as cartoony as I appear to be, but the world doesn't allow me to be so. Everything would be easier if I could just be a caricature of myself."

"Can't deny that." I would have definitely liked a caricature of myself a few minutes ago. It would have made everything simpler.

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"Anyhow," She crossed her upper arms and stored the thread she was working on with her lower ones. "How is it that you knew that I knew that your partner was going to virtualize?"

"For your message," I responded.

"What message?" Gloria tilted her head to the side in the cartoony manner she wanted to be like. She suddenly felt younger.

"The one where you told me that you were no longer working on the matching outfits."

"Oh yeah, I guess that was too on the nose."

"Not that much. I only connected the dots after I saw Makoto in the flesh. Bits?" I corrected myself a second later, still unsure.

"Don't ponder about idioms. What matters about them is the spirit, not the wording. 90% of them have been outdated for centuries and yet we still use them, so why correct them?"

"We could always make new ones," I suggested.

She chuckled. "Haven't you thought that some expressions you use have only been created 'recently'?"

"Oh." I felt as if my third eye had been opened.

"Yup. That's the thing with immortality, most makers of these expressions are probably alive somewhere." Gloria slid her fingers across the counter as she walked around the counter and approached me. "But enough talk, we got some training to do. Have you managed to achieve anything?"

"Since yesterday?" I deadpanned.

"Progress is never linear, don't let other people tell you otherwise." She walked toward the dressing room and motioned me with a hand to follow her. "Sometimes you can spend weeks doing something to no avail whatsoever then in fifteen minutes achieve more than you have ever done before."

My mind prompted me to tell how that was likely due to the accumulation of knowledge and experience through reiterated training, but I refrained myself from speaking. We didn't need more trivial talk until we were already practicing.

"I guess, I'm a bit more conscious of my body's inner workings, but I haven't gotten any practice. These last hours have been a bit chaotic."

"There's no harm in it, you are already ahead of the curve, after all."

"And where I can see the metrics of that curve?" I questioned.

"Expressions, Lorem. Expressions~" Gloria sat on a stool and motioned at an armchair for me. "Do you have any goal in specific that we can strive towards? Having an objective is as important as the training itself."

"Hmm, I have many." I scratched my chin.

"Well, enumerate them."

"Let's see… flying, multiple eyes, fast regeneration, acquisition of new senses, surviving in space, rock consumption…"

"Wait, wait." She raised all four palms signaling me to stop. "Surviving in space? That's not possible as a biological human."

"Theoretically speaking, it IS possible." I hadn't wasted a few afternoons as a student investigating otherwise. "There are not as many factors to account for when surviving in space, only extreme temperatures in both ways, differential in pressure, and lack of oxygen. And besides, I said survive not live. Fifteen minutes seems like a solid enough goal."

"Why the hell would you like to survive in space for fifteen minutes?"

Paranoia. "Because that's the average response time for intrastellar emergency services. If I were to be stranded in space suddenly, if I were to survive for fifteen minutes then my rate of survival without lasting consequences is very close to 100%."

Gloria looked at me with worry. "Lorem, who hurt you?"

Myself, mostly. "No one," I responded with a smile. "I like just to have contingency plans at hand. Think of it like innocent theorycrafting."

"I see…" The seamstress looked uncomfortable. "That's a bit of a complex goal for now. You are asking for very difficult adaptations besides the oxygen thing. In your current body, you should be able to hold your breath for five minutes without practice. And unevolved humans could already reach the twenty-minute mark before with said practice, so consider than goal somewhat achieved." I nodded at her. "It would be better if you posed more attainable goals for the time being."

"Hmm…" I pondered what goal would satisfy her then. "How about sex change?"

Gloria's eyes opened like plates, and she blinked seven times in quick succession. Maybe a few more considering I also had to blink myself along the way. Nine was a solid guess.

"You know that you can petition those things freely in the medical wing, right?"

"Gloria." My voice was more neutral than that of a documentary narrator.

"Joking, joking." She swayed her arms around in a non-aggressive manner. "Could I ask why you are interested in such a thing?"

"Morbid curiosity." I taciturnly responded.

"Ah, the best kind of curiosity." The seamstress smiled gleefully in satisfaction.

"Is it too complex of a goal?"

"Hmm?" She tilted her head. "Nope, none at all. Sex change is kinda in-built into the human body. Or rather, in any animal. You know, DNA and such. From what I heard it's especially easier for men as all subhumans are born female by default and then only become biologically male as the pregnancy progresses."

"So you are seeing it's easy?"

"I'm saying it's easier than your other goals." Gloria crossed her arms and pouted. "There are a lot of things in play, mainly the fact that you should erase and create new organs."

"So what should I do, sensei?" I could have called her 'teacher' or not used up any title, but Gloria's playfulness stuck with me.

A few of her many fingers twitched and she hugged her body with all her arms except one that she led to her chin. "W-well," the seamstress's voice trembled, "sex change is instinctive as I have mentioned, but we would need to work in a bit of body changing, mainly bones, to make a perfect female self out of you."

I nodded at her explanation. Even I could see how ecstatic she was by being called a single word as she blushed and slightly panted between words. "Where do I start?"

"Teeth," Gloria explained. "Bones are very complex and brittle if not handled correctly, but teeth are already exposed and easy to fix. Let's start with something simple: transforming your canines into teeth worthy of a wolf."

The seamstress grabbed the corners of her mouth with two hands and showed me her bare mouth. With the two other hands, she pointed at her canines. The teeth grew at a surprisingly fast rate, in less than half a minute they were already twice as long as before and way sharper. I could see the matter – or rather cells and biomass – flow from her gums into her twice, the slithering movements appeared to me as slugs crawling under a silk. However because she only shifted her upper canines, she looked more like a vampire than a wolf.

"Zheee?" I don't know what it was, if the vampire-looking teeth, the open mouth, or the slight panting, but there was something undoubtedly erotic about this scene.

"I think I got it," I responded. "You moved the mass from your skull through your gums and into your canines, right?"

Gloria unlatched the fingers holding her mouth flaps and they hit her face with a wet plop. She took her canines out of her mouth, the teeth' tips showing beyond her lips.

"I am surprised you got that with a look." The seamstress scratched her pointy teeth. "I guess there wasn't much alternative, though. Try to extract bone marrow from your cheekbones, that way you won't need to shift cells into other types and they are quite strong so you don't need to fear breaking them."

"Alright, I'm going to try my best." I mused with the most confidence I could gather up, which wasn't a lot. The first person who knew that I was green on shapeshifting was myself.

I laid my back on the armchair and led a finger to my mouth. My proprioception had been enhanced after evolution, but it was far from knowing every corner of my body with absolute perfection. People would probably go mad if biological humans had that skill. Too much noise and information. Anyhow, I scratched my teeth like Gloria did but to feel it. People often forgot that teeth had nerves inside, that was how one felt their teeth in the first place, so with careful caresses on the adequate spots I was able to map my canine with a degree of certainty I was comfortable with.

There were many things I didn't know about mass shifting, my only practice had been with growing nails, but the growth of keratin and osseous structure wasn't that different in my mind. Especially when I wasn't building bone from scratch like Gloria had suggested.

I had closed my eyes to focus on the shapeshifting, but that meant my ears were more active than normal and I could hear the rustle from Gloria's clothing clearly.

"So-thing wuong?" I asked with my mouth still open and my fingers inside, which altered the message a bit.

"Everything's fine." Fortunately, Gloria seemed to understand my words.

"Weally?" Damn, I should relax my 'w's.

"Well, if you insist~" Before I could say anything about insisting on what exactly, I heard Gloria staying up and taking a few steps. "I was just thinking about the sex change, and a few ideas came to my mind."

She was making so much noise that I opened my eyes and I saw her blushing with her hands on her face as she rocked her hips from side to side. The sight reminded me of Makoto's drawings where to convey emotion s-he used exaggeration everywhere, whether it was with movement lines or saturated colors. And if Gloria was something, that was saturated. Not only was her clothing bright pink, but so was her hair and cheeks.

"I am scared to ask what you thought of," I said with my finger finally out of my mouth.

"Oh, it's nothing bad I swear~" The playfulness of her voice suggested otherwise. I squinted my eyes at her. "Really, really! I'm being 100% honest here. In a way, I'd say it's quite the revolution."

"Enlighten me then." It was my time to cross my arms.

"Alright, bear with me." She picked up a stool with a single hand and positioned it behind her without looking and sat down. Then the seamstress rose her open palms as if to magnify something. "What about clothing that dynamically changes with your gender?"

"Huh?" I think, up to this day, I have never been more confused in my life.