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Through the window, I could see the radioactive soot that was the world around us. Drones and Robo-Units swept by, engaged in maintenance of the systems that kept what remained of our world in check. Normally I could spend hours sitting here by the thick plate-glass of my cubby, staring at the broken world outside and dreaming, but not today. Today I jumped straight into the state-prescribed calisthenics that would keep my body functional for another 24 hours. Because today was something different. Today was my 18th birthday.

Today, I, Magpie Serah, would finally be free of my parents. Hazy, disjointed memories of my entire known life flashed through my mind as quietly stretched in that 9x9 square. Careful not to bump my bio-bed or trip over the emersion wires covering my dusty floor, I felt the faint sense of dread that always accompanied the thoughts of a dive. You see, in the twenty-third century, the Earth was inhospitable to biological life. Radioactive winds swept the surface, the product of some hubris or mad dream of humanity generations ago. Here, as well as on the other planets of our system, the ever growing hordes of humanity where regulated to these 9x9 cubes. Grown in vats and raised in virtual worlds that always seemed so much more real than the one in which our bodies resided.

The AI kept greenhouses, infrastructure, inter-system commerce functioning. Kept us fed and preserved our lives far beyond anything humanity had at one time dreamed. Back when we were free, back when our rooms had doors and we could simply open them and walk outside, the way you still can only in the depths of the virtual multiverse.

Now, the place where humanity lived, grew, dreamed, it was no longer a place of matter and oceans, but a digital multiverse that expanded so far beyond the habited worlds that made up the prison of our meat-shells. And yet, impossibly perhaps. in that digital world, I had never known even the simple freedoms I had when escaping to my 9x9 Meatspace.

My father, you see, more a matter of custodianship than biology, was what was known as an 'experimental psychologist. And, I suppose, of the hundreds of billions of humans that lived in the virtual worlds, he had gone to exceptional lengths to make a name for himself. Exceptional lengths that involved, very specifically, me. 

 I was legally considered a member of a human trial of a psychological experiment run by my father. And while limitations were placed on exactly what could be done with me and what would be considered abuse, the limitations, I thought, were far too generous. And as I looked down at my long, slender legs and thin, spindly arms, I simply sighed in resignation.

"Five more hours," I whispered to myself. The words echoing hauntingly between the metal walls of the room. "Five more hours until I am legally an adult."

I didn't hesitate as I finished my workout. I only lay down in my containment unit for a few minutes today before I connected the wires to the jack in my neck and secured the cable securely to my brain.

"Login."

The world spun around me only for a moment before I found myself laying down in a comfortable bed, surrounded by the pure white walls and thick blankets of my virtual Axis Room. Matilda's thick, honeyed voice was the first thing I heard as I once again opened my eyes. Personal AI unit and bio-monitor, Matti was the only person in the world whose voice could actually make my spirits soar.

"Welcome, Magpie. I trust you have complied with the Prescribed Regime in accordance with Federal Circular A-76."

I smiled as I glanced up at her simulated, wisened face. "Yes, Matti. I believe you will find my vitals fully revitalized."

"Good Magpie. I should remind you that you have one hour of scholastic testing today before dinner with your parent. I hope you are in top form, as this will be the final exam before basic citizenship is granted."

I looked at her and smiled, craning my next and feeling the virtual muscles stiffen and relax as I stretched. "You're always so worried about me. I think you're the only one who does, actually. But you shouldn't. This is just a placement exam, it's not like I can fail it or anything."

The old virtual woman frowned, the little crinkles around her eyes making her seem more tired than angry to me, "Your perfect scores from the last year non-withstanding, I wouldn't put it past you to fail a taste test. Your career average is still shockingly abysmal."

I shrugged, hoping to trigger her empathy algorithms and solicit a smile with my perkiness, "I can see my freedom, Matti. It's right... there. I can taste it, even. Like some bug in the virtu-code. Nothing will stop me from graduating this year. From having the Syndicate affirm this birthday."

The old AI simply shook her head. "Be it as it may, I'm authorizing the full, parently approved dosage of stimulant be bio-injected through your feeders. Drink this." Handing me the cup of virtu-coffee that would trigger the algorithm of caffeine disbursement, she watched until I had drunk down the entire cup.

As I handed her the empty cup and pulled up my system access menu, I felt her eyes watching me. Not so much as blinking until I had punched in the code for my testing room and spirited away.

The room went black for some moments before I found my consciousness projected into the testing room. For whatever reason, the rooms, like so much of the virtual architecture, were modeled on the terrain of the Earth in the Twenty-First century. A thin, cheap, plastic wood-grain table pushed uncomfortably into my belly, the plastic and metal straining to hold the bulk of my Avatar self. Short, stubby arms, my arms, lay across the laminate table over virtually simulated paper and pencils. The first thing I heard as I was orienting myself, was the sound of snickering.

The classmates around me, here for the same test I was, found no end of mirth in the sight of my portly avatar getting rammed into the far-too-small desk on login. Flab engulfing a good two inches of the thin grain within the folds of my avatar's belly. Their long, spindly limbs (a result of the strict nutritional regimen fed to us more than anything) and chiseled, if occasionally pock-marked faces, contrasted so harshly with my own bloated features. The body that I struggled to waddle around in within the infinite confines of this digital prison. 

The girl to my right sniggered the loudest, taking advantage of the few minutes we had before the overseer logged in. Veronica. She smirked as her high, crystalline voice sneered at me "I see on your readout that it's your birthday, Piggy. Tell me, I'm genuinely curious," she leaned in, mocking camaraderie as her tone seeped into a too loud version of a conspiratorial whisper. "Once you have access to your own Avatar settings, are you going to stay that tub of lard you've been living in? Or are you going to pay money to not be such a little animal?"

Not waiting for me to answer, the boy to her right leaned over, thick voice overriding my own halting whisper, "Can't you see Ronni? Her profile is already at the maximum allowable variance setting. This is literally as human-like as she gets." Turning to me, he repeated the same recrimination that I had heard a thousand times a year, for a decade and a half of my life, "What kind of monster are you, Piggy, in real life, if this is your maximum variance setting? Are you a 5,000 pound whale? Is your metabolism even beyond bio-pod assistance?"

Veronica's voice answered his, sing-song notes that cut through my spine with every word, as she fed off of his enthusiasm. "No, didn't you hear, It spent the whole of Junior High as a boy if you can believe it. The variance might just be from Mommy and Daddy taking away it's little Pee Pee."

...and... let me explain. The difference between your meat-body and your virtual avatar is described as 'variance'. It was discovered early on that if the digital form differs too much from the meat-flesh of a person it would interfere with calisthenics (as meat-coordination would be affected) and it would negatively affect the health of the human. A maximum legal variance was thereby established and, sadly, current variance published on the digital profiles of every user.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

I... well I was a study in what would happen if a child were raised with maximum variance settings enabled from birth. The difference between meet-body and avatar-body had always been set to its maximum legal variance from the time that I was born. And, worse, that variance had been used not to make me inhumanly beautiful, but the opposite. Rather, my Father had used the variance settings to make me, literally, as ugly as was legally possible.

Supposedly it was going to make me a less entitled person, more honest and hard working to make up for my perceived social inferiorities. And it was theorized that I would become an adult who was more immune to the negative effects of Avatar variance than that of my peers. My peers who, enviably, had their variance set to zero by their parental custodians from the time that they were born.

In a way, it had worked. My variance, based on psychological factors and complex bio-feedback algorithms, had grown every year. The maximum pushed out more and more until I was the literal whale of a person sitting here waiting for this test. Visibly, however, my variance has simply remained at '100%', and to my peers, it simply looked like I was gaining twenty or fifty pounds a year for no perceivable reason.

Only once had I dared to complain. Once. When I was twelve and only then starting to realize what being ugly actually meant. What it was going to do to me in the coming years of Junior Highschool. I had had a literal breakdown, a tantrum of epic proportions in front of my father. And, rather than attempt to smooth my transition into adulthood, he had decided to punish me.

His punishment was changing me into a fat little boy for three years. Letting me experience the artificially altered hormones, the smells, the raging acne of a male in those early, developmental years. And it broke me. Only when I was a drooling, mute, puddle of nothing - failing every test, refusing even to speak for my terror of the voice that I had heard coming out of my own throat - only when it was clear that he was about to turn me into a vegetable did he relent. And instead switch my settings back to the familiar whale monster that was my oh so common incarnation.

But I knew what my peers did not. Every day I had seen the long beautiful arms of my body. The long, slender legs. And where they thought my birthday was nothing but a confirmation of their own, spiteful disgust, I knew that it would be something else entirely.  And so I simply waited quietly for the overseer to appear. For the questions to appear on our virtual pages. Without speaking I simply focused on what I was doing, forcing myself to complete the work as quickly as possible so that I could push the button and hand my answers in.

I waited the remaining hour and a half in the happy solitude of my Axis Room. Reading quietly as Matti multi-tasked between watching my vitals and handling some other, foreign system. Passing time until the inevitable meeting with my father that would happen during the final hour of my guardianship. 

The time passed uneventfully. It seemed to go by almost quickly as I lost myself in worlds of Middle Earth and Hogwarts. Re-reading some of my favorites as my own personal gift to myself. Before I knew it it was time to transfer over, and without even a word of reminder from my AI, I pulled up my menu and transferred to the booth of the local network's dining facility.

Father didn't greet me as I arrived, or should I say found myself painfully squeezed between the all too small booth and table of the facility. For anyone else, their avatar could have been adjusted for a perfect fit, body type and size perfect to sink into the programmed seat. For me, however, even sitting here watching him go over the contents on his digital tablet was a painful experience. My every breath halting as my copious fat was wedged up into my diaphragm, making each breath a little triumph. 

Finally, he spoke, "So, I need to know the results for the conclusion of my study. God knows I've put enough work and resources into raising you..." he trailed off as he read, as he always did. "But your final scores are surprisingly good. Impressive even. Who would have thought the drooling little mute you were ten years ago would actually turn out so well?"

I simply watched him, letting him fall into his readouts and reports, as I watched the seconds tick by. Biding my time. And, surprisingly, it wasn't until the time finally was up, the status notification appearing on my screen that my adulthood was pending approval, that he finally looked up. "Well, what is it you are going to do? From the readouts here you can choose anything that isn't one of the advanced sciences and qualify for training."

I smiled at him, as prettily as my big, fat face could manage, and simply looked down to the bottom right of my readout. "Well, I do have some plans, actually," I told him. "If you would be so kind as to approve me while I lay out some of the details?"

I waited for him to take the hint, obviously working his actual user menu as his hands and eyes danced absently across buttons that I couldn't see in front of him. "I have decided that I will be using the drastically increased variance you have trained me for. It's my only unique skill, after all," I started. Drawing out the words to whet his scientific appetite. I could almost see the hunger in his eyes as I finished the thought, the dreams of the grand dissertations that he would write about his little experiment. It was refreshing, really, as it was an expression blissfully free of the subtle hints of jealousy I so often saw when the man looked at me. The possessiveness. 

"Well? What is it?" He stared at me, hanging on my words as the rush of triumph widened his eyes. But I simply pointed at my menu and shook my head. "You're getting distracted." Waiting for him to get the point, to look back at his menu before continuing. "You see, there are jobs only someone with a very mutable avatar can perform. Much like it helps computer operators to be able to grow a third limb, or an air traffic controller an eye on the back of their head to watch two monitors at once..."

I drew out the words, seemingly spilling my guts to him, if slowly, waiting for him to finish his digital signatures that would, finally, declare me a free woman. And then, impossibly, beautifully, I received the confirmation notification.

Confirmation received. Magpie Serah is now an Adult with full citizenship and privileges of a United Earth citizen. Parental Controls removed. User Interface Options upgraded.

20,000 credits added to account (based on academic performance)

The little ding was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my life. I stopped mid sentence and danced my stubby little fingers across the screens, exploring and learning the new options even as I changed my settings at a frantic pace.

Variance set to: 0%

Avatar Customizations removed

I grinned as my body fluidly restructured itself in the seat. Taking in my first, dazzlingly easy breath since I had first sat down at this table. I glanced up to Father's expression, the mood darkening as realization dawned upon him as to what I had just done. But I did not stop. Not even for a moment.

Name changed from: Magpie Serah

Name changed to: Magpie Frost 

20 Credits removed from account. Remaining: 20,021 credits 

His eyes darkened even further as I removed his surname from my profile, expunging my record of any relation to him.  Only then did I hesitate, for but a moment. Just long enough to give him my prettiest, most natural smile. From the lips that he had spent my life-deforming, hiding behind a mountain of fat, facial hair, acne, anything just so long as he would never see my actual face. The one smiling back at him now.

Language Filter: Removed

Mature Content Filter: Deactivated

In my prettiest, most sing-song voice I greeted him. Surprising even myself how beautiful and clear my natural, unaltered pitch sounded, "Thanks, Motherfucker." I grinned. Staring at him, my mind drowning in a sea of natural endorphins as I rode the high of my freedom.

His voice finally croaked out, haltingly and menacingly, "So it was all a lie then." He spat as the emotions finally finished visibly washing over him. "I'm impressed you pulled that off. You were very convincing."

"Oh no, Father," I spat the word in his face. "It wasn't a lie at all." Smirking, leaving him to wonder, I went back to the interface. Fingers dancing lightly over the keys as, literally, thousands of pounds had disappeared but heartbeats before. Leaving my long, proud fingers free and unencumbered for the first time in this world.

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I watched my own status window as "Dragon's Dagger Intern" appeared next to my name. Watching too, out of the corner of my eye, as Father saw it too. As the lines of his face hardened, comprehension slowly dawning.

I smiled beautifully at him as I worked my menu. Eyes alight as the words finally formed across my lips. "I do hope you'll watch my stream, Daddy," I hissed, hitting the final button.

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