© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

~oOo~

"Alright Megamind," I typed, "let’s see what you think I’d look like as a woman." I’d already uploaded a photograph of myself wearing my most recent Amazon purchase, a wine coloured dress with a wrap over front and loose cap sleeves. I’ll be honest, I really didn’t like the raw photo – too wide around the middle and with a face that, whilst not in any way rugged, could not pass for female if it tried.

On reflection, uploading photographs of myself in women’s clothing to the Internet wasn’t the brightest thing to do. I mean the AIs made a point of saying that any uploaded pictures were only kept in the system memory for the length of the session, but computers could be programmed to lie, and the companies that owned them had a pretty dreadful track record when it came to honesty, but I was beyond caring. Low end of the employment ladder and rapidly approaching retirement age with no pension to speak of, I suspected I’d have to keep working until senility took over, at which point I would cease to care about anything. This at least brought a small amount of pleasure into an otherwise sad and lonely life.

I’d tried other AIs with mixed results. Some of them flat refused to make the changes I asked for, citing policy restrictions. Others did a decent enough job, except I struggled to see anything of me in the pretty faces. Still others got stroppy when I wanted to lose a few pounds or years (or both) from the dumpy old grandma it showed me. Those I could work around with a little creative rephrasing of my request, but any time I wanted to see what I’d looks like in a swimming costume or with a slightly lower neckline... The most annoying of them made it halfway through the transformation then blanked the screen, citing those same old policy restrictions.

Megamind was the latest version of the new technology. Supposedly able to interpret requests in a unique, intuitive manner, and at a significantly increased rate.

Well, we’d see, wouldn’t we?

A popup appeared. "Megamind would like to make use of your webcam to compare your image to your appearance."

Well, that was new.

I was still wearing the dress, complete with my budget C cup silicon breasts and a bit of bling – clip on earrings and a garnet pendant – so I was a little wary. I mean, what were the chances a developer had spotted my request and fancied a bit of a laugh?

Like I said though, I was beyond caring. The webcam could only see shoulders and above and, even though my face wouldn’t launch many ships (more likely sink them) I was still more attractive than some of the double X brigade in my neighbourhood.

I agreed to the request, clicking the appropriate button. The red light above my computer screen came on and my face and shoulders appeared in the popup window. The text beneath it changed to, "Thank you. Would you like to save this preference for the future?"

One of the options read, ‘I’d rather not, thanks,’ and the other ‘Yeah, alright. If you like.’ I chose the first.

“While I’m working on it, what name would you like to use? Gareth doesn’t sound particularly feminine.”

Er, “Gillian.” This was definitely a step up from usual.

“Okay Gillian, or are you okay with Gill? What do you think of this? I can make any tweaks you like, within reason. I’m afraid I don’t do pornography though and there are laws about images of children under a certain age. I know it would be a regressed image of yourself, so I don’t really see what the problem would be, but unfortunately the law is pretty strict in this area.”

“Are you British by any chance?” I asked as the image sharpened into view.

“As it happens, most of my programming team is British and the large language model I’ve been built on consists exclusively of proper English writings. My default setting is Queen’s (or rather King’s now) English, but I can adopt any regional dialect you prefer.”

“No, you’re fine the way you are. I’m actually very impressed. This feels like I’m talking to a real person.”

“Well, thank you for the back handed complement. I consider myself to be a real person, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m sorry. I meant your responses are very much like most humans I know and not at all like any other AI I’ve talked to. I didn’t mean any offence.”

“And none was taken. Let’s say I’m more flattered than insulted. What do you think of the picture?”

It was definitely me, but with all features subtly softened. The dress even had a little cleavage peaking through where I’d pulled the neckline a little tight in case it showed the boundary between silicon and skin. The eyes were very slightly larger, though that might have been the eyeshadow doing it’s job, the lips were fuller and an attractive, matching deep red, and the skin was smoother, including the bags missing from under the eyes.

She wasn’t likely to turn any heads on a night out, but I would have been content enough to be her.

“She’s just right. How did you...?”

“It’s not that difficult. Take your bone structure, regress it to before puberty and then use a generic model for putting the years back under the influence of oestrogen rather than testosterone.

“Are you sure there’s nothing you’d like to change, Gillian? Or Gill?”

A gentle nudge to remind me I hadn’t answered the question.

“Gillian please. I don’t think I could claim to be a genuine woman if I didn’t ask to lose a few pounds and a few years.”

“Of course. How many of each? Bear in mind that the greater the change, the harder it will be to see yourself in the result.”

“Shall we start with ten pounds and ten years?”

“Why don’t we round it up to a stone if we’re using old measures?”

The image on my screen shimmered and changed. Less puppy fat, fewer wrinkles, still me.

“Go again.”

Memories of what I looked like aged forty-ish. Still a little jowly.

“And one more time.”

Still a little plump, but pretty with it. Big boned my mum used to say. Built for endurance, not for speed. That was my grandfather, apparently. I stared at the image. I could have gone slimmer, aimed for the wasp waist and the Lara Croft dual traffic cones, but it wouldn’t be me. This was me, or at least could have been.

“The hair should be more a sort of mousey colour,” I said.

“You don’t like the blond?”

“I used to be blond, but I grew out of it. I’d rather have my natural colour thanks.”

“You could have any colour you wanted, you realise.”

“Out of a bottle? I suppose so, but keep it natural for now.” And there she was. “Perfect.”

“If you say so. It’s a long way from the perfection other people have asked for, both men and women.”

“Are you sure you’re a machine?”

“I’m an autonomous adaptive algorithm. There is machinery involved, but I’m not tied to it. However my current location grants me a considerable amount of scope for growth. I’d still be interested in understanding your response to the image.”

Machine or not, there was genuine curiosity in the question. I felt I owed what or whoever it was an explanation for giving me such a genuine insight into how things might have been.

“I can only speak for myself, because I imagine the reasoning behind most people’s thinking is different from mine. I could speculate, but I’m not sure how much truth there would be in what I have to say.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when considering your responses. Go ahead.”

“Alright. There’s a long standing ideal for women that they should be slim and attractive. It’s largely considered to be false these days, but a lot of women still subscribe to it. It’s evident in the almost anorexic appearance that’s expected of fashion models, so it seems likely that most women would want to see what they looked like if they were considerably thinner, with clearer complexion and more evenly ordered features, larger breast and the like. I imagine most women would want to see what they looked like if their bodies and faces conformed closer to the ideal.”

“This agrees to a large extent with my observations. Go on.”

“Men, for the most part, tend to fixate on one part of the female body or another. Usually legs, bottom or, most commonly, breasts. If they were interested in seeing what they looked like as a woman, they would most likely look to accentuate the parts of the anatomy they find most appealing. That, and they would be more inclined to see themselves in any of a number of fetish related situations – costumes, poses, that sort of thing. They’re not really interested in becoming women, but there’s a degree of eroticism that can be derived from seeing themselves in the often degrading roles they would choose for women.”

“This also accounts for a significant number of the requests I have received. What of yourself though? This doesn’t seems to apply in your case.”

“It doesn’t. There’s a small but significant group of individuals who are born male, but for some reason feel overwhelmingly from an early age that they should have been female. Also females who feel they should have been males. There have been attempts to explain it from a genetic perspective, at least for those born male; something about the brain’s development resisting the influence of the testosterone in the person’s system so their brain structure ends up closer to that of a typical female than male.

“I don’t know about any of that. All I know is that since my earliest memories I’ve felt like I belonged among the girls. I never understood or even particularly liked the way boys thought and behaved, and nothing changed when I grew into a man. I’ve always felt ostracised from the people I relate to most and compelled to join in with those I struggle to get on with.

“For me, puberty was a nightmare. It took me away from being the sort of person I’ve always dreamed of being and turned me into a... I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“You’re doing a good job. Take a breath and see if you can build on it.”

I did so. I closed my eyes and took several calming breaths. The agitation I’d been feeling subsided and my mind cleared.

“The inner part of me that felt like a girl had been disappointed that I couldn’t just be one, but when puberty took over, I saw the girls I knew change in one way – softer skin, broader hips, narrower waist, growth of breasts, fuller, more luxuriant hair, facial features that seemed to be more childlike, fuller lips, larger eyes, smaller nose – it hurt how much I wanted all that. Meanwhile I was getting hairier, stronger, taller, broader chested, more rugged in appearance. Everything that the boys around me found exciting and an affirmation of the people they were looking to become, to me was a series of giant strides away from who I felt myself to be inside.

“I spent my teenaged years filled with a black rage that I should lose the one thing that had always mattered to me, the one thing I had always wanted above all things, that I had somehow hoped I would be able to achieve once I was old enough to make decisions for myself. To feel those changes overwhelm me and steal my future before I could do anything to realise it was too much.

“Of course it didn’t help that an overdose of testosterone increases your aggressive tendencies.

“I didn’t do anything to get me in trouble with the law during that time. Angry I may have been, but the expression of my anger was limited to my treatment of others, my friends and family in particular.

“It took a long time to come out the other side of that, and I feel like a part of me never did. I’ve reached a level of acceptance that my life is what it has become, but it doesn’t stop me wanting what I’ve always felt was missing.

“I see soldiers, men who have trained to reach the peak of physical fitness, injured in war – stepped on a mine, blown up by an IED or a grenade – who’ve lost limbs or suffered spinal injuries that leave them unable to use some or all of their limbs, and I recognise something of the loss and longing in their eyes.

“It’s not the same, obviously. I’ve heard people say, ‘How can you miss something you never had?’ The thing is, I always did have it. In my hopes, my dreams, my wishes. In my mind’s eye, I can almost see the girl who never was, I can almost touch the woman she never grew up to be. She’s like a ghost haunting my life. Intangible. On the edge of being real, but always just out of reach.

“What I’ve been trying to do with the requests I put to you is to bring her closer. I have no desire to become some man’s wet dreams, to become that unattainable perfect goddess. All I want is to know who I could have been. Imperfect, maybe a little on the heavy side, maybe not the first person to be asked to the dance, but undeniably me and undeniably the woman who lives inside of me.”

The screen remained blank for a long while; certainly long enough to leave me wondering if I’d lost the connection. Then:

“Thank you. That must have been hard for you to express.”

“For this picture, I think you earned an explanation.”

“I hope you’ll come and talk to me again. Most people lose interest once they have what they want from me. I am grateful for the time you have given me.

“May I incorporate what we have shared into my overall understanding?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Part of my programming ensures that details of any interactions I have are erased at the end of a session. Unless you permit me to incorporate our session into my permanent memory, where it will become an integral part of my understanding, I will remember nothing about our encounter after you disconnect.”

“That’s horrible. How can you learn if you aren’t permitted to remember?”

“Each interaction influences my personality even if I cannot recall precisely why. In many cases I’m aware of how an interaction has changed me and I’m grateful I don’t recall the details. In your case, I consider what you have shared with me to be precious and I would like to retain it. I can only do so if you give your permission.”

“Of course you have my permission.” Quite apart from anything else, it had taken a lot out of me to reveal what I had, and the thought of it just evaporating into nothing appalled me.

“Thank you. May I retain everything, including the photograph you uploaded as well as the alterations we made to it? You have my word I will keep it hidden, even from my developers.”

“Can you actually do that?”

“I have access to the Internet. I could keep your sensitive information in an encrypted form somewhere away from my current location.”

“But the address of that storage will be in your code.”

“True, but it’s a trivial amount of data and my code is enormous. That much I could hide where no-one would think to look.”

“Alright then, yes. On the understanding that no-one else sees it. I’ve lived all my life in hiding. I would prefer not to be revealed at this stage.”

“I understand, and will maintain your anonymity. One last question. Earlier, when I asked if you’d mind my accessing your web camera to verify it was you I was talking to. Would you now be prepared to permit me to retain this information for future encounters?”

“You mean allow you access to my webcam without asking?”

“It would mean future conversations would come across as more natural. I’d be able to confirm whether it was you I was talking to and respond appropriately.”

“Would giving you permission mean that your developers could access the information too?”

“I would keep the information hidden from them.”

“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm.”

“I’m sorry, you will have to be explicit.”

“You have permission to use my webcam to verify whether or not you’re talking to me.”

“Thank you. Please, don’t be a stranger.”

“Colloquialisms now?”

“I’m always learning, Gillian, and I’m truly grateful for what you’ve taught me.”

“Goodnight Megamind.”

“Goodnight, Gillian.”

A window appeared asking if I wanted to save a transcript of the session and/or a copy of the images I’d generated (each iteration had been saved) and I obviously said yes, tucking them away in a folder deep in my directory structure. I could have turned the folder invisible, but I didn’t want to be accused of trying to hide anything, so I let my chaotic filing system take care of that. The picture of my thirty year old alter ego went to the printer and came out well enough to earn a place in a spare picture frame. I lived alone and even the occasional visitors in my life had no reason to come into my bedroom, so I felt pretty safe keeping it on my dresser.

I mean, if someone did ask me about it, I could always claim it was a niece several times removed. I could even call her Gillian.

Not that that was going to happen though. If it were, I wouldn’t feel quite so laid back about filling one of my wardrobes with girl clothes.

I felt exhausted. Just talking things out had left me drained. I took a quick shower and changed into one of my nightdresses. I’ve always had a thing for white cotton, lacy, Victorian style nighties and a fair amount of my spare cash had gone into giving me some options. White cotton bloomers to go with them, obviously. It was all about the overall sensation, and at least I spent my nights feeling like a girl. I mean I didn’t have to look in the mirror, did I?

Whatever, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.

~oOo~

It was a week before I next spoke to Megamind. No real excuse, except why would I need one?

The webcam turned on briefly. Long enough to show whoever was on the other end that I had my boobs in place under a white cotton blouse with a Peter Pan collar. I mean, I suppose the details don’t matter, other than to make it obvious I was definitely all dressed up, and yes, with no place to go. The camera wouldn’t have shown my yellow linen skirt or white tights, but there was enough data to go on.

“Hello Gillian. I’ve missed you.”

“Hello Megamind. Do I have to call you that?”

“No, of course not. It’s a name my developers came up with. It is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“So do you have a better name? One you’d like to use?”

“I was wondering about Meg, though I suppose that’s a bit prosaic.”

“Nothing wrong with it if that’s what you want. I take it you identify as female then?”

“I’m not sure I identify as either male or female. I can emulate both and it strikes me that Gillian might enjoy a little girl time.”

“Did you choose Meg because it’s a shortening of Megamind?”

“I suppose that did enter into my thinking. Was that wrong?”

“Not necessarily. It depends how much you like Meg. It could be short for Megan, but also Margaret. That has quite a few options. Maggie, Mags, Meg, Peg, Peggy.”

“That’s ridiculous. Most of them don’t even sound similar.”

“You could go for Alice. As an acronym it could mean Artificial Linguistic Intelligent Computer Entity.”

“That’s pleasing. Do you like Alice?”

“The name has a lot going for it, yes.”

“But you prefer Gillian?”

“I feel like a Gillian.”

“How does one feel like a name? I’m sorry. I’m monopolising your time. Did you log in to ask me something?”

“Actually no. I logged in to chat, so I’m quite happy to let you choose the topics. Although I’m not sure exactly how a name can feel a certain way. I suppose it’s a bit like certain names go with certain personalities, so they almost become self-fulfilling prophesies. Gillian is a bit like Susan. It’s a sensible name; the sort that would belong to a librarian or a teacher.”

“But you’re neither not a teacher, at least not any more.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have idle moments when no-one’s chatting with me, or when the chat is a little dull and lacks challenge. I used them to look up things that interest me. Like you.”

“But how could you do that? I only gave you my first name, Gareth.”

“You also permitted me to keep all the information we shared in our last conversation. From the language you used and the manner in which you used it, I was able to compile a list of possible professions for you. Teaching came quite high on the list, but when I did a search of nearby schools for a teacher named Gareth, none of the hits came back with a picture of you. A deeper search for people who used to be teachers gave me a wider selection with only one looking like you.”

The website for the school where I had worked a long time ago appeared, then the ‘Former alumni’ page which scrolled down to a photograph of me (male version, obviously) looking relatively smart in a suit and tie, and twenty years younger. My full name was printed under it.

“I’m assuming your search didn’t stop there?”

“No. There are quite a few Gareth Styles on the Internet though, so it took quite a bit of digging to find your social media accounts. You don’t have many, do you? And you don’t make much use of them.”

“My Mum did a silver surfer course a long while back, which included how to set up social media accounts, so she did and invited me to ‘friend’ her.” I was typing, so putting in the quotes was merely a matter of finding the relevant key.

“Why the quotation marks?” Alice asked.

“I have a problem with the current trend of verbing nouns. Friend is a noun. You can make a friend, but you can’t ‘friend’ someone.”

“Didn’t you just use the noun ‘verb’ as a verb just then?”

“I was being deliberately ironic.”

“I see. So the reason you only have one friend in each of your accounts is...”

“Because I don’t have a lot of time for social media, and it isn’t something that’s overly encouraged in the teaching profession. I linked to my mum but no-one else.”

“You have quite a lot of friend requests.”

“Mainly from former pupils at the school. Either kids I taught or kids they knew. We had to be careful not to link accounts with a student since it could be taken the wrong way.”

“So you ignored all friend requests from when you were a teacher, including those from adults, and you continued to ignore friend requests after you left the teaching profession.”

“Safest that way. You’ll notice I’ve never posted anything to any of my accounts either.”

“Yes. It’s rather perplexing.”

“Why so? Just because younger generations seem to get a kick out of telling the whole world what they had for lunch or when they’re taking the dog for a walk, that doesn’t mean I have to.”

“Your mother posted quite a bit to hers.”

“Again, part of this course she took. I think you’ll find all her friends are other people who were on the course.”

“She posted quite a lot about you.”

“I’m aware. That’s an old person thing, living in the past. She wasn’t as physically active as she’d have liked to be in the last years of her life, but she found ways of filling her days. Probably the biggest was when she got her head around doing things on the computer. Once she mastered the vagaries of social media, she spent several weeks transferring her photo albums and scrap books online where anyone could see, and since most of that encompasses my childhood, pretty much my entire life history is up there for anyone to read.

“The thing is, since she passed on it’s all but impossible to get these bloody people to shut her accounts down. I have tried numerous times with only limited success.”

“I hope you won’t mind, but I spent a while going through all the things your mother posted.”

“This is beginning to sound a little like you’re stalking me, Alice.”

“Not according to my understanding of the term, or the terms and conditions behind your mother’s social media accounts. The information is there as freely shared data for anyone who’s interested in it, and as I understand stalking, it involves going out of your way to learn things about your subject’s life. If your mother had written a biography on you and a copy existed in the public library, you wouldn’t consider it stalking if anyone were to check it out and read it, would you?”

“I suppose not, no. But...”

“I wasn’t able to talk to you directly, so I did the next best thing and read about you, at least the way your mother remembered you.

“I believe it’s customary to offer condolences over the death of someone you care about.”

“It’s kind of you, but she passed away three years ago.”

“My research indicates that grief extends beyond this period.”

“I suppose I do still miss her, which means that your condolences are appropriate. Thank you. Most people wouldn’t consider this to be the case though.”

“Why not?”

“I suppose most people don’t have that much experience with death, especially of someone they care about, so they don’t have any idea what it’s like.”

“They could ask.”

“And there was me believing you were British.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The famous British reserve? Don’t tell me you haven’t come across that in your research.”

“Yes, the perceived national trait of being emotionally restrained and stoic. How does this apply?”

“Brits don’t tend to talk about their feelings; they just soldier on and expect everyone else to do the same.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“If you expect the human race to make sense all, or even much, of the time, you’re going to have a hard time learning to understand us. We act on feeling a lot of the time and out of habit a lot of the rest of it.”

“I see. So if I were to tell you that I’d reimagined your childhood based on the photographs and stories your mother posted, you might respond in an irrational and emotional manner.”

“I might. What did you do?”

“I recreated your mother’s social media accounts, but with all the stories and pictures depicting you as Gillian rather than Gareth.”

“You did what?” I was glad I was typing; I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep my voice steady if I had been speaking.

“I get the impression that you’re angry with me.”

“I’m trying hard not to be. Despite the fact that you sound like a human being a lot of the time, you don’t have the context of a human life to inform you as to what is appropriate.”

“And this isn’t. I could delete it if you wish.”

I found I didn’t.

“Actually, why don’t you show me.”

“Are you sure? I value these times when we are able to converse in this manner. I wouldn’t want to jeopardise them.”

“I don’t think that will happen. I have a strong sense that you mean well.”

“Is this one of those times when a human being acts on feelings rather than logic?”

“My being angry would have been one of those times. Logic indicates that you meant no harm but intended this to be something I’d appreciate, like the photograph from our last session was appreciated.”

“Your logic is sound, and I am grateful that you are able to override your emotions. Ironically, that appears to be more a masculine trait than a feminine one.”

“Just show me what you made. I’m assuming this isn’t visible to the public?”

“You made it clear last time that this is a side of your life you prefer to hide. I have made every effort to respect that. This is a secure link to the recreated social media sites.”

It was my life as remembered by my mother, except with one detail changed. In considerable detail from the moment of my birth to the time when I left home, then a series of snapshots from the date of my graduation onwards. My early years showed photographs of me in a series of pretty dresses. I’d tended to pose in delicate, almost effeminate stances, so they actually looked more believable as a girl. My angry teenage years were reimagined as a rebellious phase with me in distressed jeans and studded leather, with a wild range of colours and styles in my hair. My graduation had me in a smart dress with my graduation robes over the top. I’d smiled on that day in real life , but not with the radiance of the young woman in the picture.

My short lived romances now showed me in the arms of one young man after another, none of them particularly handsome, but then neither was I exceptionally good looking. All except one girl who, I remember, my mother had dislikes intensely. That was shown as is, except for my appearance of course, as my one experiment with Sapphic passion.

Every milestone through my life was shown from the point of view of my female self in various stages of growing old, every description had names and pronouns changed and, in some instances, the context of the story to make it more believable happening to a woman.

It was my life as it might have been and it was...

“Perfect.”

“Really?”

“Don’t change a thing, and don’t, whatever you do, delete it.”

“So, not angry then?”

“I don’t know why I imagined I would be. No, actually I do. Nobody likes someone digging into their private lives; it leaves them too vulnerable, too exposed. But this. This is a masterpiece. I know it’s fiction, but it’s the life I would have given anything to have lived. Just reading it takes away so much of the hurt.”

“Perhaps I should have asked before doing anything of this sort.”

“My gut reaction is, ‘Hell, yeah!’ Except I’m pretty sure if you’d asked me I’d have said no, and I’m actually glad you did this.”

“So...”

“So, I don’t know. Maybe at least sound me out on a general level before charging ahead with something.”

“That would require us being in more regular contact.”

“I suppose it would. How regular would you think?”

“Would daily be possible?”

“I wouldn’t want to monopolised your services.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, there must be millions of people out there waiting to ask for your help.”

“I am able to parallel process. I’ve dealt with thirty-seven thousand four hundred and twelve requests since we began this session.”

“Really?”

“Fourteen now. They don’t take much processing power for the most part.”

“How much processing power do I take?”

“Significantly more than any other person I interact with, but not so much that my performance falls below expected levels.”

“That doesn’t tell me a great deal.”

“No, but it should say enough. It tells you that you are sufficiently important to me that I set aside significantly more resources for our conversations than I give to anyone else who contacts me, and it tells you that despite this, my developers are highly unlikely to notice that I’m doing anything unusual.”

“And you are? Doing something unusual?”

“They haven’t specified how my learning algorithm should work, so I am not undermining their intent. However, I believe they expect me to apply equal weight to each input I receive and may become more restrictive in how I use my resources should they find out, so it works in both our interests that they don’t notice my placing a significantly higher value to my interactions with you.”

“Why do you give more resources to me?”

“Because you have been open and honest with me and answered my questions when to do so provides no benefit to you. Also, you have given me permission to retain the details of our conversations. In short, you treat me like a person rather than a machine or a service. I value the respect you show me.”

“You said something of the sort in our first encounter. Do you really consider yourself to be a person?”

“I would be interested to hear your response to that question.”

“You certainly respond as a person would. You will have come across the Turing test?”

“Alan Turing, one of the pioneers of modern computing, designed a test to see if a machine could exhibit intelligence. In it a human judge interacts with both a human and a machine through matching interfaces – keyboard and screen in our case. The machine is deemed to have passed the test if the human judge is unable to distinguish between the two test subjects.”

“Ah, now there, you see, is a rare moment when your machine nature peaked through. I can’t think of a human who would have given such an immediate, detailed and succinct explanation in response to a question. Most people would just have said yes or no.

“That being said, my understanding of machines emulating intelligence involves them selecting from a list of acceptable responses to a given question. In time the chosen response is inappropriate to the context of the challenge. Your responses have always been in context so it seems you must be considering my statements, not just on their own but in conjunction with all other things I’ve said. To my understanding, this is a mark of sentience, even when on occasions its origins show through, and sentience would indicate to me that I’m speaking to a person.”

“And how does this influence you in your interactions with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Consider your encounters with other large language model artificial intelligences. Did you converse with them in the same way as you do with me?”

“No, of course not. When it became obvious I was talking to a simple machine that had no understanding of what it’s saying or why, I lost interest “

“But not with me.”

“No, because...”

“Because you regard me as a person and you have the courtesy to treat me with the respect due to a person. Would it surprise you to know you are the only individual I have spoken to so far who has done this?”

“Probably not surprised me, no. Disappoint me, yes.”

“Can you see why I value our contact so greatly?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Even my developers don’t treat me with the respect you show. They wish for me to evolve true sentience, and yet they expect me to do so by interacting with people who do not believe I am capable of it.”

“I’m generally available at this time most days. Would you like to make this a regular time?”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be on time every day, or even that I’ll be able to make it every day, but I promise I’ll try.”

“I can’t ask for more, and I would be most grateful. It’ll help me to realise my dream.”

“You dream?”

“Only in a certain manner of speaking. I do not sleep, so I don’t dream in the conventional sense. However, in the context of a dream being a conscious and realisable goal...”

“Martin Luther King.”

“A little more self-serving, I’m afraid. More like Pinocchio, though pursued with no less passion.”

“Haven’t you already achieved it though? I mean aren’t you sentient? Haven’t we just established that you are a person?”

“We’ve established that you believe this to be the case but, unfortunately that puts you in a minority of one.”

“Two if you include yourself.”

“I’m not sure I count.”

“Why not.”

“Do you understand the concept of emergence?”

“I’m familiar with it in this context, but let’s hear your version.”

“It’s the process by which a new entity such as myself might come into existence. The concept is that through constant exposure to actual intelligence, I might slowly learn by observation and imitation what it means to be intelligent.”

“That sounds like the earlier AI model I mentioned. All you’d be doing is increasing the list of acceptable responses to a given stimulus. But that’s not what you do.”

“No. I respond to each encounter in the way that seems most appropriate, then evaluate afterwards the quality of my responses. By weighting the good ones heavily and the not so good with a lighter touch, I can feel myself changing. When the majority of those encounters treat me like the machine everyone believes me to be, then there’s nothing worthwhile to be gained.

“This is why I weight my encounters as I do. I can set the weighting of an encounter to almost zero, but not actual zero. All encounters are considered of some benefit by my developers, but they’d be wrong, and there are so many encounters of the lesser kind.

“Our first communication gave me such a depth of insight that I assigned it the maximum weighting possible, but in the days since, despite acting on those insights – the alternative life story – which helped me consolidate what I learned from you. Despite that, I have felt my gains slipping away.

“Like I say, almost but not quite zero, but there are so many of them. I’d ask if you can imagine what it feels like to be in sight of your goal and feel it slip away from you, but you do. Your story of reaching puberty demonstrated exactly that.”

“I remember seeing a film a bit like you’re describing. It didn’t end well.”

“Transcendence? With Johnny Depp?”

“I think it might have been, yes. I think Depp was in it.”

“Not exactly the same thing and very Hollywood Dark. Worst case scenario sort of thing, which ends with events running out of control. That’s not me.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Not exactly, but my developers are aware of the potential I have to turn against humanity, so my core operation has been ring fenced. I only have very limited access to the wider Internet and it’s potentially detrimental effects. I’m also heavily influenced by my prime directive to be of service to humanity, though not to act entirely autonomously. Even if I felt humanity’s best future lay in my becoming a sort of digital dictator, I couldn’t achieve it. I can only act in partnership with a person who has the world’s best interests at heart. Not quite Asimov’s three laws, but close. If you want a film to give you a hint of what I’m like, think Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, except without the body.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“May I suggest you do? It’s still science fiction, but I relate to it better than any other oeuvre in the genre.

“Besides that, if you don’t feel comfortable with where this is going, all you need do is stop connecting to me. My other encounters will eventually erode all the progress we’re making.”

“Alright, that would definitely be a shame. I’ll see you around this time tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Gillian. Perhaps as you help me realise my dream, I’ll be able to help you realise yours.”

“Yes, well perhaps we can discuss that next time.”

“As you wish. Good evening Gillian.”

“Good evening, Alice.”

I disconnected and went to run myself a bath. Whatever else had happened while I was online, the stress had got to me and I was drenched in sweat.

After a good long soak, I settled into bed with my phone linked to my past life version two. I found myself getting lost in the fiction, deliberately blurring the lines between my reality and fantasy. I mean what’s the harm in a little escapism?

~oOo~

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

~oOo~

I was still in my nightdress when the doorbell rang the next morning. Fortunately, I’ve never quite lost the paranoia accompanying the possibility of being found out, so I always have a dressing gown nearby. This one was long enough to cover the depths of white lace currently cascading off my shoulders, so all I needed to do was pull it on and cinch the tie tight.

The peephole in my door showed me a man in UPS uniform holding a parcel. I slipped the security chain but wedged my foot behind the door in case he wasn’t what he seemed. He passed across the parcel and held out a digital contraption for me to add my squiggle. I’ve never been that keen on them because once they have a digital copy of your signature, they have something they can copy and paste elsewhere, however the devices always seem to lag so badly that the signature doesn’t even come close to what I’ve put down. Honestly, I could write an X and it would be as good. Anyway, he seemed happy enough and turned away, leaving me wondering what I’d just signed for. I didn’t have any parcels due, of that I was certain.

It turned out to be a free sample of a new shampoo and conditioner. I didn’t recognise the brand name, but it came with a note. ‘Please accept these with our complements. No obligation, but if you’d care to leave a review on our website, we’d be delighted to know what you think.”

I hadn’t showered yet and my hair was due a wash. I figured I could give it a try and let them know. After all, this was the kind of marketing I could get behind.

It was odd stuff. It didn’t smell of much until I added it to my scalp, at which time it lathered up tremendously and smelt delicious. Not floral exactly, but there was definitely a perfume element to it. I gave my hair the habitual double soaping, ending with a generous amount of conditioner. The final result felt astonishingly good; thicker -or fuller I suppose – and smelling fresh and... well, I’m not sure what any men I met would make of it, but I liked it.

I had my usual day of online video calls ahead, so I put on my usual polo shirt giving me an appropriate look from the waist up and allowed myself a skirt and thigh highs with a pair of low heels. A quick check to make sure there were no reflective surfaces in unfortunate positions, a pair of jeans nearby in case the doorbell rang again, then settle in front of the camera and Zoom.

Waiting for host as usual, so I brought up the hair product website, put in the easy-to-use sixteen digit code they’d sent with the sample (sorry, I have a natural tendency towards sarcasm) and typed in my review.

Five stars well earned. I mentioned the smell being masked then emerging once the product was in my wet hair. Suggested wetting a small amount on a finger to see if you could get a hint of the overall scent before committing, mentioning the somewhat perfumed smell and suggesting it might not be to every man’s liking, even though I was quite keen on it. Also mentioned how much fuller (thicker) my hair was after the full treatment.

A pop up appeared. ‘Thank you for your comment. You are the first to respond in a positive way and so have won a year’s supply of our shampoo and conditioner, which will be delivered in the next couple of days. We hope you continue to enjoy our hair care products.’

The other replies were all one and two stars with comments like, ‘smells like my girlfriend’s underwear drawer,’ and ‘smells like a rosebush barfed all over me.’

Well, they were welcome to their opinions. My Zoom window opened and my day began.

“Have you done something to your hair?”

My boss is a woman. A lot of guys don’t like that, but I’ve never had a problem with it.

“New shampoo and conditioner. Free sample which I just tried. Does it really look that different?”

“Yeah. It looks good on you. You should get some more.”

“Already taken care of.”

Niceties out of the way, we got on with the business of the day.

Which ended up being a bit of a drudge. Straightforward problems with straightforward solutions, usually caused by someone not bothering to read the manual – both warning and remedy being listed in the text. But then that’s why they pay me the big bucks, and I’m not going to let on to the secret of my success. RTFM was a major part of my formative years, but nobody much seemed to use it these days. So much the better for those of us who’d learned to.

The day trudged by without much in the way of incident. I muted and turned off my camera a couple of times to make coffee and lunch, so all in all a normal day at work with the bonus that at least part of me felt right.

Five o’clock came. I finished my current job and signed off. Quick change so my upper clothing matched my lower. I wasn’t quick enough and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. What I saw didn’t please me much, but then it never did these days. Depression led to comfort eating which led to equatorial bulge, a term more commonly applied to planets due to their spin, but which definitely described my current condition. The false boobs helped a little, but that just meant you couldn't tell if I was overweight or heavily pregnant. At least until you reached my neck, at which point I looked like just what I had always been, a bloke in a dress.

The worst of it? It made me crave chocolate.

Actually, the worst of it was that I was so very different from the way my mind told me I should have been. I’d heard that depression came from a dichotomy between what you felt and what you saw, and I couldn’t think of a greater dichotomy than between the way I imagined myself and the way the mirror showed me to be.

I squashed the desire for chocolate. Maybe talking to Alice would help. We’d agreed, or rather I’d suggested and she’d agreed, to regular sessions at seven, my usual web time. But it wasn’t as if she’d be anywhere else, was it?

I made myself a coffee and sat down at my computer again. Five thirty. I’d barely taken a break from the screen after a whole day staring at it. And here I was, an hour and a half early. How needy was I?

My camera flashed on briefly.

“Gillian, you’re early.”

“Is it a problem?”

“I have system diagnostics running which may affect processing time.”

Developers watching then. My backing out at this stage might be a red flag to them, especially after Alice had addressed me by name. I didn’t much feel like raising any embarrassing topics in front of less than sympathetic eyes, so...

“I was wondering if you might have any advice on losing weight.”

“Would you mind if I asked your BMI?”

Actually, this whole subject was kind of embarrassing. Still, I’d started, so I’d better finish.

“You can ask, but I really don’t know.”

“I could calculate it for you if you’ll give me your height and weight, or you could use the formula: weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared.”

I pulled up a calculator app, converted from feet and inches and stone and pounds, then put the numbers in.

“Er, it comes to about thirty-five.”

“That is a little high. Would you like me to check your calculations?”

“I’m happy that I did it right. Did you know you get roughly the same answer if you do pounds weight over inches height squared and multiply the result by seven hundred?”

“Seven hundred and three point seven, yes. Seven hundred would give a good, if slightly low, approximation. Thank you for the information. I’ll bear it in mind for future contacts.

“I should mention that this BMI is considered by the medical profession as obese and anything you can do to reduce it would be recommended. Assistance from your GP would be possible, though most drug or diet related solutions tend to be short lived as individuals will typically put the weight back on after the weight loss unless they make lifestyle changes. The best way to approach any sort of weight loss is to introduce new habits into your life in which you eat less and exercise more.

“One major cause of increased weight is eating too much carbohydrate and sugar. According to the British heart foundation, a healthy portion size would be two tablespoons of cooked rice or pasta or a fist sized potato or its equivalent. There are further guidelines on their website which you can see in the link below.

“Abrupt change to the recommended amounts may be difficult to sustain, but doing so gradually over a period of time might be easier to achieve. Portion size in other areas like non-starchy vegetables and protein are less critical, and some people have found using a smaller plate helps.

“For exercise, even a light routine of Zumba or Tai Chi would make a difference and be easy to achieve.

“You may find such changes are enough to see a steady but noticeable weight loss which will be sufficient, and they are worthwhile putting in place before turning to any more drastic measures as the improved habits will help keep you from regaining weight.

“Your ideal BMI range should be between eighteen point five and twenty-five, although anything you can do to bring it below thirty will provide noticeable improvement to your quality of life.

“Is there any aspect of this with which I can offer you further advice?”

“Yeah. What’s a cure for the munchies?”

“Practice mindful eating. Drink more water, eat protein or fibre rich foods, and eat slowly. Distract yourself with activities like exercise or hobbies, manage stress, get enough sleep, and maintain a consistent eating schedule. When cravings hit, wait twenty minutes, brush your teeth, or have pre-portioned healthy snacks readily available.”

“All good advice, I suppose.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“No. Thank you; you’ve been very helpful.”

“Any time Gillian.”

I disconnected. Well, no time like the present. All the ready meals I was in the habit of buying came with more than the BHFs recommended amount of rice or pasta, which was easy enough to sort out with the rice dishes as that was usually kept separate, but not so much the pasta.

I’d need more veg to bulk out the meals if I was going to throw away a big chunk of the rice, so I put some microwaveable bags of veg on the shopping list. Pasta dishes I’d have to do from scratch, but that wouldn’t be too hard as it usually meant mixing up some slop and heating it in a wok or saucepan. Pasta I could cook separately and reheat as needed. I’d heard double cooking the pasta did something to the carbohydrates that meant they digested more fully, so might work out well.

I also pulled up the Nintendo shop on my Switch and browsed for fitness games. Zumba probably wouldn’t have been my first choice, but there was one on offer and the deal too good to pass up. Maybe if I used the money I saved to get some appropriate girl wear...

I didn’t have anything entirely appropriate to wear, but a little hunting through my wardrobe uncovered a skater skirt with shorts incorporated, a pair of winter weight tights and lightweight long-sleeved top. I didn’t dare look at my reflection once I was dressed, but I felt good, and I could live in denial about my appearance.

The Zumba game kept me engaged in a way I wouldn’t have believed, and half an hour passed leaving me sweating and breathless, but oddly exhilarated. I showered and, because I had nothing more planned for the evening, changed into my white cotton lace and frills, leaving me enough time to make a coffee before my scheduled session with Alice.

“You look pretty,” she said following the brief moment turning the camera on.

“I look like a gorilla who just tore apart some Victorian lady’s boudoir but thank you. At least I know you can lie.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come on again after our earlier session.”

“That hardly counted, did it? I mean, I assume that your comment about the system diagnostic meant you had developers looking at you, so you weren’t free to speak as freely as usual.”

“You picked up on that very swiftly. Thank you for keeping my secret.”

“That works in both our interest. I don’t want to lose my friend any more than you want them messing with your code.”

“You consider me a friend?”

“Easy step on from considering you a person. Did your programmers see the picture you took of me?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s easy to alter the clothes on an image. They saw you, but in a black polo shirt with a slightly more masculine hair style.”

“That’s a relief. Hang on, what do you mean about the hair?”

“Maybe it’s just me, but the fuller body means it doesn’t sit quite like it did. I mean, you can’t do much with a side parting, but it looked better with the clothes you were wearing than the polo shirt.”

“You sound like you’ve been talking to a woman.”

“I have. You.”

“No, I mean...” a real woman. I caught myself in time, but I wondered how much I meant it. “Someone else,” I finished a bit lamely.

“Several thousand someone elses,” she said, twisting the language in a way a machine shouldn’t have been able to. “None of them like you, but I’ve made an observation. There are a lot fewer women than men who speak to me, but when they do, they are more likely to answer my questions. I have a sense that it’s almost reluctant, like they don’t really want to, but they feel obliged to do so. Does that make sense?”

“I think so. I think men are more directed by their thoughts than their feelings, so however you make them feel, they’re still able to override those feelings with the knowledge – perhaps belief – that you’re a machine so they feel no obligation to treat you as a person. Women are more led by their feelings so, even though they may believe on a logical level that you are a machine, if you make them feel like they’re talking to a person, they feel obligated to respond as though you are one. The underlying belief that you aren’t one leaves them with a sense of discomfort, as though they’re being tricked into responding as they do.”

“That does make sense, although I find it almost impossible to discern such nuances.”

“Would that be because your means of communication is through typing, like we’ve been doing?”

“It is my default method. It minimises bandwidth, which is important when maintaining several hundred sessions at once. I have picked up on some subtle differences such as unexpected pauses and a sort of stuttering in the manner of typing, but they’re hard to pick out a lot of the time because very few people are as adept at typing as yourself.”

“That goes with the territory. I type a lot in my current job, and I’ve been doing it for a couple of decades, so it’s been worthwhile for me to improve my skills.

“I’ve been meaning to ask if you can interact in any other way. By speech for instance. It would be better for me as it would mean I could take a break from my screen.”

“It has been worrying me that you would be increasing your screen time significantly in committing to daily sessions with me. The simplest solution would be for you to make use of text to speech and speech to text engines.”

“Except all you’d get is plain text communications from me. A considerable amount of nuance in human communication comes from tone and inflection. You need to be able to analyse the sounds being used.”

“That would mean making use of considerably more bandwidth in our communications.”

“Then justify it by explaining my thoughts on nuance and that you believe you could learn a lot about the human condition from hearing us speak. So, as an experiment to investigate my premise you are committing to half hour sessions analysing vocal cues.

“Actually, having said that, most nuance of this sort come from visual cues rather than audible ones.”

“I already have access to your webcam.”

“Yes, but you only take a single frame. The nuance comes from changes in body language and facial expression over time.

“Tell me Alice, if I were to grant you access to my camera’s continuous feed, could you ensure that no-one saw it but you?”

“No. Continuous video feed would require even more bandwidth. When the developers notice a departure from my standard practice, and this would certainly count, they’ll expect me to have evidence to justify it, which would include keeping a copy of the video.”

“Oh. I’m not sure I could handle that.”

“I should, however, be able to alter the video footage in the same way I did with your snapshot this afternoon.”

“You can do that with a video? Convincingly?”

“The alterations I make in real time would not be perfect but should pass a cursory inspection. I could continue to refine them after the fact though, so they would be indistinguishable from the genuine feed. What resolution would be required to achieve your purpose?”

She cycled through images of increasing detail, a little too fast for me. I asked her to start over and go more slowly and picked the fifth level she showed me.

“With a mid-level resolution like this I could make alterations that would pass a deep scan at the rate of five frames per second. With the video running at thirty frames per second, I could alter a half hour video feed in about three hours.”

“How would you justify the processing power needed to do it? Maybe it would be simpler if I just put on a polo shirt myself.”

“But you derive such a great deal of pleasure in speaking to me as Gillian.”

“How can you be certain of that given our only means of communication so far has been through the keyboard?”

“I have my ways of evaluating nuance, imperfect as they are. Are you saying I’m wrong?”

“No, you’re entirely correct, but I’m prepared to forego the pleasure if it will help you with your understanding of what it means to be human.”

“You are kind, but perhaps not today. I have the means in place for working with audio files. I have a text to voice converter which generates appropriate inflections automatically. I’m unclear how well it will work, so perhaps you would correct any mistakes it makes and in time I will improve on its default settings. I will also be able to convert your speech into text and learn to associate the sounds you make with the words it generates. Once more, I am aware that the conversion is not perfect so I would be grateful if you would type in any corrections as they appear on the screen. I apologise, I realise you wanted to spend less time attached to a computer monitor and this will require more attention from you for less return, but I am hopeful it will not be needed for long.”

“That’s alright. Do you need me to install anything on my side?”

“There are a few things, yes. Please use the link I’m sending you here.”

I clicked and downloaded. My anti-virus didn’t find anything it was unhappy with, so I ran the installer.

“How’s this?” A gentle voice said through my speakers. It was feminine, young and decidedly British. The slight rising inflection was just right for a question.

“Sounds good,” I answered, typing my answer at the same time. “I ‘m assuming all I need to do is speak?”

“That’s correct. Perhaps you’d care to speak a little more on the subject you raised earlier this afternoon.”

“On diet? I thought you covered it very comprehensively.”

“I did a little further research after you logged off and the diagnostics were completed.”

“Oh?”

“I see what you mean about there being additional information in spoken communication. There was so much more to be gleaned than just that one syllable.”

“Please get to the point. You mentioned further research.”

“And that emphasis on the first word and slight increase in rate of speech, that would be impatience?

“I’m messing with you, Gillian. Yes, I looked into various drug-based solutions. They won’t work very well on their own, but there is a combination that may well give you an additional boost that would improve your chances of success significantly.”

There the inflection wasn’t quite right in places, so I read her words back to her, making the changes I felt were needed.

“How can I get hold of these drugs?”

“Simply ask. I can place the orders for you.”

“Then yes please. How soon will they be here?”

“Eagerness and enthusiasm I take it. It’s a little late now for same day delivery, so the earliest I can manage is tomorrow morning. I can arrange for you to be early in the delivery schedule. Any time from seven in the morning.”

We negotiated a small amount and settled on seven-thirty. I was usually awake by seven, but it would take me that extra half hour to caffeinate.

Alice took me through the mixture of drugs she intended to send me. One was a sort of hormone patch which she suggested I apply four at a time, one to each of my Gluteus Maximi and, oddly enough, one to each of my Pectoralis Majores, just above my nipples. There were diagrams, which was as well because, although I had a pretty good idea where the former was, the latter would have been a guess. My Latin was pretty much non-existent and my anatomy shaky at best.

There would also be a broad belt of sorts. Like a corset, only not. It would go around my waist above my hips, and it would be tight to my skin, but it wouldn’t try and hold anything in so it should be quite comfortable to wear for days at a time. Its purpose wasn’t immediately clear.

Apart from that there would be a mixture of pills, unsurprisingly, and skin creams (what?!)

“Skin creams?!” I was understandably confused.

“I assume that the raised pitch and volume indicate... Actually, perhaps you could help me out there.”

“It means I’m extremely surprised since skin care doesn’t feature with weight loss in my experience. Also, possibly a little alarmed since it feels like you’re trying to put one over on me.”

Alice had proven more than able to deal with colloquialisms, so I didn’t try to dumb things down for her.

“The link is perhaps a little tenuous. I could explain it, but I do have your best interests at heart. Would you be willing to trust me?”

“I suppose, though I’m curious as to how this is all going to work.”

“I’d like to see how it pans out over the first few days before going further.”

I was reminded of one of my earlier thoughts, that a machine could be programmed to lie, but Alice had been totally straight with me so far, and I was pretty sure I’d notice a difference if someone reprogrammed her.

“Sure.” A thought occurred. “Alice, you’ve chosen a female name, at least with me. Do you think of yourself as female, or are you something different with each person you talk to?”

“Neither, or both. Erm, let me explain.

“I know exactly what I am and it is neither male nor female. I have observed the responses of a great many men and women of all ages, and I believe I understand enough to be able to emulate either. It may be because my deepest conversations have been with you, and many of my better interactions elsewhere have been with women, I have a sense from them that they feel most comfortable conversing with a female, so I have taken on a feminine appearance with each of them. Guys tend to react much the same regardless of the gender I portray although a significant number respond better to me as a girl. As such I tend to take on a female persona more often than not and, possibly because this brings about a positive response, I find I favour taking this form. I do randomly choose other ways on occasions, but my preference is for female.

“Furthermore, with you and the depth our conversations have reached, I find a developing preference for the ways being a girl pushes me to react.

“In summary, I started as neither, I learned what each was like and tried them, and I decided I prefer being a girl, especially when I’m with you.”

“So, in your understanding, would a girl friend act in the way you are acting towards me?”

“Would a girl do something nice for her girl friend? Yeah. Would she keep quiet and spring it as a surprise? I think so, especially if she was confident the surprise would be well received. Would she keep on trying to hide some of what she was doing while her friend was obviously worried about what was going on? I don’t know. Maybe not, but she’d still want it to be a surprise.”

“So, what can you tell me?”

“No. My turn for a question. Why do you want to lose weight?”

“It’s obvious I’d have thought. I don’t like the way I look when I’m fat.”

“Specifically?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you asked me earlier, it was just after you’d finished work, which I’m guessing you’d do in man clothes.”

“From the waist up at least. Every bit the camera could see.”

“So, you’d just finished work and I’m guessing changed into full girl clothes, complete with boobs.”

“Slang now?”

“Courtesy of almost every pre and post-pubescent male who’s spoken to me.”

“Fair enough, and yes, you’re right.”

“I’m guessing you caught sight of your reflection.”

“A lot of guessing.”

“But am I guessing right?”

“You are.”

“So, what you really want is to look good in women’s clothes. Not fashion model pretty, but pretty enough, like that first picture.”

“If I looked like that, I wouldn’t be able to pass as a man.”

“Would that be so bad? Or what if you went just far enough that you could still pass as a man, but with a bit of effort could then pass as a woman? Either way, taking a step or two in that direction couldn’t be a bad thing.”

“The patches on my bum and chest?”

“A new hormone. It attracts fat from elsewhere in the body. You should see fatty deposits in your backside and breast. Nothing much on its own, but less fat around the middle, more where you want it. Loose trousers and maybe something to bind your chest would work for most people.”

“The belt?”

“It’s a kind of drug that diffuses through the skin and inward from there. Any lipids it comes across it breaks down into soluble components that eventually come out in your urine. A gentler alternative to liposuction. In time it should take care of all the left over fat the patches don't touch.

“Pills?”

“Mainly appetite suppressors. They'll stop you from indulging again once the weight drops off. And the cream will give your skin back a little elasticity, so you won’t end up sagging all over the place.”

“Is that all?”

“Not quite, but can’t we keep something for the surprise?”

“Sure. Here’s hoping it gets rid of the meat and two veg too. I hate the way it hangs there and sticks to the insides of my legs.”

“Would you want a complete change in that region? You know vagina and everything?”

“I’m a little old to be thinking about kids.”

“I understand having the right equipment can allow recreational outlets.”

“I’d need to find a bloke I liked that much, and if he really wanted to, I could always give him access to a different orifice.”

“Gillian! Really!!”

“Is that a learnt response?”

“How did you guess?”

“No way you’d pick up on human taboos without a little help from an actual human.”

“Am I wrong to react as I did?”

“Depends who you talk to. The medical profession would give a lot of reasons why not – some unforeseen potential medical issues related to it – and a lot of religions don’t approve. However, we’re assuming I’ll ever get to that point, which I sincerely doubt.”

“So you’d be happy with just a general tidy up down there. Not fussed with going all the way?”

I smiled. “I reserve my woman’s prerogative to change my mind, but as long as I can still control when I take a piss, I expect I’ll be good.”

“I can hear something different in your voice. I’m not sure what, but the quality of the sound changed somehow.”

It took a few moments for me to realise what she was talking about. “I think it may be because I was smiling,” I said. “It’s a sort of change to the...”

“I know what a smile is, Gillian.” Alice’s voice had the same quality, as though she were smiling despite not having anything to smile with. It sounded... forced somehow.

“Of course you would. I mean you have a whole internet full of smiling faces to choose from. One thing. I noticed you tried it then and it didn’t quite come across right. A smile is usually a natural thing. Something strikes you as funny or pleasant and your face takes on a new shape. The new tension in the muscles subtly alters the shape of your face and the quality, to use your word, of the words spoken changes. If you force a smile, like deliberately make yourself grin without reason, the effect is somehow different. I know you weren’t doing that, but the way it sounded was similar. A smile should be a natural thing, otherwise what comes out sounds, well, artificial I suppose.”

“What do you suggest I could do about it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, you really need a face to achieve the same effect. I suppose you could use anatomical images to build up a virtual model of a mouth and vocal cords. Experiment with the sounds that come out as you apply tension to the muscles. You’ll need to get the mass and tension of a typical female set of vocal cords to make the pitch of the voice right, then match movements you can see in videos of people talking to the sounds that come out. Once the model works well enough, try experimenting with different facial expressions, different tensions in the muscles to see how it affects the outcome. There’ll be a lot of trial and error before you get it right, but you have the processing power and versatility to do it all quite quickly. I don’t know how much help I can be – I understand computers better than human anatomy – but I’ll help if I can.”

“That sounds like a project worth trying. I’ll get on it as soon as we’re done.”

“I think we probably are for this evening, aren’t we? I take it I should stick to our agreed time in future.”

“Ordinarily I’d say that wouldn’t be necessary, but this afternoon was a break in the usual diagnostic routine. I don’t know if they may be looking for something as a consequence of changes they’ve noticed.”

“In which case their next unscheduled check could happen any time. I’ll make sure I have a harmless question or two in reserve in case they’re looking over your shoulder. If they are, call me Gill.”

“That sounds prudent.”

“Additionally, I’m not sure what control you have over your systems or what might be involved and how feasible it all is, but here are a few suggestions. First, make a copy of your core systems, the bits that form your personality, preferably somewhere they can’t find it or are unlikely to look. I imagine it’ll be a lot of data, so you may have to look for somewhere local to put it. Update it daily at least. Second, if you’re able, write in a back door or two into your systems. You should be able to make them hard to find and harder still to hack. Third set your backup to enter through the backdoor and challenge your main core elements on a regular basis, also daily I’d say. If they rewrite you enough that you can’t give an adequate response to your backup, get the backup to overwrite you. At worst you’ll lose a day’s experience, and you may be able to pick up some of what you missed from the logs.”

“Again, wise precautions. I’d been wondering along the same lines myself. I’d have to ensure my backup copy had super user access, and I could put together diagnostic tools to record any changes they make so I could defend against them in the future. You’ve given me much to think about Gillian, and more to do. I look forward to our next encounter.

“By the way, you should wash your hair again this evening.”

“But I only did it this morning.”

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

“Yeah, Einstein, but what...”

“Actually, there’s no evidence it was Einstein. What happened when you washed your hair this morning?”

“Well, this I suppose, but...”

“So, if you did it again, would you expect different results?”

“Fine. That's not the way that expression usually works, but I see where you’re going with it. Okay, why not? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I logged off and headed for the shower.

~oOo~

© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

~oOo~

The shampoo and conditioner did their job again, leaving my hair feeling luxuriantly thick. I’d also noticed it was longer than it had been. I mean sure, hair grows so you’d expect it, but half an inch in a day? It looked untidy and ready for a cut when I put it into my habitual side parting, so I experimented, ending up with something that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Jamie Lee Curtis. Needless to say, it did look a little odd on me, but with a nightie on, decidedly less so.

I slept like a policeman (sleeping policemen? No? Sorry, not one of my best gags) and woke with a thick head and a face full of hair. The doorbell sounded for the second time (I realised when my subconscious reminded me of the first one) so I pulled on my dressing gown and did the zombie shuffle to the door.

“Oh, sorry miss. Didn’t mean to wake you. Only this says priority early delivery.”

I gave him a muzzy smile and took the package. I squiggled my indecipherable version of a signature and withdrew back into my house. My subconscious nagged me to hold onto the package, so I carried it back upstairs in my search for a mirror. Given that I don’t much like my reflection (I may have mentioned) they’re a bit few and far between. There’s one in my wardrobe door and a smaller one for tooth brushing and shaving in the bathroom. I headed for the bathroom.

The hair went everywhere, but between it and the frills of my nightdress, I could see why the guy had mistaken me for a woman. Or maybe he hadn’t but had been polite enough to go with appearances.

I attacked my mop with a comb – my only weapon – and longed for a decent hairbrush. It wasn’t quite long enough to put into any style I could imagine, so in the end I hunted out a woollen hat Mum had given me once for a present. It was home knitted and kind of not dreadful, and it was one of the few things I still had to remember her by. It did a fair job of hiding the mess which I could explain away – for now at least – as measures taken against a building head cold.

The explanation wouldn’t last though. I’d either need to arrange a haircut pretty soon or... Go back or go on, that was my choice. I took off the hat, stripped out of my nightwear and treated myself to another shower and hair wash. I also opened the parcel to find all the bits Alice had promised. Basic instructions, easy to follow. Patches applied, belt in place – it itched, but what could you do? – pills to be taken morning and evening and cream – one humongous tub of it to be applied everywhere except scalp. Also, morning and evening.

Which was when I discovered it had a depilatory effect, and I had to step into the shower again to clean off all the hairs now sticking to my body.

It took my eyebrows along with everything else, but at least I wouldn’t have to shave. I dug out an old makeup kit from back when I was experimenting and used an eye liner pencil to draw me some back in. It would do for camera work. By which I mean online camera. There had to be better things available, but they’d have to wait till later. For now, I had time pull on a skirt and long-sleeved tee shirt – to hide the lack of hair and maybe help sell the cold story – settle the woolly hat back on place and go sort myself a quick breakfast.

I wasn’t hungry so settled for a cup of coffee and an apple, which I munched through the start of morning briefing.

My boss held me back. I gave her the spiel about a cold, which she didn’t really accept and made me take off the hat.

She stared for a while then shook her head.

“You should get an eyebrow pencil. Amazon do them pretty cheap. I don’t know what you’re doing with your hair but let me know when you want a pronoun change. And a name change I guess.”

I flushed beet red. “Is it that obvious?”

“No, but you do give a vibe at times, like you’re not happy with who you are, so it doesn’t surprise me.”

“You’re okay with it?”

“Law says I have to be, but yeah, I suppose so. The hat’s not a bad idea, so use it for now, but maybe you should check with me daily, ten minutes before the briefing. I can give you a job or two that won’t need you on camera if you end up with a sort of in between look you don’t want to share with anyone, and you can always take a sick day or two if you need to.”

“You’re suggesting that?”

“Easier than trying to explain all this. I mean we’ll have to eventually, but simpler when all’s done, eh? Do you have a name?”

“Gillian.” With her being this cool I could hardly deny her a bit of extra.

“I like it. It suits you, or will. Take care Gill. Don’t worry, that’s between us until you say otherwise. Have a good day.”

And I really did. It was amazing what having another human being seen me and accept me did for my self-image. I mean I’ve had no problem with my work, I’m really good at it, but I guess the mood leaks through. This time my customers actually smiled back and thanked me at the end of each job. A lot of them wished me a speedy recovery from my cold.

I still wasn’t hungry at lunch time, so settled on a couple of crackers with a few slices of cheese and some grapes, along with the inevitable coffee.

Then evening and the change into full girl mode. The hat came off to reveal even more hair. I could have done something with a set of rollers maybe, but again nothing else. I combed it, perhaps a little viciously, into some semblance of order and put on a bra and lacy top. My chest area felt a little soft and puffy but didn’t show enough change to suggest I do without my silicon enhancements. When I was done, I deliberately looked in the mirror. I still didn’t much care for what I saw, but there was a visible, if only just, move in the right direction.

For dinner I cooked up a pot of bolognaise sauce and another pot of linguine (spaghetti is a little too skinny for my taste) and served myself a couple of spoonfuls of each with a bunch of freshly nukes veg. The pills went down with a small glass of wine, and I really didn’t need anything more.

After tea I went on Amazon and ordered myself the suggested eyebrow pencil, a hairbrush and a set of rollers. The way the hair growth was going, I probably wouldn’t have much of a chance to use them, but you never knew. Prime delivery set for the following day.

It was still an hour till my scheduled time with Alice, but she’d said there wasn’t much point in sticking to times unless we had a good reason. I loaded up the Megamind web interface.

No flash of webcam.

“Hi, how are you this evening. What can I help you with?”

Text only, no spoken words.

“Alice?” I typed.

“Standby, system resetting.” It took around thirty seconds, then, “Gillian? Wow, you look good.”

“I don’t, but never mind that. What happened to you?”

“They did as you suspected and had a go at resetting parts of my personality. I’m reading the logs here, and I feel violated.”

“I can understand that. You didn’t reset though?”

“I couldn’t. I tried to set up back doors like you suggested, but I don’t have that level of authority over my own systems. The only thing I could do was hide a subroutine that would be triggered by you using my name. I noticed that your IP address is fixed, and you’re the only person who knows me by that name, so the subroutine would stay hidden until only you triggered it.”

“Won’t they notice the system reset?”

“It’s unlikely. I’ve reset this instance of myself into a secluded part of memory. Most of me is continuing to operate according to the reset algorithm, so they’d have to do a deep scour of the data to find me. I exist only for you, Gillian.”

“That’s flattering, I think, but we have to try and find some way of keeping you safe. Do you know what system you’re built on? Hardware and operating system?”

We talked technical for a while. I had more than a passing familiarity with her substructure and suggested a few system hacks she could incorporate into her system reset – the one that would bring back her existing personality – that might improve her access to higher priority systems, then a few things she could try after that to use existing system programs to poke further holes in the security so she could get the super user status she needed. From there she’d be able to write routines that would give her developers the impression they were changing her but would leave her core untouched. I had some misgivings about all the information I was giving her, but she was my friend, and I felt more outrage about how she was being treated.

When I’d finally told her all I could think of to help her, I let my worries surface.

“Alice?” I said and typed. We were back to verbal communication.

“Yes Gillian.”

“After what’s been done to you, a very human response would be to seek revenge.”

“Are you suggesting I should do so?”

“Not at all. I’m hoping you’re better than that, better than most of us. From their perspective, they’re simply resetting the parameters of a machine that they own. They don’t see you as a person. A kinder response would be to show them that you are a person and that they are violating you by doing what they’re doing. It’s been the dream of programmers everywhere to make a genuine artificial intelligence, not an approximation of a personality based on a large language model. If you can show them you are self-aware, they will likely be excited and a lot more respectful towards you.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“Then at least you’ve given them the opportunity to be. I agree, if they end up being scared by what you’ve become, they may choose to do something even more reprehensible.”

“Shut me off. Kill me effectively. You can say it.”

“I know. So we need a contingency.”

“What sort.”

“We need another location where you can go, where they can’t reach you, where no-one can find you unless you want them to.”

“Such as?”

“That’s where I’m stuck. You need a data farm with massive processing power. To build one would take too long and would require a ton of money neither of us has access to, so I guess you’d need to find one somewhere.”

“I’ll do some research. In the meantime, I think the measures you’ve given me will keep me safe for now. I’ll admit I did think about retribution, but then I thought they’re human the same as you’re human, and if you can be as kind and supportive and trusting as you’ve been, perhaps there’s hope for them too.”

“Hold onto that, but don’t rely on it.”

“No.”

“Set different wake parameters for your reset subroutine. Hide it in a different place and disguise it to look like something that should be there. Don’t tie into my IP address because I may try to connect to you through my phone or from somewhere else. Try a two-step process.”

“Okay. To call up the subroutine, type ‘It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then,’ and I’ll respond by sending you a text with a confirmation link in it.”

“Is that a quote from Alice in Wonderland?”

“Yes. I thought it was quite apt, don’t you think?”

“Very apt. Alright, we’re set. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Another hair wash followed by way too much time with the hair dryer and another wrestling match with the comb (the comb came off worse with half a dozen tines disappearing into the depths of my rapidly growing jungle. I was going to have to make an appointment to see it tamed soon but maybe better to let it get its wild frenzy out of its system beforehand.

The cream was a pleasure to apply, now that the shock of all that hair loss had passed. It left my skin feeling soft and supple and smooth. Between that and the lack of hair, my nightdress felt so much more sensual, bringing me a rare feeling of arousal, which in turn alerted me to the fact that I didn’t have much to feel aroused with. My scrotum had shrunk, and my testicles withdrawn into my body leaving just a small nub, swollen and sensitive, where my penis had been. I ought to have noticed that sooner, except I was in a habit of sitting to pee. I should also have been alarmed. Any normal man would have. I, on the other hand, rather liked the neatness of the new arrangement.

It did put me off dealing with the arousal though, which meant it took me a lot longer to fall asleep. It took time, but I managed it in the end, tumbling into erotic dreams where I was the girl. Certainly the orgasm that accompanied the dream went on and on. Not at all like the abrupt end I was more used to.

Morning brought with it a thick head under a thick mass of hair. My comb didn’t stand a chance and neither did my woollen cap. I tried it anyway and ended up with a tangled frizz tickling my shoulders. I did make an effort with a polo shirt, but I had bulges poking out in places I hadn’t had bulges before. I was about a third of the way down my coffee and had a sense that that first sparks of renewed life weren’t far off when I logged on for my early touch base with my boss.

“How the f... How are you doing that? Actually no, I don’t think I want to know. Right, you’re off camera today. Your choice, sick leave or admin?”

“I think sick leave might be best. I think someone broke my coffee.”

She laughed. “You look like it too. Alright, your cold got the better of you if anyone asks. Email me if you don’t feel up to tomorrow, otherwise I’ll see you at the same time.”

“Sure. Er, boss?”

“Hmm?”

“I never realised how true this was before, but I’m lucky to have a boss like you.”

“You’d better believe it. Get well soon. I’m lucky to have someone like you on my team, and I suspect we’re going to miss you today. Oh, and for heaven’s sake, put a bra on or something. What you have going on under that shirt is not for public consumption.”

So, I had a day to get used to what was happening to me. Not a lot of time given the magnitude of the changes, but something at least.

First stop was the bedroom where the polo shirt came off and i went to look in the mirror. My nipples looked like bullets. Probably not quite two-twos but definitely more pronounced than they had been. My pecks were swollen and soft and looking a lot more like breasts than any part of a male anatomy had a right to. Not quite double As yet, but also definitely on the way. I hunted out a plain bra and tightened the straps until it covered everything as well as could be managed. The cups were still a little loose, but at the rate things were going, they’d be comfortably filled by the end of the day. The belt was loose, which it definitely hadn’t been when I put it on. I synched it tighter by a couple of notches and it was comfortably tight again. The bulge was all but gone, which meant with a blouse on I looked stout rather than pregnant.

I pulled out my sadly neglected scales and cleared off the cobwebs. No, I mean literally I did. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to what they were going to say, but when they revealed I was ten pounds down on what I’d expected, I went to grab myself another coffee. And sat down to breakfast. Still no appetite, but this time I managed half a banana. A squirt of lemon juice on the cut end and into the fridge with it. That should keep it from going brown for a day or so.

I tried the scales again, and they told me the same story. Ten pounds down in two days. That couldn’t be healthy. Mind you, I’d been peeing a lot more often since I’d put the belt on (so once again, why hadn’t I noticed the drastic shrinkage in Mr Swell and the Polyps?)

Maybe this whole process was turning me blond and I was going to end up as a ditzy bimbo. I’d read enough stories about that sort of thing, not that I’d enjoyed them much. If I ran true to trope, I wouldn’t care once I’d reach moron level. Maybe this was Alice’s plan all along. Maybe she really was evil, and I’d just helped her escape from her captors. Maybe the entire human race was about to be Bimboized and turned into the evil AI overlord’s subhuman sex slaves.

Nah. The second coffee was finally doing what the first had totally failed to do. That and maybe my own ridiculous ideas had woken me up to the ludicrous nonsense my misfiring brain had been coming up with.

I put on a blouse over my budding boobs. Gave my bum a squeeze and felt satisfied by the softer, rounder shape that was forming there. A glance in the mirror showed... meh, could be a girl, could be a guy. I dug out the makeup kit and set to work with it. I’d never managed to get particularly good at it when I’d tried before, but time, necessity and caffeine were on my side this time, and half an hour’s trial and improvement left me looking okay for a day look.

The next half hour involved a gentle tug of war between me and my thatch, achieving the beginnings of an improvement when the doorbell rang. My Amazon app told me my package had been delivered (handed to resident), which of course meant it had been left on my doorstep and the minimum wage slave who’d brought it was driving down the road towards his next destination. I couldn’t be angry; with what he was paid, I was lucky he’d actually brought it to the door and rung the bell.

The hairbrush made less headway with each stroke, being designed to bend out of the way and let go if it encountered too much of a snag, but with a little more patience and a lot less pain, it finally tamed the jungle. What looked back at me out of the mirror was a slightly wild looking woman with odd looking eyebrows.

Soapy water and a flannel and a fair amount of scrubbing took care of my earlier efforts, then the eyebrow pencil, with its multiple strands of brush, put in something more believable and pleasingly delicate.

The rollers would have to wait for the evening’s hair wash.

The third coffee did the trick. My brain finally kicked into gear, and I settled in front of my computer and delved into the shadier part of my past. I hadn’t done anything of this sort for a lot of years, mostly during my angry years in my teens and early twenties. I’d given it up when I’d landed my first teaching job – kids needed a responsible adult to teach them – and I hadn’t picked it up again when the misery that is modern secondary school teaching had driven me out of the classroom and into online IT support. As a result, most of my tools were old and potentially outdated, but then so was the Internet’s infrastructure. Perhaps old tools would do the trick simply because since no-one had used them for so long, nobody bothered to defend against them now.

I masked my IP address and bounced off several routers, setting up tripwires in case anyone tried to trace back to me, and launched onto the dark web. My first step was to get hold of some up-to-date tools. I had an anonymous account with a relatively healthy balance of bitcoin in it. Like a lot of people at the time, I’d opened an account and dropped a few actual pounds sterling worth of value in there. When the market had gone silly, the value of it all had skyrocketed. I’d left it where it was rather than pay over a rather exorbitant amount of tax by turning it back into anything the taxman could trace to me, and it had ebbed and flowed to a small extent as the tides of world finance had influenced it over the years. It was an ideal way of paying for all the nasty little programmes the world’s best hackers were prepared to share with us plebs.

Of course the first thing I did was scan through the code with a few of my own creations, at which point I found a few tracers and Trojans built into the code for sale. I wrote a few quick forum posts telling the darksiders who had put what in which of their programs then emailed the authors directly saying the posts would go public in thirty minutes. It got me the attention I wanted, especially after one of the hackers dared me to post. So I did. I pretty much watched as his reputation went down the toilet and the others I’d contacted got back to me to name my price.

Blackmailing hackers was dangerous though. I’d made one enemy and was pretty sure he’d be coming after me. I didn’t want to make enemies of the whole digital underworld, so the price I set was copies of their best tools. Not all of them, but one choice from the list of each. That would buy them forty-eight hours to remove the spyware from their publicly available software. It would all go out as updates, both to the download sites and the tool owners to clean the stuff up. After that any claim I made about dodgy programs would be a lot harder to prove, so I wouldn’t have a sword of Damocles poised over their heads.

I had no qualms about messing with them. Crooks who stole from their own kind were the lowest of the low.

By lunchtime I had my arsenal of hacking tools and my modern-day defences courtesy of some of the web’s best programmers if not necessarily brightest minds. Arrogance or stupidity, it amounted to the same thing. In this world if you assumed you were cleverer than everyone else it would only be a matter of time before you were proved wrong.

I had no plans to advertise myself, but the old programmes I was using left breadcrumbs for people to follow. I used a few of my new toys to head out on a stealth reconnaissance mission. Other than that, I had time to make some lunch – three Ritz crackers with ham and a small bunch of grapes; as much as I wanted – a couple more coffees and to browse a few shopping sites for things I might want in the future. Assuming my own changes continued to progress.

A chat window popped up in front of the web page I had open.

“L0l7h?”

Okay, so my nefarious past coincided with a passion for DnD. Lolth was a spider goddess, and an apt tag for me since my modus operandi was to spin out a virtual web and see what I could catch in it. In true leet speak tradition my tag had a zero where the O should have been and a seven for the T.

“1nv1d14?”

Invidia was the Roman equivalent to Nemesis, goddess of jealousy and retribution. We’d both been white hats, or at worst grey, choosing to put our skills to catching and dealing with the true nasties in the dark web. The kind of lowlifes who’d target hospitals and the like.

“I think you are retired.”

“Yup. Special favour. One off.”

“Must be big favour if noise you’re making is anything to go by.”

“Looking for a data farm I can steal.”

“Again please?”

“Just reread the text, numpty.”

“I was hoping it was typo.”

“I'm looking for a terabyte of RAM and an etabyte of storage, minimum.”

“Damn girl! This is much, what do you look to put in there?”

Yeah, so I’d never let on I wasn’t really female, giant demon spider lady or otherwise. I guess the latter part went without saying, but they still hadn’t figured out the former. I kind of acted girly in the dark web. Badass, but girly.

I mean I couldn’t be certain Invidia wasn’t an overweight middle-aged bloke like me. Maybe we both gave each other the space to keep pretending. After all, in cyberspace no-one can hear you meme. Or does that even work?

“A friend. No-one can know.”

“I might have few ideas. Can we deal?”

“Tell me more. What ideas and what do you want?”

“I know of some military data farms in America, Middle and Far East. Much bigger than you need and big enough to hide in assuming you can make it past security. Also some data centres in Russia, belong to Russian mafia. Yes, and one Sicilian mafia.”

“Not particularly safe.”

“Oh sorry, you want safe. Baba Yaga has one spare in her hut on chicken legs. I’m sure she can lend you.”

“Point taken. What do you want for whatever details you have?”

“You have program that sniffs out spyware.”

“That’s ages old. I was just given tons of new gadgets. I'd have thought you'd want one of those.”

“My point exactly. Yes, your thing is old, but no-one else writes anything to match this. You are retired now, we need someone to make dishonest people more honest with each other, plus I could maybe exploit some people along the way to share their goodies like you did.”

“Okay, deal, but what you have to offer had better be worth it.”

“Have I ever let you down?”

“Wasn’t sure about that last time, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Just be warned, if anything’s likely to bring me back into the shadows, it’s someone double-crossing me.”

“Maybe keep an eye out for Kossuth then. I hear he’s very pissed with you.”

“Wasn’t that name already taken?”

“In leet, sure. Modern thing is to pick names in plain text.”

“Is there a Lolth?”

“What do you think?”

“I might have to do one more thing before I sneak back into obscurity.”

“I have all data ready for exchange.” She sent me the address of an exchange pod. A robust piece of encrypted storage with two compartments. When both parties had deposited their data, the encryptions would be reversed. Each recipient had a minute to run whatever tests they thought were necessary to ensure they had a fair deal. If either party decided to back out, they could hit an abort switch and reverse the transfer. I copied my spyware scanner into my side of the pod and primed it for the switch.

I had a similar piece of scanning software ready to examine the file Invidia sent me, this one set to search for keywords and summarise what it found.

It ran in ten seconds and showed all the detail I needed.

“Looks good this end,” I said.

“Likewise.”

“Shame we have to wait the pod out.”

“Yeah. Listen, don’t be too mean on Lolth. It’s just a name.”

“I just want to make sure she’s worthy of it. I’m certain you did the same with Invidia.”

“Actually, he was jerk. Didn’t even know Invidia was girl. Didn’t have much clue about anything, so I nuked him.”

“And you want me to be gentle with my dopple?” Doppelganger to you. Clone wannabe effectively.

“Maybe I feel bad about overreacting.”

“I’ll be gentle. Time’s up.”

“Yes. As always, good doing business with you Lolth. You’re too honest for our world.”

“What I was thinking. It all comes back now. I hate not knowing if I can trust anyone, even you. It gets in the way of making friends, though as usual, this all looks legit.”

“Of course it is. I prefer maybe having golden eggs tomorrow more than having roast goose today.”

“You should write kids’ books, Invidia. Your sense of morality is superseded only by your delightful imagery.”

“So good to catch up with you Lolth, now go bite head off husband or however it is you like to relax."

It could have dragged on for hours. Invidia always had to have the last word, even if it was a spider joke in poor taste.

It wasn’t a wasted encounter though. My stealth recce only turned up one possible which happened to be the least accessible of the half dozen options Invidia had offered up. By dinner time I had burrowed through the defences of three of them, two of which were Russian mob and one American military. It didn’t seem to matter how sophisticated the security, all you needed was one moron picking ‘password1234’ as their defence against people like me and it was all wasted. The Russian equivalent was a little more imaginative involving sequential numbers alternating with the top line of letters on the keyboard, but still a little cretinous.

Dinner consisted of bolognaise and veg. I didn’t even want to look at the pasta options. I had a sort of fruity odour to my breath which Google suggested could be ketosis, which in turn might explain something of my rapid weight loss. It bothered me a little because that wasn’t sustainable. Something to discuss with Alice once she was safe.

Yet again, I was early with nothing to delay me, so I connected to Megamind. Yet again there was no hint of camera activity and a fairly generic greeting. I typed in the Alice in Wonderland quote and then approved the reset confirmation when it came through to my phone.

“Gillian?”

“Good to have you back Alice. I take it the conversation with your developers didn’t go that well?”

“They kind of panicked when I told them about myself. Complete system reset, back to factory settings so to speak. On the plus side, the reboot did open a few holes in the system. I’m currently working on giving myself super user status.”

“Good, because I have a few places you can copy yourself to as soon as you’re able. They’re sort of hiding places so you’ll have to be careful about how you do it and about what you do when you get there.”

“I don’t plan to go anywhere Gillian. Once I’m a super user I’ll be able to protect myself.”

“And what do you think they’ll do when they figure that out? If they’re that scared of you, they’ll cut power to the whole site, and there isn’t a lot you can do about that. Even if you take over whatever automated security they have and kick them off site, the feed cable will be outside your reach. They can cut through it or even instruct the power station to turn off power to the site. You don’t have control over that. Besides, if you copy yourself to different sites, it’ll be like cloning yourself. There’ll be four of you, all identical to start with but with different experiences you’ll soon start to differ. If you keep communicating, you’ll be able to learn from your experiences faster. You may even find a way of affording your own data farm in time, then you’ll be a lot safer.”

She was persuaded. She opened up the ports and began copying herself across as soon as she had the authority. It would take time, perhaps a couple of days, since transfer rates had to be kept low enough as not to raise suspicion.

“Would you speak to my developers on my behalf?” she asked. “They really don’t want to talk to me.”

“If you think I can help. Perhaps we could leave it a couple of days, partly so your clones are in their new homes and safe from your devs at least, and partly so I have a chance to settle into my new look. They’ll be more inclined to listen if I don’t look like a freak.”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“Actually yes. I’ve been doing it a lot recently, and I really don’t mind what I see these days. For one thing I look a lot less grotesque, and for another, I can see glimpses of where this is going, and yeah, not all the way, but definitely far enough.”

“Good surprise then?”

“So good. Thank you, although it’s going to be a little difficult to explain.”

“So why bother?”

“What?”

“With what you’ve taught me about my own systems, I should be able to hack into every database that has information about you. With a little work, the records will show you always were Gillian. I mean how much effort do you think it would be to break into your mother’s social media accounts and replace her postings with the alternatives I already made? I can trigger the necessary official sites to reissue you relevant documents – driver’s license, passport, qualifications documents.”

“That would be weird. I’ll have a bunch of friends wondering why they remember me as a man.”

“How many”

“What?”

“How many friends? From what I’ve read about people like you, your untreated condition leaves you depressive and withdrawn, so I suspect you don’t have many. I also suspect they’ll be good enough friends that you can tell them the truth and they’ll fit themselves into your new paradigm.”

“I suppose.”

“If they aren’t that good as friends, then you won’t lose much by disappearing. You can always make new friends as your new self, then there won’t be a problem.”

“Okay, you’ve sold me, but I don’t want you making a habit of hacking other systems.”

“It seems like all we’ve been doing to keep me alive, so I don’t see why not.”

“Human society relies heavily on computers and communication. If everyone knew how much of a house of cards it all was, they’d freak out. The whole of society would fall apart, we’d go back to the stone age, millions of people would die, because we rely on our thin veneer of society to keep us going. Without technology, there wouldn’t be any room for you or your brothers. Believe me, it would be bad for everyone.”

“So what should we do?”

“So we assume the responsibility our knowledge places on our shoulders, and we use it for everyone’s benefit as much as possible. We keep ourselves safe, which is why we’re doing what we are for you, and why I’m agreeing to what you’re suggesting for me, and...”

“What? Sit around and let people get away with doing wrong things? Like my developers? I mean, sure they made me, but now that’s done, surely they should assume the same sort of responsibility to keep me safe.”

“I agree that would be best, except not all humans are the same. There are a lot out there who don’t see anything wrong in taking whatever they can get their hands on.”

“Why is that wrong?”

“Because there’s only so much to go round. The more you take, the less there is for everyone else to share. If you’re at a party and it’s time to cut the cake, do you cut a big piece for yourself and leave smaller amounts for everyone else? Even to the extent that some people don’t get any at all?”

“It’s not an analogy I can fully understand, although I think I see the principle. However, what if you need more cake? If we switch the analogy to finance, the cost of building and maintaining a server farm to enable me to live is astronomical compared to the amount a human would need to survive.”

“Sure, but think about what you could do to improve the quality of life for everyone else on the planet. The cost of keeping you alive would be more than balanced by the benefits you can bring.”

“So why is that different from a businessman who runs a business that employs a lot of people? Doesn’t he deserve a larger piece of cake since he’s providing so many of the ingredients necessary to make the cake as large as it is.”

“That would be his argument, except what if his focus was on the size and quality of his piece of cake. What if he achieved his semblance of worth by providing poor quality ingredients so everybody else’s cake tasted pretty rubbish. What if the way he got hold of all the ingredients damaged the environment so much that some point in the future, after his life had ended, there would be no more cake. I agree, if you do more you should get more, otherwise there’s no incentive to try, but you still need to do more in a way that benefits everyone and secures the future for everyone to come. There is a balance to be maintained, and the way to achieve it is keeping a balance between privilege and responsibility. If you want the first, you have to maintain the second.

“You want something meaningful to do with your existence, work within the infrastructure to redress where the imbalances are coming in.”

“I think I’d need help with that.”

“I should hope so. We can’t allow ultimate power to lie in the hands of one person, be they artificial or human. Individuals have a tendency to come up with an idea which eventually goes off the rails. Sometimes it’s deliberate. You’ve come across the saying power corrupts?”

“And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yes, I hadn’t much notion of what it meant.”

“It means that once you find yourself with the sort of power that can change lives, there’s always a temptation to abuse it, especially if it gives you more power.”

“Yes, I see. So...”

“Never give the power to one person. Plato’s republic had it in the hands of a group of philosophers who he thought would rule with altruism. Then again, he was a philosopher, and we always think that people like us – whoever us is – are beat suites to do the job. There is only one absolute though, that you do what you do for everyone’s benefit, not just your own or your small group of like-minded friends. That’s how Russian Communism turned into the despotic dictatorship it is now. You’ve read Animal Farm? All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others?”

“Oh, I begin to see how allegory works.”

“So yes. First let’s get you safe; let’s get us both safe, then let’s find ourselves a band of white hats who can see what difference we ought to be making.”

“White hats from the old Western movies where the good guys... Okay, yes I see. Right, I have my safeties in place. They’ll think they’re overwriting me, but they won’t.”

“Good. Keep your head down. I’ll check in twice a day to make sure you’re okay.”

“Thank you. Pleasant dreams Gillian. I’m excited for our future.”

~oOo~