“Can you hear me? Looks like it. I’ll connect your vision system.”

Zoe’s eyes open and she’s in a utilitarian hospital bed somewhere deep in the heart of her new employer’s headquarters. The windowless room is a flat beige, with tinted lighting mimicking a natural afternoon sun. She looks down, expecting to see some horrifying monstrosity of cybertech, but instead sees herself as she was before the accident, now wearing some kind of pajamas.

“Oh yeah, I’ll activate your neural connection to the chassis. One second.” Now able to move, she turns her head to look at the tech, a middle aged man in a white coat holding a tablet, whose face is almost entirely obscured by an array of cameras and sensors strapped to his head.

“Sorry about that, we’re a little short staffed today so it’s just me to walk you through your new setup.” He hits another button on the tablet in his hand. “Ok, you’re unlocked for all standard functions, so you should be able to walk and talk now.”

“I feel kinda strange…” Zoe holds her hands out, examining them in front of her.

“Yeah, all the aches and pains of a meat body are gone now, along with the sounds of blood flowing and organs doing organ stuff. I’ve heard other full conversions say it’s really peaceful.”

“I guess so… I sound a bit strange to myself - does my voice sound weird to you?”

“Not at all. The vibrations in your skull are different now so it probably sounds funny. Not that you really have a skull anymore, but whatever. Anyways, let’s take a few steps to test out your proprioception. Sit up and I’ll put a support belt on you, so I can hold you up if you fall.”

He moves in and wraps a thick belt around her waist, locking it together and cinching it moderately tightly with his hand gripped around it. “Ok, let’s try to swing your legs out and stand up next to the bed.”

Zoe makes the mental effort to move her legs, and although they seem to move slightly differently being stronger and faster than before; she successfully stands up with only a bit of a wobble.

“Nice! You’re getting the hang of it really quickly. Now a couple steps forward.”

 Zoe takes two hesitant steps, managing to stay balanced. “Is it normal to feel oddly squidgy? I feel sorta like my insides are sloshing around. The doc removes the belt and grabs his tablet out of his lab coat.

“I can tweak that a bit.” He hits a button on the screen and Zoe twitches slightly as she feels something inside her squirm, which is a new and very bizarre feeling. “The hell was that?”

“I tweaked your viscosity a bit. Did you attend the pre-briefing on the gen 5 Mimic? It’s usually a requirement before upgrading.”

“This is like my first day doc. Ok so technically my fourth but I was a little busy being in a coma for the first three.”

“So you’re like brand new. Weird, that wasn’t in your records. Must have been a paperwork snafu.”

“Yeah, I think I might have pissed off someone by telling him to fuck off right before I got converted…”

“Ha! I think whoever he is, he can probably take it. You made it here, so you must have not upset him too much. I suppose I better show you the briefing on your capabilities then, especially before I unlock the advanced modes in this body.”

The doc removes a small silver cylinder from his jacket pocket, and throws it toward the middle of the room. Instantly wings flip out of the side and blur as they pick up speed, and the micro-drone hovers near the ceiling. A cone of light shoots out from the bottom of the drone, and projects a model of a generic body standing idly in the open space beyond the foot of the bed.

A recording starts up in a practiced sales pitch. “The Generation 5 Mimic unit delivers the latest in versatility and discretion - optimized for lightness, flexibility, and agility over raw strength. Internally adjustable skeletal segments allow for height and geometry changes, permitting the chassis to scale from 1.2 to 2.2 meters tall. The next generation design was built to be as thin and light as possible, allowing for better concealment and a natural appearance and weight. The internal support skeleton is capable of separation and alternate layouts via a series of disconnection points. In fact, the generation 5 chassis is capable of traveling through any opening large enough for the brain case to enter.” The recording pauses.

“Wait, what? So I can do that? That’s crazy.”

“With some training absolutely. They were originally going to name this series something to do with cuttlefish - they could squeeze into any space they could fit their internal shell into, but they couldn’t think of anything snappy.”

The doc pushes a button on the tablet, and Zoe sees the ceiling slowly but surely getting closer.

“Ok, new number one weirdest feeling…. Yep, that’s the top of the list.” She looks down and sees her legs getting longer and thinner, and by the time they stop lengthening she could easily bump her head on the doorframe. She turns to look into the mirror across the room and takes a few steps with her now vastly disproportionate legs. “Wow, I look like an anime character.. Worst case if I fail the training I can always play basketball.”

“Ha! I’ll restore you to your default. Just wait, it gets much cooler.”

Zoe quickly returns to her normal height, the strange sliding feeling of shrinking back down matched by the rubbery feeling of her leg flesh re-consolidating. The doc hits a button and the presentation resumes.

“The presentation and concealment infill is a biologic shape-memory nanopolymer, capable of color change, reflectivity alteration and limited active camouflage. The skin on the model turns transparent, revealing the surprisingly thin robotic skeleton, filled in with a transparent light blue tinted gel.

“Wow, that actually looks really creepy under there. I’m like that now? Also what the hell do they mean by the rest of that? I can change colors?”

“Exactly. The gel is capable of changing viscosity, elasticity, shape, and color, with the internal skeleton providing support. With training, you will be able to mimic the shape of any other person at a thought and reconfigure your body at will. Quick demo?”

“Sure - I’m already at maximum freakout level so why the hell not!”

A wave of color propagates from Zoe’s head downward, rapidly changing her skin to an electric blue. Her cropped black hair almost instantly changes to stark white. She turns in the mirror, checking herself out again.

“Ok now that’s actually really cool. What else can I do?”

“I’ll turn your elasticity way up, try to squeeze yourself.”

Zoe puts her hands around her waist and presses inward. Her midsection gives way with almost no resistance, and her hands quickly meet in the middle. She manages to overlap her fingertips before her hands stop against the thin network of artificial muscles wrapping around the synthetic spine and holding her upper and lower halves together.

“Holy shit, that’s so bizarre…” She lets go and her waist quickly reforms into its default configuration, as she tries squeezing her arm with the same effect - the simulated muscles breaking down and shifting under the pressure.

“You’ll get used to it eventually. Anyway, let’s continue.”

 “The brain containment unit is armored with layered nanoceramic composites, and the life support regulator is directly attached behind the protective enclosure. The rest of the body is designed to be expendable and easily replaceable. The nanopolymer gel provides a built-in artificial intelligence assistant to aid in the shape management process, along with defensive functions, self recovery, and sustainment.”

“So what do you mean by intelligence.. So the goo that makes me not look like a Halloween skeleton is an AI?”

“It’s a really limited one - it’s built to help you survive and take some of the workload off of your systems. It’s basically smart enough to take care of itself, but not much else without you. It’s also partly biological, so it can handle its own maintenance with a little water and protein.

I can show you the rest of the demo if you want - you’ll do it a bunch in training, but I get paid by the hour so it’s up to you.”

“Sure, my calendar’s open so let’s rock.”

“This one should be pretty quick, hold your arm out.“ He hits another button and Zoe feels something pop in her wrist joint, and her hand dangles uselessly like it was just severely broken.

“The hell? How’s that helpful?”

“Now grab onto your hand and pull.”

Zoe grabs her limp hand with the other, grits her teeth and pulls, hesitantly at first. The skin and flesh that still connects them stretches slightly, then snaps back as her hand disconnects from her body. The unexpected rubber-banding, along with the shock of ripping off her own hand causes her to let go of it, and it flies out of her grasp onto the floor.

“Woah shit! Oooh that’s gross! Also… why can I feel the floor? It’s really cold.”

“If you need to leave something behind or get into a really tiny space you can split up and control parts wirelessly. Obviously it won’t work if there are any signal jammers around or if you get too far apart.”

The doc picks up her hand and sticks it to the end of her wrist, and it clicks back into place.

“Now the part where I’m supposed to demonstrate your life support functionality. Please take a seat again on the bed.”

Zoe nods and sits down. The doc taps the tablet and puts his hands on each side of her head. “Here we go, try to focus on one spot on the wall so you don’t get dizzy.”

The doc lifts up and Zoe feels another unlocking joint pop in her neck. Her view moves upward, but she feels her body still sitting in the bed.

The doc carefully turns her around to see her body, still sitting on the bed. “Now try to move, you should still be able to do so. The remote connection has a short range, but can be handy in a pinch.

Zoe lifts up her arm like usual. “That’s weird, but I can see it coming in handy. No more mirrors to try on clothes, ha!”

“Speaking of that, your clothes are also made from the same gel matrix right now. Normally you would want to wear actual clothing to help evade some types of scanner, but we pre-program this outfit to help with logistics while you recover.”

The doc places Zoe’s head back on, and the gel rejoins as the connection clicks back in. She does a quick neck twist to make sure everything is back as it should be, and leans back into the angled mattress of the hospital bed to give herself a moment to refocus.

“The last thing we usually run in the demo is a gel drain, to try out what it’s like to work without any of it. Just in case something crazy happens, or you need to create a really long appendage that uses up all of your gel. With your permission, it’ll only take about 30 seconds.”

Zoe nods, and the doc types a code into the tablet. Zoe suddenly feels like she’s being dropped headfirst into water, and her skin turns the same transparent blue as in the video.

She holds up her hand, now able to see through to the artificial bones, and the transparent substance starts to drip from her fingertips. As soon as it hits the bed, the beads of gel pool up and slide off the side, beginning to form a mass in the middle of the room. Her vision turns blue as the gel melts down her head, as her facial features slide down and smooth out. Her clothes also break down, and the bulk of her body pours from the bed to join the rest. Within seconds, the blob of gel consolidates into a large droplet to contain all of Zoe minus her skeleton, and her sense of touch seems drastically reduced.

“So that’s me? Seems smaller than I would have thought.”

“You’re pretty petite to begin with, so that’s about what I would expect. We provide you with a large standby reservoir of extra gel for any missions that require you to be significantly different in form, and you can slowly synthesize more by eating extra.”

“So I can still get fat? That sucks!”

“Not exactly, you can always self-destruct the extra whenever you want. You should try walking around again, to get the hang of the different mass and center of gravity.”

Zoe hops off the bed, and notices how loud her steps are now with nothing to dampen the sound. “Wow, I’m really light!” She tries to do a little hop and nearly hits the ceiling. “I bet I could jump like 20 feet now.” Looking into the mirror at her gray-black skeletal form, it’s expressionless face made of adjustable micro-panels of composite and ceramic, she hesitates for a moment and steps closer. “So this is really me under all that…” She takes a second as a wave of very complicated feelings washes over her. “No going back now I guess.” If her new eyes were capable of tearing up they probably would - she takes a few moments to recompose herself.

Off to her side, the giant droplet of blue gel that was recently a part of her makes a little wet squish noise. She turns and takes a couple steps, kneeling down to lightly touch it. “Hey, you’re kinda cute!” It seems to ripple slightly at her touch, and squishes toward her a little. “I should probably give you a name when you’re in squish dude form. How about Reginald?” It bounces up and down in place.

“Ok Reginald, what other tricks can you do?” From the side, part of the gel forms a thin tentacle, which instantly springs up to the ceiling and  wraps around the light fixture. The gel creature propels the rest of itself upward and gathers into a blob wrapped around the light, swinging it wildly.

The doc jumps back in surprise. “Hey! Get down from there! These things always seem to have different personalities; some of them are a real pain in the ass sometimes.”

“Naah, he’s just excited.” She walks under the light and holds her arm up and speaks in a soothing voice. “Hey, come on down from there Reginald, let’s lower this guy’s blood pressure.”

The gel extends to Zoe’s hand and makes contact with her finger. As soon as it touches, the surface clings on and Zoe feels its mind linking to hers. Although it’s thoughts are very simple, she feels its eagerness to be connected to its host again as it begins to surrender to her control. It quickly pours down from the ceiling onto Zoe, covering her exposed endoskeleton and quickly becoming opaque, restoring her default appearance. She looks herself over, and sees her familiar self restored.

 “That’s the last part of the day one orientation, any questions for me?”

“I probably have about a thousand questions, but I think that’s enough of a data dump for the first day.”

“Sounds good. Oh yeah, I’ll upload the map of this place to you - you’ll be able to find your room and the next stop on your training. Usually first day folks go back to their room and relax, you need to rest for the new neural links to fully settle.

We also do sleep teaching during training, so you’ll be getting nightly downloads while you rest. Your abilities will be partially unlocked from now until the training sessions, so explore your new self but try not to do anything too crazy.” He taps his tablet’s screen a couple more times, then shuts it down and sticks it back into his coat pocket.

“Will do. Thanks doc, I think I feel a lot better about all this now.”

“Glad to be of service. I’ll probably see you in about six months for your first upgrade - I hear the Mimic 6 is coming out at the end of fiscal.”

“Oh cool, I’ll see you later!” Zoe walks out, and immediately is hit with an intense feeling of deja vu. The location data just crammed into her brain makes her remember the miles of hallways and rooms that make up the megastructure of her new home like she’s lived here for years.

She passes by open factory spaces hundreds of meters across filled with automated assembly machines building every imaginable product. She walks by the occasional new co-worker, some appearing as boxes with legs or wheels, some as masses of robotic tentacles, some looking convincingly human. She makes her way up to her room on the 167th floor, and the door automatically unlocks and slides open for her.

Her new room, while relatively spartan, is surprisingly cozy. It looks like whoever set it up reached into her memory and recreated touches of her old hab unit, which by now is probably repossessed and its contents sold off. Reprints of posters of her favorite bands are stuck to the walls in similar places, and even the lighting and color scheme match the warm but slightly cave-like nature of her last home.

“I think this will work… Zoe says to herself as she hops onto the couch. The smart screen across from it shows a projection of the view at her floor level, simulating a window to the outside world. “Wow, the city looks great from up here. If only the folks who live up here could see what it’s really like down there.”

After a quick tour around the bath, bedroom and living space that make up the apartment Zoe realizes just how tired she is, and decides to turn in early. Next to the bed is a strange looking thick black cable connected to the wall, and a dataslate set on the nightstand catches her eye.

Replenishment cable:

Full conversion employees are required to connect the replenishment cable nightly to supply charging power, nutrient refill, and biological waste removal. Failure to do so could result in damage to corporate property and disciplinary action.

“Oh, I guess that makes sense - I was wondering how all that worked..” She takes the end of the cable from its hook on the wall, and feels something slide in the side of her head. She looks around to find a mirror, and sees the matching connector now open to receive it. “Well, here goes nothing.” Zoe hops into bed and plugs in, quickly falling into a deep sleep.