After a quick flight back to home base, the team lands at the rescue station’s helipad. As soon as the wheels touch down, the engines power down. The wind and noise gradually stops, and the rear ramp gradually drops open.

The crew onboard hop off and scatter in all directions to attend to their various tasks. A few moments later, one of the facility crew walks up rolling Katie’s purpose-built wheelchair and says, “Katie! We just got the report from the mission, nicely done as usual!”

“Thanks Jules! I couldn’t have done it without the team, they’re the ones with all the real responsibilities. I mean, all I really had to do was swim a little and hit a button.” Katie maneuvers into the chair, connecting her hip sockets to the matching interface built into her wheelchair.

She drives her powered chair down the ramp, and Jules helps her over the bump from ramp to tarmac. He walks next to her at a leisurely pace as they head to the main building, enjoying one of the few sunny days that Seattle offers them.

“Well I think you’re too modest - your whole setup is really awesome! I wish we had two or three more of you around here, we’d be way more capable.”

“We’d also have way more maintenance, isn’t my leg unit kind of a nightmare to keep running?”

“Yes and no, you got six more legs than the rest of us so there’s a lot more stuff to work on, but they’re synth muscles so they’re pretty easy to maintain. You’ve got a lot of miles on them though - I’ll have to check the records but I think they’re due for an overhaul soon. Still works great though, and you can’t argue with the results.”

They part ways at the main building, a tiny old military airport terminal remodeled for the team. Passing through the door, Katie silently waves at the dispatchers, busily watching their screens and radios for any trouble. She rolls onward, making a beeline for the showers to try to wash out the especially nasty combination of seawater, silt, flouro fluid, and anything else the mining machine sucked up and blasted into the water.

Transferring over to the chair in the shower, she strips off her clothing and tosses all of it into a giant bucket of cleaning solution next to the shower to soak. She fires up multiple shower heads on the walls and ceiling and grabs the wand from the wall, luxuriating in the hot water blasting in from every direction as long as she can, before feeling guilty about using too much. After shutting off the shower, Katie looks around for her towel. Realizing she never grabbed one, she calls out “Ada, can you grab me a towel?”

A chime sounds, and soon a robotic pod with an arm hanging below arrives suspended from a grid of tracks covering the ceiling of the building, holding a towel. The arm bends down and holds it out, and Katie grabs it and dries off.

“Hey Ada, can you also fetch me the crate with my legs please? It’s in my storage cage.” After a few seconds, the AI parses the request and chimes in recognition. Down the hall, Katie hears the lock on her storage cage pop open. A moment later, the arm returns, struggling a little against the weight of a large equipment case. The arm carefully delivers it in front of the shower and zips away to its next assignment.

“Thanks Ada, I’ve got it from here.” Katie pops open the case, and retrieves one of her standard legs for usage on land. She quickly looks it over, the slightly beat up outer skin still a convincing facsimile of natural legs at a glance. She manually bends the knee joint, and setting it next to her on the chair, swivels the hip joint and pelvic interface around to match the angle of her remaining hip.

She pulls the leg into her side and leans into the connector, which makes a firm click as it attaches. She flexes her ankle and knee to check everything out, then repeats the process on the other leg. Katie stands up and looks herself over, her synthetic parts filling out her reduced hips and pelvis, giving her a passably unmodified appearance again.

She slowly takes a couple unsteady steps as she reacquaints herself to having two legs again. She picks up her empty case, and hauls it the short distance down the hall and back to the rows of storage lockers, lockable walk-in wire cages for each crew member’s equipment.

She gets dressed, runs a brush through her very short hair, and throws her soaked gear into the automated wash system. She puts on her heads up display, built into a pair of ordinary-looking glasses, and checks for any missed messages. Seeing none, Katie wanders through the nearly empty halls, stopping at a window overlooking the airfield. At the helicopter, she sees the ground crew carefully loading her other set of legs onto a cart for check-in and maintenance.

Katie hears the familiar steps of her supervisor’s boots behind her, and turns around.

“Katie! Great job out there, I saw the video feed from the chopper. Flawless execution as usual.”

“That one was a little too close for comfort - if I would have kicked up to max thrust right away, I might have bought us some more time. If anything held me up, that mining machine would have gone right over the edge.”

“Hey, in the end they got their drone back; and more importantly everyone came back in the same shape they left in. It’s good to work toward perfection, but reality will always get in the way. You did well.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that.”

“So why are you hanging out here after shift? Just waiting for me to harass you for still being here?”

“Not really, just sorta aimlessly killing time before dinner. I’m meeting up with a friend who just got Adapted, and it’s her first night out since getting out of recovery.”

“Oh cool! That’s really nice. You may want to get outta here early though, traffic in the tunnel is horrific right now.”

“Will do, thanks Hashim.”

“See you tomorrow, have fun at dinner!”

Katie hops into her car and types in the location of the restaurant. “Well shit, Hashim was right. Looks like I’ll barely make it.” The self-driving mode does its best to route around the early evening traffic, and manages to make it precisely on time.

“Luckily Fiona’s always fashionably late. Fashionably everything else too I suppose.” Katie says to herself as she exits her car, which takes off on it’s own a moment later to find a parking spot.

The restaurant serves as a safe space and social club for Adapts in all forms, which seems like the perfect place for Fiona’s reintroduction to the world. The cozy atmosphere of the softly lit interior compliments the extremely accommodating space. The outer ring of the club is set up with adjustable tables at different heights to cater to varying dining needs along with assistive robotics available nearby if needed. The center of the space is a sunken down social area, terraced with low couches and floor cushions for lounging and chatting, with a space in the center for performances.

The receptionist leads Katie to her seat, and she sits facing the door to catch Fiona’s attention when she comes in. It’s not long before a text message appears in her vision.

“Katie! I’ll be there in a moment - I assume you already have a table?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dare keep you waiting.”

“Marvelous! You probably won’t recognize me at first, so I’ll wave when I see you.”

“Interesting… I’m in the back on the left, by the big circle couch.”

“Do I have to do anything to get in? I’ve never been to an Adapts club. Is there some secret phrase or handshake or something?”

“Absolutely not, we welcome all. It’s a safe space for everyone. Besides, if the kind of work you had done makes it so I won’t recognize you, I’m pretty sure they’ll know that you’re one of us.”

“Wonderful, I’m about a block away.”

“So why all the secrecy anyway? I would have helped you out during your recovery, or brought you a meal or something.”

“I always strive for the unexpected - I have a reputation to maintain. I’m heading through the front door now, by the way.”

Looking across the space, Katie sees a figure in a high-fashion gray and silver hooded coat, with extremely fluffy trim walk through the door. She notices the eyes first; much larger than the standard human model, featureless, and jet black.

As she flips her hood back, Fiona’s hair and skin appear to have been modified to be white as paper, and it looks like her nose was reduced to make space for her enormous eyes.

From the distance, she sees two thin wisps extending from the top of her head, sticking out through her hair in an arc and gently bouncing as she walks. As she approaches, she waves with a shiny black and silver cybernetic hand, and Katie is too stunned to do anything other than lift her hand up from the table limply, her mouth open but no sound coming out.

“Katie! You like?” She whips her fluffy-edged jacket off, holding it in her arm, and spins around; revealing an unsurprisingly couture white and gray blouse and skirt combination. Her legs are modified similarly to her arms, now extremely slender with a hard black exterior. Inlaid into the outer carapace of her limbs are intricate silver floral and filigree patterns, flashing as they reflect in the light. The thin strands extending from her head appear to be a cybernetic simulacrum of antennae, and twitch slightly as she spins.

“I’m stunned. You were pretty before, but now… I don’t know what to say other than I’m amazed.”

“I strive for originality, as usual. Naturally, I had to keep this a surprise from everyone, so when my next event happens I’ll be the talk of the show. Tonight you get a sneak peek.”

“You always were one for the theatrical. Please, take a seat! Let’s have some dinner and chat!”

Katie takes Fiona’s jacket and hangs it on the back of the extra chair, and they take seats opposite each other.”

“So, it appears your inspiration was moths?”

“Yes. I always thought their beauty was underappreciated - they’re basically butterflies with a better fashion sense. There are tons of Adapts embracing the standard animal gestalt, I figured the world could use something new. I desired to push the boundaries of what’s possible while still keeping my independence. Also, now I can fully embrace wearing an obnoxious amount of fluffy clothing and have the perfect excuse.”

“So, do you mind going over the work you had done? Obviously your eyes, which are gorgeous.”

Fiona turns her head a little, and Katie looks into her eyes - the unblinking black voids a beautifully unique and alien aesthetic.

“Correct. Definitely not a typical request, and they had to make some sacrifices to make room. I got a nose job out of it, so I suppose that’s a bonus.”

She reaches up and runs a hand along one of the thin antennae. “My sense of smell got wiped out as part of the eye work, so they fabbed these up. They dock to ports on my head, and ended up being a pretty good replacement.”

“So that’s not decorative, they actually work?”

“Absolutely, and they make a great accessory too. As long as I don’t get them caught in a door. I’m still getting used to all this.”

“That’s understandable - most people don’t jump in with both feet, but I appreciate your moxie. So, obviously your hair and skin - bleached? Tattoo?”

“A bit of genetic modification, some laser, and some ink.”

“Wow, that’s some cutting-edge stuff. Can I take a look at your hands? They’re beautiful.”

Fiona moves in closer and holds her arms out for Katie to see, slowly rotating them to show off the detail. Her thin, obviously mechanical arms and hands are absolutely covered with an incredible level of detail, inlaid with precious metal by a master engraver.

“That’s absolutely stunning. It had to be shockingly expensive though…”

“You’d be surprised what you can get when someone skips out on a dozen gallery shows and wants to get back into my good graces. I drive a very hard bargain.” She smiles.

“I had them give me a few more inches of height with the limb replacements, and the arms are a bit longer to be proportionate. Hopefully I don’t knock anything over tonight, I still am a little uncoordinated. The recovery team says it’ll feel natural in a week or so, just in time for my debut.”

“Anyway, enough about me - we should get some dinner! Oh, also wine! I haven’t been able to drink anything boozy for weeks while I healed.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Katie speaks into a tiny microphone embedded into the center of the table. “Hi, could we have two food and wine menus please?”

Within a few seconds, a server walks out carrying two sets of menus. She does a slight double-take as she walks up, clearly a little surprised by Fiona. “Hey Katie, I haven’t seen your friend around here before, welcome!”

“This is Fiona, she’s brand new here - it’s her first time out in public.”

“Oh wow, then welcome to our world! I think this calls for a celebration. Katie, you know that really good wine you sampled at our last tasting that immediately ran out?”

“Oooh, is it back in stock?”

“We kept some back for special occasions, I’ll bring the two of you a bottle if you’d like.”

“Wonderful, thank you so much!” Katie turns back to Fiona. “This place is the best. They really try to take good care of us.”

Fiona looks over the menu, and asks “Any recommendations? I assume the wine’s white?”

“Yep, I would totally go with the mushroom risotto. It’s really good and should pair well.”

“Perfect.”

They order, and within a short time the food arrives just as the club begins to fill up with the usual crowd. Occasionally a patron will wander by and ask Fiona a question or compliment her new look, and one or two manage to recognize her despite all the changes.

“I’m glad you went all out with the modifications - sometimes I think I hide behind the privilege of passing most of the time. My land legs are totally unnoticeable from a distance, and if I’m wearing long pants nobody knows at all. It’s only at work when I really get to go all in.”

Fiona thinks for a moment. “Are you happy with that? I did this to become on the outside what I felt like on the inside, and to break out of the expectations that the world dumped on me. Isn’t there some way you could be true to yourself in both worlds?”

“Only if I was hauled around in a swimming pool - my sea legs don’t have enough strength to haul me around on land. I could probably crawl, but that would be fun for about five seconds.”

Fiona looks off in the distance for a moment. “Hmmm, I wonder.. I have a charity event happening soon, and some very interesting characters in the cybernetics industry will be throwing money at a bunch of pet projects. Maybe someone there would have an idea?

Also, there are some extremely eligible single people there who clearly have enough money or clout to splash on charity - at the least you might be able to get some action.”

“I’d never turn down an invite from you - the social consequence of spurning your call would absolutely destroy any chance I would ever have of ascending into high society!” Katie says in her most excessively upper class twit voice. “All joking aside, I’d be honored to be by your side for your debut and the charity event. Count me in.”

“Wonderful! I’ll send you the details.”

After finishing dinner, Katie and Fiona continue the conversation, catching up on the last few weeks while Fiona was out of commission. Occasionally a fellow club member walks up to compliment Fiona’s new appearance, which she accepts with her usual grace.

They part ways after dinner, and Katie hails her car for pickup. The ride home is uneventful, and she’s soon back at her parking space on the marina.

Her small houseboat bobs gently on the edge of the water, one of a fleet lining the bay. With an early day coming up fast, Katie heads inside to get ready for bed. She changes into a bathrobe, and goes through the nightly routine of face washing and tooth brushing.

She walks out into her bedroom, and takes a seat in her puffy armchair, near the stand where her legs recharge overnight. She hits each release on her hip and pops off her artificial legs, hooking them into the upright stand and plugging in the charging plugs. She lowers herself from the chair, using her toned arms to hand-walk the meter or so to her low bed.

As she drifts off, her thoughts are filled with the possibilities Fiona might be able to bring. She says to herself “Man, Fiona’s bold. All those surgeries and implants at the same time? She was  never one to do anything half-assed I guess. I’ll have to ask her about what to wear at the event…” She drifts off, as the lights of the houseboats along the bay gradually blink out.