You place the essentia jar down on the metal sheeting that makes up your dissection table. Joe leans over to peer at the feeble glow within the bottle. “What’s this,” he asks, tapping at the bottle inquisitively.
“Chelsea’s essentia…” you begin.
“What do you need that for,” interrupts Joe before you can speak further.
“I had an idea and I wanted to try it out,” you explain.
“On yourself,” snorts Frank, over by the windows. “This is a bad idea.”
“Oh stop whining,” laughs Joe. “I’m kinda looking forward to this. Rosalie was cute before, but after the changes Prescott made to her she’s hot. And I wanna see what she’s like once the whole package is put together,” he adds gesturing at the floor.
You look down yourself. Everything you need to complete your transformation into Rosalie Martin is there: The mask containing the physical imago, modified from the original Rosalie, the mind strip filled with the empty spaces between Kendra, Molly and Amanda’s minds and the bottle of Chelsea’s essentia. You’ve even set out one of the outfits you bought for Rosalie so you can get dressed afterwards.
“You going through with this,” asks Frank unhappily.
“Yeah,” you nod before lying down in the middle of a complicated sigil etched onto the dissection table. “I need to borrow you for a bit Frank,” you add.
“What,” splutters Frank. He doesn’t complain any further, not after you wave your hand across your face and take control of his body.
Joe works out what has happened almost immediately. “Well that shut him up,” he grins.
You shoot Joe one of Frank’s best level glares. “This is serious Joe,” you tell him, feeling Frank’s personality, and his annoyance at his brothers frivolity, press in around you. “I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“I don’t know whether to be sad or relieved that Frank’s no fun whoever is running him,” snarks Joe.
“Shut up Joe,” you mutter.
“Come over and make me,” he says, suddenly blurring before reappearing at the opposite side of the room. The urge to hit Joe comes on strong from Frank’s feelings. But you don’t have time to indulge in one of the brawls that the brothers fall into from time to time. Instead you squat on the floor beside the dissection table and close your eyes.
You reach out mentally and feel for where your real body lies. You begin with your essentia. The structure is already complex – a result of the operation that gave you two different pairs of ousiarchs. Carefully not disturbing the existing essentia, you tweak and turn the layer that separates your essentia until there is enough space to hold a third. You pour Chelsea’s essentia into the gap. It seeps into the space, slowly settling until it is solidly embedded as a part of you. Chelsea’s essentia seems a pallid and dull thing when set next to your own. You smile faintly at that, maybe this is going to work out how you hope.
The next part is where it gets difficult though. You release your grasp on your essentia and turn your attention to your imago. This isn’t going to be like the crude swap you worked on Chelsea, where you ripped her apart whole and then put her back together again. This time you have to work precisely, and as you begin you find yourself dispirited as you realise that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of points of connection between the physical and mental components of your imago.
A grim resolve, perhaps born of Frank’s personality, sets in. It’s a lot to do, but you’ll certainly never do it if you don’t make a start. You reach out for one connection, finding it like a simply clasp. It is no effort at all to flip it open. The loose connections waver for a moment then part.
The tricky thing is doing it again. And again and again. As you undo each connection you have to move onto the next. Find it, undo it and move on again. It is painstaking and exhausting work and you feel yourself faltering as you progress. Just as it seems to be too much, a sudden surge of strength from within yourself revitalises you and you find yourself continuing with a renewed pace. Frank’s Malacandra ousiarch perhaps?
Slowly the physical parts of your imago start to drift away. You let them float away without stopping them. You doubt you’ll ever need to be Will Prescott again. Somewhere nearby, you hear Joe groan.
“Dude, you do not want to open your eyes right now,” he moans.
You grit you teeth. You had no intention of opening you eyes, up until now at least. But Joe’s comment has left you worried about exactly what is happening to your body. No, you can’t afford any distractions. You try and block out Joe from your mind and continue.
There’s nothing left of your physical imago now, just the mental parts. You feel for the mind band, summoning its contents: It’s nothing more than a series of gaps and spaces, places for your own mental imago to fit around. There is a sharp pain at the back of your head as you try to push your mental imago into the spaces left in the mind band and your curse loudly. You push again and your imago starts to budge. The pain settles down to a dull throbbing as your mental imago contorts itself to fit into the gaps. If you feel different as a result, you don’t notice, but then you are far to busy concentrating on not slipping up right now.
That just leaves your new physical imago to deal with. It slips easily from the mask and round your mental imago and substantia. You still have to connect it though, and the process is the same as the one you used to remove your old physical imago, except in reverse. Methodically, you work your way through the imago¸ finding connections and snapping them shut. It is tedious, dull and exacting, but the knowledge that you are on the final stretch keeps your going and eventually you close the final clasp. Finally you open your eyes to see what you have done.
It takes a minute for it to fully sink in: The beautiful creature on the metal sheet is you, going to be you, just as soon as you switch out of Frank. That flawless porcelain skin? Yours. The waves of raven hair that cascade from her head? Yours. The luscious curves and stunning green eyes? All yours, just as soon as you make the switch. You curse yourself for standing there like a slack jawed idiot and wave your hand in front of your face.
Your perspective suddenly shifts. Slowly, confidently and, most importantly, elegantly you rise to your feet. You fold one arm across your ample chest for the sake of modesty and look down to survey yourself. “Oh yes,” you murmur warmly. “Yes, I like this.” You instantly realise that the sentiment is from your newly modified personality. It seems that the trick with modifying the mental imago has succeeded in making you think more like a girl. “Joe,” you say, looking back up at your co-conspirator. His eyes are goggling at the sight of you. “Be a sweetie and fetch the device you use for measuring essentia.”
As he disappears – and he really disappears, setting off at inhuman speed – you turn your attention inwards till you find the catch that lets you switch between essentias. All three present themselves to you. Two are like brightly shining pairs of binary stars, but it is the dull glow of the last that catches your attention. You pull Chelsea’s essentia close.
Joe reappears almost immediately, using his Viritrilbian speed. “Show off,” you murmur lazily. The urge for catlike playfulness from your new personality is too strong to resist now. Joe only waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Tell me what it reads.”
You saunter over to the pile of clothes as Joe waves the gold disc of the essentia reader in your direction. For the first time, you feel a little stab of irritation. The clothes aren’t what you would have chosen. It’s all about playing a part though, you think. Wearing these clothes will mark you out as an outsider in Westside’s rigid social strata, but that’s how you are going to have the most fun.
“I don’t get it,” says Joe as you pick up your new glasses. You could have corrected Rosalie’s eyesight to be perfect when you were changing her, but the thick black librarian style frames draw attention to those iridescent green eyes you’ve given her. “I think it’s broken.”
“Why,” you ask as you snap your lacy black panties into place.
“I’m not getting a reading,” replies Joe. You leave him hanging there are you finish putting on your underwear. The matching bra pushes your boobies together to produce a deep cleavage. Joe’s eyes narrow as you roll the stripy black and white tights up your shapely legs. “You meant this to happen, didn’t you,” he asks accusingly.
You can’t help but titter. “Why do you say that,” you ask before slipping into your dress. It is black, velvety and hugs your body tightly except for where it flares at the bottom at the middle of your thighs and at the end of the long sleeves.
Joe is no fool, he works it out after a little thought. “Chelsea’s essentia,” he exclaims as you slip the shiny black leather maryjanes onto your dainty feet. “You’re using Chelsea’s essentia, so the special Stellae stuff is hidden and the dingus can’t detect it.”
You fluff your hair before spinning round slowly to give Joe the chance to appreciate your new body. “Isn’t it the perfect disguise?”
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