Chapter 2

6

Days passed and Monday morning arrived. Kaitlin finished her morning jog and other exercises before Tony woke up. She finalised a few last minute details, not least of which was a good shower and getting dressed. If Tony was going to feel weird living with a maid, she’d give him one last tease. Then at last, Kaitlin took the deep dive into virtual reality. Her body went into deep sleep as her mind left it behind.

That left it wide open for Ai, equipped with Kaitlin’s access codes.

As she loaded herself in, she found a message which Kaitlin had left in the kybernet. Not for her, but for Tony. She took note of it for later. The body woke, with Ai inside it. A humanoid existence came with a sense of weight, of solidity and reality, which didn’t come from directing her extensions. She controlled them, but she didn’t inhabit them like she now inhabited Kaitlin’s body.

Humanoid existence also came with a sense of tight inflexibility around the neck and shoulders, along with an ache running down to the lower back. Was that normal?

She’d have to be careful with that back. Ai slid out of bed, stretched up to Kaitlin’s full height, and looked into the mirror. Kaitlin had already dressed. The short skirt would make it easier to move flexibly. While Ai couldn’t think of the practical reason for the neckline, the white-and-black dress, white apron, and lace headdress matched definitions of ‘maid uniform’. It would suffice.

Her first task of the day was breakfast. Perhaps having another pair of hands would make that task easier.

7

Kaitlin woke up a few minutes later and several dozen lightyears away.

She had half-expected to wake up groggy and sticky in a sleeve bank. Instead, she found herself already inside the spacious softness of her suite’s bed. Staff must have taken the sleeve out early to work out the kinks. Either way, everything had already been done for her, even the physical check-in. She’d made the right choice.

Even existing in the rental body felt better. None of her own aches and stresses existed. It felt like, well, what it was: a body designed for comfort. A body that was always pampered, always had all its needs met.

She could have spent all day just floating on that feeling. That, and the total lack of responsibilities weighing on her.

But Planet Dusk had more to offer than lying around in bed all day. She had four weeks and she planned to enjoy it to the limit. That meant getting up. Besides, the body was more rested than her own skin had felt in years. Getting out of bed wouldn’t require dragging.

When she sat up, she encountered the first two areas where she’d need acclimation. First, her head felt much lighter, not weighed down by her normal mass of hair. Second, her chest felt heavier, wobbling softly with her movements. Now, she needed to get a good look at herself. She’d seen pictures of the sleeve, but that wasn’t enough to face it as being herself.

The suite included a closet with a full-length mirror built into the sliding door. She faced it head-on as she rose to her feet. First, she saw the eyes: a soft sea-foam green, lighter than her normal blue. The facial features were stronger, though, almost tomboyish and with a firm set to the jaw. Her platinum-blonde hair was cut in a shaggy pixie cut, close about her head. Her new body was a little less tall — the site had said it was 162.5 centimetres, exactly average. Yet it was also even bustier than her birth sleeve, and by a fair margin; she’d never had that happen before. The body’s patterns of athletic tone, especially about the legs, brought thoughts of beach volleyball to mind. The engineers had gone to the limit for the ‘beach goddess’ look. She even had the bronzed tan on every inch of her body.

Wait; not quite every inch. Peeking downwards, she saw just enough tan-lined, pale skin to mark off a tiny thong. Either the pigments were designed that way, or most renters liked to sunbathe topless.

Kaitlin was no stranger to resleeving. While she’d never done a long-term body-change, she’d been cast into other bodies when the office needed her to take a long-distance business trip. Those times, she’d worked out a trick that made her comfortable in the new body, that took ownership over the face in the mirror.

She made faces at herself. Big, silly faces, starting with hooking both fingers into her mouth and poking her tongue out. She squinted her eyes, scrunched up her nose, and let her mouth hang open to show her teeth. She tucked her chin down until she saw the double-chin the marketing team would never allow to show in sales pictures. Once she got each eyebrow to waggle independently, she considered it done. That face was hers. Nobody else would let her make them look so ridiculous.

8

Tony awoke last of the household, and to the smell and sizzle of bacon and eggs. He had to admit: having a Muse made it easier to have a good breakfast before heading to class. Leaving his room, he found Kaitlin standing in the kitchen, her back to him.

Wait, no. It was past eight. He pulled up a recognition program in a window above her head. The body was Kaitlin’s, but the inner SOUL, the Sapient Organism Uniqueness Library, was Ai. That would take some getting used to. He’d had friends resleeve before; Alex made a habit of it. But for all his life, Kaitlin had only been in that body, and that body had only been Kaitlin’s.

She turned towards him. “Good morning, sir. Breakfast is almost ready,” she said in Kaitlin’s high, light voice, but with Ai’s Transatlantic accent. That faced him more directly with the change.

More than that, it hit him with how she was dressed. A maid uniform, as defined by adult clothing stores. The headdress inspired thoughts of servility. The little black-and-white dress accenting her figure, it scooped low on Kaitlin’s generous breasts and cut high to show her silky legs. The apron in front only highlighted the slinky fit at her sides, which showed a fit, feminine curve. It would have been a classic hourglass if her hips were a little wider.

His cheeks blazed with heat. “Th-That ... that outfit...”

“Kaitlin left a message on that topic.” Her voice shifted, reciting it clearly in Kaitlin’s Australian accent. “This is the only maid-type thing I have in my closet. Hope you don’t mind.” While Ai spoke, her extensions — robotic arms reaching out of the kitchen wall — continued to cook.

“That...” Tony took a deep breath and recovered his vocabulary. “That is a fetish costume.”

“Is it?” Ai turned toward the nearest camera to get a better look at herself. “Do you find it unsuitable?”

“Yes!“ The word practically exploded from him. “Yes, it’s unsuitable for my sister’s body to parade around dressed like it’s going to star in NaughtyMaids.com!”

“Understood.” Ai reached for the zipper on her back. “I will remove it with all due haste.”

“Wait!” Tony closed his eyes and flung his hands forward. “Nudity is worse!”

Ai paused, then zipped her dress back up. “Humanoid existence is complicated.” Without looking, she reached behind herself and took a laden plate from the extension jutting out of the kitchen wall, a mechanical hand and arm. “Breakfast is ready. Kaitlin ate before her deep dive, so I will not be joining you.”

That would have been comforting, except that she only meant she wouldn’t eat with him. She still stood at his side and waited on him. Yes, Ai had done that every morning for almost two weeks, but she just felt like so much more of a presence now that she had a physical body to stand next to him and wait for every tiny request.

He ate as fast as he could without indigestion and hurried off to school.

9

Making breakfast had been a disappointment. Ai’s kitchen extensions had started everything before her new body had even finished walking into the kitchen. All the humanoid body had accomplished was handing him the plate, then later on getting the salt for him. Nothing the roller couldn’t have done.

She found it more useful for her morning clean. Kaitlin’s eyes were more mobile than Ai’s cameras, even the ones on the roller; she discovered a few blind spots in dreadful need of dusting. Yet even managing a new body, cleaning was so first-nature that she had plenty of processing cycles to think about other things.

Humanoid existence was complicated. She couldn’t think how to read Tony’s responses. His deeper breathing and increased heart rate suggested physiological arousal or excitement, but his behaviour indicated aversion. Her baseline programming was enough to interpret those. Was he, for some reason, afraid of his sister’s body?

Yet, he had volunteered to have Ai take care of it. He’d given the task himself, and without any demonstration of trepidation that would be expected of a man exposing himself to his phobia. His cardiopulmonary response had been normal when he’d given the order. If anything, his heart rate had slowed and relaxed, as it would from a sense of satisfaction. The strange responses only began when she came dressed in the maid uniform. They heightened when she began removing the offending garments as well, so it was not some phobia specifically of maids. Nudity, as he had said, was worse.

What was so frightening about nudity?

With the cleaning long since finished, she pondered the question all through the morning. A living, conscious human body didn’t have a standby mode. Not like her extensions. She didn’t quite know where to leave it when she didn’t have a task for it. Kaitlin’s care instructions insisted on a standard period of wakefulness each day, so she couldn’t simply put it back to sleep. For the time being, she stood in front of the closet, right where she had been when the cleaning concluded.

A little past eleven, Tony called. She answered with a quick, “Hello, sir.”

(Ai, I need you to check something for me, real quick.) He sounded frazzled, stressed. (In my room, did I leave a hard red case on the desk?)

Without taking a single step, Ai used a camera to look. “You did, sir.”

He let out a sigh of relief. (Great. That’s my hardware project — I forgot it was due today. Can you take it out to the kitchen bench, and I’ll come grab it during lunch?)

Another possibility occurred to her in a flash of insight. Her roller’s effective range was barely more than enough to fetch physical mail from the lobby, but her new body had no such limitations. “Unnecessary, sir,” she said. “I shall bring it to you as soon as possible.”

(Wait, ) he said. (Have you at least changed—)

She hung up. The sooner she finished the conversation, the sooner she could deliver the project. Besides, he could clarify his meaning when they met in person.

10

The Marquez Technical University campus was only a short walk from the apartment. Her owner walked that route every class day. Now Ai had mapped the same path out in her mind as her first excursion out of the apartment.

Kaitlin’s high-heeled shoes would have posed a challenge if Ai tried to walk just with her bipedal drivers. Instead, she trusted the body’s own reflexes. It already knew how to walk, right?

She found herself honestly asking that question. The body’s method of walking was so unconventional, so counter-intuitive. It threw her weight around too much: the side-to-side sway of the hips, the slight vertical shake the breasts. She kept expecting to lose her balance and fall over. Perhaps the other people on the street expected the same thing. That would explain why they stared at her.

They stared, some with their mouths open, but nobody approached to warn her of her imbalance, and she kept her footing. She reached the university without incident.

Marquez was young by university standards, but on the bleeding-edge front line of their sciences. From engineering, through to computer science, economics and psychology. They didn’t have much land, much lateral space, so they capitalised with spires that scratched the sky and demonstrated their own advances in structural engineering.

She reviewed his class schedule. He’d still be in a software practicum for the rest of the hour. The computer science building, level 256. An elevator carried her to the correct level in minutes, but she couldn’t interrupt the practicum.

This left her waiting in a common area outside. In the floor’s centre stood a holographic stage, projecting a forest scene. Idle students gathered there, while others passed by between classes.

All eyes were on Ai. Was her walking method really that fascinatingly risky? Were they waiting to see her fall over? No, it couldn’t have been that. They continued watching even as she found a good spot and stood still. Her standing pose was the opposite of risky. She kept her back straight and shoulders squared, to minimise the back strain from her bra’s shoulder straps and other weights, and her hands remained neutrally in front of her and holding onto the all-important red case.

Now in a ‘hurry up and wait’ mode, Ai could take better note of how they looked at her. Away from the apartment’s sensors, she could only guess at their heart rates. Yet as they looked at her, their breath grew short, their movements shaky, their pupils dilated. Were they also afraid of Kaitlin’s body?

One individual, with her fuming red cheeks and the downward turn of her eyebrows and lips, looked more angry than afraid. She had vividly red hair curling about her shoulders, and lightning blue eyes with their focus intenseas they locked onto Ai. Her skin was ethereally light, except for a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her figure was shorter and slimmer than Kaitlin’s, and she showed it, with a cutoff long-sleeved top displaying her tight abdomen, and tiny shorts that made use of her long, smooth legs. Did she have skin enhancement like Kaitlin’s?

The redhead sat underneath a tree, surrounded by several men while she drank from a thermos. One sat behind her, his hands on her shoulders, while another held her legs draped across his lap. A third held so many book bags, that at least some must have been hers. But they had all gone idle, the massages halting, as they stared at Ai.

Simmering anger reached a boil. The redhead launched to her feet and strode towards Ai, making full use of her curved hips and long legs. Huh. Was that how such a walk looked from the outside? Ai wouldn’t mind getting a longer look. All too soon, the strange woman was right there in front of her, stretching up to try to get more fully into Ai’s face. “What’s the big idea, traipsing around like that? Trying to make me jealous? Is that your game?”

Ai blinked, looking at her levelly. Her kybernet’s recognition program didn’t know her ... but then, she had only ever met two people since she was activated. “Please define ‘traipsing around like that’.”

“You know full well what I mean!” The redhead jabbed a finger into Ai’s chest. “Flaunting those udders! What, you think a slutty-dressed sister can keep Tony’s eyes off me?”

Another student whistled at them on his way past. “Going to introduce me to your friend, Sonia? Or should I just kick back and watch the catfight?”

The redhead snarled at him. “You wish!”

Protectiveness had already begun to rise just at the disparaging mention of her owner, but that name clicked something for Ai. She stood up straighter, her hands curling tightly into fists. She held the case to the side, freeing one hand. Just in case she wanted to lash out at the woman. “Sonia Durand,” she said. “Freshman majoring in marketing psychology. Former lover of Tony Cruise.” His poetry had never mentioned red hair; she had pictured a brunette.

Sonia struck a pose, cocking her hips and especially showing off her legs and her wicked smirk. “New boyfriend likes the Irish look, so he got me a new sleeve.” Just a little more expensive than outright buying a new sports car. She tossed her head, sending her curls flying. “What’s wrong? A little resleeving confused you, Kaitlin?”

That explained her behaviour. “I am not Kaitlin.”

Sonia scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Putting on an accent won’t fool me.”

“Then finger me,” Ai said.

The catfight enthusiast whooped at that, while Sonia choked and glared. “Excuse me?”

“Check my information.” Ai kept her voice cold and level. “After numerous cases of identity theft, mistaken identity, and various forms of evasion, all SOULs are required to maintain and broadcast a unique ID. Just like checking user information on a network, you can check what my kybernet is broadcasting. I assume you have not memorised Kaitlin’s ID, but I’m sure your kybernet software will tell you that you’ve never met me.” Everyone had a kybernet. Not everyone knew how to use it. Kaitlin’s Caliburn would be wasted on most people. She tilted her head. “What’s wrong? A little resleeving confused you?”

Sonia pouted her vivid red lips. “So, what? Kaitlin rented her body out to some whore to try to make her brother stop moping?”

“Incorrect. My name is Ai. I am a Muse-series artificial intelligence, created to assist my owner and maintain his home.” Ai noticed the time on her chronometer, and turned her gaze to the classroom door. “And you are irrelevant to my task.”

That set Sonia off. She flung her thermos outwards, splashing cold tea across Ai’s front. “Oops,” she said, while her smile showed everything but regret. “Just an accident.”

Ai turned to her one more time. “Your coordination of your new sleeve appears lacking. It may have a cerebellum dysfunction. You should see a doctor for diagnosis. Fortunately, this outfit is equipped with an apron, which is designed to absorb such accidents.” With that, she made for the classroom, just as the practicum ended and students began to emerge.

Tony was one of the first out. His cheeks were already red in anticipation of seeing her. His fear response was more averse than others; while others kept their eyes on her, in active surveillance of the perceived threat, he avoided looking at her when he could. “Hello, Ai. Thanks for bringing it.” His tone sounded resigned, prepared to face his fears. He kept on walking with a fast stride.

That suited Ai just fine. She kept pace with him, angled to keep herself between him and Sonia. If he didn’t look at her, he wouldn’t look at either of them. “Of course, sir.” She handed him the case.

He let out a breath of relief. One hand held the case while the other ran along its outside, checking it over.

Just then, Ai became aware of an odd sensation. A kind of gnawing discomfort in the abdominal region. What was that? She knew she should recognise it. She had read about sensations like those while preparing herself for this new task. Just to make sure, she pulled up the pamphlet once more.

“Sir,” she said, a hand over her stomach. “I believe I am hungry.”

11

Tony took Ai to a small diner on campus. He needed some lunch too, and spent a while hovering between the bento and the burgers. What would Ai have, as her first time eating?

She bypassed the whole menu and walked straight up to a synthesiser. She sent her order by thought, and it had her smoothie printed before she even reached the machine.

Once he had his meal, they got a table in the corner. Their section of window showed a prairie scene, so vivid he swore he could feel a breeze. Everyone looked in their direction ... but they weren’t interested in the window. Not with how eye-catching his company was.

He tried to ignore all the eyes on his sister’s body. Instead, he nodded to the cup in her hand. “That’s all you’re having?”