I heard the lid of the pod open and felt the air on my skin. That is probably what woke me up. I took a moment to take this information in. My senses felt… correct. As in nothing seemed to be interfering. The feeling of vertigo and stuffiness had completely disappeared. To be honest, I felt clearer than I had ever in the game. Which was a little strange but nothing that rang alarm bells. More of a note-to-self thing.

I blinked my eyes open and overcame the moment of confusion by sheer power of will. The first second or so I was not sure where I was. You know, coming out of a full immersion pod could have been in two places but then I just pushed the thought that said: You would have woken ingame first. And that's what I rolled with.

I was alone. I was naked. And I was still covered in blue goo. Seriously, it felt exactly like the stuff they had drained from my gaming pod during the last break. More strange coincidences.

“Mister Solo, good that you are back. I hope you are feeling better. Before anything else I would like to apologize. I did not know the side effects of my adjustmentments…”

I waved Nyx’s computerized voice off and was about to step out of the pod when the door slid open and Irene barged into the lab room. She looked at me wide eyed.

“Kade…” One of her hands covered her mouth.

“What?”

Instead of answering she stared at me wide eyed.

“Irene, what’s going on? Did I grow a third eye or something?”

“No…” she hesitated, clearly unsure what to say. “You look good.”

“Okay, so not a problem then.”

I stepped out of the pod.

“You don’t understand Kade. You look like you. And not only that but you look like you won the genetic lottery. I have never seen you… like this…”

“What do you mean? And it's Malcolm, not Kade.” I hissed the last part trying to keep that off the radar. Then I remembered that the only other being present was the AI and I was sure it was monitoring everything we did anyway.

“That is exactly what I mean. You are Kade!”

There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice. I knew it from our time together. She rarely got worked up to that point but when she did, the bets were off.

“Nic! Deep breath and then tell me.”

I loved this woman. Because she knew herself and because she knew me. Where others might get upset or find my statement patronizing or don’t even hear it in their worked up state, she just nodded. Then she took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then slowly let it out.

“You are looking like you! You step out of the pod and you look like the best picture ever taken of you and then run through post-production.”

“Who would I look like if not myself?”

I was genuinely confused as to what she was trying to say.

“No, you don’t understand. You don’t look like your character was looking before. You look like real life you. That is why I called you Kade.”

“Wait, what now?”

“Nyx, is there a camera or sensor that would allow him to see himself?”

Right. Again I lamented the lack of mirrors anywhere. But now I really wanted to see what the hell was going on and pronto. But of course there should be technological solutions.

“Of course. Although since mister Solo lacks a connector, he has to plug in for me to share the camera feed.”

“You need to get that sorted out.” Irene gave me a meaningful look.

“Honestly, I need to figure myself out right now. Nyx, do you have a connector cable?”

Instead of an answer, a panel on the exam table popped open with a connector cable already plugged in on the ship’s side. I grabbed it and just before connecting to my port I hesitated.

“Just camera, no more fucking around with my link unasked!?” I stated / asked.

“Yes. Again, apologies for the initial changes and the issues it has caused.”

I plugged the cable into my port. Instead of disorientation, pain or disembodied floating in blackness, I simply got a signal option.

Would you like to connect to the external video feed from Nyx, Medical?

Y/N

I hit yes and my view adapted. You know the old school video in video view. As in something is playing on the main view but something else is playing in the bottom corner? That was what I suddenly had in my vision. And then, a mental click on the small view and they swapped. Which was disorienting but again, no nausea or dizziness or anything. Just weird looking out of your eyes and seeing something that should actually not be in your field of vision.

And what I saw did make my jaw drop. I mean I was looking at my own, naked self. And like Irene had said, not at my character’s naked form but my own. You know, human, real world. How the fuck was that possible? And it wasn’t just that I was looking at myself. I was looking at my ideal self. The one that only existed in my head.

You know what I am talking about. You look in the mirror and you see something, I don’t know, flabby around the midsection. But when you don’t look at the mirror and you think about yourself you are less flabby. And then there is the idealized picture of yourself where you actually have a six pack.

The thing is, I looked like that. Not the six pack because even my ideal self doesn’t have one but I was definitely wider in the shoulders, had bigger arms and legs and a chest that I would probably never have in real life. On top of that, I had perfect hair and a nice full beard without it looking unkempt. I mean there was still blue goo stuck in there but you know. And even in the downstairs department there had been some upgrades. It appears that the ideal me was a little more ‘built’ than the real one. That is all to say I liked what I saw and at the same time it freaked me the fuck out.

“Nyx, why is my body looking like this?”

“During the adjustment and tissue rebuild, the pod connects directly with the neural link and draws information from it. Every species in the universe has a genetic code that delivers part of the template. The information on that is stored in the neural link. Although your link is a very basic model, it has this information for the pod to draw on. The second layer is stored in what you would refer to as the collective unconscious. This holds information beyond structure. The third layer is directly drawn from your personal subconscious which completes the persona.

To allow your neural link to function at the highest level, I set the pod to draw on all three layers and what you see is the result. Although I do not understand the data I receive from the pod or the various scans I have performed. According to the data your body was reconstructed using the before mentioned layers, there is no precedent where this led to a change of species. In fact, it is an impossible outcome with the information I currently have. However, since the outcome can be observed and documented a lack of data must be the underlying cause for the deviation. Would you please provide the missing data?”

My mind was blown. For one, the process seemed insane. But not only that. The fact that it could draw on all this information was crazy. And considering that this was a game how the hell was it connecting this deeply? And pull information in here? Honestly I was coming to the same conclusion Nyx had and that was impossible although that could also just be the lack of data. The fuck did I know after all.

The other thing was the level of emotion that came through from Nyx. Or maybe not emotion but expressiveness!? When she started giving this explanation she was all matter of fact. Like any computer voicing a log entry. But when she got to the end, you know, the whole impossible statement and then making the request, she sounded almost frustrated which then turned into curiosity. I didn’t really know what to make of that either.

“I am not sure how much and what data I can provide. I am baffled by the whole thing. I mean I will try but if I do I need this to be mutual data sharing.”

“I agree to these conditions. Now would you like a tour of… me”

Again, there was emotion in that voice. Pride? And a little embarrassment. I was unaware that AIs could have emotions. Sure, they could use expressions and then emulate as if they had emotions. But it didn’t seem like this with Nyx. It appeared as if she was actually feeling the emotions. Call it a gut feeling. I don’t know what else to name it as, again, I had no evidence for it that I could put my finger on.

And then I shook my head to myself. I was in a game! Any NPC I had interacted with seemed to be 100% emotional. Which meant, why shouldn’t the AI be just as AI as all the other AIs? Yes, I did crack myself up with that one.

“Sure, right after getting that slime off me and putting my vac suit back on. Irene?”

“I have only been here in medical and the cabins on the level below. I would love to see more.”

I rinsed off in the shower. There was one conveniently located in the med bay. And when I say rinsed off, I mean I stood there as some kind of sonic waves stripped the goo off me. Then I put on my vac suit and was ready for more.

“Nyx, would you show us around?”

Don’t get me wrong. I was still trying to come to grips with the whole situation. But at the same time I felt ignoring it right now and seeing the ship was the better way to spend my time than on thoughts like ‘What does it all mean?’ and ‘How is that all possible.’ Not that I would get to any conclusions so I’d rather postpone until I had more info and there was a point pondering everything.

“Certainly. Please follow the green lines.”

We left the medical room and Irene took the lead.

“Green is living quarters.” she told me. “I have been there before. The cabins are actually quite amazing.”

“This ship is a long distance vessel. Crew normally spends a lot of time on board. Studies show that providing sufficient space and a level of comfort will allow the occupants to perform at high efficiency for longer.” Nyx chimed in.

“You say long distance and a lot of time. How much time would a crew be on board a ship like that? And what about the gates? Travel is instantaneous through them which means even long distances are not something that would take forever.”

“This information is not available below officer level.” Her voice was suddenly all computer again.

“Okay, no worries.”

Irene led me to the deck below and then in the corridor with the many doors. She opened the first one to the right and we walked into the cabin. The room was nearly four by five meters. Which honestly was pretty huge considering that Rustbucket’s total interior had been not much bigger than that. It held one bed that was not exactly queen size but couldn’t have been that far off either. There was a shower cabin in the room, what amounted to a toilet cabin, a desk with a terminal and a bottom to ceiling locker.

Don’t get me wrong, it was far from luxurious. I would even say it fell perfectly into my personal spartan minimalist style. Everything was functional but also well designed and seemed of high quality. And just the fact that the bed was this wide actually made it an impressive affair.

“Wow, these cabins are surely something.” I commented as Irene showed me around. “Are they all the same?”

“Currently all 27 cabins are set up to the same standards. Since crew complement can vary though, all cabins can be set up for double occupancy to accommodate up to 54 crew members.”

“What is the minimum crew this vessel needs?” I asked out of curiosity.

“This information is not available below officer level.”

“Nevermind then.”

We stepped back out of the cabin.

“Please follow the yellow lines.” Nyx intoned.

We did, walked down a corridor and took a right. A few meters further and a door slid open.

“This is the recreation room.”

Again, mind blown. This looked like a mix of lounge with sofas and coffee tables, a gaming area with a few gaming chairs and holo goggles and a general hobby room with clear partitioned small rooms, a reading area and a whole bunch of other stuff. And the room was pretty big.

Then we hit the galley which was a combination of kitchen and dining room, separated by a bar area. Not quite cosy and not quite mess hall. Something in between that was perfect and comfortable. I did not count the chairs but it did not look like the place was set up for more than 20 people to sit here at the same time but that also made sense because someone would always be on shift.

Then came the gym with resistance and cardio training areas as well as a sparring ring of some kind. Interesting was the resistance training. I had been looking around the room for actual weights because the simple bars without any plates didn’t make sense. But then Nyx explained that artificial gravity was for more than just walking around in space. Duh!

And finally we went back upstairs to the upper deck and into the observation lounge. Which, by the way, totally deserved its name. Both for the huge ass window that was currently covered in a sheet of metal, the super comfy looking couches and the bar that was set into one of the smaller sides of the rectangular room.

Honestly, the thing didn’t feel like a spaceship and more like a cruiser or really comfortable ferry.

Finally Nyx pointed out a line that she called slate grey but to me looked like dark green and asked us to follow it. Which led us to a door where I was told I could enter but Irene could not. That led to some discussion but since Nyx was not changing her mind I was the only one stepping into the room. The bridge. And it didn’t disappoint.

Another square room that seemed to be put together with function in mind and design following to allow for efficiency but also ease of mind. There was something like a captains chair slightly raised in the middle and four stations set into the smaller sides of the rectangular room. Two facing front and two facing rear. The captain’s chair was currently facing forward but looked like it could rotate all the way around.

Yeah, that was it. I felt my heart beat faster imagining what it would feel like to command the ship from this seat. It was not the same bridge as the one I had seen in the trailer they had shown before we logged in. That one had been even bigger and fancier. A bigger ship I figured. But this, right here… it seemed Right. For me. With a capital R.

“Nyx, do you mind?” I asked and pointed at the captain’s chair.

“Go ahead please.”

I stepped forward, ran my fingers over the backrest of the chair, feeling the soft firmness of it. Then I stepped around the chair and sat down.