And then the pain was gone. Almost the moment she registered the searing, brain-melting agony, it vanished. It didn’t fade away, and no soreness or headache lingered, it was just gone.

Anya lay on her bed, panting, staring wide-eyed at her ceiling, and felt all around her head for blood or burnt hair.

Nothing.

She was fine.

The AI floated over her and smiled down at her.

“How you feeling?” they asked.

“What the fuck was that?” Anya snapped, and the AI flinched and floated away.

“The Accumulated Universal Knowledge Archive Project has adjusted your brain as you confirmed you wanted it to. Is it not what you wanted?”

“You didn’t say it would hurt!”

“Oh. No, I did not. There will be some discomfort for zero-point-seven seconds while the menu recalibrates neural pathways.”

“Yeah, no shit! And no, I don’t mean there literally isn’t any feces in my apartment, I mean what you said was obvious,” Anya said before the AI could make a statement about the absence of poop.

“If it was obvious, why did you need me to tell you it would hurt?”

“Just… nevermind,” she said. She had been about to say “Forget it,” but worried the AI might mind-wipe itself or do something else stupid. She also thought that she should parse her words more carefully and then started to go back over everything she had said when she paused.

She was thinking a lot more clearly.

“Whoa,” she whispered. It wasn’t a dramatic shift in her thought processes but it was noticeable. If she had to classify it as something, she would compare it to being “in the zone,” when she played a video game. Normally she had to make a genuine effort to clear errant thoughts from her head, or concentrate on two different things at once, but now it was easy.

“Holy hell, that’s cool,” Anya said and smiled.

“What is?” the AI asked.

“That point in my intelligence, it actually did something. You’re not gonna tell me the apartment’s temperature is normal or something because I said ‘cool’?”

“No, I am beginning to understand your use of slang. Sorry it’s taken me so long, but I’ve only been aware of English for a few minutes.”

“Hey, you’re doing all right,” Anya said, and her eyes drifted back to her stats. She’d survived using a point, and nothing had gone wrong. The pain hadn’t been fun, but given the overwhelming benefits this Knowledge Archive thing offered, it seemed like a fair trade.

Anya’s attention drifted down to her lowest stat: Strength, at a measly three. She thought back to all the times somebody had hassled her and Tori on the Subway, or had followed them back from a bar or restaurant after dark.

She thought of her oldest brother, Dave, teaching her boxing and laughing as he said “You’re supposed to float like a butterfly, not punch like one!” whenever her hits landed on him.

She also thought of wanting to punch her mother after Nathan had died, and Dave stopping her with casual ease and shoving her out of the house.

“What’s the scale of these numbers?” Anya shook the thought away and pointed at her stats. “One-to-ten?”

“One hundred is the current maximum,” the AI replied.

“Current?”

“Yes, it can go up to REDACTED. Aw, darn. Sorry again.”

“You don’t have to apologize every time that happens. Not your fault,” she said, but her newly enhanced mind began to churn through the possibilities. She was in single digits, which out of one hundred, was pathetic. “I don’t suppose you have a stat chart for what an average human would be, do you?”

“Based on planetary scans prior to atmospheric entry, the general average for humanity in all stats is five. Ten is the peak for almost all of humanity: think of Olympians and geniuses. A few outliers throughout history may have hit fifteen as the absolute maximum: figures of great historical significance and possibly legend.”

“And this is out of one-hundred?” Anya asked and the AI nodded. “Whoa. So If I raised my strength up to ten, that’s the normal human peak?”

“You got it! The strength statistic measures how much muscle development and mass you have, as well as how effectively the muscles are arranged to increase maximum power.”

Anya glanced at her current strength stat of 3, and then back at the AI and asked, “If I raise my strength stat by seven points, is that gonna make my body explode with muscles or turn me into some kind of freak, or will I keep my current shape? The intelligence change didn’t alter my head any.”

“Any physical changes are within normal human parameters. You will gain physical mass, but it will not go beyond what is normal for your species. If you choose to go beyond the human maximum of fifteen, your muscles will become denser and undergo other changes to accommodate for superhuman increases, but your body will not exceed the range of recorded human measurements.”

“Great, so no turning into a muscle monster. And you’re sure I can undo this stuff?”

“Absolutely!”

“All right, let’s give it a go then. Can I change my stats myself, or do I have to do it through you?”

“You can do it! Just tap the menu!”

Anya tapped the space next to the “Strength,” statistic and saw a plus and minus symbol appear on either side of the “3.” She added seven points, and then hit “Confirm?” as she braced herself for the pain.

Just like before, there was a few seconds of nothing happening, just enough to make her think nothing would happen, and then it hit. Her body spasmed, and every muscle she had seized up in an immobilizing, agonizing full-body cramp that made her gasp. Tears sprang to her eyes as she convulsed on her bed, gasping for air as invisible hands crushed her chest and what felt like cords of razor wire whipped through her limbs. She couldn’t scream as her arms and legs stretched and popped, bones cracked, and she heard her skin stretching until she thought it must have torn open.

And then, again, it was done. No echoes of pain, no soreness. It was all full-body agony one second and then complete normalcy the next.

“God damn!” Anya gasped when she could breathe again.

Anya groaned and sat up, then winced at a mild tightness in her chest. Maybe there was some residual pain after all. Except it wasn’t really pain, just discomfort, and it extended to her arms and legs, everywhere really. She glanced down and saw that her loose pajamas were no longer loose, but pulled taut across her, straining to contain her. She flexed one arm and her eyes widened as the sleeve of her flannel top ripped open and revealed a very large and very new bicep.

“No way,” Anya breathed. She looked in the mirror nearby and her jaw fell open. Powerful muscles had appeared beneath her pajamas. She had also grown about two or three feet, somehow, perhaps to accommodate her new mass. Her pajama top was no longer long enough to conceal her tummy, which was less of a tummy and now more of a washboard. She poked her newly acquired six-pack and shook her head at the feeling of firm, springy muscle.

Then the reality of the moment washed over her, and she slumped backward. She examined her hands, arms, legs, felt all over herself to confirm that this was real. She looked in the mirror again and let out a shuddery breath.

That was her face. It was leaner than before, but she was still very recognizable. Same dull copper hair, same dark eyes, thick eyebrows, same freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose. Her gaze drifted down from the mirror to her hands again, her rock-hard stomach, and her much longer and more powerful legs.

“What the hell is this?” she demanded of the AI and gestured at herself.

“That’s you! I’m getting really good at these questions,” they replied.

“No, you’re not!”

“Oh,” they said and their face drooped in an over-emotive frown.

“You lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t! I can’t lie! My basic functioning parameters forbid it!”

“I specifically asked you if changing my strength stat would make me all muscle-bound or something and you said it wouldn’t!”

“You asked me ‘…is that gonna make my body explode with muscles or turn me into some kind of freak, or will I keep my current shape?’” the AI said, perfectly imitating Anya’s voice when it quoted her. “Your body did not explode, it expanded, you’re still human and have a standard human shape.”

Anya felt the vein along her temple throbbing. She wanted to scream at the little AI but bit her lip. It was her fault. The creature—or program or whatever—had shown themself to be entirely literal thus far and she’d neglected to take that into account. Sure the AI had seemed to be learning, but that didn’t mean they were perfect. But, the AI said they couldn’t lie, so…

“I can undo changes, right?” Anya asked. “You said I could.”

“That’s correct!” the AI said. Anya let out a sigh of relief, then tapped the minus sign next to “Strength.” A message appeared in front of her that read, “YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY AVAILABLE RESPECIFICATION TOKENS,” and then vanished.

“What the fuck is that?” Anya demanded and pressed the minus sign again. And again. And again. The same message flashed up each time and she cursed at the menu.

“You don’t have any respecification tokens,” the AI said.

“Yeah, I can read! What the hell is that and how do I get one?”

“A respecification token is an item that will reset your stats and skills to the point of menu integration. Tokens become available at level 50.”

“Level 50,” Anya said and glanced at her current level at the top of the menu. Level 24.

“That’s correct!”

“Okay,” Anya sighed as she clenched and unclenched her fists. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Okay!” the AI gave her a thumbs up.

“Look, tiny baby AI thing,” Anya said and leaned in until her face was less than an inch from the AI’s. Their smile drooped as she scowled. “I need you to tell me if this menu is gonna be making any more changes to my body, or doing anything dangerous, or about to make a mess, or anything that could cause a disturbance. Got it?”

“Uh, y-yes!” the AI said. Anya rolled her eyes, walked to her bathroom, and whacked her head on the top of the door frame.

“Son of a bitch!” Anya snarled. She rubbed her forehead and ducked as she entered the bathroom to study herself in the mirror. It still felt like she was hallucinating. She prayed she was. She didn’t dislike the idea of being a tall, buff, warrior woman. That was pretty neat, actually. As she looked at herself better in the mirror, she had to admit, she looked pretty great. Hell, she felt great, better than she ever had. There was a lightness to her movements she’d never experienced before.

Anya flexed in the mirror, admiring the small hills of her biceps and the way her lats spread out behind her.

“Damn. I’m gonna be so good at hugging now,” she chuckled to herself.

She looked amazing.

But having it hit her like this, to be short and stout one second and a ripped Grecian statue the next… what would she tell people?

New diet?

Some light plastic surgery over the weekend?

Hell, if she was being honest with herself, the only people who would really notice would be her mom, her brothers, Tori, her neighbor Mr. Choi, and that was about it. And she only saw Tori and Mr. Choi with any regularity.

And if they or other people noticed, so what? What would they do? Report her to the cops for being tall? Anya snorted. Worst case she’d have to get new ID cards. But maybe not even that, since her face looked the same, just leaner.

She supposed it wasn’t too bad. Anya flexed her arm and smiled at the firm muscle that appeared.

But what the hell kind of thing can make this possible? she thought, and her smile faded as she lowered her arm. That was the million-dollar question. She had gone through a dramatic transformation, head-to-toe, in seconds. There wasn’t any kind of procedure or technology on Earth that could accomplish that.

“Hey, AI thing?” Anya asked.

“Yes? How can I help?” the AI asked as it floated into the bathroom beside her.

“How did this happen?” she gestured at herself.

“You increased your strength stat by seven points!”

Anya took a deep breath and shook her head.

“My fault. I understand the correlation between this number,” Anya tapped her chest and pointed at the “Strength,” attribute when it appeared, “and my new body. I want to know how the hell it was possible for me to go from short and chubby to tall and muscular in a few seconds. I grew almost three feet and gained pounds and pounds of muscle mass and bone in seconds. That’s impossible!”

“The Archive did a scan of your entire body down to your genetic code and integrated itself within it to allow for basic mental and physical modifications. You look really great by the way!”

“This is basic?” Anya shouted and gestured at herself. “I look like Wonder Woman’s big sister! And I just asked to get stronger, not taller.”

“The Archive will maximize relevant physical changes by default. Being taller allowed for more efficient dispersal of muscles for maximum benefit! Are you unhappy with the changes?”

“Not really. It feels amazing, and I look fucking rad. But it’s unnatural. And weird. And talking to you is weird! This is all kind of making me freak the fuck out.” Anya looked at the menu and the other statistics and shook her head. “So I’ve just got this Archive forever, huh?”

“Correct!”

“And I guess that means you, too?”

“Also correct!”

“Great. How the hell was I chosen to have this thing?” Anya demanded, fully expecting the usual “REDACTED,” response.

“You were given the Accumulated Universal Knowledge Archive at random,” the AI said.

“Excuse me? At random?”

“Yes, you know, like the lottery, or lightning.”

“Yeah, I know what random means, I want to know why I have this thing and where it came from! And I’m sure it’s ‘redacted,’ or whatever—”

“Actually a few of the gaps in my memory have filled themselves in while we’ve been talking.”

Anya bit back a swear and counted to three before she replied.

“Right. Teachable moment: if any gaps in your memory become unredacted, or fill in, or whatever, I need you to tell me as soon as possible. Got it?”

“Got it!”

“So, why was I given this thing, and where the hell did it come from?”

“You were given the Archive as a defensive measure.”

“Defensive measure? Against what?”

“Against the hostile alien force that will invade your planet thirty-one days from now.”

Anya’s face went numb. She blinked at the glowing, smiling AI.

“Alien force,” Anya said. “Invading Earth.”

“You got it!”

“They sent the Archive?” Anya asked. She felt like her brain was misfiring. It kept playing the words “alien,” and “invade,” over and over. She had obviously suspected aliens or some other nebulous extraterrestrial force behind the Archive. It was too advanced to be anything but alien tech or literal magic.

But hearing that it was aliens in such a blunt way was a bit much. Whenever Anya tried to grasp at anything else, her train of thought jumped the tracks and went straight back to invading aliens.

“No. The Archive was sent by a third party from somewhere on the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy. I don’t have a more precise location beyond that but I will let you know as soon as I do!” the AI said.

“More aliens. Different aliens,” Anya said. Her voice had become monotone. Any thoughts she had about her new body, what to tell Tori, the particulars of the skills and stats of the menu system, all of it was wiped from her mind by two words repeating on a loop.

Aliens.

Invade.

“Yup! Different aliens!” the AI confirmed.

“I,” Anya said after staring in silence at the AI for several long seconds, “am going to bed.”

“Okay! Sleep well!” the AI replied.

Anya whacked her head on the door frame again as she exited the bathroom and walked to her bed. It seemed much smaller now, but it didn’t bother her. She curled up into a fetal position and buried herself entirely beneath the covers. She closed her eyes and let her mind go blank.

It was surprisingly easy.

Given the choice of looping over what she had heard, debating over whether or not she was crazy, or simply tuning out, the last option was by far the easiest. She embraced that quiet field of nothing between her ears, closed her eyes, and prayed that it would all be gone when she woke up in the morning.