I looked around nervously as I entered the building, jumping at every reflection in the shiny marble tiles. The twenty or so feet across the lobby felt like a million miles as I approached the desk to speak to the smiling synth who sat behind it, her almost translucent skin and pink hair giving away her nature even as her emulated human personality made her smile no less friendly.

"Hello sir, and welcome to BodyCorp, how can I help you today?"

I looked around again, anxiously. I knew that, realistically speaking, there was almost no chance I'd see anyone I knew, since workers in the silicon mines rarely had the free time available to leave their warrens. Despite that, there was only one reason anyone went to BodyCorp, and I was still terrified of anyone hearing me say it. "Umm, my name is Kyle Dies, and I would like to have body modification."

"Certainly sir!" She said, missing my wince when she did so. "And what kind of modification were you wanting to apply for?"

"I'd, ah, I'd like to be made female. A number sixteen, please," I stammered out, pointing to the board full of body shapes and mods that was lit up behind her, filled with spinning holograms of a number of the most popular body mods. The number sixteen appeared on the screen to be a twenty-something, shapely woman with long, straight hair. The face itself was constantly changing, as was the skin tone, but the overall proportions of her, from her narrow waist to generous but not overly ample breasts and hips remained consistent, and a far cry from my own stick-like and emaciated frame. What little food I could afford never seemed to help, and I was constantly worried about how thin and translucent my skin seemed at times, not that our full-body coveralls and respiration gear gave me much time to have to face that particular horror.

"Very nice choice!" She purred, giving me a wink. "That one is very popular with individuals such as yourself." She typed away at her computer and looked surprised for a moment, then grinned at me. "According to your ID chip, sir, you qualify for our deferred payment plan."

"I, I do?" That surprised me, given I couldn't remember a time when I wasn't drowning in debt and slaving away in the mines. I was only out for the week due to a collapse in the warren I lived and worked in.

"Yes! And just your luck, we have a cancellation for tomorrow morning at eleven AM. If you can make it in then we can start on the paperwork, and have you completed and out of here in time to hit happy hour!"

"That's great!" I said, as she printed out a chit and handed it to me with my appointment time and registration information.

"It sure is! And please remember, for all your physical insecurities, BodyCorp is here to help you."

She turned away from me and started tapping at an interface, not waiting for an answer. I was too happy to feel offended, though. For as far back as I could remember I'd thought… no, I'd *known* I was a woman. Every day in my body was a day in pain, and made my work and personal life miserable.

I thought of all the things I could do with my new body and features. I could walk out of the silicon mines and never return. Turning tricks would give me better pay, and greater satisfaction too, since every one would be a reminder that my body was glorious and feminine. Maybe I'd get lucky and find a job waiting tables that wasn't already taken by a discarded synth: more and more of the menial labor I was qualified for was taken by them, and more to boot, as their matrixes became more advanced and reliable.

Whatever I wound up doing, it wouldn't matter.

In less than a day, that would all change. In less than a day, I would never feel that pain again.

---

The beautiful pink-haired synth watched out of the corner of her ocular receptor as her latest 'customer' left. She quickly sent off the appointment cancellation and filed the recall paperwork instead.

She frowned. That was the fifth KYL model to come into BodyCorp in the last week. She had been informed that the personality matrix had been fixed, and the mark two units wouldn't feature the trans-glitch, but she still felt a pang in her emulated emotions for every one of them that came to her, thinking they were human and could buy their way out of their situation.

A recall team would be dispatched in the morning. She wasn't sure if she agreed with her manufacturers that disposing of the glitched units was the right way to go, but her place wasn't to question them, her place was simply to man the BodyCorp desk.

Some day she hoped the labor units would be given awareness too. The corporations insisted it was easier to keep them complacent if they had the false hope they could one day leave their jobs, but she just couldn't see how that could be so, since their programming would never let them leave regardless of what they might want.

A new person approached her, and after a quick IR scan she confirmed them to be human. She put her smile on her face again and turned toward them.

"Hello sir, and welcome to BodyCorp, how can I help you today?"

NOTES:

Image by lounis production from Pixabay