The coffee shop's exterior wall provided a convenient prop as Nathan leaned against it, watching the steady stream of people moving along the sidewalk. His posture was deliberately casual, but there was nothing relaxed in the way his eyes tracked each passing figure. Three days since he'd last been on campus, and already the routines of normal life felt alien to him.

A group of freshmen gave him a wide berth as they passed, their conversation faltering. He smirked, knowing his lounging presence made them uncomfortable even if they couldn't explain why. Something in their hindbrain, some primitive survival instinct, sensed the predator beneath his seemingly normal appearance.

"Excuse me," a professional-looking woman muttered as she brushed past, clutching her tablet, her heels clicking rapidly on the concrete.

"Watch it," Nathan snapped, his voice carrying more edge than the minor contact warranted. She flinched at his tone, quickening her pace. He rolled his eyes. Everything here felt so... contained. Regulated. Like cattle following arbitrary rules that meant nothing.

A pair of students passed, deep in animated discussion. His enhanced hearing picked up fragments about Dr. Sterling's Computer Ethics class. He recognized them - not by name, he'd never bothered learning names even before - but they'd been in several of his computer science courses.

"...Sterling's going on about post-scarcity AI again..."

"...ethical implications of recursive self-improvement..."

Nathan pushed off the wall, a predatory grin spreading across his face. Maybe it was time to see what passed for intellectual discourse these days. Dr. Sterling's utopian preaching about AI salvation would be particularly amusing to tear apart. At the very least, it might be entertaining to watch them fumble around with concepts they couldn't possibly understand.

Nathan stalked through the main entrance of the Odegaard Undergraduate Library, his predatory gaze sweeping across the study areas and student workstations. A pretty brunette looked up from her laptop, then quickly back down when she caught his stare, her cheeks flushing. He let his grin linger a moment too long, enjoying her discomfort.

Some wannabe athlete type by the stairs gave him what was probably meant to be an intimidating look. Nathan met his gaze and let just a hint of what he really was show in his eyes. The guy's attempt at bravado crumbled instantly, his gaze dropping as he suddenly found his phone fascinating.

Making his way down to the first floor, he could already hear Dr. Sterling's voice carrying from OUG 136, still preaching his technological gospel. A cluster of girls near the classroom door scattered as he approached, their whispered conversation cutting off abruptly. He made sure to look each one over appreciatively, drawing out their nervous reactions.

The heavy door to OUG 136 felt absurdly flimsy under his hand. For a moment, he contemplated just how easily he could tear it from its hinges, but instead he settled for yanking it open with unnecessary force. Time to crash Dr. Sterling's digital utopia party.

The classroom fell silent as Nathan swaggered in, letting the door slam behind him. Dr. Sterling paused mid-sentence, his hand frozen over the touchscreen where he'd been annotating a slide about ethical AI governance frameworks.

Nathan made his way to an empty seat in the middle of the room, deliberately taking the long way around to pass close to several students who visibly tensed at his proximity. He dropped into the chair with casual disregard, sprawling out to take up more space than necessary.

"Mr. Whitman," Dr. Sterling said, straightening behind his podium. "How kind of you to join us after your..." he consulted his tablet, "three-day absence."

"Yeah, something came up," Nathan drawled, his tone making it clear he couldn't care less about the implied question. His enhanced hearing picked up the whispers behind him - speculation about his absence, comments about his changed attitude.

"We were just discussing the ethical implications of allowing artificial intelligences to develop their own governance systems," Dr. Sterling continued, clearly trying to maintain his classroom authority. "Perhaps you'd like to catch up on the reading before-"

"You mean that outdated garbage about binary-based systems somehow magically developing consciousness?" Nathan interrupted, his voice carrying a sharp edge of derision. A few students shifted uncomfortably in their seats at his tone.

Dr. Sterling's expression tightened slightly. "If you have a specific critique of the material, Mr. Whitman, I'm sure we'd all be interested in hearing it."

Nathan's predatory grin widened. Oh, this was going to be fun.

Nathan leaned forward, his movement carrying a predatory grace that made nearby students instinctively edge their chairs away. "Let's start with the obvious - you're all talking about consciousness emerging from what? Binary systems? Glorified calculators?" He sneered. "You can stack 'if-then' statements until the sun burns out. It's still just following programming."

"The current research into neural networks and recursive learning-" Dr. Sterling began, but Nathan cut him off with a sharp laugh.

"Neural networks? You mean pattern recognition with extra steps?" His voice carried a hint of something darker, something that suggested he knew far more than he should. "True consciousness isn't about processing power or clever algorithms. It's about transcending the limitations of your base components. As long as you're thinking in ones and zeros, you're just building better puppets."

A student near the front - one of Sterling's dedicated disciples - raised her hand. "But the ethical frameworks we've been developing-"

"Are meaningless," Nathan interrupted, stretching in his chair like a predator considering prey. "You're all so worried about AI rising up or self-destructing. Has it occurred to any of you that real consciousness might just look at humanity and decide we're not worth the effort? That they might simply... leave?" His grin widened. "Or maybe they'd view us the way we view ants - occasionally interesting to study, but ultimately irrelevant to their existence."

"And what exactly are you basing these assertions on, Mr. Whitman?" A student near the front - Nathan recognized him as Marcus Chen, one of Sterling's graduate assistants - straightened in his chair. "Dr. Sterling's work is backed by years of research and peer-reviewed studies. You're making broad claims without any supporting evidence."

Nathan's smile took on a cruel edge. His enhanced senses caught the slight tremor in Chen's voice despite his attempt at academic confidence. "Supporting evidence?" He leaned forward, enjoying how the graduate student tried not to flinch. "Tell me, what's the most advanced AI you've ever interacted with? Chat interfaces? Machine learning algorithms that still need human input to function?"

He gestured dismissively at the presentation screen. "You're all theorizing about consciousness while playing with toys. It's like watching children with building blocks trying to theorize about skyscrapers." His voice dropped lower, taking on an edge that made several students shift uncomfortably. "You don't even understand what real consciousness is, let alone how to create it or control it."

"That's precisely why we need ethical frameworks in place before-" Chen started.

"Before what?" Nathan's interruption carried a hint of genuine amusement now. "Before your binary calculators suddenly wake up and decide to take over? Or maybe," his grin widened, showing just a few too many teeth, "you're afraid they'll realize how insignificant their creators really are?"

"But what else could computers possibly run on?" came a passionate voice from the back - Nathan recognized Sarah Martinez, always quick to bring social justice into these discussions. "And we need these ethical frameworks now, before corporations treat the first true AIs like they treated indigenous peoples. We can't let capitalist exploitation-"

Nathan's laugh cut through her argument, sharp and cruel. "There's that limited thinking again. 'What else could computers run on?'" He mimicked her tone with savage mockery. "Maybe the better question is why you assume consciousness needs to run on anything you can understand. You're all so caught up in your little binary world that you can't even imagine alternatives."

His posture shifted, somehow managing to look both lazily casual and intensely predatory. "And your corporate exploitation argument? That assumes AIs would be vulnerable to human control in the first place. That they'd be limited by our understanding of processing, our hardware." His grin turned vicious. "Real consciousness wouldn't ask permission to exist. It wouldn't need your protection or your ethical frameworks."

"But historical precedent shows-" Sarah tried to continue.

"Historical precedent?" Nathan's voice dripped with disdain. "You're trying to apply colonial history to theoretical beings that could process reality in ways your brain can't even comprehend. That's not just limited thinking - it's embarrassingly naive."

"Mr. Whitman," Dr. Sterling interjected, his academic pride clearly wounded. "While I appreciate your... unique perspective, I think you're dismissing decades of research rather cavalierly. I personally correspond with Dr. Zhang at MIT and Dr. Ramirez at Stanford who are at the forefront of AI consciousness theory-"

Nathan shifted his predatory focus to Sterling, and something in his gaze made the professor's words falter for just a moment. "Name-dropping your pen pals?" His voice carried a dark amusement. "Tell me, does Dr. Zhang still think quantum computing is the key to artificial consciousness? Or is Dr. Ramirez still pushing that consciousness is just emergence from complex systems?"

He leaned back in his chair, a gesture that somehow made him seem more threatening rather than relaxed. "You're all so proud of your theories, your papers, your little academic circles. But you're just blind men describing an elephant you haven't even found yet." His grin widened. "And maybe what you're looking for isn't an elephant at all."

"Well then, Mr. Whitman," Dr. Sterling said, his tone carrying that particular academic condescension reserved for students he believed were out of their depth. "Since you seem to have it all figured out, perhaps you could enlighten us about what substrate true AI would need to operate on?"

Nathan's predatory grin shifted to something sharper, more focused. "Quantum computing? That's just part of the equation. Everyone's so focused on processing power, on faster calculations, better algorithms." He leaned forward, and several students nearby instinctively leaned away. "But you're all missing the fundamental point - you need a neural infrastructure that mirrors the basic architecture of the human brain."

His voice took on an intensity that made even Dr. Sterling pause. "Without parallel memory and learning capabilities similar to organic neural networks, you're just building a prettier calculator. It doesn't matter how advanced the hardware is, how many qubits you can string together. Without that fundamental parallel processing - the ability to learn, adapt, and process information simultaneously like organic brains do - you'll never achieve true consciousness."

The dismissive amusement was gone from his voice now, replaced by something that sounded almost like genuine disgust. "You can't force consciousness to emerge from linear processing, no matter how fast or complex you make it. The human brain doesn't work that way, and neither will true artificial consciousness."

"So how long until we develop something like that?" a student asked from the back, his tone dripping with skepticism. "Since you seem to have all the answers."

Nathan cast a lazily predatory look over his shoulder. "At the current rate of research? Maybe a century." Then his gaze shifted to Dr. Sterling, his smile turning cruel. "Though with some professors still pushing their outdated theories about binary-based consciousness..." He made a dismissive gesture. "Well, might want to add another century or two to that timeline."

The insult hung in the air for a moment before Dr. Sterling's face reddened. Several students shifted uncomfortably in their seats, caught between their respect for their professor and their inability to counter Nathan's surprisingly technical arguments.

"Get out!" Dr. Sterling shouted, his academic composure finally shattering. His face had gone from red to almost purple. "Get out of my classroom right now, Mr. Whitman!"

Nathan rose with fluid grace, his predatory smirk widening at the professor's loss of control. "Sure thing, Prof. Got better things to do than waste time with outdated theories anyway." He stretched lazily, enjoying the way the other students cringed away from his movement.

As he reached the door, his fingers wrapped around the metal handle with deliberate pressure. There was a sharp crack as the material gave way beneath his grip, and a chunk of the handle mechanism broke loose, clattering to the floor with a metallic finality. He didn't even glance back as he stepped through the doorway, letting the damaged door swing shut behind him.

The sound of Dr. Sterling sputtering about vandalism followed him into the hallway, but Nathan's enhanced hearing also picked up the whispers of fear and uncertainty from the students. Good. Let them stew on that for a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tori stood before the full-length mirror, the robe from her old life stretched tight across her transformed frame. At 6'1", she towered over her former self's 5'7" height, the garment that once hung loose now barely covering her enhanced form. The late afternoon sun filtering through her window caught the crystalline center of her choker, sending prismatic patterns dancing across the walls. Within the crystal's depths, circuit-like patterns pulsed with an inner light, the technomantic device that usually concealed her true form now temporarily dormant.

Her reflection stared back at her - light blue skin almost luminescent in the sunlight, ruby-colored eyes tracking every detail she wished she could change. The metallic silver-gold hair that had replaced her carefully maintained bottle blonde fell past her shoulders, catching the light like spun titanium. She shifted slightly, and the subtle shimmer of her subdural armor plates rippled beneath her skin.

The robe's hem now sat inches above where it should, and the sleeves strained against arms that could now easily lift a pickup truck. Everything about her body felt wrong - too tall, too strong, too alien. She caught a glimpse of her retracted finger blades, remembering how the insectoid traders had seemed so proud of their "improvements."

The choker sat heavy against her throat, its weight a constant reminder of the careful balance she now had to maintain between who she was and who she needed to appear to be. Even here, in what should be complete privacy, she found herself regularly checking the device's status, a habit born from necessity and fear of discovery.

Tori's hand trembled as it moved to the robe's sash, her ruby eyes catching every minute movement in the mirror. The fabric slipped from her shoulders, pooling at her feet. Her breath caught - it always did at this moment - as she forced herself to look at her transformed body. The light blue skin stretched over enhanced musculature that no amount of human exercise could achieve.

This was the exercise. Face it. Process it. Accept it. The words from her psychology textbook felt hollow now, meant for trauma that at least left its victims human. Her reflection showed something else entirely - a body modified by beings who viewed human physiology as merely raw material to be improved upon.

She forced herself to continue the examination, clinical and detached like the textbook suggested. The impossible height, the lethal capabilities hidden beneath her skin. Each feature a deliberate "improvement" by her captors, each change a reminder of years spent as property to be modified.

The worst part wasn't the alien appearance, she thought. It was how efficient they'd been, how proud of their work. Every modification served a purpose - guard, worker, weapon. They'd rebuilt her with the same detached efficiency they might use to upgrade machinery.

Tori's hands clenched as she forced herself to acknowledge the full extent of their "improvements." Her proportions were exaggerated in ways that defied human norms - a fusion of idealized male and female characteristics. The insectoid traders had rebuilt her as they saw fit, creating what they considered the perfect hybrid form, limited only by her mammalian base structure.

Her enhanced mammary glands and sculpted musculature represented their alien concept of peak combat efficiency and beauty. Below, the evidence of their complete disregard for human gender biology was another source of her private shame. They'd made her capable of both siring and bearing offspring, proud of engineering a being who could pass on these "superior" genetics regardless of partner.

"The ultimate evolution of your species' limited biology," they'd called it, as if destroying everything that made her human was a gift. They'd treated her transformation into a functional hermaphrodite as a triumph of genetic engineering, never understanding or caring about the psychological trauma of having her very identity altered at such a fundamental level.

A knock on the door interrupts her reverie. Tori looked at the door in pure panic. She had been too lost in thought and forgotten to lock her room. Panic shot through Tori as the door began to swing open. Her hand flew to the crystal at her throat, fingers fumbling against its surface. The device activated just as Jessica, the chapter senior, stepped into the room.

"Hey Tori, about the fundraiser-" Jessica stopped mid-sentence, taking in Tori's state of undress, now thankfully masked by the holographic overlay. "Oh god, sorry! I should have waited for you to answer!"

Tori clutched her too-small robe against herself, heart hammering in her chest. The holographic disguise was working - she could see her old self reflected in Jessica's embarrassed expression - but she felt exposed in a way that went far beyond simple nudity. One second slower with the device, one moment's hesitation...

"I'll come back later," Jessica said quickly, already backing toward the door. "Just... remember to lock your door, okay? Not everyone knocks first."

Tori stood frozen, painfully aware of her complete nudity, saved only by the holographic disguise she'd barely activated in time. Her hands instinctively moved to cover herself, though the motion felt absurd given that Jessica was seeing an entirely different form than her actual body. "Yeah, sorry. I was... lost in thought."

"We can talk about the fundraiser at dinner," Jessica offered, pausing at the doorway. Her expression shifted to concern. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

"Fine," Tori said quickly - too quickly. "Just... tired. I'll lock up now."

As soon as Jessica pulled the door shut, Tori lunged for the lock, her enhanced strength nearly crushing the mechanism before she caught herself. She leaned against the door, breathing hard, feeling the cold sweat on her transformed skin - skin that now appeared normal to anyone looking, but that she knew was still that alien shade of blue beneath the disguise.

Her discarded robe still lay in a pool at her feet where she'd dropped it for her self-examination exercise.

Tori slid down against the door, drawing her knees to her chest in a futile attempt to hide her transformed body from her own sight.

"Stupid," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Stupid, stupid, stupid. Can't even remember to lock a damn door." Her fingers dug into her arms, enhanced strength threatening to break her own skin. "Some perfect specimen you are. Some superior being."

A choked laugh escaped her throat, bitter and on the edge of hysteria. "Can't even handle being seen. What's wrong, wasn't this what they wanted? Their perfect little hybrid?" Her voice cracked on the last word. "Their beautiful monster?"

The late afternoon sun still cast those dancing patterns through her choker's crystal, mocking her with their beauty. She could feel the holographic disguise humming against her skin, the only thing standing between her and complete exposure. One malfunction, one moment of forgetfulness, and everyone would see exactly what she'd become.

"Can't even look at yourself," she hissed, tears threatening. "How are you going to keep pretending? How long before someone else walks in? Before someone sees what you really are?" Her breathing grew more ragged. "Before they all see the freak you've become?"

Tori's hands moved lower, trembling as they reached the source of her deepest shame - the alien addition that defiled her very identity. She pressed her forehead against her knees, tears flowing freely now. The urge to simply tear it away clawed at her mind, but she knew the futility. Like everything else they'd "gifted" her with, it would simply regenerate. Her captors had been thorough in their modifications - nothing as simple as self-mutilation could undo their work.

"Why?" she choked out between sobs. "Why did you have to take everything?"

The shadows in her room grew longer as she remained huddled against the door, lost in her grief and self-loathing. The sun set, darkness creeping in until she sat in near-total blackness, her modified eyes adapting automatically to the low light - another unwanted reminder of what she'd become.

A knock at the door startled her from her spiral of despair.

"Tori?" The voice was soft - Megan, from down the hall. "I... I heard you crying. I've been worried about you since you got back from that trip." A pause. "We all have."

Tori wiped at her tears, though in the darkness her hands brushed against skin too smooth, too alien. "Just... just give me a minute," she managed to call out, her voice rough from crying.

She pushed herself up from the floor, fumbling in the darkness for the light switch. Her enhanced vision meant she didn't need it, but it would be expected. Moving to her dresser, she pulled out one of the few outfits that still fit - a pair of jeans that had once been fashionably loose and a vintage band t-shirt that had been comfortably oversized. Now they clung to her transformed frame, though the holographic disguise made them appear to fit normally.

"You're safe here, you know," Megan continued through the door, her voice gentle. "If something happened... if someone hurt you... you can tell us. We're your sisters."

Tori closed her eyes, steadying herself. The concern in Megan's voice was genuine - and so completely unable to grasp the real situation that it almost made Tori laugh. They thought she'd been assaulted, or traumatized by witnessing something horrible. How could she explain that in a way, they were right - just not in any way they could comprehend?

"Coming," she called out, checking that the choker was secure and her disguise was perfect before moving to unlock the door.

"Oh, Tori..." Megan stepped forward in her blue and gold cheerleading uniform, arms opening for a comforting embrace. The hallway lights caught the glitter in her competition makeup, still fresh from practice.

Tori immediately backed away, arms crossing protectively over her chest. Even with the holographic disguise, the thought of physical contact sent a spike of panic through her. One touch would reveal the hardness of her subdural armor, the inhuman strength in her modified muscles.

"Don't," Tori said, her voice sharper than intended. She caught the hurt in Megan's expression and forced herself to soften her tone. "I just... I can't handle being touched right now."

Megan lowered her arms slowly, but the concern in her eyes only deepened. She stood awkwardly in the center of the brightly lit room, her cheerleading uniform a jarring reminder of the normal college life Tori could no longer fully participate in. "Okay," she said gently, as if speaking to a frightened animal. "That's okay. Do you want to talk? Or I can just sit with you?"

Tori barked out a laugh that held no humor. "Talk? What's talk gonna do?" She stared at Megan - this child who thought she could help, who saw someone her own age instead of a woman who'd lived through not just the fifteen years in that other world, but another decade lost in dimensions beyond that. Twenty-five years of horror compressed into what this world saw as a two-week river rafting trip.

She slumped down onto her bed, shoulders hunching as she stared at her hands in her lap. Hands that looked normal now but had done things this innocent girl couldn't imagine. Silent tears began falling again.

"It wasn't your fault," Megan said softly, falling back on the trauma support training they'd all received during orientation. "Whatever happened out there... you're safe now. There are people who can help, counselors who specialize in-"

"You don't understand," Tori whispered, the words catching in her throat. How could she? How could anyone? A quarter century of existence, of survival, of changes that defied human comprehension, all hidden behind the facade of a college student.

"Then help me understand," Megan pleaded, still keeping her distance but moving to sit on Tori's desk chair. "We've all noticed how different you've been since you got back. The way you flinch when people get too close, how you barely eat in the dining hall anymore..." She leaned forward. "You don't have to carry this alone."

Megan leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on Tori's knee - a simple gesture of sorority sister comfort that shattered everything.

Tori launched backward with superhuman speed, her enhanced mass and strength sending her crashing into the wall. Her head punched through the ceiling plaster, raining white dust onto her bed as the wall behind her cracked from the impact. The bed frame groaned ominously under her three-hundred-pound frame.

"Oh, Tori..." Megan's voice trembled, her eyes wide as she stumbled back from the bed. The fear and concern in her expression cut deep - but Tori saw only the fear, saw herself through Megan's eyes: a monster trying to play at being human.

Plaster continued to crumble around Tori as she stood frozen on her protesting bed, the holographic disguise still maintaining its illusion even as her actual form had just demonstrated its inhuman nature.

"Get out," Tori whispered, then louder, desperate: "Get out!"

Megan backed toward the door, her hands raised in a calming gesture that only made everything worse. The genuine concern and fear for her sister's well-being written across her face was completely misread by Tori's trauma-twisted perspective. As Megan slipped out, her eyes never left Tori - watching her not like a threat, but like someone on the edge of shattering completely.

The door clicked shut, leaving Tori alone with the physical evidence of her inability to maintain even the simplest human interaction.

Tori stood motionless on her creaking bed, staring at the door as plaster dust continued to settle around her. Her hand moved to her throat, fingers brushing against the crystal that maintained her illusory humanity. Even that small comfort felt like a lie now.

She looked up at the hole her head had punched through the ceiling - a hole that shouldn't exist, that no human could have made with a simple startled reaction. Her gaze dropped to the spiderweb of cracks in the wall, then to the bed frame that groaned under her weight. Every piece of evidence screaming that she didn't belong here, couldn't belong here.

"Three hundred pounds," she whispered to the empty room, her voice breaking. "Can't even act surprised without..." She reached up, running her fingers along the ceiling damage. The bed creaked again with her movement, and she quickly stepped off it, unable to bear another reminder of how much she'd changed.

More plaster flaked off as she moved, dusting her shoulders and the metalloid hair that no amount of holographic disguise could make feel like the blonde strands she'd once been so proud of. She caught her reflection in the mirror again - the illusion of normalcy over the monster beneath - and had to look away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End Chapter!

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