“Andy, lets do your medical checkup. Come, we'll start with a few simple checks. Let’s do that in the privacy of your bedroom."

“Okay,” I said and went to the my bedroom and Elise followed me.

Once in my room, she asked "So you're changing in a girl, aren't you?"

"I...erm...I....You see...ah...I ate the wrong stuff." I was stammering. I felt so busted. She outed me with barely a single glance.

"Don't worry about it kiddo. Weirder things happen. It still wasn’t a smart thing to do."

"What?! Weirder things happen?"

"Not all the time, but often enough."

"How?"

"You know that you got those little computers in your head and body?"

"Yes?"

"Well, it blurs the boundaries between body and mind. Your mind will eventually use the added processing that is distributed throughout your body. It makes you a lot more conscious of your body and environment. You're might already noticing this."

"You mean like puzzles that are suddenly easy? Or hearing radio?"

"For example. It goes a lot farther than that. In some people, this makes the body adapts to the mind, by changing into female, although in some rare cases more weird things can happen. In your case, you touched stuff that wasn't yours."

"Just how did you notice that I was changing?"

"That you're changing? Your clothes don't stop infrared light much, so I could see your chest quite clearly.”

"You see infrared?"

"And UV. It comes in handy from time to time. I always wanted to see the world through different eyes. I certainly got that wish granted to me. But you see things you sometimes wish you didn't see."

"Now that you mention it, pentagram shaped irises are not the norm in nature. I didn't notice it before."

“Yeah, I really like the look of those modifications.”

"You can just change?"

“Sure. With the right blueprint and genetic program you can pretty much change anything.”

“So I can change back?” I asked hopefully.

"Yes. But first the current change has to be completed. Those beans gave you a very basic program that keeps on running until it completes. Perhaps you can turn up the speed. We can try that later on. I still have to do the basic investigation.”

“Alright.”

She started slowly waving her hand over my body and staring intently at the spot on my body she was waving her hand over. It looked like on of those astral healing stuff or something.

"Are you using voodoo on my aura? Aligning my chakras?"

"Of course not silly. It's just an ultrasonic scan."

"With your hands?"

"Sure. I grew a phased array of ultrasonic transducers in my palms and fingers, with some targeting and imaging software I found, linked up with a few medical database. It's all pretty basic actually. I'm terrible at making my own designs."

"Grew...in your hands?"

"Sure. Think of it like downloading a new app on your phone. It’s easy."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Oh no. There are entire catalogues from the useful to the weird. You'll see. OK, you're definitely developing all the right stuff for a girl," she said while standing up. "It’s all healthy and all parts are complete. The ovaries, womb, vagina, it’s all there. The bones are in the correct configuration. It all needs a last switch to be complete. Andy, you’re looking a bit green again.”

“Sorry. It’s just getting concrete so suddenly.”

“Let's go see how Tom and James are doing, okay?"

We found the boys back outside on the porch sipping a drink.

“But shrooms,” Tom was asking.

“Yes, we can have our body synthesize narcotics and hallucinogens,”James was explaining. “But just because you can, means it’s a good idea. We had a few people that are, well, bricked, to borrow that term. You ha… Hey, Elise. Is Andy healthy?”

Elise nodded..

Tom looked up and said: "Hey Andy. James says I'm changing."

"Yeah, me too. I'm probably changing a bit different from you, says Elise. She even checked me with ultrasound from her palms. That was weird. I'm not going to be surprised when somebody here is going to shoot laser beams from their eyes."

Elise giggled and said: "There are some laser rangefinder designs, but it has little practical use in everyday life except for playing with cats. And eyes are a terrible location for a laser emitter."

Tom and I just looked at each other.

"Andy, Tom, following the normal development pattern,, you should now see a black circle on the underside of your wrist,” James said. We checked, and indeed there was a quarter inch black circle.

“These are your interfaces. It allows you to exchange large amount of data, using DNA or classic electric signals. We wanted to load you up with the good stuff and start training.”

“Training?” Tom asked. ”Like going for a run?”

“No, just some simple games for now, the most fun way to learn” James replied. “But first we’re going to load your new operating system. Tom, can you come here.”

”Andy, can you come to me?” Elise asked. ”Please sit down and lift your arm so we can begin.”

I did so. Elise sat down next to me and grabbed my arm in such a way that the circle on her and my arm touched. I saw Tom and James to the same. Then I felt a pressure that feels somewhat like wants to enter my body but not quite.

“Andy, let it in. Just relax. This is just a basic operating system. You need this to function properly.”

I got myself to relax and tried to let that pressure in. A few seconds later, I could actually feel information flow inside of me. Then I saw flashes of light, crackling noises and a shiver went over my spine causing goosebumps. After that everything settled down and I somehow felt more complete.

“Alright. Diagnostics say everything is go. Now we’re going to start with something simple.”

She held up her unoccupied hand and a pea sized light just appeared in it. The light floated slowly upwards to hover in between us while it grew to the size of a tennis ball and appeared to solidify.

"Andy, your job is to move the ball."

Of course I tried to push the thing with my finger. The thing gave my an electric shock for my trouble.

"That's cheating,“ Elise said smiling. ”You have to move it with your mind."

"How? With telekinesis?"

"Of course not. The ball is a virtual object in an augmented reality environment running on your systems. As it’s on your system, you can control it. You just need practice. Go on. Don’ t look at me like that."

Allright, time to do some magic, or techno-wizardry. Move the ball. Easy. Concentrate. Oh, that thing wobbled. Let's try that again. It wobbled again. Concentrate, maybe push in one one direction. Hey, it worked. The ball wobbled slowly to the left.

"Good work. Now try to get more control. Guide it through the hoops."

Elise manifested some rings after which she let them float in a rough circle and grew them into hoops.

More games. Those I can do. Slowly the ball wobbled through hoop number one. I managed to make it slowly change direction to hoop number two. Number tree was a little more smooth and completed the circle.

"Keep going."

The next circle was again more smooth. This is getting fun. It feels like I’m doing magic. The next lap had only a bit of wobble. The one after that was smooth.

"Try to do it faster."

Okay, faster. I focused some more on the ball and managed to slowly increase the speed with each lap. After some time I really got the ball zooming through the hoops. I was grinning happily.

"Well done. Of course, we go to the next level. We go multi-ball. Get them all running the circuit."

She let more rings appear and balls in different colors. Now there were three balls in total with each their own rings.

"You have to get them all looping at the same time. Yes, you can do that. You just need to get your brain and system trained. We are doing this to expand your mind so start expanding."

It sure took a lot of mind expanding. I got one ball orbiting, then I tried move the second one. After that I retrieved the first ball when it ricochets of the rings and tried again. When I finally got it working with two balls, I tried this with the extra ball. I certainly did feel my mind expanding. As soon as I got it working with three balls, Elise added even more balls and hoops. As crazy as this seems, at the end of the exercise I was successfully concentrating on ten things at the same time.

"Look at that! I'm doing it! I am really doing this! How am I doing this?"

"Science. It works. Want to do more?"

"Sure."

All the balls disappeared in motes of light. Elise now made three cubes appear, that grew into scrambled Rubik's cubes.

"Here you go. Solve the cubes."

Alright, let's figure this out. It was pretty easy to manipulate the cube itself. Making the first side all one color for the first was really easy. The other most of the other side was more work. The last side took a long time but I got it done. The solved cube flashed and was scrambled again. After several times solving the first cube, I got to work with multiple cubes. With a lot of concentration, I was able to solve the cubes simultaneously.

"That's good enough, Andy. Now, just one more thing. Close your eyes. You should be able to feel the location of the objects, their color and manipulate them. Go on, close your eyes."

I closed my eyes and tried to feel around. It worked. It was a really weird in the beginning to perceive color and texture without seeing or touching. But I got one cube solved, then the next and the one after that even faster than just by seeing. It's easier if you can feel all sides at the same time.

"Well, Andy, those the games. Now you are able to feel the virtual objects without looking, manipulate them and handle multiple items simultaneously. But you now need to control your own system. My arm is getting really sore. If you feel in the middle of your forehead, there should be a virtual button, only visible to you. If you find it, lightly tap it."

It was easy enough to find, so I tapped it. And suddenly, my vision was full of screens floating in my vision. Elise started pointing them out.

"There you go. Environmental monitoring, personal system diagnostics, medical diagnostics, subsystem management, development suite, genetics control, manuals. All the usual. Most people either close most of them, move them out of your point of view or adjust transparency. That way you can still perceive and control the data without impeding vision. You can also develop a set of 'virtual eyes' to see screens without needing to use your real eyes, but that's a bit advanced now. Really advanced is to integrate these systems directly into your mind but most would say it takes away from your humanity."

"Whoa. I feel like I'm NASA. So much to play with!"

"You should get more training first. You can overwrite all your genetics when playing too much."

"Oh. How long is that going to take?"

"That depends on your aptitudes. We’ll see that in the coming days. First, we have a break. Tom and James finished this part too."

"But I want to play with the new toys."

"After a few snacks. You need calories. Those systems don’t work for free."

I checked the environmental screen and it indeed a few hours have passed. Yep, time to eat. We got up and went to the kitchen to pluck some fruit and get a drink. There were some fresh juice berries. With that I could relax a bit and enjoy the weather before continuing the lessons.