After our break, we went back outside.

"Tom, Andy, ready for more?" James asked.

"Hit me!" I exclaimed.

“In that case, let’s get started,” Elise said. ”We have more stuff to do.”

Tom and James went to their corner to continue the training.

"First, we have to set up communications. You need communication software for that. We have to load it up. It’s interface time.”

We put our wrists against each other. Now Elise materialized a stack of playing cards.

"This is communication software. Take it. When you try to feel them, you can perceive the names, labels and all secondary info. Or you go through them one by one to read the description on the back."

“Playing cards?”

“Everybody used their own theme. I like this one. It can look like anything.”

A small translucent screen appeared with text and pictures flashing on it too fast to follow and suddenly the cards were replaced by a small rotating galaxy, where each star represented data. Then it were playing cards again and the screen was gone.

“You see?”

I pulled the cards towards me and start going through the stuff. It was a whole bunch of program code, documents and instruction videos. This one was simple radio control. It links to the ... graphene radio transmitters growing on my ribs. Nice to know that little addition. It also supports IR transmitters ... growing on a number of spots on my skin. Sneaky body modders.

So this piece is for the antennas, that for sending and receiving. This here is for voice communication, there is video and holographic data. There is a firewall, virus scanners and maintenance. This one is weird. Communication, storage, integration and compiling of neuromorphic data formats. I give up. Let’s just install this.

I brought up the software screen. I go to installation and drag the cards to the installation drop zone. There it goes. The objects are all sucked into the screen, where a simple progress bar shows how far the process is with compiling and installing. It is surprisingly fast. A few seconds later it's all done and a few new screens pop up to control radio, phone, message system. Yay, more stuff to monitor.

Elise let go of my arm.

"Good. Now you can check if it all works. Switch on receivers, set them to scanning and have a look around."

And when I flipped those virtual switches, I entered the Matrix. Or cyberspace. I saw radio and infrared signals everywhere as neon glow. Inside the house signals were transmitting weakly. Trees were glowing with communication signals like they was made of light. People were like lighthouses of data signals. There were even some animals with data streams. Amazing. Then the automatic compensators kicked in to dull most of the data streams to a soft glow.

It was beautiful, like I was suddenly in a fairy forest. The jungle was apparently a lot more active and multilayered than I thought it was. It was just a different world. A few new screens started to pop up now. First there were basics like a standard internet browser, a weather prediction app, local group chat and social media, knowledge base, a network analysis tool and more. The network tool was really interesting. It was saying the trees were working as servers and network nodes.

Now I see it. These people don't need computers, laptop or phones. They don't need data centers. They have it all, growing in their own bodies, growing in the trees, in the animals or in the grass.

“From your look, I guess it all works,” Elise remarked. “Now you’re not a barbarian anymore.”

I looked at Tom, to see how he was doing. He was just installing software. It was pretty neat. I was receiving the data from what he was doing. It seems James was a trekkie. All his programs looked like neat piles of chips from that old Star Trek show. Tom was pulling them into the installation screen.

By now Tom had installed and activated all his stuff. He was now gaping around like a fish out of water going all "whoa dude". I wish I could record a video of this. My media screen blinked with a "visual stream saved" remark. Alright, quality blackmail material right there! I pickup the file and show it to Tom as a repeating clip in a picture frame. Now his eyes bugged out even more.

"Dude, no fair. You had the same face just minutes ago."

"But I have a recording. Though luck."

"I didn't know you can record things without a camera."

“Me neither. It still works.”

Elise and James were looking at us smirking. “Good, you are using the system already,” James said. “You still can use more practice. We’re going to give you a bunch more stuff, including a lot of games. Now your wireless is active, this can be done easy enough. Oh yes, a word of advice. Never give out your private encryption keys. Never! You’ve ready fantasy novels? You have seen what happens when a creature gives out its True Name? That’s what will happen to you when you give out your private keys. With that out of the way, dig in.”

James waved his hand and manifesting a small mountain of isolinear chips on the table. Elise made a flourish with her hands and had a spread of playing card in her hand, gathered them into a stack with another movement floated them towards the table. Then they sat back to watch the show.

I quickly started copying the stuff on the stuff on the table and installing it. Tom was hesitant but after some prodding from me he acquiesced. Then came what you can expect when you give some youngsters new toys. We had to test them all!

Turns out that finger guns can now shoot laser beams. It were not real lasers of course, just virtual beams. They did left nice scorch marks everywhere that after some time slowly disappeared without a trace. It did hurt when you got hit. Apparently there was also someone who programmed all energy attacks from the cartoons in there for lots of fun.

WIthout doubt, we did have to try the light sabers. The simulated pain from getting hit was excruciating so that didn’t last long.

Then there were the games, from board games like 3D chess and going up from there. Holograms were also fun. I freaked out when suddenly there were three perfect copies of Toms all moving in sync.

Finally I found out that my clothes also had an interface I could link with. That opened whole new options of changing the colors of of clothes, adding band logos, skulls. Too bad their libraries were so out of date.

We lasted a few hours playing with that stuff right up to dinner.

Even going inside was more interesting now. Small screens appeared on the walls for switching on light, opening taps, controlling locks and others as soon as we walked inside. In the kitchen, we washed our hands first. Switching on the water and soap dispenser was done with the little screens that appeared next to the tap.

The branches in the kitchen were now not only filled with fruits, but also was full of screens with nutritional information and genetic composition for each berry and fruit. It was almost blocking my vision but you could turn it off easily.

At the end of the meal, I was checking the last fruit I had on my plate. I was curious and switched on the full information again. I was trying to make sense of it all, and miraculously I could actually figure it out. It were actually not different fruits but just customized growths from the tree, very large cells just pumped full of nutrients and stuff for giving taste and texture. Interesting.

After dinner, I sat with Tom. I needed to come clean over what was happening to me. I didn’t think he already noticed what was happening with my body.

"Tom, can I talk to you?"

"Sure."

"There's something I have to tell you."

"That sounds ominous."

"Maybe it is. We are changing, right? We have been for some time. You're getting more muscles besides all the stuff in your head."

"Yeah. It's been great."

"You probably noticed that it worked a bit differently for me."

"Yeah. You don't seem to bulk up a lot. More flabby here and there."

Did he just call me fat?!

"What!? I am not flabby you jerk! I'm just changing into a girl, idiot!!"

I slapped my hands quickly over my mouth, but much too late. The words were already out. Oops. Nice and smooth Andy. Really nice and smooth. Darn it.

"Whu- bu- but you- really- how- why- You're joking, right?"

"Aaaaah, nope. It's really happening. Sorry," I squeaked out.

"Who did this to you?I'm gonna kick th-"

"Nobody did that. It just happened."

"That doesn't just happen."

"Okay, it didn't _just_ happen. Those beans that gave you those muscles? I actually took the ones meant for my sister. It’s my own fault."

"Oh. But- But you're okay with all that?"

"I don’t have much choice at the moment. But I made peace with it. I can’t stop the process a this point, but once it’s all completed I can start changing back to normal."

"If you're okay with it, I can accept it. It's still a bit weird."

"I understand. It is weird for me too."

"Does this kind of stuff happens here more?"

James spoke up. I totally forgot about him and he startled me. I certainly did not let out a little squeak.

"Let’s just say that children growing up here can have a really weird puberty. I don’t envy them.”

"And those dinosaurs?" I asked. I didn't think I would look good in scales.

"Those changes are mostly voluntary. The velociraptors are our soldiers. The first one to change was because he was doing a bit too much experiments with his genome. They guy was really fascinated with dinosaurs. He turned out to be a great fighter and single handedly fought of a raider group. Since then soldiers used the velocirapor form. They are brutally effective in combat."

"Yeah, we noticed," Tom remarked.

"You see," I said to Tom, "me changing is nothing."

"I guess you're right. In fact you're already starting to act a bit girly."

"I do not!!"

To emphasise my point I pouted, crossed my arms over my chest and turned my back to him. I was kind of surprised of my own reaction. I dug to the screens until I found the one controlling the my body. Yes, there were clear increases of hormones recently. Gah! The other screen that controlled the change showed it was still ongoing. I couldn’t cancel it, but I did found a speed controller. I turned it to max. The faster this ends, the faster I can turn back to normal. A countdown appeared saying the full change would be done in twelve hours. That should do it. And now I suddenly felt sleepy.

“Hey guys, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

After saying goodbye to everyone I went to my room. I undressed to get ready for bed. The plan was to throw my clothes on the dresser and sort it out in the morning. That didn't work like I planned. The clothes actually started to complain that they wanted to be stored correctly. I tried to ignore this but I had interfaced with the clothes and they had my address, reminding me I was now responsible for hygiene and maintenance.

There was no other choice. I hung up the clothes on the hangers that gave the clothes nutrients so they could clean, adjust and repair themselves. That makes sense. The clothes gave of a sense of gratitude in return. They clothes were not actually alive but you couldn’t call it dead matter either.

In the bathroom I noticed my little Andy was already shrinking. It was just big enough for one last salute, my last moments of peeing while standing up until I got this all reversed. A proper farewell was in order, so I peed while humming 'The Last Post' while doing that.

That done, I finally got in bed hoping that the sheets would not complain or something.