They wheel you to a reclined surgical chair, its padded surface cold against your back as restraints click into place around wrists and ankles. The weight of your transformed body settles into the cushioning in unfamiliar ways—your hips spread wider than the chair was designed for, soft tissue compressing against the armrests.
"神经映射设备已校准," the male technician reports, his voice tight with professional distance. Neural mapping equipment calibrated.
Voss approaches with a crown-like apparatus bristling with contact points. She positions it carefully on your skull, each node pressing against specific locations with practiced precision. "这不会伤害," she says, though there's no comfort in her clinical tone. This won't hurt. "但你会感觉到变化。" But you'll feel the changes.
The activation comes without warning—a cascade of sensations that aren't quite pain but something deeper, more invasive. Your vision blurs as neural pathways light up in sequence. Images flash across your consciousness: Wayne Manor feels distant, like photographs from someone else's childhood. The cowl and cape seem theatrical, costumes from a stranger's closet. Your parents' faces remain clear but emotionally muted, as though you're viewing historical figures rather than family.
"心率升高," the female technician announces. Heart rate elevated. "皮质醇水平正常。程序进行中。" Cortisol levels normal. Procedure progressing.
New associations layer over your existing memories. The sensation of this heavy body—the way your thighs press together when you stand, how your substantial rear requires conscious adjustment when sitting, the weight of your breasts pulling at your center of gravity—begins to feel less alien. Not comfortable, not accepted, but increasingly familiar in ways that horrify you even as they take root.
Voss monitors her tablet, stylus moving in precise strokes. "Subject Forty-Four demonstrates expected resistance patterns. Core identity persistence within acceptable parameters for Phase Two completion. Memory recontextualization achieving seventy-three percent integration."
The chair releases you after what feels like hours but your disoriented perception can't accurately gauge. When you stand, your body moves with fractionally more coordination than before—muscle memory adapting to its new architecture despite your conscious resistance. You catch your reflection again: the young Chinese woman with substantial curves, wide hips, pronounced rear that strains against the medical gown. The image no longer carries the same shock of total alienation. It's becoming simply what you see when you look.
"转移到恢复室," Voss instructs the technicians. Transfer to recovery room. "Subject Forty-Four is ready for consolidation phase monitoring."
Your analytical mind catalogs every detail—the equipment specifications, the security protocols, the timing of shift changes visible through the observation window. The detective in you remains sharp, focused, planning. But beneath that clarity runs something new and unwelcome: a creeping acceptance of physical reality that you didn't authorize but can no longer fully deny.