The first thing Jonnie noticed when she sat up was of course that she was naked, but that had been true through the whole operation. What really interested her was the fact that she felt so much lighter. She was probably several times stronger than her human body, and weighed just over half as much. With practice, she expected, she could become a serious acrobat. Carefully she stood up, relearning how to balance herself in this new body. She stumbled forward, tumbling into Phil's arms.
"Careful, now," said Phil gently, letting go once Jonnie was stable again. "Baby steps to start with. That door will take you back to the changing room. Everything you brought with you should be right where you left it. You'll also find a new change of clothes. Do you think you want to try getting dressed alone or should I find someone to help you?"
"I think I'm fine," said Jonnie, successfully walking to the door. Everything seemed larger, which was of course because her new body was smaller. She also realized that she had yet to perceive anything that really called attention to the fact that she was synthetic. All her senses seemed to be much sharper, but there was no Terminator-vision highlighting objects and measuring them to twelve decimal places, nor a virtual command console spelling out her current thoughts. As far as she could sense at the moment, it would have been easy to forget she was no longer human.
"Don't take too long, Dr. Blunt has offered to handle your first acclimation session tonight. She's in the waiting room with Karyn. As for me, I'm done for the day. Good night, everyone." Phil left through the other door. The assisting neurosurgeon and techs filed out after him.
"How long could it take for me to get changed? I know how pants work," Jonnie mumbled to herself. Of course, there were also distractions to factor into the equation, as Jonnie beheld her nude self in the mirror. It was disturbingly arousing, in that it made perfect sense to her formerly male mind to be aroused, and disturbing to know that it really was her own body turning her on like this. She unconsciously reached for the organ she no longer possessed, and instead touched her new female equipment. Almost immediately she felt it twitch, like a partial contraction.
"So that's why they call it 'Supertwitchy'," giggled Jonnie. "Okay, might as well give this a test drive," she said to herself as she sat down on the bench opposite the mirror, legs spread. She tried again with a couple of fingers.
Before Jonnie knew it, she had spent several minutes vigorously masturbating and was beginning to appreciate the special features of her modified vagina. She was extremely sensitive inside, and though she didn't have any point of reference for a real comparison, she suspected she was at least four times as sensitive as the typical synthetic female. She also had extremely strong muscles, which tightly but never painfully squeezed even when she had only one finger inside. She also seemed to have phenomenal control, and imagined with enough practice she would be able to shoot ping-pong balls across a large room. Seriously, Jonnie thought, I should finish this. With one final surge she tried fitting her whole hand in, and pumped until she let out one last gush of synthetic fluid.
"Wow, that's one for the cleanup crew," Jonnie panted, going back to the task of getting dressed. Fortunately, there was a roll of paper towels in the room. She did her best to wipe up her mess before picking up her new clothes. Panties, socks, pants -- no trouble. There was no bra. Apparently someone had decided that the breasts of female synthetics ought to be self-supporting, and that the nipples should be designed to be invisible under clothing at least when not in an aroused state. Whoever had that idea deserved an award. It was especially useful for Jonnie since hers seemed to act as extra fluid reservoirs that seemed to be able to expand and shrink to some extent depending on how full they were. When she had entered the changing room she had something on the order of C cups that looked quite big on her small frame, and after her little self-indulgence session they had gone down to about a B, which made her glad that she wouldn't need to keep several different bra sizes. Jonnie put on the lightweight sweatshirt that remained in the bag, before stuffing her old clothes in to take home. She made sure to remove her wallet, keys, phone, and of course the magic stone from the pocket of her old pants.
This late at night nobody else was in the waiting room except for Karyn and Dr. Blunt. "Holy crap -- Jonnie, is that you?" squealed Karyn, delighted and excited. This was the first time Karyn got to actually see Jon's new body.
"Yeah, it's me," Jonnie replied, nonchalantly shifting towards a wastecan to dispose of her large wad of used paper towels.
"That's a lot of paper towels there," Karyn said with a dirty grin. "And you were in there for quite a while. Whatever were you doing?"
"Use your imagination," suggested Jonnie with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
"I can't blame you, especially with those mods. But wow, you are so cute! Tomorrow, we need to get you a wardrobe!" Karyn was ecstatic.
"Tonight, though, I'd like to give Jonnie a little orientation to life as a synthetic," said Emily Blunt, standing up. She looked even taller now that Jonnie was nine inches shorter. "If you would follow me to the gym. Do you mind if Karyn joins us?"
"Not at all," said Jonnie, following Blunt to the gym.
Dr. Blunt locked the door once all three of them were in. "Just for privacy," she replied to the unspoken question. "You probably still feel quite human in the sense that you have not yet really accessed your-- additional capabilities. There might be a few unusual things you have noticed about your body during your-- time in the changing room, but you don't know how to access your internal command line, surf the Web, make phone calls, replay recorded video, or any of those sorts of things."
"No," Jonnie replied, smiling eagerly. This aspect of being a metahuman was what really enticed Jon in the first place.
Karyn stood against the wall and watched.
"Your internal command line is the key to everything," Blunt began. "It is a fundamental component of the software connecting your consciousness to your body. It is a part of you. At first, accessing it will take a little effort, but you will learn to enter commands quickly and easily with nothing but a thought. There is one overarching cardinal rule: Read The Fucking Manual."
"So what do I do?" Jonnie asked.
"Close your eyes and visualize black. Nothing but black, except for a solitary blinking white cursor."
"Huh, weird. It's like I'm actually seeing it, not just imagining it."
"Good. Now visualize typing something like 'help'"
"Okay-- hey, this looks familiar, am I running on Linux?" Jonnie was getting excited. "I think I can browse the manual pages for everything here."
"Yes, you're running Linux, but let's not get too far ahead just yet. Almost all your functions should have a full name and an abbreviated alias. Look up 'panel control', we're going to start with that," Blunt continued. "Use the list function to find something at the back of your head, and go ahead and open it."
Jonnie tilted her head forward, feeling the skin at the top of her neck at the back of her head begin to split; it felt very much like she expected it to feel if her skin could come apart painlessly, a soft flap falling downward to reveal a set of USB ports and a couple other slots. She hesitantly reached up to touch the area, fascinated by the idea that she could open herself up like this.
"There should be a slot for a SIM card there. You probably want to take the one out of your phone and let me insert it," Blunt offered.
"Sure."
For the next hour, Jonnie was introduced to all her capabilities, and by the time the session was over, she had learned all the basics, even mastering control over the hidden utility tools in her forearms.
"I think I'm tired," said Jonnie in the car halfway to home. "I don't feel like I actually did that much today."
"The transfer gave that brain quite a lot to process. You need to sleep to really handle all that data," explained Karyn."It's a new day tomorrow."
"I guess I'm going to be brushing up for the exam and shopping. Maybe I can just download some high school textbooks into my head."
"Listen, Jonnie. If you do that, it will probably help you at least a bit. But you need to remember that there is a real difference between memorized data and knowledge," Karyn admonished. "Data doesn't become knowledge until it's assimilated into your thought processes. For example, if you download a cookbook, you could follow the recipes and make some nice meals. But that won't automatically make you a great cook. You'd need to be able to understand the ingredients on a level that allows you to be confident making up original dishes. Until then you're just referring to a cookbook that happens to be stored in your head."
"Or if I download a Japanese dictionary it won't automatically make me fluent enough to write poetry. I get it. So that's why it'll still take me a few years to get a college degree." Jonnie nodded.
"Pretty much. Look, um, you said earlier you hoped I was a lesbian? Well..."
