Untitled Standard disclaimer: The concept isn't mine, I don't make money of this. Carl and the others are mine though, except for Mike.

Archive: yes, but let me know, pls. Transition A Strange Wake-Up When I came to for the first time after my unplugging I had no idea where I was. I heard or felt a soft humming that seemed to penetrate the whole room and everything that was in it, including me.

Then I dared to open my eyes: it wasn't too bright there and my vision was strangely blurred. I blinked a lot and wanted to wipe the sleep out of my eyes but something tugged at my arm. I didn't bother to find out what it was. Instead I used the other one that was free.

Wiping helped a bit. I looked at my hand: it was strange, as if it wasn't mine at all. My carefully kept fingernails were gone and the whole hand seemed to be bigger, somehow. The skin was extremely soft and smooth. Of course I cared a lot about their looks - my look at all.

What had happened?

I laid there and tried to remember how I had gotten here. The people I had contacted and the decision to swallow the drugs they had offered me. I had assumed it had been some anesthesia so they could bring me to their HQ without the risk of me being a spy who would betray them.

Then the only thing I remembered was a Giger-like dreamscape with robots and engines and cables on me (in me?). And blackness. Warm darkness all around me, and the suddenly cold and the fear of drowning.

OK, so I was in their HQ somewhere. I was covered with a blanket and I just knew I was naked. You surely know that feeling: it is just different. Probably they had scanned my clothes for bugs. I sat up and looked around, hoping to spot my dress somewhere around. Nothing.

Instead I took in the appearance of this room. What a place was this? The whole room consisted of metal: walls, floor and ceiling. A locker stood besides a metal-washbasin. I tried to stand but again something tugged at my left arm. I looked and instantly felt sick. An IV tube ended in a thick, obviously implanted permanent access in the middle of my left forearm.

Was I ill or was that the antidote to the pill I had taken?

"Hello?" I called with a voice that did not seem to be mine. Hoarse and - I didn't know what else was wrong with it. Anyway, nobody came.

"Anybody here?" I called again. My throat ached and I coughed.

After another ten seconds or so the door opened and a boy came in. He was quite of my age.

"Hi! You awake? Come-on, I'll show you around. What?" I stared at him. He was wearing RAGS! He looked like the worst of the homeless in the big cities wouldn't look like. The ragged sweater was stitched up countless times by some completely incapable hands. His hair looked like it had been cut with a dull knife. He looked simply terrible and neglected. I wasn't sure if he wouldn't have fleas. I shivered.

I wrapped the blanket closer around my bare body, scarcely noticing something felt - yeah - wrong with me.

"Isn't there a woman around?" I asked shyly. I would have felt much more comfortable with another woman around than with this filthy boy. He gave me a strange look.

"Wait." He disappeared.

I shivered and rubbed my arms. By doing so I came to realize what was wrong. My breasts were gone! With a cold lump in my heart I touched my chest: flat. That was impossible. I was 17 and had a nicely developed body for a girl in that age. But even looking didn't help a thing. They were gone. Even the nipples were much smaller. Altogether my chest looked like a boy's.

Do you know that feeling when you all of a sudden realize you forgot something really, really important? When all the blood seems to rush off, down into your legs? Feeling sick and your heart is beating like crazy? That was about what I felt, only ten times stronger.