Our story so far: Francoise and Amelie, having been picked up by the trillionaire Tolliver, have been taken from North Africa to France. There, Francsoise is told that he intends to have her genetically modifed, and AR (augmented reality) implants in her. The last episode is at https://mrw.5-cent.us/?p=398 . This series of excerpts begins at https://mrw.5-cent.us/?p=379
And now, Becoming Terran, excerpt #4
That night, back in their room after dinner, Francoise told Amelia
about their mother’s ashes, and then about the genengineering, and the
advanced learning. “They’re going to change what you look like?
Forever?” her young sister asked, a worried look on her face.
“Just my hair will change, and my skin tone. My face and body are still
my own.” She smiled. “As is my mind. The person who could do what I
did was part of what got Tolliver to pay attention to me in the first place,
and saved us from whatever he was going to let the insurgents do.”
Amelie thought this over for a while, then looked up. “What is
advanced learning?”
“I have heard and read a little of this. For the intensive learning, they
are going to implant electrodes or whatever in my head, just as the
advanced countries do to their air force pilots and such. That is not a big
deal, I hope.” She looked at her sister. “Do not worry, this is something
that has been done for thirty years around the world. It won’t change who I
am, or my love for you.” She took a sip of juice. “You, on the other hand,
will be expected to work hard to learn what they give you.”
She did not tell her sister what she had already come to understand,
about the look he had given her, that first day in the hotel office. It was not
merely sexual, but considering how he could use her, her looks, her
intelligence…or her organs, should he need them for something. She, like
everyone around him, was a thing to be used or discarded.
At their next meeting, Francoise and Tolliver both had the bulky AR
headsets on, looking at information on Krock, a trillionaire he intended as
use as her first target. After a while, she said, “I noticed, and this was not
in your notes that you sent me earlier, his avoidance of general biotech.
That may be related to several relatives who jumped into genengineering
early, and had themselves modified, to find that the modifications failed
spectacularly.”
“Interesting. I had not noticed that.”
“I had to dig into his biography. The accelerated training is already
helping me do research.”
“Very good. Anything else?”
“He seems to have issues with families with older money from the
East Coast of the US, and is cozy with several Russians, and oddly enough,
several Ukrainians.”
He nodded. “Very good. More background that I had not put together
before.” He reached out, in the real world, and took a sip from a mug in
front of him. “I have my own issues with old East Coast money. Give me
another report in two weeks. I want to see if you find anything else, and I
want to see how the accelerated education is working.”
“Oui.”
Later that week, she was taken to a hospital, where she spent five days,
in bed or a recliner, some of the time listening to the sounds of the room,
the pumps, and the smells of the disinfectants as her body dealt with side
effects from the first round of gene editing. Most of the time, however, she
spent in AR, either going through her course of education, or in discovering how to use AR most effectively for how she wanted to use it. She avoided the real world as much as possible, to avoid the aching in her bones, the itching over her entire skin, and the presence of the hospital. Other than the nurses and the doctor, her only visitor was Amelie, trying to assimilate how her sister now looked.
“They will do this to me, as well?”
“Oui, though they tell me in two years or so, when they do you, it
should be faster, easier, and less painful.”
******