The code and data behind xeiaso.net
blog: readaptation
Signed-off-by: Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>
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blog/readaptation-2021-02-21.markdown
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blog/readaptation-2021-02-21.markdown
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---
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title: Readaptation
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date: 2021-02-21
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series: short-stories
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---
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# Readaptation
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Thena suddenly saw a large red sign labeled "system overload" in front of her.
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She tried to push it away but wasn’t able to do anything. After a bit of
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struggling something added the text “Get out of your pod to initiate repairs”.
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_My...pod?_ she wondered.
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Suddenly her arms started working again, but she wasn’t able to see them, only
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feel them. She reached up to her face and felt a weird kind of mask. There was a
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handle and she pulled on it. Finally that message went away, but it swung up and
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over. She had never seen any of the messages do that before. The room started to
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light itself up.
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Thena looked down at herself and gasped. She did not see what she was used to
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seeing. She saw a body in a black and orange jumpsuit. It appeared to be male
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too. She decided she needed to see herself in a mirror. _Dreams don’t let you
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look into mirrors right? This is just a bad dream._ She got up out of her bed
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and stood on her feet, only to take a step and fall right over on the ground
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with muscle cramps she’s never felt in her life.
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After massaging her aching muscles (which was hard because it was nearly all of
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them) she managed to crawl over to the mirror and took a good look at herself.
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She managed to get on her feet again after bracing for stability on the
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conveniently placed bar. There was no doubt. Her avatar was male. It felt
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familiar though, like it was something she should have known about but the
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details didn’t come to mind.
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_Anyways, system overload, that means the server needs to be rebooted right? Why
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couldn’t the automatic system handle this? Was that compromised too?_ Thena
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ambled her way to the door out of her chamber and looked for the server cabinet
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symbol. It was difficult to find much of anything though, everything in her
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visual awareness seemed to blur out about 2 meters in front of her. _Oh, right,
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glasses!_ Thena got back into the room and looked for her glasses.
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The details of her former life were slowly coming back into focus. Thena was an
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employee at one of the big corpos. She didn’t really want to be reduced to a
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body in a gelbed permanently wired and tubed into the machines, but after the
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climate got so harsh humanity had no other choice. Putting on her glasses, Thena
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took one last look at herself, confused but somewhat recognizing that stoic male
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stance that used to let her stand out in the crowds, then she ambled out of the
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room again and looked for the server cabinet.
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_My chamber is behind me, so my server room is front front left._ Thena took a
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few steps forward and then turned to the left and walked until she hit a wall.
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Walked may not be the best term for what kind of motion was used though, it was
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a half-limping barely committal stride, but to someone stuck in VR for 30 years
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this was the best you could expect out of that person "walking" without any
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practice. This physical body felt different, more “real”. Thena’s virtual form
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had moved without any restriction or limit. This body was full of restrictions.
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Strides were restricted to a small angle. The knees had to be consciously bent.
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The arms had to swing to maintain balance. Balance itself was an issue too. It
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was all very weird for Thena. She was trying to not think about the body’s
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layout very much.
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Thena finally found the server cabinet symbol and twisted it to open. The lights
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weren’t blinking like they should be. There was a friendly sticker in Comic Sans
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above the switch that said "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" Thena
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grabbed the switch and turned it solidly off.
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The noises of her room had stopped, leaving Thena in silence and darkness. It
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was peaceful. There was absolutely no sound. Thena didn’t want to tempt fate
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though, so she turned the switch back on and all the lights turned on like they
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should. More lights on the servers kept blinking in their happy patterns. A
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voice came on from above saying "System startup complete. Your pod is ready
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Micheal. Enter your adaptation room as soon as possible. It is not safe out
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here."
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Micheal. Thena despised that name. That name reminded her of her former self.
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The self that died in that pod. The self she was born from. She shrugged it off
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and tried to not think about it. Her stride was a bit more sure now and she was
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able to make it back to her pod without falling over. She made it into her bed
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and pulled the face mask over her. It sealed in place and everything went dark
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as she faded back into Terranova.
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---
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Like this kind of writing and short story format? I have a [biweekly
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newsletter](https://www.getrevue.co/profile/theprincessxena) on Revue that has a
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huge backlog of these stories that I was never really happy with enough to post
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here. I have also added its feed to my [/feeds](/feeds) page.
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templates/feeds.rs.html
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templates/feeds.rs.html
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