The New, All-In-One Model!

Unknown location- Unknown Date

Unknown Time

The room became quiet for a moment save for the constant of running water beneath the grate. Jaelynn sent a command to one of the automatons and it opened a small envelope containing new clothes. Inside was a pair of flip flops, a white shirt and pair of pants. Ichijo slid into them with a shudder. The thin fabric revealed a lot, he realized. Especially without a bra. The sensation of the bare minimum clothing on his new skin was like having a nerve pinched. He worried about what it would feel like if someone were to touch him.

He locked eyes with his captor, Jaelynn Amadeus. She was still stunningly beautiful, but he had begun to hate her sight in recent moments. Thinking back, he couldn’t recall a single instant in any of his lives that he’d thought to harm a woman. But as the situation grew more and more distasteful, he was beginning to consider making one singular exception.

“Now, Kaiya. As coincidence would have it you’ve woken up just in time to participate in your first assignment.” The woman said. Ichijo glanced down at his right hand and tried to close it. A half-second later, shakily, the fingers snapped shut.

“Coincidence, huh?”

A low buzz filled the air and a series of images appeared in front of Ichijo’s face. Though the pixels appeared close together, he could make out the faint grey shimmer of several billion nanomachines. An expensive display but given Jaelynn’s title as a nanoscientist it shouldn’t have surprised him.

The first image was a spacious venue, second the back of a person’s neck showing a scarcely hidden female network plug. Thirdly, a picture of a young, stately Japanese man in an expensive suit. “This man, Haruto Minazuki is the defacto heir to the privately owned Hasha Dynamics corporation. Our organization needs the contents of his brain copied down.” The image of the venue grew larger. A massive façade of Grecian pillars gave way to a nightclub environment brimming with lights, lounges and dark corners to play in. “Haruto will be attending a high-class party at this location tonight where we hope we can catch him offguard with a few of our bottle-girls.”

“Bottle girls?”

“Window-dressing for a party. Plenty of young ladies do it for a fair price.”

“And I’m guessing I’ve been bought for a fair price?”

“Precisely, Kaiya. You’ve been paid handsomely. But you’re a little too tired to keep this up for long. You’re looking for a window to a better life, aren’t you Kaiya?” The image of the young man grew larger on the screen.

“Ugh, fine. So you need me to pretend to be this ‘Kaiya’ girl and get close to him?”

“No, Kaiya, I need you to take him aside…” The image of the neck port grew larger. “And I need you to hack into his brain and make a copy for us. That’s your job, Kaiya.”

“Ichijo.” He asserted.

“Yes, Kaiya. That was the name of the man we copied you from, correct.”

Ichijo steeled himself against her attempts at coddling his identity. Ichijo as a construct was too firmly rooted in his head to be dislodged by this witch and he wasn’t going to change his mind on that. He thought back on his experiences one by one to center himself. His time in the convenience store, the days since… he escaped from prison.

“Oho…” The woman said, leaning over the railing of the catwalk. “Is that Joben waking up, there?” Sadly, she was right. Joben Gima’s memories were making a resurgence threatening the hegemony that had been created by the Ichijo identity.

He clutched his head and grunted. “I need a scan!”

“What for?” Jaelynn quipped.

“I need to see what parts of my old brain are active or I’m going to lose my shit! When Joben escaped from prison, he sealed off some segments of his memory if I don’t get them shut off I won’t be myself anymore!” The screen fluttered away and Jaelynn gave him a concerned look. She touched a finger to her pursed lips appearing, at last, to be less than amused. “Please! I need a terminal so I can look at what my brain activity is like!”

“I’m afraid it’s not your brain in that body, Kaiya. It’s one of ours.”

“This brain!?” He spat in utter shock. “Are you saying this is a copy!?” His eyes swam about the room, realizing the horror of his situation. He might as well have been dead! His consciousness marooned in another dimension entirely! A copy! Who the hell am I then!? Jaelynn appeared serious but maintained a calm, commanding tone.

“Will you have a mental breakdown now, Kaiya? That would be very inconvenient for me and my organization.”

“No!” He decided, struggling to avoid thinking of Joben Gima’s ten years in prison. Ten years of HELL. He remembered. “If I don’t cordon off certain sections of Joben’s memories, I’ll relearn some ticks and twitches I’d rather not. Please, can you give me access to a terminal? I need to see the state of this new brain.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Kaiya.”

“What?”

“You seem to be under the impression that I’ve made some kind of mistake in how I transferred your memories. I have not. All that was once Ichijo Hajime, or Joben Gima has been meticulously transferred to Kaiya Arakawa. You have it all on a single solid-brain.” She finished, pointing at his head.

“One brain!? No secondary drives at all!?” He gasped. “Do you have any idea how many secondary drives Ichijo, I mean- I had installed?”

“Twelve. I counted. And I decided I needed all of the information contained in them.” She folded her arms and peered down an upturned nose at him. “Make no mistake, I kidnapped Ichijo Hajime, but I needed Joben Gima the most infamous hacker in New Japan’s history.”

You need Joben Gima? In that case, you missed one. He thought.

“I missed one? Is that what just crossed your mind? What did I miss, praytell?” Jaelynn asked.

Ichijo’s mind swam. Think away, think away. He filled his mind with the only thing he could easily conjure up. Butts and boobs, butts and boobs.

“Hmm, you’re trying to hide something from me Ichijo. But rest assured, we’ll find out what you’re keeping from us.” Jaelynn tapped the side of her forehead ominously. “After all, we share a mind, you and I.”

Ichijo couldn’t help but be impressed. Here was a person that was holding a full conversation with him but who was also listening in on the thoughts of someone else without a single sign of confusion. The opposite in fact, Jaelynn almost seemed comfortable talking to him and trying to figure out what his stream of consciousness meant. Jaelynn gave an elegant curtsey, aware of the compliment he was unintentionally giving her.

Ichijo took a deep breath and sighed. He calmed his heartbeat as best he could and resolved to only allow her bits and pieces of information. So long as he didn’t give her any specifics, she couldn’t possibly find out about it.

“Look.” He said, raising his upturned hand. The appendage twitched slightly and appeared to jerk awkwardly like the hand of a puppet on a long string. “The calibration of this body is off. If I can’t do at least some fine-tuning I’ll look like a cheap body-transfer and you can’t have that in your ‘high class girls’ can you?”

Jaelynn stared at him for thirty seconds trying to sift through the ocean of ‘boobs and butts’ Ichijo was sending in her direction. “Well, you don’t seem to be lying. At least about the calibration issue. Fine. But you’ll be supervised for the entire process.” She clapped her hands. Somewhere at the end of the massive facility two iron doors swung open.

From the blinding light at the edge of the laboratory emerged a giant. He was a tall, Caucasian man with a bald head and large bags under his eyes. He wore a tight, professional suit that seemed slightly padded. No doubt he had armor underneath the entire thing. His hips were adorned with stun batons, a large 9mm pistol and a spiker, a gun designed to destroy solid-brains.

“This is Joseph Greenwood.” Jaelynn announced.

“I know, I think we’ve met.” Ichijo responded. He recognized the silhouette as the one that pinned him down in the limousine.

“A good eye on that one, Jaelynn.” The man remarked, removing a pair of thick sunglasses. “You sure she’ll need my help?”

“I’m sure I’ll need you to keep an eye on her.”

“Fair enough.” The bodyguard replaced his glasses and pulled the stun baton from his belt playfully.

Jaelynn turned back to Ichijo. “He’ll see you through your adjustment and to the requisite authorities so you can get ready for the party tonight. I’m afraid that’ll be all for me for now since you need to get busy. But don’t worry. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” She tapped her cranium once more before turning on the catwalk and marching in the opposite direction of the two.

“Now then.” The big man growled. “What’s this about an adjustment?”

“I need to plug into a closed terminal to access my new brain.”

“You better not try anything funny.” The guard remarked.

“I won’t!” Ichijo snapped. I can’t. He realized.