Chapter 4 #3
This older CHRONO unit was much easier to modify and customize anyway.
It only took a moment to merge in the body modification codes and have them tweaked how I wanted them.
I stood in front of the mirror as I smoothed out my features, making small modifications here and there that would hide feminine tells, as well as masking the material I’d be using for bindings on my chest. Once I was happy with my distinctly male torso, I moved on to defining subtle aspects of my face using some of the more advanced and refined code offered in the newer A2 makeup modules.
For once, being female was coming in handy, as I’d already learned how to use technology to modify my face to meet societal expectations.
This was much easier than learning how to actually apply makeup.
I’d always enjoyed casual coding. As a station born, it was a requirement to know how to fix and modify programs and applications in the event of malfunction or failure of our various devices.
Teaching the whole community programming languages could be the difference between the air pressure modules being fixed in time to keep the whole colony alive, or imminent death while waiting for qualified repair technicians. It was a mandatory skill.
We weren’t supposed to use it for things like this, of course, but who could expect a curious mind to not get a bit creative? The Shinkas never would have been invented without a little thinking outside the box.
Once I’d made the tweaks I needed, I activated the module for one last check. My gaze met the person staring at me in the mirror.
I touched my face, just to assure the reflection would do the same, and I watched that perfect image of my brother as that figure mimicked my every move.
Sure, I was shorter than Vann. I was all around smaller, and my muscles weren’t as thick.
I couldn’t fake that. My disguise would be blown the second someone tried to pat me on the head only to have to pass through five inches of air before they made contact.
But with the modifications, my usual build was made to look slightly more triangular, subtly disguising the curve of my waist. My jawline was just a tad more squared, but not so much that it would be easily discernable through touch, and the illusion of an adam’s apple bobbed in my throat.
My chest was also more squared, resembling pectoral muscles rather than soft breasts, and my too-wide ‘birthing’ hips, as my doctor had loved to call them, were now more balanced with the rest of my torso.
I flexed and rotated to assure my clothing moved correctly with the image of my body, and I felt along my illusion, just to verify the visual would hold up to scrutiny.
Even when my palms dipped with the curve of my waist, the illusion still appeared as though my hands were following the false image, as any physical contact subjected others to become part of the programmed display.
Unless someone was slowly feeling their way around my shapes, the difference between the visual and real touch wouldn’t be that obvious.
The optical distortion would remain accurate regardless.
Checking in my pants, I even had an impressively realistic… um…
Right well, as long as no one was grabbing me between my legs, they would never know I wasn’t one of them.
I’d just have to wrap my chest with the medical bandage I’d programmed into the masking system, so it was closer to the size and firmness of the illusion, and wearing a cup was already standard during training—as Vann had complained about countless times—so even if we ended up in close quarter wrestling or hand-to-hand combat, my missing appendages shouldn’t give me away.
It wasn’t like guys went around grabbing each other’s junk for no reason.
I hoped not anyway. Men had been consistently weird, so I probably shouldn’t assume too much common decency.
I deactivated the A2 Module, content with the job I’d done, and my true reflection returned to the mirror.
Even in the event that my CHRONO were to ever get damaged, my real face was close enough that it wouldn’t be extremely obvious right away either. With a loose shirt and my breasts bound, I would pass well enough to get away from the situation and make repairs.
This would work.
I stroked my fingers through my hair again. The long, soft waves slid easily over my skin.
This though… This would have to go.
I frowned. There was no good reason that I should like my long hair so much. It was bothersome, it got in the way, I regularly ended up with it in my mouth while trying to eat, and it was so high maintenance. There was no value in it for someone like me.
I should have laughed about the intrusive thought that it was pretty.
That I liked how it looked. That I never hated my feminine appearance until it had been used as a weapon against my person, and I only rejected so much of my womanhood because of my fear of the expectations and customs that came with it.
Between Mictlan’s ownership of my uterus, and my own ovaries that hadn’t ever done a good job of properly regulating my hormones, there had become a lot of other things that I resented about the body I was born with, but the waves in my hair hadn’t been one of them.
I closed my eyes, and instantly I was taken back to a simpler time.
I could practically hear my mother humming as she ran her brush through the flowing undulations of my long, snow white hair that was just like hers.
As she braided it neatly behind my head, and grinned at our matching reflections.
The sentimental memento I didn’t realize I’d clung to.
When I opened my eyes again, I was holding the trimmer. The energy blade buzzed to life in my hand, and I just kept staring into my eyes, until my reflection was obscured by my unfocused gaze.
Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to try and become Vann, even if just for a little while?
It would grow back. This was just until the war was over. Until he was safe. Until he achieved his dream to be a doctor.
When he woke up, I’d tell him that I wasn’t dead, and that the death list had been mistaken.
When he asked where I was, I could tell him I was selected for some special program—an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
That the war had overridden my matchmaking requirements, and while he’d been sleeping, they needed all hands on deck.
He’d believe me and wish the best for me.
It wasn’t entirely a lie anyway. This… This was the opportunity I never could have had.
The cutter was firm against my crown as I ran the energy blade through the well-conditioned hair I’d grown for a lifetime.
I programmed it to cut just over four inches from my skull to match Vann’s last ID photo, and I watched those colorless waves tumble to the floor.
The heated blade continued back along my scalp, one row at a time, over and over again.
Thousands of silvery strands scattered everywhere, glistening in the light on my clothes, the floor, and all over Vann’s sink.
Carefully and meticulously I matched the exact messy cut that my brother always sported.
When I was half way through, I paused mid-haircut and turned my head to the side.
On my right, I was still Fianna, the frustrated girl who had been on the verge of giving up on everything.
The girl whose ambition outweighed her lot in life.
On the left, I was Vann, the gentle boy who wished he could have traded places with me as badly as I wanted to trade places with him. The man whose heart was bigger than it was realistic.
And in the center, staring dead on at my reflection, I was the warrior who would keep my only remaining family safe, no matter what sacrifices I had to make to do it.
The last of my hair was severed, and I ran my hand through the short shag cut that remained. My head felt light, like I’d extricated the weight of my burdens and was left with a new beginning.
I swept up the mess of white all over the bathroom floor, then I flushed it down the toilet. The cleaning bot would dispose of any remaining traces of my crime within the hour.
Committed, I showered then shuffled through his clothing for some work-out shorts that would fit on my frame when I tugged the drawstring just a little tighter.
I rifled through his first aid kit for some bandages, then wrapped the stretchy, breathable material around my chest until my barely-B-cups were compressed and undetectable.
I looked perfect in one of his T-shirts.
I opened a note module on my CHRONO and scrawled a quick memo for him, before locking it behind a password that only he would guess, then I uploaded all of his books to my virtual library.
I’d leave my government issued CHRONO with him, and I’d take his with me instead.
Any little thing that would lessen the chance of being detected.
I returned to the hospital, where my big brother was still resting peacefully.
I placed a change of clothes and my CHRONO on a dock on the bedside table, then I tapped the play button on a book about a princess saving her kingdom from an oppressive empire.
The gentle, feminine voice would sooth him while he rested.
“I’m sorry, Vann. Please understand.” I whispered to my unconscious best friend. “I’ll be back soon, and I’ll tell you all about it.” I placed one last soft kiss on his forehead, then turned to leave before I had another second to rethink this plan.
Hopefully I’d survive long enough to see him again.