Getting to the Reserve

The blazing sun sliced into her eyes in stripes as that strange girl, trudging heavily along the scorching asphalt, barely held back the rage building up inside that miniature body — a body whose tits, so heavy and firm, bounced in sync with every furious step under that thin tank top, which felt like a goddamn mockery, especially paired with a blue skirt so short that with every movement it seemed impossible to preserve even a shred of dignity. And that was without even taking into account the stream of stares — greedy, shameless, almost tangible — that clung to her, to every humiliating detail of this disgustingly attractive new look.

— Bastards... — she hissed under her breath, clenching her tiny fists — every single one of them.

She didn’t want to look up or to the sides, forcing herself to stare straight ahead, fully aware now of just how small she was — and how pathetic, fragile, desperately girlish her figure looked next to the massive silhouettes around her, the kind of people she used to just arch a brow at in her past life, basking in her sense of eternal superiority. Now every passerby seemed like a wall, an insurmountable obstacle, whose attention she kept involuntarily drawing with every shake of those heavy, disgustingly alive breasts — impossible to ignore, neither for herself nor anyone else.

— I need to get to the Reserve, — she muttered, still staring forward, through the stream of people, feeling how the weight of her boobs, swinging in a degrading rhythm with each step, only deepened the desperate sense of helplessness in this new body — a body she couldn’t get used to, not even after several torturous hours since waking up.

Almost six years had passed since that very accident — the flash of light, the screech of mangled metal, and the brief sensation that time had frozen just before the impact. Back then, at the peak of his power, James had been sure: he would survive anything. He had multiple backup clones prepared exactly for such “incidents” — a perfect, young version of himself, created to carry on the great path. The main thing in such “incidents” was that the brain had to remain intact. And it had. But something had gone wrong.

Instead of waking up in a new, flawless body as expected, he opened his eyes not far from here — on the cold floor of some apartment building, naked, pathetic, trembling in someone else’s female body with huge, heavy tits, long hair, and found the only clue lying next to him — a crumpled note: "The game has started, sweetheart. Get a job at the Whoredrome. Instructions will follow in a week. And yeah, if you don’t follow the rules, you won’t get the fermion your brain needs to adapt to this body."

The room was completely empty, but had clearly seen too many tenants: peeling walls, cracked windows, dust on the floor, and a single incandescent bulb — the kind they didn’t even officially make anymore — flickered lazily in rhythm with the bass pounding from the neighbors. Next to her lay a neatly arranged outfit placed beside that same note: a skirt, a tank top, and sneakers. Goddamn it — no underwear, not even panties. But it was already more than enough, especially considering that sometime later, after stepping outside, she realized it had been six years! As if it wasn’t bad enough that she’d woken up God knows where, in God knows what body, and without any documents or connection in a city she hadn’t even known existed.

But the Reserve — the Reserve was always there, in every halfway decent-sized city. And judging by the number of people passing by, this place definitely had one. “Reserves” were what they called those semi-legal hubs where old cybernetics experts, consciousness engineers, and biohackers did everything the top-level professionals did — just in the shadows. She was hoping, at the very least, to get her hands on that fucking “fermion.” At best, she could go through brain ID verification and prove her true identity. But that was a big risk, considering how fragile she was now — and at the same time, how goddamn attractive. This place was clearly not meant for beings like her — but it was a chance. A small, fragile one, but a chance nonetheless, and she was going to take it. Even if, in the worst-case scenario, the offer in this strange game to “get a job at the Whoredrome” might end up seeming like the most desirable option if things went south.

And things could definitely go south. There were too many risks — starting with the fact that the brain scan procedure, which ate up a ton of energy and required a competent cyberneticist, wasn’t something they just let anyone do, especially not some chick with no papers and a weird look claiming to be some powerful man who supposedly died six years ago. And even if the scan worked, even if she managed to prove the brain’s true identity — there were no guarantees it would help. Too much time had passed. James had way too many enemies. It would be damn hard to find even a single ally among all this scum. But obviously, James wouldn’t have been the shark of shadow politics if he ever let himself give up — even if his hands now were this thin and delicate.