Brain Transplant

Make sure that you and your surgeon discuss in detail the strength of back-propagation you would like to see, as different procedures can increase or decrease the relative strengths of your preexisting brain's habits versus the trained habits present in the new body's modified central nervous system. If larger changes are desired, then your surgeon will likely adjust the procedure to leave more of the new body's basal ganglia and other 'higher' cortex features intact during transplant, subject to applicable local and national law.

I stopped to contemplate that for a moment, wondering what my surgeon had done in my case. Whatever it was, I was sure it wasn't according to local and national law!

I giggled like an airhead. I cringed slightly, but then remembered I wasn't supposed to do that, or I might get those unspecified "coordination problems". That seemed like a good excuse to spend a few minutes watching comedy videos on my phone while doing my best to turn the rest of my brain off so I could giggle to my new-acquired heart's content.

Homeward Bound

I eventually had to turn my attention back to my new documents, of course. There were some additional handwritten instructions or notes that were unfortunately in Spanish. They weren't written for my case, I didn't think; the papers I had were photocopies or something and there were no indentations on the paper itself corresponding with the handwritten text, so probably written on originals intended for every customer of that particular black market clinic. I could tell they were meant to refer to a follow-up appointment based on a circle drawn around the printed text describing that step, but given that the only interventions mentioned in the paragraph in question were the removal of any surgical adhesives that hadn't dissolved on their own, I allowed myself to cautiously hope that they weren't too important.

Especially given that I had to shred them to make sure that I didn't get caught with evidence of my crime. I also thought I wouldn't be able to access Staci's bank accounts and whatnot for very long, once the mobster who was the clinic's original customer was no longer distracted by law enforcement. Better catch a flight to the States as soon as possible.

Both because of the post-procedure directions and because I didn't want to be suspected of being in a vat-person body, I decided to pretend I was a sightly ditzy young woman from Malibu returning early from a Latin American vacation. Or not early, as the case was, because the man at the ticket counter informed me with a slightly patronizing tone that I had a ticket in first class for a flight in only a few hours.

I decided to accept this rather than changing it despite slight misgivings that remaining on the original flight might help the mobster track me. I reasoned that if they were already tracking me, just changing to a different ticket was unlikely to save me. Besides, I'd never flown first class before.

The stupidity of my assumption was borne in on me when a large, scarred man with imperfectly-obscured tattoos greeted me with suppressed appreciation. When I looked blank at his Spanish, he paled slightly, apologized, and switched to English.

"For your luggage," he said, and handed me a small key. "Your phone," he added as he produced a phone with a rhinestone-studded pink case.

"Thank you?" I said as I took it and confirmed that it opened to my face.

"The old phone," he said as if reminding me, large empty hand held out as if to receive something.

I felt slightly panicked at the thought of giving up the only connection I possessed to my old life, but I didn't dare deny him. He nodded slightly when I handed it over, then enclosed it in a sandwich bag before using a small hand-tightened clamp to crush it in several places while I watched before dropping the remains into his half-full cup of Coke and finally throwing it all into the rubbish bin. Based on his dutiful expression, I concluded that this was a pre-planned process.

I really wasn't sure how I should respond, but I wasn't really forced to; after that initial meeting he barely spoke the rest of the trip, even though he was in the seat between me and the isle. He watched the other passengers more keenly than he did me. Upon arrival back in the USA, he acted as if he was unassociated with me, allowing himself to be sorted to a different customs line, and standing somewhat apart from me at the baggage claim.

Hiding my nervousness from other passengers was relatively easy, but I could tell that he was a little mystified that I was looking directly at the pink suitcase gliding almost past without going to get it. I took a slight chance in assuming that this was due to it being my intended baggage and was relieved to see him moving toward the exit when I'd hauled the suitcase off the carousel.

The wasn't the last I saw of him, though, as he re-collected me once I got outdoors and led me to a black Mercedes, opening the back door for me. He drove me silently for about twenty minutes until stopping the car in a driveway across the street from a Venice Beach car park. He got out of the car with nothing more than a nervous, "Adios, señorita. Su coche... Your car is in the lot and the key inside the little pocket. I leave in the grey Honda CRV."

He started walking quickly on the pavement down the street, making such a show of remaining turned away from the car park that I concluded he wasn't meant to know which car was mine. A Miata, evidently.

It was easy to find it; it was bright pink and had a Playboy bunny decal on it. Not so easy: driving it. I knew how to drive, of course, but I immediately felt that Staci did not. Or at least, my new body didn't seem to know where my feet and hands had to go. After a moment of thought I got everything sorted, but by then it dawned on me that not only did my new identity not have a driver's license, it was probably literally unsafe for me to drive. And, it occurred to me, if my escort from Honduras wasn't supposed to see my car, then it would have been more natural to allow me to drive myself to the exchange point.

But if the plan assumed that I wouldn't be able to drive, then what was the point of dropping me off here? Was someone else supposed to meet me? Perhaps this person wasn't there because of the arrests in Honduras?

I wanted nothing to do with any of it, and abruptly decided this was probably my only chance to escape. After a hasty search for the lever, I popped the trunk and hopped out, estimating how much cash I might be able to get for pawning the contents of my suitcase and probably also my phone.

"Hands up!" a man shouted and a bright flashlight in my eyes didn't quite obscure that a man was pointing a pistol at me.

A policeman.

Inheritance

I was able to answer almost all their questions with complete honesty. I had not contracted for Staci to be grown for me and truly had no idea Staci had been intended for. Nor did I know the name of the man who had escorted me from Honduras, or really anything besides the documents I'd been provided. Pointing out that I didn't know Spanish seemed to convince the interrogators of something, and gradually their questions became less and less hostile. Without quite intending to, I seemed to have convinced them that I was the victim of a scheme to turn me into a amnesiac sex slave to the kingpin of a weapons trading ring. The one that has been arrested by the authorities.

They did explore other possibilities of my background, but I was able to deflect most of them with a lot of hesitant speculations about who I might have been. Afterwards they handed me off to a pair of junior officers who took me to the hospital to have some tests run.

"It doesn't link up to anyone who has been reported missing or dead," the clinician explained the results to us, "Which likely means she hasn't been been reported missing yet."

"And the drug test?" Officer Buenaventura asked.

"Confirmed. The metabolites seem a little old, but that's probably because her young body is breaking them down faster than usual."

"I don't remember taking any drugs," I said nervously.

Buenaventura smiled reassuringly at me. "We know. These are chemotherapy drugs. The criminals dose you before the operation to mess up your memory." She gave my hand a sympathy squeeze and added. "Sometimes people get their memories back, but usually... imperfectly."

"When you return for your follow-up, we'll be able to figure out who you were even if you can't remember. At least, if you were reported missing in the meantime," the clinician added.

"Oh. When is that?"

"Three weeks after your operation. So... January 30th."

"What happens to me until then?" I asked the police officers.

"We can put you in protective custody," Buenaventura's partner offered.

That was the first confirmation that I wasn't going to be arrested for being a vat person, and I let out an involuntary sigh of relief, which they mistook for disappointment.

"Or we can take you to your home of record, if you feel safe doing so," Buenaventura suggested. "Ordinarily I'd advise against it, but with about half of the Aceros blown up, they're probably not too focused on you. I'm not sure if you're allowed to sell it, but no one can keep you from staying there."

"Sell it?" I asked, "How would I do that?"

"That's the sort of thing you hire a realtor for," White said with the avuncular tone of a man advising a very ignorant niece.

"But don't I need to own it first? Do I own it?"

Buenaventura chuckled. "Yeah. It's right behind one of Caballo's houses, which we seized. No doubt he intended it as a place to stash some of his money where we couldn't seize it."

"So he gave it to me?"

"Well, he expected to own you," White said, his bluntness earning him a minatory look from his partner.

"I see. So I would be allowed to sell it, then?"

Buenaventura shrugged. "I don't know for sure. It might get held for evidence."

"How do I find out if it is?"

"They'll tell you."

"Who is 'they'? The police?"

"Yeah, we'd also make you move out," White said without much sympathy.

Buenaventura exhaled in slight frustration. "Or if we receive intelligence that dangerous Aceros are being released."

"I'd rather sell and be gone," I said.

"Better hurry, then!" White said, laughing. "Prolly have like 48 hours before they figure out a way to take it."

Buenaventura's expression made me think White wasn't really joking, but I took my chances anyway. They dropped me off at a rather unprepossessing little bungalow adjacent to a much more ostentatious beach estate. There was no street number that I could see, but the Miata had been left out front by the tow truck, so I knew it was mine. The officers escorted me inside to make sure there was no one waiting for me before leaving, and with some strong hints from Buenaventura, even White refrained from commenting on the decor before they left.

The interior was more expensive than the exterior had led me to expect, and far more vulgar. It definitely looked like the home of a woman kept by a mobster. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say it looked like a house a mobster had outfitted as a sex den for the keeping of his favourite prostitute. The bed was enormous, circular, and wrapped in heavy red satin sheets. Mirrors reflected any bedroom activities from the walls and ceiling, and the only attire in the walk-in closet was bondage gear. This pattern repeated throughout the house: there was almost no cookware and a completely bare fridge, but there was a penis-shaped lolly in the freezer. There were no cleaning supplies, but there were many sex toys. The only soap was in the shape of a man's dong. The decor had been embarrassing, but it would have been mortifying if the police had seen this.

I was alone, though, so why shouldn't I try out some of the toys? And see if I could spend some money from Staci's account before it got frozen or whatever might happen. I felt like I deserved to celebrate a little.

Less than an hour later I was watching from four different angles as I slowly fucked myself on a liberally-lubed fake cock while eating a slice of pizza. I was a bit impressed with my balance, and it occurred to me that my new body was clearly trained to do this, but I wasn't embarrassed. I was alive! And extremely hot, for that matter. Even at my best, I'd never held a candle to the ostensibly teenaged girl I was enjoying in the mirrors. Honestly I actually looked younger than I really preferred, and I could have wished for more up top, but my unchained beast of a libido overrode all that and I had one of the best orgasms I'd had in years. Since before I'd gotten sick, certainly. It was as if I was a hormonal pubescent girl again. Which my vat body probably was.

I was still lounging in bed the next morning, enjoying the feel of satin on my naked skin when a detective from the FBI arrived with a court order not to do anything with the house nor to leave the state without permission while federal investigations were ongoing. Once again they affirmed that I was not at that time under suspicion of soliciting the manufacture of a vat-grown body, but warned that could change if it looked like I was attempting to flee.

They wouldn't answer my questions about the fate of Vicente Caballo and his Almacén de Acero organization, but I did at least gather that the operation that had nabbed him had been a coordinated international affair from which even a mafia boss might find himself hard pressed to escape.

This was of extra importance to me because by then it had been borne in on me that while I had been provided ownership of a bungalow in Malibu and a car to park alongside it, I had not been provided with any sort of educational credentials, nor a driver's license, any work history or other assets. I did have a bank account with several hundred dollars in it, but no obvious way to put more money in it. I could try to rent out the bungalow, but it would require a fair bit of work to get it into shape, and even then I would have to pay to live someplace else. Easier to just accept my inheritances for the time being.

That is, accept living in the bungalow, and accept a job at the surf shop that hired me entirely because of how my new body looked in a bikini.

Personal Growth

News reporting reinforced what I'd gathered from my various interviews law enforcement: Almacén de Acero and even some allied criminal organizations had all been raided simultaneously and very successfully, completely decapitating multiple organizations. What the interviews hadn't mentioned was that there had been several firefights leading to the deaths of Vicente Caballo and many of his top lieutenants. In fact, there seemed to be some acrimony amongst the various collaborating law enforcement agencies of three nations, with leaked allegations that Honduran commandos had made sure to kill rather than capture so as hide links between the Aceros and the Honduran military. Honduran sources, meanwhile, claimed that the apprehensions had turned bloody because US and Mexican law enforcement had withheld intelligence about Caballo's exact location, leading to a surprise encounter that had left three commandos in the hospital and the death of Caballo's American mistress.

It was especially interesting to me because I thought it meant I was in the clear. It definitely meant that I had a number of additional interviews, but they seemed somewhat desultory, like the investigators were checking a box rather than seeking information. It was also clear that they thought I was an idiot, an impression I was keen to reinforce, reasoning that this would prevent them from looking too deeply into my past.

My main source of anxiety, then, became the dreaded checkup. Had I been reported missing? I was careful to avoid searching for my old self, lest the searches themselves betray the connection, so I was just crossing my fingers and hoping that my former self's disappearance had somehow slipped through the cracks. It didn't seem likely, but it was possible. Moreover, it would make all the difference between my new life being spent in relative luxury and freedom, and going to prison for a decade or more before being released with no money and a criminal record.

After two weeks, only a few days ahead of my appointment, I cracked. I had to know, so I searched for myself on a display model at a shop. It was even worse than I expected: not only had my disappearance been noted, the article even mentioned that I was suspected of flying to Honduras in a last ditch attempt to avoid death. The only good part of this was the note that I was very unlikely to have succeeded.

Regardless, going to my scheduled appointment seemed like signing my own arrest warrant, so I just... didn't go. I went on exactly as I had, feigning stupidity in the hopes that if someone confronted me about my failure to show up, they would believe me when I didn't know I was supposed to go.

Amazingly, this worked. Maybe it was one of those things where different agencies thought the other one was going to follow up on it, or maybe it just didn't occur to them that I wouldn't go, but no one contacted me about it. No one even mentioned it for months.

I didn't get off completely without consequences, however, because I would really have liked to have been examined by a medical professional and the changes in my body explained to me. While I waited for the other law enforcement jackboot to drop, I also seemed to be going through puberty. That is, my libido remained very high, my breasts were growing, and I often felt flushed or overly tender. Adding to the feeling of being an adolescent was the continued lack of body hair, though I had complicated feelings about whether or not I wanted that particular marker of sexual maturity back.

It departed from my original adolescence in more ways that that, as it wasn't just my boobs and vagina that felt sensitive at times. My lips sometimes got slightly swollen and uncomfortable, and my cuticles were tender as well. I didn't recall ever experiencing that as a child, and I had to guess that it had something to do with being in a vat body. All I could do was hope that it would go away on its own.

My breasts, at least, did stop growing after the first two weeks, leaving them oversensitive almost to the point of painfulness, but large enough to fill a C cup. The added size did at least look quite substantial on my frame, but then after my period - pleasantly brief and tidy relative to my pre-cancer cycle - my boobs receded slightly back into B territory. It did seem like the perfect size for a fashion model, though I lacked the height for it. Perhaps it didn't matter as much for social media models.

It certainly didn't hurt to have something up top at the surf shop, where I was a very popular addition with the lads. Even the girls seemed to like me well enough, perhaps because my small size and sunny disposition rendered me unthreatening. No one minded that I knew almost nothing about surfing; if anything it seemed to please them to be afforded the opportunity to teach me. I was hopeless because I couldn't seem to get my feet to sit properly on the board, but it didn't bother anybody except me, and I only worried because I was becoming increasingly convinced that this was due to some intentional modification made to my body's ankles that effectively forced me to wear high heels.

The postmenstrual pause in the changes lifted after about four days, and my breasts swelled again through my sixth and seven weeks, never quite becoming as sensitive as they had in the first round of growth, but exceeding their previous maximum size, to the point that I was overflowing my 28C. I told myself that this was likely because I was eating too much and not exercising enough, but I wasn't sure.