“Look,” Jarod Menson said, bringing up a holo of a sparring session between Morgan-063 and 4 of the Golden Knights…with her not faring so well as they all went at it in full blonde mode. The sparring had to be slowed down to view it well, but there was something definitely off with the way Morgan moved.
“What am I looking at?”
“She’s not Morgan.”
Wilson looked at him deathly seriously. “Explain.”
“That’s not the Morgan I’ve fought before. She fell for several tricks I’ve used in the past. I thought she was going a bit slow so I tried again, expecting her to make me pay for it, but she didn’t see it coming. She also fell for several twice in a row, and Morgan would never do that. This isn’t the normal her.”
“Obviously.”
“No, this is not her mojo. She’s not acting like Morgan. She’s scared and defensive, not relishing a mismatch to learn from. I started pulling back a little to see if she just needed a break, but it didn’t change. And I’m noticing the same thing in the others in retrospect now that I know what to look for.”
“They grew 1-2 feet in a month,” Wilson said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps that rush has damaged them in a way we can’t see.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not her. Something has changed for the worse.”
In that moment something clicked in Wilson’s mind, and he kicked himself for not seeing it earlier.
“Thank you, Jarod. I’m going to get to the bottom of this now,” he said, heading for the door. “Follow me.”
Morgan was running on a Halo track when Wilson found her, meaning she was running on the walls in a giant circle that allowed her to go straight forever, for the artificial gravity was situated so that ‘down’ was towards the track at all times. When someone wanted to run with maximum speed, the halo track is where they went, but Morgan wasn’t going that fast. Instead she was going long and slow, currently clocked at 4 hours of what should have been a 3 hour run that he’d prescribed before her sleep cycle…but she was exceeding that and cringed the moment she ran past Wilson and saw him spot her.
She slowed to a stop and turned around, hands on her hips as she was breathing heavier than normal for such a run as she walked back towards him and Jarod.
“I know, I know. I just didn’t feel tired enough to sleep. I’m spending half my time staring at the ceiling before I nod off.”
“You look exhausted,” Wilson commented.
“I am, but I’m not sleepy. This new metabolism is so screwy. Did he tattle on me?” she asked, glancing at the Golden Knight.
“No, I needed to talk to you about something.”
“Shoot.”
“First, I need to scan your mind. A deep scan.”
Morgan winced. “I didn’t do that much more…”
Wilson frowned at her. “We can discuss that latter, but the problem is partially my fault for not having your training tuned as much as it should be.”
“We’re in brand new bodies, I don’t expect you to have it tuned yet.”
“Can you relax enough to let me in?”
Morgan knelt down on her knees and sat back on her ankles as she closed her eyes and got her head lower than his. “Go ahead, but my subconscious is bouncing all over the place, including puberty-like sexual fetishes that come out of nowhere. Don’t hold it against me if I suddenly start craving your dick.”
“It’s part of the reset,” he said dismissively as he put a hand on her forehead and held it there to bypass the Ikrid blocks that had been upgraded immensely in the transformation. Now the trailblazers had an automatic resistance to hacking even if one made physical contact and they were unconscious. They had to focus to allow someone to hack in.
“You should have told me sooner,” Wilson said, realizing that Morgan was a hot mess right now, but she had everything contained within mental boxes that wouldn’t have one thing spilling over into another. It was a defense mechanism they’d developed when dealing with a myriad of adverse situations in their past, and now she was pulling on it heavily to keep herself together enough to get through the day’s training assignments…but oddly, the lack of intensity was backfiring. For she needed it to help hold her together, and the additional ‘rest’ was allowing the instability to resist suppression.
“That feels good,” Morgan said after a few minutes. “What are you doing?”
“Pulling off some of the strain. You’re not emotionally clearing properly, and it’s building up layers of residue.”
“Take it all off. Along with my clothes if you want. Part of me is begging for it. Jarod can even watch if you like,” she said sarcastically.
“The jokes help, don’t they?” Wilson asked.
“A bit. Sort of airing out the trash in my head, and there’s not so much left afterward. I get so horny sometimes, then moments later it’s gone and I feel so icky.”
“Have you tried having sex? Or any physical contact?”
“I’m not that far gone. Or are you suggesting that?”
“You’d refuse even if I was,” he said, seeing her doing the same ‘airing’ process again, and from inside her mind it was obvious. “There it is,” he said, finally pulling through the layers of surface gunk that were choking her mind to find an annoying undercurrent that she couldn’t shake, and it was annoying her immensely.
“What?”
“Aren’t you tracking me?”
“No. It feels good you poking around inside me, and I don’t care what you’re doing, just keep doing it. My head feels like
