My name is Tara Akin. When I was a little girl, I learned about the founders that came to our planet Neoterra over five hundred years ago. The technology used to build our capital, the city of Avalon was lost when we cut ourselves off from the Old Empire worlds of Earth and Mars during the Fever Dream plague. All hyperspace travel to and from the origin worlds ended. “The Tragic Necessity,” as it came to be known in our history, was required to preserve what was left of humanity in our region of the galaxy, or so the story goes at least. The plague wiped out Earth, Mars and everything else humankind had ever known; billions perished. After centuries of silence, rumors stirred about the possibility of survivors, other colonies, other worlds, but the founders assured us that the nine planets within our Union of Worlds was all that remained. The truth is, our ancestors simply abandoned the Old Empire worlds, and left them to their inevitable fates. In time, our scientists discovered a trove of ancient artifacts left behind millions of years ago by the Progenitors, a highly advanced and now extinct alien race. The Founders reverse engineered their technology. It was their knowledge that made our modern Consciousness Transfer technology possible, giving us the ability to transfer ourselves into an entirely new body we call a Persona. The first time you transfer, all of your thought, memories, and experiences, everything that you are, slips from one Persona into another, through a process we call the MindStream. This was my first time. As I awoke from the transfer, a woman’s voice spoke to me through the haze.

“Tara, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Miriam, it’s time to wake up, little bird.”

The process of Consciousness Transfer can be psychologically overwhelming. First there is a rush of euphoria, then, when you open your eyes in a new body, it’s like waking up from a dreamless sleep and everything in the world feels brand new.

“I can feel my legs.” I said. “I can move, I need to move, I want to stand, I want to walk.”

“Easy now.” Miriam said. “There will be plenty of time for all that, I promise you. For now, it is best to take things slow, ok?”

My legs, once lifeless, now trembling with new sensations. I could feel every fiber of the bed, the sheets against my skin, a strange sensation of textures. As my knees bend, muscles awakening with newfound strength, it was an eruption of feelings I never even knew existed. Every movement is a revelation, every sensation a burst of joy, it is overwhelming; like being reborn into a world that was now all mine to explore. A transfer technician scanned me with his instruments. He looked into my eyes as he checked the functionality of my MindsEye implant.

“Your first time went very well.” He said. “We have transferred you into a Genetically Identical Simulacrum. It is a gene accurate copy of your original birth body, minus the Ivar Syndrome, of course. For first timers, we have found that it reduces some of the cognitive side effects of CT. How do you feel?”

“Is this real, or a simulation?” I asked, as Miriam took my hand in hers.

“I can assure you.” Miriam said. “This is quite real.”

“I will give the two of you a moment alone.” The technician said as he stepped away.

“Look Tara.” Miriam said.

The white opaque wall of my room became reflective like a mirror. Seeing myself with my own eyes was still not enough to convince me that what I was seeing was real. I watched my feet as I made circles with my ankles. I raised and lowered my arms, I placed my hands on my thighs, touched my knees and dangled my legs just to see if the reflection did the same.

“Is that really me?” I asked, pointing at the mirrored wall, turning my head from left to right.

“Yes, that’s you.” Miriam said. “See, you’re all better now.”

I looked across the room at my birth body, expecting it to move, but it just sat there motionless, not dead, just empty of me. That is not who I am. I am here now, inside this Persona, now I am me.

“Please stay with me.” I asked, taking hold of Miriam’s arm. “Will you stay?”

“I am your Okāsan.” Miriam said. “Of course, I will, for as long as you need me to.”

Being in a new Persona was nothing like a virtual experience, yet to me it felt like a dream. After nineteen years, I was now finally free. Things weren’t always like this for me, growing up out in the Neoterran Wildlands was far different from my new life here in Avalon. My family immigrated to Neoterra from Bergheim, a harsh, underdeveloped mining planet in the un-incorporated territories that offered limited opportunities for new families. Back in those days, an immigrant couple with ambition and determination could make a life for themselves on the right world. For my parents, Neoterra offered an opportunity to take over the management of the protein farm my great-grandfather founded. My mother was exposed to drive core radiation during the journey to Neoterra. As a result, I was born with Ivar Syndrome, a rare spinal condition that causes paralysis if left uncorrected. They could not afford the modification necessary to address problems in my genome prior to birth. Back in those days, Med-Techs rarely performed such invasive procedures and instead opted for the more cost-effective CT option for newborns. Unfortunately for me, my parents couldn’t afford that either, so I spent the first nineteen years of my life confined to a mobility chair.

Out in the Wildlands, life moves at a different pace. If you needed something, you made it. If you wanted something, you had to either build it, grow it, or work to earn it. Individuals had limited access to advanced technology, restricted to what was necessary for survival, self-defense, and making a living, nothing more, nothing less. My family and I created genetically enhanced animals. We modified their genomes to express certain qualities the market demanded. Once properly tweaked, we harvested their cells for meat production. We produced prime cuts for the Avalon wholesale marketplace. Our brand specialized in bespoke cell cultures of beef, chicken, pork, and lamb. I worked hard, studied for hours in virtual and earned advanced certifications in genetic design and bio-fabrication. My only goal in life was to be free of the chair, my birth body, and my family. I spent years dreaming about Avalon and what it would be like to live there. By the time I was sixteen, I saved up enough to pay for my first life-changing transfer, but just when I thought I had my shot at a new Persona and a whole new life, my mother took my savings away from me and used it to send my brother to a rehabilitation clinic in Avalon. He stayed clean for a while, but within just three months, he was right back on the “Juice.” The savings that had taken years to earn was now long gone. I felt devastated and furious. I knew if I were ever going to have a life, a real-life, I would have to find some other way to get to Avalon. Becoming an agency companion, for me, at least, was the only way out, the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel option for folks from outside the city. In this world, obtaining a Persona is possible even without currency, but the price is steep, paid in both time and flesh. My contract with Sublime Realms required a ten-year duration of indentured service for whatever the Agency clients wanted, and they wanted everything. I admit, it wasn’t an ideal choice, but the fact is, if you want to make it in this world, you do whatever you have to do. I made the choice to become a Companion, a professional in this industry and since then I have lived with the consequences of that choice. If only I had known back then what I know now. This city, despite its splendor, wealth, and beauty, has another side, a dark side that grinds folks down into dust. A side that takes everything from you until there is nothing left of you.

Within the Union of Worlds, Consciousness Transfer technology or CT rests at the very heart of our thriving interplanetary economy, without it, the Agencies and their supportive industries wouldn’t exist, neither would the companies or genetic artists and AI agents that design Persona models. With Personas, anything and everything is possible, and you would not believe the things people do to customize their Personas. Most choose an Idealized Self. Think of it as an upgraded version of you, the same look and feel you have now just, better, thinner, taller, darker, or whatever else you are looking for. If you cannot decide on what you want, you can always transfer to a temporary spare. Spares are low-cost Personas; they are cheaply made, and don’t last very long. There are an endless number of Persona models for nearly every preference, and occupation. Most professional Companions burn out in their eighth year while others eventually suffer from the symptoms of Transfer Nostalgia, a debilitating dissociative psychological disorder that can manifest anywhere from one month to one year after a successful transfer. Over the years I have seen Companions from other Agencies frantically swapping thirty to forty different Personas a week to serve clients’ demands. It takes a toll on a person’s mind and soul if you believe in that kind of thing. At my agency, Sublime Realms, our clientele comprised Avalon’s finest, the wealthy, the influential and the powerful. The indelicate legal classification for what we do is called “Private Analytical Solicitation.” A highly regulated, legally recognized, and respected profession. Contrary to popular opinion, Agency Companions are not modern-day prostitutes, as many choose to believe. Companions are highly trained elite professionals; our entire business is data driven. We are part psychologist, performance artist, therapist, and data analyst. Intimate erotic experiences are just one of many services we offer to clients. Our clients, despite all their vast wealth and power, have swapped Personas so many times throughout their lives they don’t know who the hell they really are anymore. They use the Agency’s services to explore their ever-shifting identities, endless wants and darkest desires. As Companions, we endure their demands; we coddle their obsessions, and submit to their strange fantasies as they each attempt to feel something genuine. Our boss Miriam recorded it all, not just visual records of our encounters with clients, but the entire suite of neurochemical, hormonal, psychological, and physical responses to external stimuli. Each data-point is meticulously logged, indexed, categorized, and analyzed before, during, and after services rendered. Client data capture allows the Agencies AIs to create new and more exciting scenarios based on the client’s unique psychological profile. We targeted their genuine desires, not just the ones they profess. Similar services were available in virtual, but those who could afford it preferred the real thing. I guess what they say is true after all, given a choice between flesh and code, flesh wins every time. Such methods kept customers coming back for more and every experience is guaranteed to be more engaging, intense, and expensive than the last. After a few years, some clients burn out, becoming completely desensitized to any external stimuli real, chemical, or virtual. Burnouts get frustrated and angry, that’s when the work can get dangerous. As a matter of policy, once burned, they can no longer receive Agency services. However, some clients may receive a waiver if their profile indicates they were sentenced to Consciousness Transfer Reintegration Therapy, an alternative form of capital punishment considered by many to be a more humane option than death. If you ask me, it’s a fate worse than that. The person is mind-wiped, transferred into a new Persona with synthetic memories, and a neurochemically redrafted personality based on their original personality type. You are basically unmade and turned into whatever the state wants you to be. Under industry regulations, the Agency could grant access to its services to such individuals, assuming nothing went sideways during the encounter. When things went badly, that’s what the Agency’s enforcers were for. At Sublime Realms, ours were ex-military, former elite forces personnel. As Companions, we are each equipped with baseline self-defense skill sets for our personal safety. We were protected both on and off the job; Miriam made sure of it. At the end of the day, we slip off our high-end working Personas and MindStream back into an Agency provided off hours spare. With the change of Personas, you leave behind what you did and who you did it with because in this line of work, that is how you stay sane. In this business, psychological dissociation is a valuable and necessary skill one would be advised to master. One day I will be done with this business. Until then, I have work to attend to and people to settle up with before I can put both Avalon and Neoterra behind me.

Today I have a new Persona and a whole new life. I make good currency and I have a nice mid-tier unit overlooking Tannhäuser harbor. It’s a decent life but, to be honest, I despise the system that made who I am now possible. No one should ever have to endure what I have just to have a normal life, CT should be affordable and available to those that need it. As I walk the elevated terraces of Avalon today, I look into the eyes and faces of those around me. It seems our world is haunted by a sense that there is something very strange and terribly wrong about it all. Each of us living out our days, remaking ourselves over and over from Persona to Persona, this is not how folks were meant to live. When I am on the job, I tell myself it is the Persona, working with the client, not me. I used to believe I could separate the work from who I was, but in reality you just can’t. It took a full year in this business before I realized I did not know who the hell I was either. Under the CT system, I don’t think anyone does anymore. Consciousness Transfer technology transformed every aspect of life on Neoterra. In a world where anyone can become whoever and whatever they want, how can anyone ever know who they truly are? When I look in the mirror now, I no longer see the girl in the chair that I once was, nor the Companion I became, instead, I see me, the real me. I mean, it is still “me” in there, right?