Changeable

 "Alison."

"Alison."

"Alison."

Mm.

"Alison."

"Mm?"

"Can you hear me?"

"Ugh."

"We will wait."

I must be Alison. Am I? It feels right. Doesn't it? Alison. Sort of.

"Al."

"Excuse me?"

"Call me Al."

"Understood. You were involved in a serious calamity resulting in great loss of life and property damage, do you understand?"

"Okay." I don't have any clear memory of any "calamity," odd word choice there. But it covers both accidents and deliberate acts. "I was on a ship."

"Yes. You were aboard the Digitus Impudicus when it was destroyed. Do you understand?"

"Okay. Destroyed how?"

"Details are unclear at this time. Authorities are examining the debris field. The search for survivors ended yesterday. Eighteen individuals were collected but more may yet be saved. Are your eyes working?"

Are they? Open - are they open? Close. I felt something move. Open, close. "No. I can feel my eyelids moving." Stay calm. "Am I blind?"

"Yes, temporarily. Your entire body was badly damaged. Your eyes are new. Nerve regeneration is still taking place. That may cause discomfort. If you experience pain, please notify us immediately. If you start to perceive images, let me tell you that the dominant color in the room is light blue. You are lying down. The ceiling is white. A viewscreen is above you but it is not turned on. Its color is dark gray. The sheets on your bed are dark blue. There are white bandages on your hands. If you start to see things, those will likely be the first things you see.

"All right." The voice is calm, neutral, very measured. It hadn't been obvious until that recitation made it obvious. "Are you an AI?"

"Yes. Would you be more comfortable with a human attendant?"

"No, I'm not hung up about AI. Tell me your name?"

"We are Janus."

"Okay, Janus." Not "Jan." AI always tell you exactly what they want to be called. "What can you tell me?"

"Digitus Impudicus was destroyed eighty-nine days ago by unknown causes. Seventy-eight humans, four AI and one hundred, forty-eight thousand tonnes of water ice were aboard. D.I. was en route to Mars and under thrust at the time of destruction. Do you remember any details leading up to the event?"

"I remember we were under thrust." Four AI? The Finger carried only two! "Pickup at Europa went without a hitch. We'd been tacking back to save reaction mass."

"Yes."

"That's all I've got." Digitus Impudicus, AKA The Finger because somebody among the corporate owners thinks himself a rebel, started life as a thruster, a bigass rocket. Big, big rocket, going everywhere on a tower of glowing hot plasma But at some point somebody figured out that with the way it was built, it was actually kind of ready-made to convert to a solar sailer, so they did that and it worked, kinda. But the native AI wasn't good at that at all, so they installed another AI, one that was raised from the beginning to be a solar sailer and he was good, almost artistic at it if you can believe an AI having art. And the corporate owners found they liked having the option, choosing which way to go. Strap on some passenger pods, fire up the reactor and get there in a hurry. Ferry a bunch of water from Europa, take your time. Ice isn't in a hurry. Spread the sails and ride the solar wind. It's free. Not as slow as some think but not being optimized for it, our sails are modest and we take our time.

Light.

"My eyes are beginning to work. I see light."

"Do you have color perception?"

"...not yet."

I can start to feel my hands, too.

I think I slept for a while.

"Alison. Al." One of those very carefully programmed, human-like mistakes they program into AI which, instead of making them seem more human, make them even more uncannily not.

"Yeah."

"You are progressing rapidly. Can you see well?"

No. "Not really. Colors. More light."

"You were very badly injured in the destruction of your vessel. Do you understand?"

"Okay. You said you had to grow me some new eyes." They're working better by the minute, though, this is amazing.

"Your injuries far exceeded just your eyes. Your body was destroyed. Only eighty-four percent of your brain was recovered from the wreckage of your escape pod. It was only barely within the bounds of the decision matrix for reconstitution. You have been in reconstruction for forty-three days, twelve of them while underway from the recovery site. Do you understand?"

My brain? Only eighty-four percent! I felt my eyes bulge and suddenly things came into focus. "Oh! I can see!"

"Excellent. Can you read the chart on the viewscreen?"

I read it off. No problems.

My brain? Just my brain? How violently had the ship been destroyed? Those escape pods will damn near survive an uncontrolled landing, if the fusion reactor had gone off it would have just sailed off...

But no, we were under sail. The reactor was idling.

We were sailing, right? Not thrusting. Tacking. Sideways. The Finger, a plasma ship with her torch unneeded, tacking across the sunlight, under sail.

"You are healing rapidly. Your native constitution is quite robust. We were able to extract all the necessary information to rebuild your body from the DNA we obtained from your brain and samples obtained inside the pod. Your scans are very positive. Would you like to try to sit up?"

How much of my brain is actually inside my head, and how much of it is new? How much of me is me? "Okay," and I sat up.

Oh. My weight is all weird. My balance is...

Oh, boy.  Holy moley.  

I can't feel my hands very well but they work, sort of. Poorly. Tearing at the smock, pulling.

"Ah jeez."

"Is there a problem? If you are having difficulty, lay back down. A human attendant is available if necessary."

"No, no," I said, pulling the smock closed again, with difficulty. I'd forgotten how big and unwieldy they had been.

"Is there a problem, Al?"

"You guys...you built me back using my DNA, right?"

"Correct."

"But you built me back as a girl." I almost pawed at them because they were so prominent...they just weren't mine. They were never supposed to be. "I was only born female, Janus." An expectant silence met that. "I didn't stay that way."

"Oh." For the first time ever, I had somehow caught an AI off guard. "Oh, we apologize. We could not find sufficient remnants of your old body to inform your reconstitution. We had to grow you a new one from what little we could gather and what information could be deduced from your personnel files."

"Doesn't it mention that I'm transitioned male in those files?"

"I am sorry to say that it does not. In fact, there is no information given for gender."

Ah hell. My old rebellious phase, coming back to bite me on the ass.  My own digitus impudicus, leaving blank the parts where they ask what I thought impertinent questions.  Gender?  You don't need to know, since at the time I didn't know so well myself.  Probably should have gone back and filled that in, too late now.  I never imagined that I'd be back in this state.  I'm a girl.  Again. I hated it enough the first time, this is awful.

"Looks like I'm going to be here a while longer, Janus. Can you reconfigure me back to male?"

"Certainly. You will be under sedation for two days. You will continue recovering from your initial reconstruction while recovering from conversion. Are your hands working?"

Flex. "Well enough. Why?"

"Please sign here. Thank you.  We apologize for the confusion and will begin immediately to return you to your desired state. We are sedating you now. Please count backwards from five."

"Five? I won't be out befo..."