Remiel's Enlightenment - Chapter 15 (Patreon)

(Ebook) (All) (Ch. 1) (Ch. 2) (Ch. 3) (Ch. 4) (Ch. 5) (Ch. 6) (Ch. 7) (Ch. 8) (Ch. 9) (Ch.10) (Ch.11) (Ch.12) (Ch.13) (Ch.14) (-----) (Ch.16) (Ramda Dakimakura)

Amelia's efforts to stand up for herself backfire and she makes a desperate call for help.

Remiel's Enlightenment - Chapter 15

by Zmeydros (Elara Singlais)
(Edited by Tiliquain, Ramda Singlais, and Wolfleah)

The blood test pod I chose was the one just before the stairs to get out of the metro station. The outside was white with a thick sea green plus symbol where the bottom of the plus got fatter, making a drop of liquid. A wide, horizontal, sea green stripe went around the middle of the whole thing. I pinged it with my implant and the door opened revealing an overlit bright white interior surrounding what looked like a pilot's seat. Two arm cuffs came out of the arm rests, one for the bicep and one for the forearm. Hanging from the ceiling from a three-jointed robotic arm connected to a crane was a sea green cube that was six inches on a side.

After I sat in the seat, the door closed and it asked me to pick an arm and put it on one of the arm rests. I chose my left one and then selected the "assigned male at birth gender care blood test." It came up with the total for the test, but after I put in Aeidou's discount code, it decreased the price by seventy percent which was indeed less than fifty credits. After that, I allowed access to my medical records.

The cuffs wrapped around my left arm and inflated. Then the cube moved over the inside of my elbow. Alcohol got sprayed on the area before a cute little robotic arm with itty bitty fingers swabbed the area. After that, panels slid down from the cube, hiding the blood draw site.

I'd gotten my blood drawn so much that when the menu came up to ask if I wanted a countdown, I selected "no" and took a deep, slow breath. As I let that breath out, I felt a prick and a couple minutes later the sea green cube moved away from my arm and the cuffs deflated.

I left the blood lab pod, feeling the tightness of the bandage against the blood draw site. It was one of the waterproof bandages that you could shower with and it was almost as pale as my skin.

When I got to the top of the stairs, leaving the metro station, a sliding door opened to the street that had a stylized metro train zooming across the glass. A gust of air blew my long hair and I had to suppress an urge to toss my head back and forth like a glamor model. My hair...

With my chest burning from anxiety, I went right back into the metro station, down the stairs, and into the restroom. Unlike Miramanna and Trinity Stronghold, there weren't separate restrooms for men and women in the Trilliant. All restrooms were just restrooms with lots of stalls and some urinals. Getting into a stall, I reached into the middle pocket of my backpack and pulled out the little golden pill case Ezzie had given me and opened it. If anything could help with my anxiety today, it was worth a try. Taking the estrogen tablet out, I broke it in half, lifted my tongue, and dropped the halves under it. I hid the pill container in the bottom of my backpack and dashed out of the restroom.

As I walked through the lobby with all the beautiful plants and wavy sandstone, the estrogen tablet had broken down into what felt like sand. I resisted the urge to swallow the rest of it during the elevator ride up to the office. Just as the elevator doors opened, something very odd happened: I heard sound details from the mechanism that opened the doors I hadn't noticed before. There was a soft hiss from the hydraulics and a small scraping sound from the bottom door that got louder when it was almost all the way open. I was so struck by this, I didn't realize I should get out until the doors started closing again.

Walking out of the elevator, I felt the way the soles of my feet squished against the bottoms of my work sneakers. The elevator lobby smelled like grease and dirty metal. I wrinkled my nose at it. Setting foot into the office, I caught the scents of vanilla instant coffee and Earl Gray tea. I'd noticed details like these before, but never so fluidly. My mind was oddly uncluttered.

Luke was carrying a tray of coffee mugs and setting them down on various desks. The down-slanted triangular windows behind him had been auto-tinted to avoid having the morning sun blind everyone, but there was still this amazing triangle pattern that was stretched out across the workers nearest the window, the walls, and the ceiling. It was beautiful, even though everything in the office was sky-blue and white.

A guy wearing a Miramanna trilby hat which was black with a sky blue leather strap going around it stepped around me. "Excuse me, miss."

I watched him walk toward the coffee tray Luke was holding and then stop and whip around. His eyes widened as he looked at me from the front. "Oh, I'm so sorry." He blushed beet red, the stubble on his face and wrinkles near his eyes making him look rugged enough for his blush to be indistinguishable from a sunburn.

"It's fine." I was smiling so much my face hurt. The work Ezzie and Aeidou had done on my hair to maximize its volume and curls was paying off. I'd be confusing people until later this afternoon, for sure.

The rugged-looking guy's brow furrowed for a moment before his need for coffee was stronger than his need to understand what had just happened.

My smile faded as I looked at the Miramanna fashion abomination atop his head. This Miramanna trilby looked worse, and more sci-fi in a bad way, than a normal trilby hat, the very narrow brim was pointed dramatically down in the front and dramatically up in the back. Making things infinitely worse, the hat was taller than it should have been, making me wonder if its wearer was a conehead. To me, the design screamed authoritarian daddy state and I hated everything about it. Just as I made a fist with my right hand, I felt this wave of rage tighten my whole arm. I wanted to punch that hat right off his head.

I'd seen these hats around work so many times and never really thought much about them. What the hell had gotten into me?

"Remiel? What's with the statue act? Do you need coffee?" Josiah's voice came from my left.

He jumped as my head whipped toward him.

"Yep, you need coffee." Josiah motioned for Luke to come over. His brown-and-gray-dappled hair and piercing light-blue eyes, and hawkish nose made him look menacing despite his short, compact frame.

"Oh, I'm fine." I was wide awake, more awake than I'd ever been? But I wasn't anxious? What on Earth was estrogen doing to me?

"No you're not." Grabbing a mug off of Luke's tray, Josiah held it out to me. "Trust me, this will make you feel better."

"I told you I feel fine." I nearly reached for the mug, but I stopped myself. No one was giving me a choice about anything, not even what I put inside my own body. Julia was right, I had every right to be annoyed with Josiah, Noah, everyone trying to make decisions for me.

"Remiel, take the damn cup and stop making me look like a fool." He held the mug right in front of me.

"That's not my--" I stopped myself and grabbed the mug.

My chest tightened. Everyone had been calling me Amelia since last night and my male name felt so weird to hear. Not weird, terrible.

"That's not your what?" Josiah looked me up and down, his eyes narrowing as he did.

"Not my favorite." I felt so dumb having to cover up my thoughts like that. "The instant coffee that gets handed out isn't my thing."

"Not your thing? Remiel, I'm sorry I have to point this out to you, but caffeine is caffeine." Josiah chuckled until his eyes fixated on my hair. "Good thing you're getting buzzed today, your hair's getting out of control."

"What was the point of God giving me curly hair if I have to keep it so short that all the curls end up being cowlicks?" I narrowed my eyes at Josiah. He was such a self-righteous prick.

"Go get some work done and put away your attitude." Josiah took another look at my freshly-shaven face and my hair. "I don't like anything I'm seeing this morning."

Five separate comebacks came to my mind that I kept to myself. Since when was my brain this clear? Normally I was stumbling on words, lucky if I said something clever. As Josiah left my sight, I put the coffee mug back on Luke's tray.

When I got to my desk, I dove into working on purchase order spreadsheets and started spotting mistakes the automated system had made. Most of them were related to a thing I'd been correcting for weeks that no one seemed willing to fix: the automated system was using an outdated list of department numbers. It was so easy to fix, but Josiah kept insisting I just correct it manually and leave writing a script to the "actual programmers." After twenty minutes of doing it Josiah's way, I was ready to claw at my face. I'd never been more bored in my life.

How had I been able to handle this busywork for weeks? Twenty minutes of this was killing me today, how would I make it through a couple hours of this? I smiled as I realized something I'd never thought about before: I didn't need a development environment to write a script to fix this. The spreadsheet program I was using had its own scripting language.

An hour of research and some failed attempts later, I had a working script and it fixed over four hundred errors in less than a second. Who was I today? Everything felt different. It had to be the estrogen, right? No, what was I actually feeling? Slightly clearer thoughts and a bit less anxiety than I was used to. And what had I done with that? I'd ignored Josiah's orders twice already today without much effort. My mouth dropped open. The estrogen was like a pebble on a scale, tipping the balance just enough for me to actually think for myself. Thinking for myself was proving to be an even more powerful drug than the estrogen. It was such an incredible feeling! Like I actually had some control over my life.

An alert came up from my implant: it was time for my fifteen minute break. As I got up from my desk, I looked out across all the people working in this open-air office. Most of the men had crew cuts or something that only went down to the tops of their ears. Then there were the guys wearing those atrocious hats.

Wait! If I got one of those hats, I could hide a woman's hairstyle under it. The only thing I had to do now was figure out how to avoid going to TrinityCutz to get my hair done. I grinned as I got an idea.

Hi, can I take a longer morning break? You were right about my curly hair. It's definitely out of control and I want to get it cut. I'm also going to get one of those company hats so I can look more professional. I'd rather use the time allotted to the haircut, and my lunch break, to get work done (there were a lot of errors in today's spreadsheet), I sent to Josiah. The knot developing in my chest was a hundred percent due to how much I was lying in that message.

Are you sure you can get into TrinityCutz early? Did you schedule an earlier appointment? Josiah sent back.

I'll just use a robo-barber. All I need is a simple men's cut.

Okay, just make sure you punch out for lunch when you stay at your desk. I don't want to have to correct your timecard. Try to be back within an hour. Message me if there's a delay.

Will do! My heart was racing as I walked toward the elevator lobby.

I sent a message to Ramda, Julia, Aeidou, and Ezzie. It felt great to be able to share good news for once. Thanks to all of you, I might have found my courageous side? This morning I did something differently from how Josiah said I was supposed to do it (wrote a script to take care of busywork). Now I'm going to take a chance and see if I can hide my hair under a Miramanna-approved hat. I'm sure if I'm caught, all they'll do is march me over to get it cut. Pretty pleased with my first day having some estrogen.

Oh! You took an estrogen pill? Sounds like it might've done some good! Julia sent almost instantly.

Yeah! I think it did! I smiled.

Also, you're fighting back some. That's what I was hoping for.

Thanks for the kick in the butt!

You're welcome! Kicking butts is my favorite pastime! She sent back.

While I was going down in the elevator, I looked up women's hairstyles. Seeing ones with a short back, I realized that they would look very convincing if I hid the longer front part of the style under my hat. Also, I'd look like a female action movie star or cool anime character. I picked out a style that I thought would look good on me and sent it along to a robot barber pod that was on the way to the metro station.

That's great news! It's nice to see you rattling the bars of your Miramanna cage to see if there's any loose ones, Ezzie sent.

I like the way you put that. I guess I'm determined to figure out how much I can get away with.

I'm overjoyed that pill brightened your day, Ezzie sent.

Yeah, it's been great!

Just outside the doors to the Miramanna lobby and to the left was the Miramanna company shop. It had sky blue glass framing the doorway, looking like sheets of ice. I walked up to the sliding doors and was glad to see the walls were medium gray because it would've been hard to tell what color anything was if they'd made all the walls sky blue too. The colors for company clothing were depressingly limited: sky blue, white, black, navy blue, dark brown, and forest green. I walked past company shirts, jackets, pants, blouses, and skirts to get to the back wall. The hats were on top of the clothing racks and the one I wanted, an exact copy of the one I'd seen this morning, was near the back.

After picking it up, I opened up the Miramanna app and paid for the hat with my uniform allowance. Then put the hat on and walked out of the store, not even looking at the two staff members or the three people browsing. Just before I left, the tall staff member who I saw out of the corner of my eye, said "Have a nice day!"

I gave them a thumbs up without even looking back at them. I was seriously wishing I was home with my tits on and in girl's clothes. Today was already exhausting.

Walking away from the building, I noticed a guy who was walking the same direction as me while actively not looking at me. He'd been outside the doors, so I had a feeling I was being followed. It was a familiar feeling and I normally didn't think much of it, but I wanted as little scrutiny of what I was about to do as possible.

Thinking about what the last thing I'd want if I was following someone would be, I turned and walked directly toward him. He tried to pretend he didn't notice, but when I was within ten feet of him, he turned and started walking back toward the building. I kept following him.

My heart was trying to get out of my chest. I'd never done anything like this before. Poor guy, he was just doing his job.

Wait. No. I had to stop making excuses for people who didn't deserve them. This guy was paid to provide surveillance of Miramanna's own employees. He was part of the reason I never felt safe. My right hand balled up into a fist.

The guy was now stuck between me and the railing on the side of the stairway opposite the Miramanna company shop. He was looking down at me through a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses.

"I noticed you following me. Was it because you were wondering where I got this fantastic hat?" Complimenting the abomination on my head was almost as hard as being assertive. I felt like my brain was melting.

"Yes, actually, did you get it from the company store?" This guy was not chosen for his social skills. There was visible concern on his overly square face.

"Yep. I'll have to check on you when I get back to see how you look in one of these. They're truly one of a kind. Makes sense you wanted to chase me down so you could figure out how to get one." I was just babbling to some degree, but judging by the poorly hidden horror on the guy's face, I'd put him in a very awkward position.

"Hah, so true. Enjoy your break." He turned and practically jogged back to the front of the building.

The moment his back was turned, I looked at two other guys like him that were out front of the building and met their eyes long enough that they knew I was very aware of them. They stood up straighter and looked away.

Then I jogged toward the metro station, my overused thighs complaining as I wove through the couple dozen people out front of the Miramanna complex. Eventually my legs got wobbly and I was out of breath, so I strolled as fast I could to the robo-barber pod. It was about the size of a van with white, red, and gold stripes on it as well as a graphic of a giant pair of scissors. Since I had to wait for the person ahead of me, I walked past the long side that was facing the street and leaned against the back. There, I tried to relax even though I was pretty sure this plan was based more on desperation than sense. Even if it only afforded me another week or two with long hair, I'd be glad I tried it.

I got the notification that the booth was ready just as I started worrying about being followed again.

The inside of the pod was light gray and very clean. It smelled slightly like nail-polish without any clear reason for it. I wrinkled my nose as I took off my hat and sat in the barber chair. From behind the chair, four, three-jointed, robotic arms came out. The top left one had a pair of shears, the bottom left one was just a vacuum hose, the bottom right one had a spray nozzle and the top right one had a vacuum hose attached to a clipper with an adjustable comb on it to clip at different lengths.

I put in the haircut that I wanted and then a 3D model appeared on a screen that popped out of the right arm rest. I made a few adjustments to make sure the back of my head would look like a men's cut when I had the hat on. The hair that I was going to hide under the hat, the part that was more on the sides and front, needed to be a couple inches shorter to look good with this style, so I tweaked it.

All in all, I was pretty happy, because I figured out how to make the back and sides of my head the only parts that had short hair. The rest, everything under my hat, would be left longer, but tapered so it looked good. It was a bit more action movie star than I thought fit me, but I couldn't really figure out anything better. On the menu, I saw a section for accessories and ordered some hair clips so I'd be able to make sure my hair stayed under the hat while I was at work.

After confirming my choices, the four arms went to work. The process took about ten minutes and I watched in the mirror, astonished at how efficiently all the arms were moving. This was a really well designed robot and I couldn't help but wonder who figured all this out.

You're a very conscientious girl and I think you're going about this the right way. Hope Ezzie can help you get on estrogen because it would be awesome to see what a couple weeks or months of it does to you, Aeidou sent.

I'll ask Ezzie about it tonight. If Miramanna can't see my patient information, I should be able to just start on it and now I kinda want to. I bounced excitedly in the barber chair and got an angry buzz from the stylist robot. "Sorry!" I said aloud even though I didn't know whether it could hear me.

Sounds good! There's a lot of help out there for trans women who don't have the means to get their meds. I'll poke around and get you as many discounts and subsidies as I can.

Thanks so much! I sent.

You're very welcome!

When it was all done cutting and styling, a giant blow dryer that moved a lot of air came down from the ceiling and gently dried the hair that had been wet by the sprayer. I looked at myself in the mirror and started giggling: I looked awesome! My curly hair looked even better than the CGI preview I'd been given. Because of the tapering and other touches, I looked even more feminine than I'd looked before I got my hair cut.

Taking the hair clips that got dispensed by a slot in the wall, I got my hair all put up and then put my hat on. Looking in the mirror, I confirmed that it looked like I had a close-cut men's style before I headed out of the pod. When asked for a review after I paid, I declined because I didn't want any record of me going to that specific pod. I felt a bit bad, but it already had a ton of good reviews and didn't need mine.

As I walked back toward Miramanna, I couldn't help but wonder if I really knew Ramda. She'd been so present when I was there on the ship and so supportive for the first two weeks I was on earth, messaging me often. I'd never had to wait more than her typical seven hours of sleep for a reply. Now I was here, in a situation that terrified me while fighting for the very identity she'd helped me discover and I'd been waiting for twelve hours for a reply to what I'd sent her last night. All I'd asked is that she let me know she was okay. I'd be happy even knowing she wasn't okay at this point. I'd at least know she was alive and still cared.

There had to be more to her than what she'd presented to me on the ship because she'd lied to me when she gave me the idea she wasn't into serious relationships. Aeidou and Ezzie clearly thought what she had with Ichi was serious. Did Ramda tell me that because she liked me but saw no possibility that we could be more than occasional sex partners? Was that her way of letting me down easy? Or was she the sort of person that had one bad relationship and then decided love wasn't possible? She didn't seem like the sort of person that would just quit like that, so... I could only come to the conclusion that she didn't want me to think about the possibility of me being that close to her.

Treating me like I couldn't handle her feelings toward me was pretty shitty. Sure, lots of people saw me as fragile, but Ramda was one of the few people in my life who treated me like an adult. I didn't get why she'd lied to me about this one, very important thing. Maybe she didn't care about me beyond adding some variety to her sex life and now that I wasn't new to her, I was boring? It was hard to believe she was the sort of person that threw people away like that. It was even harder to believe that she'd come into people's lives, change them the way she'd changed mine, and then abandon them.

Tears started forming. I was thinking too much about this. I was being way too emotional. There was no information about what was actually going on with Ramda and I was making a lot of assumptions. That didn't stop it from hurting, though. She hadn't reached out to me in so long that she didn't know how much I liked breast simulants or how often I was going out in a dress. Because she didn't talk about her own life since I'd left the ship, all I knew was that, for a short time, she'd enjoyed teasing me with sexy messages. Maybe we weren't friends. Maybe I was just a project she'd worked on until she got bored.

Before I started walking up the stairs in front of Miramanna's hyper-modern, cathedral-like entrance, I dried my tears to erase any signs of emotional weakness. I'd cheated the system in a real way for the first time and I wanted to be extra careful for the rest of the day. On the elevator ride back up, I listened to some angry alternative music. It was the first time in many weeks I'd done so and I actually enjoyed the kick of adrenaline it gave me. It was better than being sad.

Luke blinked when he saw my hat and then came over.

I'm hiding my hair under this hat. I got an undercut. Please don't draw attention to me, I sent to him.

That's definitely worth a try. I hope it works out. Luke awkwardly backed away and then jerked his head to look behind me. Nope, Josiah is walking straight toward you and he's staring at your hat.

As I turned around, Josiah's right hand pulled the hat off my head. My stomach did a barrel roll, making me wish I'd had less breakfast.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, you must think I'm a neanderthal." Josiah chuckled mockingly.

"That insult doesn't actually work that well. Neanderthals might have been a bit less smart than humans, but they weren't stupid. They made arrowheads and stuff just like us," Luke stated calmly.

"Luke, if you don't want to get written up, you're going to find something else to do. Right now!" Josiah pointed at Luke and then at Luke's desk, which was near the window.

Turning around, Luke walked briskly away.

"You're coming with me to Noah's office. Right now." Josiah put my hat back on and stepped back so I could stand. He was clearly angry, but he had a smile on his face. A smile that made my blood run cold.

Was he taking delight in this? Looking forward to sending me back to Trinity for an obvious sign of disobedience? Clearly I had to comply, had to buckle down and just do what I was told for a bit. Julia mentioned having wigs I could use. I'd still be able to go out as a girl with those on.

"I'm sorry, I thought this was a good compromise between what I wanted and what you did. Obviously, I totally misjudged things." I gave Josiah my best subservient smile. "When the haircut appointment comes up, I'll just go and have them give me something short and professional."

"No. You've blown your last chance walking the righteous path without guidance, especially considering the multitude of your sins." Josiah patted my shoulder and his smile lost some, but not all, of its cruelty. "Don't worry, Remiel. We will cut through all your confusion and set you straight."

There had to be something, anything I could do to avoid whatever evil thing they had planned for me. I really hoped Ramda was awake and could get messages because she was the only person I could think of that might know a quick way out. Ezzie had mentioned her doing something that reminded me of witness protection and I could use being disappeared right now. Unless she'd slept for a solid twelve hours, she had to have gotten my first message and she hadn't even said hello. Where the fuck was she and what the fuck was I supposed to do?

Hey Ramda, where have you been lately? Do you have a plan for how to get me out of this mess or did you nudge me in the direction of the herm I'm supposed to be with no real plan for what to do if I got caught? I know you might not even get this message until hours from now, but I think they're going to send me back or something equally bad. Josiah just said that they were going to 'set me straight.' That phrase is very not good coming out of anyone from Miramanna. If you care about me at all, I need you to get ready to help me because I don't think I can do this anymore. I stood up for myself today and I'm getting immediately slammed back to the ground. I feel like I'm going to do something drastic or I'm going to break. I need you.

END OF CHAPTER

I’d like to acknowledge my $20+ patrons: AJ, Arkona Kothe, Longhauler, Navajo Demar, Tiliquain, Warialinth, and Xaziana Tenebris for helping make all this possible. Thank you! Thanks to all my other patrons as well. Every one of you rocks!

(Ebook) (All) (Ch. 1) (Ch. 2) (Ch. 3) (Ch. 4) (Ch. 5) (Ch. 6) (Ch. 7) (Ch. 8) (Ch. 9) (Ch.10) (Ch.11) (Ch.12) (Ch.13) (Ch.14) (-----) (Ch.16) (Ramda Dakimakura)