Chapter 25: The Choice
The scent of frying garlic and roasting tomatoes wrapped around Judy’s apartment like a warm blanket. Strings of fairy lights glowed over potted ferns, and a worn, floral-print armchair was piled high with knit blankets. It was a deliberate refuge from the sleek chrome and glass of the city, a cottage-core fantasy nestled on the seventh floor.
Erin moved through the small kitchen with a predator’s grace, which was absurdly charming as she carefully stirred a pot of bubbling marinara. She’d insisted on cooking, claiming her new senses made her a flawless judge of seasoning.
“Too much basil?” she asked, without looking up.
Judy leaned against the counter, a glass of red wine in hand, watching her. The domesticity of it still felt novel, a secret world. “It’s perfect. You’re showing off.”
“I am,” Erin said, a slow smile touching her lips. Her violet eyes caught the light as she glanced over. “It is a fact. My olfactory receptors are now superior. I am a kitchen god.”
“Kitchen goddess, maybe.”
“Goddess. I accept this.”
They ate at the small wooden table, knees touching underneath. The conversation was easy, lazy—office gossip from Judy’s HR department, Erin’s dry observations of the city at night, the way a particular pigeon seemed to be stalking her fire escape. The normalcy was a pact between them, a temporary truce with the bizarre reality of what Erin was.
But as they cleared the plates, the air shifted. The comfort grew heavy, charged. Erin rinsed a dish, her back to Judy, the water running too long.
“There is a thing,” Erin said, her voice lower, the Romanian lilt more pronounced. “A problem. It is not my problem, but it has become… adjacent.”
Judy dried a plate slowly, sensing the change. “Okay. What kind of problem?”
“The kind that lives in a sanatorium on Bell Island. The kind my… associate… created.”
She turned the water off. The silence in the warm apartment was suddenly absolute, filled only by the distant hum of traffic far below. Erin leaned against the sink, arms crossed. She told it plainly, without adornment. Marcus Malone.The Michelle++ avatar. The beta template that was supposed to make a dancer perfect, and how it instead severed the connection between thought and muscle, leaving a young woman named Audra Green trapped in the silent prison of her own body.
Judy listened, the dish towel forgotten in her hands. Her HR mind flickered with protocols, liability, criminal negligence. Her heart just ached.
“Her brother, Roger, he is the one who… made me,” Erin continued, gesturing vaguely at herself. “He is trying to fix her. He has a machine. And he has Marcus, who is drowning in guilt. They have a plan.”
“Which is?” Judy’s voice was soft.
“To use a different template. One Marcus designed. To overwrite the broken instructions with new ones. To give her a body that listens.”
“That sounds… incredibly illegal. And insanely dangerous.” Judy put the towel down.“What template? Something from the corporate catalog?”
Erin’s gaze was steady, unblinking.“No. From his other work. The work before NewYou. For a different kind of game.” She paused, choosing words. “They call it the Cat Women avatar. Part of a ‘Monster Girl’ series.”
A bewildered laugh escaped Judy’s lips. “A cat woman? You’re serious?”
“It is not a costume,” Erin said, her intensity freezing Judy’s smile. “It is a full somatic schema. Like mine, but different. The underlying architecture is similar—the Michelle++ frame, highly agile, responsive. But the behavioral drivers are not combat. They are… curiosity.Precision. A desire for sleek, exaggerated motion. It learns by mimicking grace. It rewards what feels physically correct.” She took a step closer. “They believe its programming might speak to what Audra was—a dancer. That it could teach her nerves how to fire again.”
The pieces clicked together in Judy’s mind with a cold, logical clarity. “They need to test it. They can’t just put it into Audra. They need a baseline.”
Erin nodded once. “They need a viable subject to run the transformation first. To map the biological integration, to smooth the protocols. To see if it is safe. Or at least, not catastrophic.”
The room felt smaller. The fairy lights seemed too bright. Judy understood, then, why she was hearing this. Not just as a confession, but as a prerequisite. Her stomach tightened. “Erin. No.”
“I am not asking for me,” Erin said softly. “I am asking for you.”
“To become a… a monster girl.” The words felt ridiculous and terrifying in equal measure.
“For a weekend,” Erin said. She reached out, her touch startlingly gentle on Judy’s arm. “Two days. In a controlled environment.At the penthouse. I would be there every second. Roger would monitor every biomarker. Marcus would be running the system. It is the closest thing to a clinical trial they can manage.”
“Why me?” Judy whispered.
“Because you are healthy. Because your neural profile is stable and well-mapped from your NewYou onboarding. Because you are not afraid of transformation.” Erin’s thumb stroked a slow line on Judy’s wrist. “And because I trust you. And they need someone I trust. Someone who understands that this is not a game. It is a backdoor into a locked room. It is a chance to pull one person out of the dark.”
Judy looked away, at the cozy, safe room she had built. She thought of a woman she’d never met, lying perfectly still, screaming silently behind her own eyes. She thought of the surreal reality of her girlfriend, who stood before her as living proof that such madness could sometimes, miraculously, work.
“What’s it like?” Judy asked finally, her voice barely audible. “The change.”
Erin considered. “It is like waking up in a new house. You know it is you inside, but the doors are in different places. The light switches are new. Your reflection is a stranger who moves when you move. It is unsettling. And then… you learn the house. You find that the new doors lead to rooms you never had. The windows show a different sky.” She leaned in, her forehead nearly touching Judy’s. “This would not be like me. It would be softer. No venom. No hunger. Just… a different way to move. To be.”
“A cat-girl.”
“For a weekend.” A faint, almost sheepish smile touched Erin’s lips. “You would have a tail. Ears, I think. The documentation was unclear on the ears.”
Judy closed her eyes.The image was absurd. The risk was monumental. The ask was immense.
She opened them. “When?”