Lily felt strange as she woke up. Her whole body felt numb. She opened her eyes and blinked. The world looked funny, like she was looking through the lens of a digital camera.
"Igor! Quickly! She is getting up!" said a familiar voice.
Lily sat up and reached out to touch her head. She could feel pressure against her skull, but it also felt numb, like she was touching it with gloves.
"Wha... what happened?" Lily asked. Her voice sounded off - higher and more feminine with a slight French accent, but with an artificial undertone.
"It worked! It worked! I am a genius!"
Lily looked around the room. It looked like she was in some kind of lab straight out of a bad horror movie from the 1930s. Strange machine were against the walls, lined with blinking buttons and long, heavy levers. A large tesla coil sparked electricity across the room to another coil. In the corner of the room Lily saw the man jumping up and down with excitement, hugging a small troll-like man.
"It's alive! It's alive!" he screamed with excitement.
Lily locked down at her body. She was sitting on a hard metal slab. She was wearing some kind of frilly black dress with a white apron. But it wasn't just her clothes that had changed. Her breasts seemed to have doubled in size. They had to at least be a D-cup. She reached out to touch them. They felt hard, almost artificial. And just as numb as the rest of her body.
What had this crazy nutter done? Given her some kind of back alley boob job?
Lily struggled to get her legs off the table. They were stiff and her movements were sluggish. It was almost like she was learning to walk again.
"Easy, easy," said the man as he rushed to her side. "This will require a little getting used to. We may need to make some adjustments, but your body will adapt very quickly."
Lily brushed the man aside. What the hell was he talking about? Did he think her larger breasts would make it harder for her to walk? Or was he talking about the effects of the anesthesia?
Lily's feet hit the floor with a loud metallic thud. What had the guy put on her shoes? Lead weights?
She slowly made her way towards a large mirror hanging on the wall. Each step was agonizingly slow and accompanied by an odd whirring sound. The man stood behind her, smiling like a loon. He looked like a father watching his child's first steps.
Lily's jaw dropped when she saw her reflection in the mirror. It wasn't just her boobs that the lunatic had changed - her whole body looked different. She was dressed in some kind of French maid outfit. Her hair was long and black, but tied in a tight bun. Her face was older, more mature, like a woman in her mid-twenties. But it was beautiful, like the face of a model. She had wide hips and a narrow waist, accentuated by her tight outfit, giving her a very nice hourglass figure. And was she taller? She could swear that she was almost six feet tall, but it was hard to tell in the ridiculous heels she was wearing.
"What have you done to me?" asked Lily in a pronounced French accent.
"Why, just what you asked, my dear. You wanted a new body and a new life. And I just happened to have a new body available and waiting for a volunteer to use it. Quite fortunate I would say. For both of us," said the man.
Lily stared at the mirror in shock. The man had swapped her brain into this body - that was crazy, impossible..... Lily saw a strange tag hanging behind her ear. Without thinking she tugged on it. Her skin began to painless peel, slowly at first, then with more speed as she continued to pull. The large flap of skin sagged down off her face, revealing a hard metal chassis underneath.
"Igor! You fool! Didn't I tell you to remove all the tags? And why didn't you use the industrial strength epoxy sealant," said the man crossly. "Sorry about that, dear. If you give me a moment, we can fix that in a jiffy..."
Lily whirled around at remarkable speed and grabbed a hold of the man by his collar. She lifted him up with surprising strength. He felt so light in her hands.
"What have you done to me?! Where is my body?" she practically screamed in a metallic screech.
"Easy, easy. It's perfectly safe, I assure you. We are taking good care of it. Just calm down," said the man, pointing to another corner of the lab.
Lily turned and saw her old body laying on another table, hooked up to several machines. She could see with some relief that the machines were helping it to breathe, so it must have still been alive. But that did little to quell her anger.
"Change me back! Right now!" she yelled, still in her French accent.
"I am afraid it is not that simple," said the man, furiously nodding his head and trying to signal for help from Igor. "You see, the process is quite complicated and it takes time for the body to recover from the transfer. It might be dangerous to try to reverse it prematurely...."
Lily felt a light pressure and her arm. She looked down and saw the hunchback pushing a button on her wrist. Her head felt strange, thoughts and ideas flashing by at lightening speed. When she recovered she found that she could not move.
Suddenly, Lily's voice began to speak, but she could not control her words.
"Rebooting ......"
"Initialization complete. New user confirmed. Awaiting command...."
"Excellent, Igor. And about time. I thought she might kill me," said the man. "Now that you have calmed down a bit, perhaps we can have a reasonable discussion. I meant you no harm. It's just well..... my robots have been acting a bit screwy. They follow commands but lack common sense. So I decided to give them a little help from a human brain - yours. Don't worry - this is just temporary. As soon as the computer learns a few basic reasoning skills from you, I will transfer your consciousness back to your old body. That is, if you want me to do so. I mean, your old body is nice, but I daresay this one is quite an improvement. I would be happy to let you keep it as compensation after the experiment is over. So, what do you say? Do we have a deal?"
"Do I have a choice?" asked Lily.
"Not really, " said the man. "Maid, begin cleaning procedure alpha..."
"Error... user not recognized..." said Lily mechanically.
"Oh drat! I guess it imprinted you as its new user, Igor. Oh well. No use resetting it again. If you would be so kind..." said the man.
"Maid, begin cleaning procedure alpha...." hissed Igor, some drool leaking from his mouth.
Lily dropped to her knees and began scrubbing the floor using a nearby bucket and sponge. The bucket was dry, so her cleaning was useless. It took some effort, but she forced her body to fill up the bucket with water. She tried to resist returning to her cleaning duties, but it was useless. Her legs dropped out from under her. When she relaxed and allowed her body to automatically clean, it began to move faster and more freely. Even after the floor was clean, her body continued to scrub the floor. It was beginning to wear through the stone floor. She eventually convinced her body to move to a new spot and resumed cleaning.
"See! It's working perfectly! With your help we will have all the bugs worked out in no time. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some pressing work to do. My investors will be thrilled with the news of my progress. I will leave you in the capable hands of Igor until I return," said the man as he left the room whistling a merry tune.
Igor smiled as he continued to watch Lily work.