"Unfortunately, they passed away in an automobile accident. Luckily the Core took an interest in you and brought you in," a woman in a dark suit tells you as you sit numbly on a cot in a minimalistic room. You are not sure what is going on. One minute you had been taken to social services because you were suddenly an orphan, the next some people in suits showed up and took you away. They must have had the paperwork for it, because no one stopped them, and you were still in too much shock to resist.
You were only a 10-year-old girl, and you didn't understand why those people were talking about a "promising candidate" or a "test subject" or "guardianship." All you knew was that you were probably never going home again.
After about a month, during which you were seen by several doctors, given multiple nutritional supplements that tasted like slop, and treated basically like an inmate, your routine finally changed. Unfortunately, it was not a good change.
You woke to find yourself strapped to a chair in a room with multiple people observing you through a glass window, while other people dressed in clean-room suits made themselves busy with all sorts of medical equipment. Through the speaker, you could catch parts of the conversation of the people outside, although it currently made no sense to you.
"Utilizing the fertility clinic with modified zygotes has yielded the most promising results thus far. It also allows us to monitor candidates without being financially responsible for their early care. The test subject you are about to see was cultivated using genetic markers from some of our most successful attempts," An old man in a suit and tie on the other side of the window was explaining to the other people in the room, none of which you could clearly make out due to the shadowy lighting on the other side of the glass, while you were under bright lights. You also didn't understand what the man was talking about, but it was making you nervous.
Suddenly, before you could figure out what was going on, one of the medical personnel in the room turned to you and inserted a large needle into your arm.
"What...what are you doing?" you ask, scared, but receive no response.
"The stimulant has now been applied, and should take a few minutes to circulate throughout the bloodstream," the old man continued.
You didn't understand anything, but you were getting scared. You just wanted to get out of there, and you were feeling weird. If you weren't just a kid, they couldn't do this to you. If you were bigger, they couldn't treat you like this...if you were bigger...
As you pulled against the restraints, suddenly your body began to enlarge and grow more muscular. There were no mirrors in the room, and you were too frantic to notice what was happening, but you felt a sudden surge of strength.
"Aaaah!" you cried out as you tried to free yourself, and suddenly the belt across one of your legs snapped. Before you could try to free your other limbs, a quick-thinking medic shoved another needle into your arm, and you began to feel fuzzy. Before you dropped off, you could hear the old man still talking.
"As you can see, the experiment has been a success. Of course, it will take some time to see if our Imposter will perform adequately, but given the demonstration...
***
Over time, you come to understand that you are different from normal people. Given enough information, you can become other people. You would not have their memories, but you could quickly deduce everything about them from the information provided, learn their skills with minimal effort, and, most terrifying of all, take on their forms. The code-name for what you were was an "Imposter." Because of this, you were being held by the Core, which studied your skills and taught you how to use them in simulations. Your handlers would tell you they needed to know how a certain person would react in a given situation, provide you with information on the person, and you would literally become the person to handle the simulation: a 45-year-old male janitor, a 23-year-old female politician, even a 70-year-old businessman. You did not know if there were many others like you, but sometimes you would be allowed to interact with others within the facility in a joint simulation. You were told that your efforts were being used to make the world a better place.
What the Core did not realize, was that in the 10 years they held you in their facility, you were carefully learning about your captors. Measures had been taken so that you could not become one of the people you interacted with on a regular basis, but there were always weak spots in every system. At first you simply wanted a little freedom, but something you learned gave you more urgency. The Core had not simply taken you in when your parents died, they had engineered the accident. It was a result of actions suggested by an older simulation, one which was intended to bring you into the Core in such a way that you would not resist.
Furious, at 20 years of age, you put your plans into action, and one fortuitous night, you change into an air-conditioner repairman, a security guard, and an IT worker (after knocking out each one during the process and taking their outfits) and manage to make it out of the Core facility.
You are now on the run, vowing to find a way to thwart the Core's actions. Considering the way the Core behaved, you were certain your simulations were not used to make the world a better place, but probably to harm people. While exploring the world you have suddenly re-entered after 10 years, you are determined to use your abilities to finally help people while figuring out who was behind the Core. Your first little escapade in the free world is as...