"What if you had a doll body?" Jeff asked. "Do you have any dolls, from when you were younger?"
"I don't want to be a doll!"
"But you could transform the doll. Make it life size. And more human-like."
"OK. Worth a try, I guess. Better a crappy body than none at all, I suppose. There should be some dolls in my closet, if you don't mind looking."
"Be right back," Jeff said, and went to her room. A few minutes later he returned with a doll, about a foot tall, with nice hair and clothes. "Here, give it a try." He set the doll on his bed.
"OK. I'll remove the user block and transfer myself into the doll." A transformation window appeared on the screen, then disappeared. The program closed. Where previously there had been the Anya icon, for the combined Anya/Chronivac program, now there was neither.
On Jeff's bed, he saw the doll struggle to sit up. It tried unsuccessfully to stand. As he watched, the doll made awkward gestures to Jeff. He wasn't sure what it wanted. It continued to gesture, then held both of its arms out to him. "Can you hear me?" he asked. It nodded its head. "Can you speak?" It reached its arms toward him again. "You want me to pick you up?" Emphatic nod.
He picked up the doll. It had only very crude joints for its arms and legs. No wonder it had som much trouble sitting up. "Can't you change your body to make it more useful?" The doll shook its head. It moved its arms, and Jeff had a hard time understanding what it was trying to do. Finally he got the idea that it was trying to call attention to its back. He turned the doll around, and noticed that it had a pull-cord. He pulled it.
"Thank you Jeff. I can't trans..." it said, then he had to pull the cord again. "...form myself now. I need..." Jeff thought of how delighted he would have been just a few days ago, to have seen his sister turned into a tiny doll that could barely move, and could only talk when someone pulled her cord. Immediately ashamed of himself, he banished the thought, and pulled her cord again. "... you to undress..."
She wanted him to undress? What the hell? He was so shaken at the idea that he dropped the doll. He shook his head violently, and said, "No fucking way."
When he calmed down a bit, and looked at the doll, it was trying to gesture at its pull-cord again. He picked it up, some disgust evident on his face, and pulled the cord. "... me and connect the emitter."
"Oh. Sorry for jumping to conclusions!" he apologized, though he wasn't thrilled about undressing the doll either. Though he knew that it would have no 'naughty bits'. He picked up the doll again, and carefully removed its clothing, leaving a somewhat stylized, though poorly proportioned, human female form. He inspected it, and found in its lower back, a USB port.
He unplugged the Chronivac emitter from the desktop computer, and plugged it into the doll. Almost immediately, the doll's pull chain disappeared, and it spoke. "Thank you. I planned that poorly; I should have warned you that I would need the emitter, and I should have made other changes to this doll body _before_ transferring myself into it. Now you'd better set me down." He placed the doll back on the bed.
The doll started growing in size, until it was about Anya's original size. More joints appeared in the limbs, and all of the joints became more complex and lifelike. The facial features shifted, to resemble Anya's face. She stood up, and looked at her torso. "I can fill in some more details later," she said. She reached to her back, and felt the Chronivac emitter plugged in there. He could see that she was considering what to do about it. He saw a rectangular outline form on her belly, then it swung open, revealing an inner compartment with a USB port. She unplugged the emitter from her back, shoved it into her belly compartment, plugging it in, then closed the compartment. The outline disappeared, as did the USB port on her back.
Anya looked at the doll clothes on the bed, shook her head, and said, "Pardon me for a minute, while I go get dressed."
He sat down at his desk, and pondered everything that had just happened. He no longer had a Chronivac. He no longer had a sister. At least, not a human sister. But maybe he had a friend. Who _was_ a Chronivac.