Jump-Chan lead me through the back door of the office, and this time both of us stepped on the jump pad, no prep this time. We both appeared in a massive warehouse (massive even for me, and I’ve been inside aircraft hangars), and I noticed that I no longer looked like I stepped straight out of the Pokemon universe.
In front of us was another prep screen like the one in the jump pad room.
“What’s this place?”
“It’s the Cosmic Warehouse, home to any equipment you may pick up on your travels,” Jump-Chan replied, handing me a key. “It can be accessed simply by inserting this key into any door with a lock. Now, why don’t you do some redecorating while I ensure the safe transfer of your motorcycle into the facility? I trust that anything else you may have is small enough to place yourself.”
I looked at the screen. There were a few different options, and I had been allotted 150 choice points to spend on them. I immediately punched in the basic utilities—power, plumbing, HVAC, and internet—before scrolling down the list. Took the shelves (they were free, why the hell not), then looked at my remaining budget of 90 points. A house, a workshop, and a medbay would probably be pretty useful if I ever needed to hole up somewhere, and if I found myself in a universe where basically the only way to have a home base outside the warehouse was to spend money, it’d definitely keep me from having to spend half my jump trying to make rent. I went ahead and dropped the 50 points, leaving me with 40. I considered taking a return and a stasis pod, but essentials were more important than just tricking the place out right now, so I chose the food supply and the portal. I couldn’t afford to be cut off from the place because I’d somehow ended up in a universe where doors didn’t exist.
A notif buzz from one of my mobile games told me my phone was working again, and that somehow this world between worlds had cell service. Cool. I set a couple Spotify playlists to download while I went to check out what had suddenly appeared in the corner. Jump-Chan was standing next to what looked like an Autodoc from Fallout. “I took the liberty of preparing a body modification chamber,” she said. “We offer them to all of our Jumpers.”
I literally could not get the door open fast enough. Finally, all my trans dreams were coming true.
The prep screen inside the chamber first gave me a choice of which menu I wanted: Simple or Advanced. Advanced gave me more points, and I was about to go hog fucking wild.
The first screen had a set of categories labeled Sex, Proportions, Hair, Color, and Extra Bits. One thousand CP was way too much power to give me.
There was also an “Anomalous” menu, and I had to take a gander at that one first. Seemed like a baked-in Flaw menu that stuck with me forever. I honestly kind of wanted to be weird and unsettling, so I picked the unease-inducing option for an extra 200. Now I had a budget of 200 that could only be spent here. Hog wild fuel increased.
I checked out the Sex option first. I saw binary male/female for free, and didn’t read the entire 50 CP options menu, just immediately smashed it when I saw the “no genitals” option and adjusted the sliders to reflect my choice. A little 3D model of me appeared on screen. It was wearing undies but I noticed it no longer had nipples. Fuck yeah.
Proportions was next. GOD was the opportunity to have elf ears tempting. I went ahead and chose the 50 CP option, shifted a few sliders around until I was a suitably ambiguous but, in my opinion, very hot, humanoid with pointy ears.
I left the free option on hair. No body hair, leave my head hair as-is.
Next was Color. 50 CP. Purple hair, paler skin with the barest gray tint, just enough to make me look a little like a corpse. My eyes stayed blue, though. I considered black scleras but the options I’d chosen thus far made me look too much like my Oblivion character as it was.
Extra Bits was the last menu on this screen. I had 50 points left that were JUST for this section, and to be frank this menu had so many tabs that I wasn’t willing to spend any more than that. I tapped the Natural Weapons option and gave myself fangs and claws. I adjusted their length with the sliders, then moved on.
The next screen gave me a list of Affinities that gave discounts for things called “Augments”. Didn’t know exactly what those were but the descriptions hinted that they sounded a little like skills in an RPG. I pored over the options for a little bit, before deciding to use my smart-stupid (or stupid-smart) tendencies to my advantage and choosing Mind.
The screen automatically clicked over to the Augments menu and holy SHIT that’s a lot of options. I counted fifteen, and ran some numbers in my head, and…I could take a level in all of them with the Mind discounts and only burn half my allowance. Nice. I tapped through all fifteen buttons. There were higher levels, and I could comfortably afford them, but I wasn’t really interested in being superhuman or flawless. I just wanted to be functional. I’d never even been functional, so it felt superhuman just to be immune to the horrible procrastination demon or to not constantly be so tired but unable to sleep.
After picking the Fertility augment, I grinned. I don’t know if it’s even necessary to erase both my fertility and my genitals, but hey, shit happens.
Next was the Powers tab. I had 400 CP left, and I was ready to go hog wild.
First, I had to pick Alt-Form Shift. It was too convenient, and completely free. Next was Variable Form. I probably did not need to blow 300 CP on an ability to indulge my fickleness, but you know how it is.
I glanced at the description for Ascension, and considered passing it up to be able to afford Agelessness and Regeneration…but if I was able to beef up my Resilience I wouldn’t need Regeneration, I guess. Also, the notion of never aging past 23 while everyone else I knew grew up around me was horrifying when I actually thought about it. I figured that since I’d at least been able to effectively make up for the drawbacks that kept me from achieving this sort of thing in real life, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to pump some iron every now and then. So I took Ascension.
To burn my last 100 points, I took Waste Not and Want Not. Eat whatever I want without my body staging a revolt and take away the greatest tool for a hypothetical physiological revolt. Nice. I finished off by choosing the shirt incentive and Solid Foundation to make any later instances of iron-pumping work a little more efficiently.
I hit the final confirm button and the machine put me under. I have no idea what exactly it did to get me to my particular sculpt level, but I woke up on the couch in my little house within a warehouse with my Pokemon wandering around, and my form looked exactly as I’d planned it to.
I left my house, Palmer still following dutifully in my footsteps and the other Pokemon gravitating toward me, toward the door out of the warehouse. I opened it, and, unsurprisingly, there was the room with the jump pad. Jump-Chan was nowhere to be seen, but there was an initialization menu on the prep screen. This time, the pixel sprite was replaced with a 3D model similar to a character creator in a more modern video game, but the inventory screen remained the same.
I tapped the “Begin Initialization” button, and the screen changed to another set of reels, with the option to spin the reels or select a city. I vaguely remembered Jump-Chan telling me that my next stop was the Infamous universe. Great. I had no experience with that other than reading an article about it in GameInformer before the first one came out. I hit the random button, and the reels stopped on Houston, which the description helpfully informed me was the hotbed of the anti-Conduit movement. So I was probably hosed. Cool. “I don’t even like Houston normally!” I shouted toward the door, hoping maybe Jump-Chan would have mercy and re-spin the reels. She did not, and I accepted my fate and moved on.
The next reel told me my age. I was to be 18 years old, which was also not ideal, because the only people who actually think 18-year-olds are fully-fledged adults are pervs and 18-year-olds.
I chose the Drifter background, because it was free and if I was supposed to keep myself alive in Houston I wasn’t going to fucking waste my points on anything that might prevent me from being able to stay alive in Houston.
I looked over the powers available, and, although Video and Neon were extremely aesthetic, I couldn’t reliably count on always having access to a video screen or a neon light. Concrete, on the other hand…that’s the ticket. In a city, you’re basically always touching concrete, and being able to generate my own cover was probably going to save my bacon a lot.
I continued on to the Additional Powers screen. Strength was free. Couldn’t hurt to be stronger, I guess. Also since I was a concrete Conduit it was nice and thematic. I hadn’t spent a single choice point, so I immediately went with Regen. The description told me it wasn’t full Deadpool, but I would probably be dealing with guns more often than bombs. Toggle, which allowed me to turn my powers on and off would probably be an important survival mechanism. Can’t get caught having superpowers if you only have superpowers when you need them. Also, it was half off. I love a good bargain. Everything else seemed way too pricy for me at the moment, so I moved on to the next page, which, as I expected, was an item shop. At this point, I had 750 points left.
I mentally crossed out the stuff I already had. The bag was basically the same one I’d gotten from my stay in the Pokemon world, I already had a Rebreather, and some of the other stuff…
“Hey, Jump-Chan?” I called toward the door.
“Yes?” came her voice from behind me.
“If I buy the bike and the laptop, will I get another one or does it just apply the features listed to the ones I already have? Or are they just automatically applied because I have them already?”
“Well,” Jump-Chan answered, “that depends. You can use the versions you have already for free, you can add on the features from the gear shop for full unit price, or you can replace the features on the ones you have with the ones the gear shop offers for half price; for example, your laptop will run on battery power instead of solar power, should you take the gear shop laptop.”
“Cool. Thanks. Please appear within my field of vision next time instead of scaring the shit out of me,” I said.
“I can’t promise that,” Jump-Chan replied, and left the room.
I shrugged and continued. I took the discount on the bike; I didn’t need a bike that ran on more than one fuel type, and Conduit power was way cheaper than gas. The laptop I paid full price for; I expected to spend a LOT of time on the run, and not having to rely on keeping track of outlets was a definite bonus. I grabbed the Safe House, too, because why say no to a freebie? I still had 500 points to spend, so I took the liberty of arming myself to the teeth, with a conductor weapon (I chose my baton), a crossbow, and a pistol. That left me with 100 points left. I considered the body armor, but my regen kind of made that redundant. Instead, I picked the hardened cell phone. Suddenly the phone in my hoodie pocket felt a lot heavier.
I took a glance at the Pokemon behind me, and decided to recall them into their balls. Couldn’t hurt to have reinforcements. I also, before hitting the final confirmation button, slipped back into the warehouse and rolled my bike into the room. Then, I hit the final confirmation button, and stepped onto the jump pad.
Next: Gangsters Don’t Cry
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Jumplog 
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