18

  I abandoned the body for a while each night, to go and be with Martina. “You’re connected to the Internet in there,” she told me the second night. “Show me the body you’re in, when you go back. I’ve already asked you for this before.”

  It was just a body for training purposes, to undoubtedly be dumped for another when I was ready to move out into the world. It would probably be kept in the training loop at the rehab center, in a perpetual role of training body. It probably would not matter how wasted the body became, and how useless for regular life, as it would be only kept alive to teach integration to bots. It would probably never become a capable human again, but be kept incapable, so that bots could figure out how to position themselves for the interception of human sensory inputs, and how to send signals out to make parts of it work.

  Since Martina knew that I was not yet in any condition to demonstrate volitional movement, it became just a question of deciding when to link up a camera and show her the body I was in. I had the option of the dormitory and its couple of cameras, but figured the training session in the courtyard would provide the best view, as I would not have to give a view from a relatively distant camera, but would be able to send out a much more action-packed video from Abraham’s headphone camera.

  Telling her and the others to watch, I went live next day at mid-morning, delivering a mix of visual feeds from wall cameras and Abraham’s camera, driving everyone hysterical with laughter.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Well, expectedly, as the hero was a grown-up man in diapers, although I did time it for not very long after entry into the courtyard, showing my guy in fresh T-shirt and new nappy, maybe not even as yet wet. I also sent out general views from the wall cameras, to show them the entire group of ten nappy-clad men on the floor, and ten trainers squatting and kneeling, conducting gentle physical exercises on otherwise inert bodies.

  “Yours is sort of okay,” said the giggling Martina. “But that one at the end of the same row seems to be quite young and nice-looking. Can you give me a close-up?” Every trainer’s headphone camera was equally accessible to me, and I showed her the body she had asked to be shown.

  “Yes, he’s certainly much better than yours. You must try to somehow get hold of him.”

  Wondering what difference it might make, as I could see no benefit in change of body, I nevertheless went and immediately kicked the bot out to take the body for myself.

  It made a huge racket, justifying being murdered for dispossession, but I confessed before it could complain.

  “I have changed my body to the one being handled by trainer Zach,” I informed Abraham, through the headphone system.

  “Why?” asked Abraham, without objecting, failing to spot that I had switched on the microphone, which would never be done by the bots they were training.

  “Mental fatigue,” I answered. “Just a feeling that change of body might give me new perspectives on integration.”

  I was not talking precociously, inviting suspicion. Chatbots talk greater shit.

  “That’s a very good idea,” said Abraham, nodding, telling Zach to make the evicted bot shut up, after which he informed the entire group of trainers, and they discussed it for a minute.

  Deciding it was a great idea, they immediately reassigned themselves, each trainer shifting one body to the side, and making his current bot move into the new one. As all queued up bots would naturally go into the body controlled by their own trainer, it meant that every bot would now train in a new body.

  And the freaked-out bot got back into a body, too.