Model Citizen

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Alex brought a hand to his face and fingered the tiny scar behind his ear where the tiny device whirred away. It was one of the few things the mesh allowed him to do by himself – one of the few things it trusted him to do. A fleeting moment...and then it ended as quickly as it began and the mesh regained control, stretching his plump pink lips into a smile at the black suited man across the table. The restaurant was full of people but none of them looked at Alex and saw anything but an attractive young woman dining with a well-dressed man. They didn't see the device implanted behind his left ear. They didn't know that it had chosen the sexy red dress he was wearing that evening. They didn't know that it had chosen his tits.

“Oh, I would love to do that with you!” Alex felt the device strumming his vocal chords as it pulled him even deeper into the new life it had created for him.

When Alex had aged out of juvenile detention, he been given a choice – transfer to the big house alongside hundreds of hardened adult criminals, or take part in a new experimental trial where an AI mesh would be implanted in his skull. The device was designed to help calibrate its owners actions and decisions to guide them to being a functioning member of society and reduce their propensity to reoffend. As much as Alex didn't want something like that in his skull, he certainly didn't want to go to prison and so he opted in to the trial. He hadn't made a choice since.

Perhaps the AI was dialled up too high, or maybe it was working as intended in its own flawed way, but it quickly concluded that given the vast majority of crimes were committed by men, the most reliable way to avoid recidivism was to be a women. The mesh immediately started dressing him in feminine clothes and growing his hair out. The trial supervisors dismissed the idea this was due to the device's influence and concluded simply that he was a young man going through an identity change. The mesh next decided that to further drop the risk of re-offence, he needed gainful employment, and not having any qualifications, the easiest way to achieve that was to look and dress sexy – hence the curves, breasts and red dress. Alex quickly got work as a Personal Assistant and the mesh decided he needed a promotion to be truly secure, and the best way to do that was to network with the right people. And that's how we got to tonight, with Alex dressed to the nines and dining with one of the company directors.

“The guys are going to love you,” the man grinned broadly, “you are simply charming.”

.The whirring stopped behind Alex's ear. Relief flooded him realising the device had just turned off. It must have decided its job was done. But then the dread started to build. If went back to being himself, the man opposite him would surely find a reason not to keep him employed. And if he lost his job, surely the trial would be called a failure...and he would go to prison. Alex forced a smile at the man, realising nothing had changed at all.