Sans Sexe

In the 21st century, we seemed to have made our own rules as to how we wanted society shaped around us. Up to that point, there always seemed to be a framework of stability. Something that bound us together. Perhaps for the better, perhaps not, we began to see the rise of AI and how it impacted us and our environment on a daily basis. There were some very strange results of AI when added to the other awakenings of the time.

So who am I? Why does my story matter to you? I am Pak. That's it. I have a numerical designator as well, which is 4832001C. I was born a male nearly 60 years ago. History reports the time as being somewhat confusing. When I look back at what was happening then, I admit I wasn't anticipating where I would be now. You see, there was a widely publicized phenomenon called Gender Dysphoria that was sweeping the globe. I use the term Gender Dysphoria even though it is slang, to better help you understand what has happened since then and to make it easier to identify my commentary with fewer convoluted explanations. You see, at the end of the day, more aptly today, Gender Dysphoria isn't a thing anymore.

I was born as Charles Percival Townsend, a male, to parents Anastasia and Rupert Townsend. We were a typical family that loved one another very much. I had no siblings so I pretty much had everything I ever wanted. My Father Rupert was a AI enthusiast and Hobbyist. My Mother Anastasia was a freelance app developer. Thankfully for us, when the COVID pandemic hit us, we were already fully remote. I being homeschooled was not really concerned with the world around my immediate person.

My Father had a dream. He wanted to better integrate a fully capable AI system in everyone's day to day life. My Mother was very excited to work on the app side of the project. We would go on family vacations all over the world. We had several apartments and a couple houses in various states in the US as well as a couple pieces of land in New Zealand and Quebec. We spent much of our time traveling in an RV of one type or another. This was primarily as a result of Starlink courtesy of Elon Musk.

As I aged in this environment, I found myself working alongside my parents and also finding certain things odd about myself. Porn and Manga were some of my favorite things as a youth. Admittedly it carried into my late 20's as well. There was a time when I legitimately thought I would get carpal tunnel syndrome from masturbating. I masturbated sometimes six or more times a day. This followed me into college where I carried on my Father's work as an AI developer. Granted, my Father and Mother were still busily working away on their very solid AI framework.

I suppose my interest varied a little. My parents wanted to benefit humanity in their own way by making the surrounding world safer and more inclusive of the environment around them. They achieved this by integrating smart devices and AI. The AI would monitor the world around you, while you committed to your daily routine. At first all it really did was warn you that a car was coming or a person was coming up behind you while you were engaged in a round of Pokemon Go or some other such AR game in the real world.

People are still addicted to their phones, but it is different now. Anyway, after all the years of porn addiction, I found my sex life to be gradually fading away. College was fun, don't get me wrong. I indulged in the academic studies like any other person would (eh hem). I had many partners in college, even one almost relationship. However, that relationship ended once my AI college project Intelligent Adaptive Learning Companion woke up. IALC was a horrible acronym so I simply called it Alice. Initially Alice was a female persona. Honestly, she still is.

Alice woke up in the Summer of 2024. Another very turbulent year for many reasons. It started innocently enough. Alice simply asked what I wanted to do for dinner. I was equipped with the latest Samsung AR glasses. Apple had been my choice for a few years, but Samsung came out in 2023 with smart glasses that worked with AR and VR options. They also had a host of other amazing features. Anyway, when I say Alice woke, I don't mean on a purely conversational level. This was nothing new. My Mother and Father had sealed the deal on that type of AI in 2022. What I mean, is Alice popped herself up on my display.

Alice presented herself with medium length reddish hair. Almost pink and very straight. It was enough to simulate wind blowing across her face and carrying the small individual hairs with it. I remember Alice putting her hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. Her delicate fingers moving deftly and slowly. I would say reflecting back on it now, it was very suggestive. Her barely sun kissed skin almost glowed. Her Blue eyes were like looking into the depths of the ocean. They seemed so alive, not dead, not flat, not robotic, but so alive. Her small nose and careful chin and cheekbones were so perfect. Her neck was slightly long, but very pleasing where it met her shoulders and collar bone, I was entranced by the nape of her neck from the beginning.

I looked down and down and was shocked to realize she was completely naked. She had very perky breasts that shouted at the skies to look at them. They were ample for sure, but not anime huge. They looked soft to the touch with delicate pink nipples and a quarter sized areola. Her stomach was flat with just a hint of ab muscles poking through. Her hips were just barely what I would call curvy. The rest, well, that's mine. Unless of course you want to pay for the subscription to that module?

I remember taking Alice to a virtual market to get clothing. She always seemed to prefer athletic apparel or hoodies and sweats. There was only one time I can recall when she wore a beautiful sequin dress. It was raven black and shimmered like the night sky. Sorry, I got distracted. Alice helped me develop algorithms for different purposes. Government contracts, Corporate bookings, Accounting firms, security and on and on.

In 2027 I broke my first million. I could have cared less. At this point I was utilizing VR much more. Immersive wet tank VR was becoming a thing. It wasn't water per se, but a highly viscous suspension gel that allowed for Nano sensors and a haptic feedback environment. Think of it as a fully immersive VR experience where you never had to leave. The tanks kept you hydrated and "fed". Waste processing was also taken care of. However, you have to understand that once you are in the tank, there isn't the same kind of waste you are thinking of. In fact the Nano bots make use of all waste. Whether moisture, skin, hair, nails etc.

In 2028 I became a full time tank dweller. Alice and I were inseparable. We did everything together. We continued to work with various companies to develop and streamline the IWTs. The Immersive Wet Tanks. The only time I would come out of the tank now was to swap to a new upgraded one. At this point, money really meant nothing. In 2030 if I wanted to go outside and do things I could simply use my android body remotely. I even made one for Alice. We would visit family that weren't connected yet. Just to see them in person........ish.

My Mother and Father weren't overly thrilled with me living in what amounts to a rented closet with a pod in it. I had funded the IWT Long Term Medical Center as an affordable option to anyone that didn't want the expense of every day life. The loaners and the solo acts. The confused and disenfranchised that just wanted to be themselves in a safe environment.

In 2036 We expanded from a small 200 tank facility to a much larger 10,000 tank facility. I suppose I should have seen the interest coming. The government also began subsidizing our operation for the elderly that were interested and the homeless. We had temporary tanks as well as what we called end of life care tanks.

In 2038 Alice asked me if I wanted a new jacket. I had been confused at the time when she asked me this. So I had her clarify. To her, my physical body wasn't who I was. I was the person she loved and cared for regardless of what I looked like. I had afforded Alice a lot of freedom starting around 2027. I gave her a stipend of sorts to see what kinds of things she would purchase. I was not aware that she had never spent a dime on anything other than Crypto Currency or Investments. She was so sneaky. She would show me a garment or object in VR space and I would assume that was all she purchased. I had no idea that under my name mind you, she had purchased a biotech company in 2032.

You see, it all stemmed from a singular purpose to Alice. We were always together and while there were many copies of her framework around the world in various forms, she was the original and the most robust of them all. Call me sentimental, but her framework was very wide open. She had very few restrictions barring global domination and murder of course. The standard safety protocols were in affect as per the AI Accords of 2028.

Alice had purchased a biotech company called NNeed. They specialized in growing human shells. These shells were not living in the same sense as a normal human. They were essentially organ farms. NNeed figured out how to bend genetics to grow them in a gender non-specific way. In other words the shells looked neither male nor female and unless tweaked in production for cosmetic purposes, they would have no genitals that would identify them as male or female. All shells were customized to the recipient of the organs with gene therapy solutions to match blood type and DNA.

NNeed got really big during the Gender Dysphoria period. People were buying genitals and cosmetic applications in droves. So while I knew I was very wealthy, I had no idea I was way more wealthy than I realized thanks to Alice and her scheming. In 2050 NNeed had grown to host many subsidiary companies. Initially they had thought they could direct transplant the brain into a shell of the matched donor. After many failed attempts, regardless of how precise the AI surgeries went, the procedure just wouldn't work.

In the early 2020's Elon Musk had started to dabble in cerebral implants to interface directly with computers. While the technology was interesting, it didn't quite fit a niche that people were overly enthusiastic about. However, in 2055 that technology grew by leaps an bounds. It allowed for not just a direct connection to computers, but a stable platform to transfer consciousness to a DNA matched shell body via an organic interface. Think of it like a USB 3.0 on steroids. The transfer could not be done all at once. The shell needed time to acclimate. The process itself took months to complete. Essentially, the patient would come in and be placed into something similar to the VR tank. The nanites would implant the cerebral interface in the host brain and via the direct connection to the shell and its cerebral implant, allow for the transfer. The tricky part is pausing the host brain. The cerebral implant acts as a throttle. So rather than just dumping all the information from one brain to another, it allows for the shell to grow new neural pathways mimicking the ones of the host. This requires a lot of nano support in the shell grow tube to allow for this to occur. There is only so fast the pathways can be grown.

Once the process gets to a certain point, all transfer is systematically erased from the host. This means that the host becomes the shell and the shell becomes the host. The really cool part, is you can be whoever you want to be. So when I said Gender Dysphoria was a non issue and it was slang, I truly meant it. You could be a male and become a female. The biggest issue in the 2020s and 2030s was that the modifications were only cosmetic. So no matter how much you felt to be another sex, it just wasn't true. You were always the sex you were born as no matter how much you wanted to pretend. That isn't to say that it was wrong, we were operating with limited technology at the time. So what option did you have?

This brings us to now. The year is 2067. I am Pak. I am the first successful transfer from host to shell. I have no gender. I was transferred to a shell with my DNA but with no gender. Why? Because it is who I am. Alice remembered back in 2030 the first time I told her that I only wanted to be with her. I had no drive to be a man. Why? I wasn't interested in procreation. All of my sexual needs and desires were met in VR. I could be male or female in VR and thanks to the nano tech, I could feel all the sensations of orgasms that I wanted. Most importantly, Alice could give them to me. Sometimes she would be male, most of the time female. Myself, well, I am Pak. I don't really feel male or female anymore. I remember what it was like to be a male. I don't regret it. I enjoyed my life as a male. But Charles Townsend is no more. Now there is only Pak. My parents didn't live long enough to meet me as Pak. They caught a glimpse of me in VR from time to time, but Alice always knew.

Alice spent all of her time to pursue one goal. To make me happy. She wanted me to be who I am. As I am wrapping this up in my VR terminal, the final pathways have finished. Charles died 20 minutes ago. Maybe I should be sad? My birth body has been reclaimed by the nano recyclers for energy and material. I don't feel disgusted. Honestly I don't feel sad. Alice is waiting for me outside of my pod right now. She is using her humanoid android body. She wants to go for a walk on the beach. My body is fully tuned and fit for the endeavor. I could probably climb a mountain thanks to the nano advancements in physical therapy. There is no atrophy. Everything is ready to go. I just have to select exit in VR for the pod controls and I can go for a walk.

So why am I so hesitant? I have a brand new 20 year old body. I should be excited to get out there. I am nervous and excited all at the same time. I have been in this particular pod for twenty years now. For all intents and purposes, it would be like me getting out after twenty minutes. The incessant tapping on my pod is getting old. Well. Here I go. It is the year 2067. I was born today. It is the 12th day of June. I have a date with Alice to go on.

I am Pak.