“Oh, don’t worry so much. Light is a plenty-skilled pilot; we’ll be fine. Jess wouldn’t be sending us if it was too risky. Besides, she’s coming too, so if it was, her ass would be on the line too.” Senjen shrugged. He finished up with her feathers as best as he could. He was no professional avian stylist, but he could get her to be neat and presentable, at least. “We will be gone a few days, I think, with the travel time and everything, but when we get back, the drinks are on me.” 

[hr]

Once they made it back to the Myrmidon office, it did not take long for Senjen and Light to receive the attention of some familiar faces. While Light was returning his borrowed suit, Senjen sat down with Ferrow once more to iron out the details of the contract. He knew from going over the contract with Jess what aspects of the offers he did and did not want to accept, so Ferrow would probably find him to be reasonably prepared, at least compared to the average customer off the street. What Senjen questioned him on in particular was the content creator program, as he wanted to know the specifics of what kind of briefs he would be receiving. He needed to know not only that he would be able to actually reasonably fulfill each brief that came, but that he would be able to fulfill those obligations while keeping his...business outside the FGC a secret. He, of course, did not ask directly, but by the end of it he had a better idea of what they would be expecting from him. The contract evidently guaranteed that the briefs needed to be “reasonable” to complete in his line of work, which was at least a bit reassuring. If there was one kind of law that Korit did enforce, it was contract law. 

Ultimately, Senjen decided to accept the offer on the program, along with the other decisions he had made with Jess before. He signed the contract and made the deposit. He would receive his first brief in the next month, so for now all there was left was to receive the new frame. 

Preparing a computer to receive a Utaysi personality matrix was a process that required some time and  specialized knowledge, but Myrmidon was more than capable of it. With the frame prepared, the actual transfer itself was fairly simple and straightforward. Light went in with Senjen to watch the transfer. The new frame was laid out on a table, with a direct, physical connection to another table just beside. Senjen laid down and hooked in his own frame, and from there, Myrmidon’s job was done. The actual algorithms for matrix transfer were not something that were known, even to the Utaysi themselves, as they were contained within the personality matrix itself. The process was something close to an “instinct” for him. His personality matrix detected a valid matrix container in the same network, scanned it to test for compatibility, then offered him the choice to proceed with the transfer. To anyone observing, it took less than a minute. For Senjen, it was even faster. His senses shut down and he lost awareness for just a moment, then suddenly his vision was booting up again...sharper than before. 

Senjen opened his eyes, blinking a few times. Eyelids may have served little function to them, but it was an instinct that felt natural. He lifted up a hand and looked down upon it, then started articulating each digit in turn.