The New Rules
The fight with Sol-Ah left both Julian and Eliza totally drained and broken inside. They had successfully sold the lie to the staff, but only by crushing a teacup and proving to their enemy that "Julian" was unstable. The CEO's body was too much weight. It settled hard on Eliza as she moved through the huge, echoing master suite. The suite was the size of a small apartment. It felt less like a safe place and more like an expensive prison built just to show off her problems.
"We need rules for operating," Eliza finally stated, leaning against the cold, smooth marble of the fireplace. Her deep voice carried authority, but the slight shaking in her hand showed the lingering shock from the teacup incident. She felt the massive muscles of the CEO's arm twitch with the memory of the uncontrolled force.
"Until we reach the main Link Terminal, we keep absolute distance. No shared spaces, no touching. We are assets that must be managed." She used Julian's own cold, corporate language to keep her fear down. "You take the right side of the bed. I take the left."
Julian, perched on the edge of the enormous king bed, adjusted the delicate silk of Eliza's dress. The silk felt slippery and weak. He had never been a man who sat delicately. His default posture, learned from years of sitting in charge of boardrooms, was always wide and commanding.
Without thinking, he spread his legs apart, trying to find the familiar anchor point of his center of gravity. The truth hit him fast—like a cold slap: he was sitting with his legs wide open in a fancy dress. The sheer, embarrassing joke of it sent heat across his face, and he snapped his knees together with a sudden, painful jerk. His face was bright red. This is a totally unacceptable move, his boss-mind screamed. I am a spectacle.
The Restroom Disaster
Eliza stared at the display of gender confusion, biting back a laugh that would shatter her CEO façade. The corners of Julian's mouth, currently her mouth, tugged down hard to fight the smile. "Rule number three," she continued, her voice tight with controlled amusement, "no sharing of personal facilities. Ever. Muscle memory is proving to be unreliable." She watched his red face and allowed herself a small, silent moment of satisfaction.
Julian grunted, his pride wounded. The comment cut deeper than any corporate failure. He excused himself, heading toward the master bathroom.
He spent five tense minutes inside. He was trying to figure out the simple mechanics of the new body. He found that all of his male instincts fought every ingrained movement the female body was used to. He kept grabbing things too high or too hard. He felt like a toddler operating a complex machine.
It was a total mess, a humiliating proof that Eliza was right. He emerged, stiff with shame, leaning hard on the doorframe. The simple act of washing his hands had taken painful concentration.
"This is not good for spying," he muttered, running a hand through Eliza's thick, dark hair. The sensation of the hair, light and soft, felt foreign and unnerving. "I nearly triggered a panic alarm trying to… secure my attire. The simple mechanics of operating this frame are a security risk. I am spending executive time performing basic maintenance on a flawed chassis."
Eliza rolled Julian's eyes. "Welcome to my world, Julian. Now focus."
Too Close, Too Painful
As the fast energy from the escape went away, the Link Pain started. It was a low, aching throb deep in the center of their chests, a constant reminder of the rope connecting their souls. The pain got sharply worse when they were more than ten feet apart. If Julian walked near the closet, Eliza felt a spike. If Eliza moved toward the door, Julian flinched. The pain spiked whenever the other person experienced high emotional distress, meaning they couldn't even feel safe being angry at each other.
Eliza winced, clutching Julian's shoulder (her own shoulder) as she paced. The large shoulder was now tense and aching. "We have to figure out a safe zone." She moved closer, hesitantly laying a heavy hand on Julian's back. The skin beneath the silk felt warm and unfamiliar. The pain immediately dampened, easing from a throbbing ache to a dull buzz. "Physical contact. It dampens the feedback loop."
"The proximity is unbearable," Julian hissed, the softness of Eliza's voice making the complaint sound petulant (like a spoiled child). He fought the urge to push the large hand away. He hated being touched. "But the alternative is total incapacitation."
He realized the terrifying truth: they were not just bound by the swap; they were biologically dependent on each other's touch to manage the pain. They were hostages to closeness.
That night, separated by a thin line of blankets, the pain was too much. It was a cold, steady, non-stop ache that kept them both staring wide-eyed at the dark ceiling. Julian, in the small body, felt the pain worse—it seemed bigger in the smaller frame. Finally, with a low sigh of defeat, Julian shuffled across the blanket divide.
They eventually, reluctantly, drifted toward the center of the bed, falling asleep only when they were shoulder-to-shoulder, the Link humming quietly between them. The contact was not comforting, just necessary.
The Ancestral Cache
The following morning, after an agonizingly intimate night, the pain was manageable, but the urgency of their mission was most important. They needed the Ancestral Micro-Drive. They needed real data.
Julian (as Eliza) used his knowledge of the CEO's paranoid hiding places. He directed Eliza (as CEO) to the large antique globe near the library entrance. Julian, however, knew the CEO's hiding spots were decoys. The real cache location was not the globe, but the simple, unremarkable wooden chest Eliza had brought back from her last successful field operation. It was now stored haphazardly in the closet, hidden in plain sight.
Eliza (as CEO) had to bend down awkwardly to reach the chest, the large body protesting the tight angle. Julian retrieved the chest and used a complex, old Syndicate cipher—the exact one Eliza had taught him years ago—to unlock it. It was a small, private moment of shared history, a single skill they both intimately knew.
Inside, nestled beneath old field gear, was a tiny, titanium flash drive. It wasn't encrypted by Julian's corporate security; it was protected by Eliza's operative training. On the drive was a single, immense file: the Ancestral Micro-Drive. It contained the true history of the Titan Bloodline Debt and the exact coordinates of the first Ancestral Link Terminal. The search for the "Big Black Rock" was officially over.