Unbecoming

Unbecoming
First Page Release Date	2022-05-25
Last Page Release Date	2022-06-22
Previous	Live Fast, Part 2
Next	TBA

"Unbecoming" is the eigth chapter in Pandora's Tale, and the first chapter of Book 2.

Characters Appearing in This Chapter

• Pandora
• Kyndley
• Isabelle Monday (dream only)
• Noor Shah

Synopsis

Book 2 begins with a flashback, as Kyndley witnesses the birth of Pandora, and Kyndley is told not to think of Helpers as people.

One month after the end of the previous book, Pandora recounts a dream she is having to Noor. In the dream, Pandora and Isabelle are at the Helper Corporation facility, except Isabelle is also a helper. Kyndley takes Isabelle away to have her memory erased. Pandora wants to know what the dream means, and Noor tells her that nightmares don't have to mean anything.

As part of a therapy session with Noor, Pandora tells Noor about her time growing up in the Helper Corporation facility. Pandora witnessed a malfunction by one of the VR headsets used to teach Helpers, and Kyndley said that the Helper using the malfunctioning headset is broken.

Pandora tells Noor that she wants to overcome her programming. In particular, Pandora wants to be able to call Isabelle something other than "Mistress," because Isabelle doesn't want to be Pandora's mistress.

In the flashback, Pandora realizes that she doesn't like being a boy, in spite of the fact that other boys seem to like it. Pandora admits to a few other female helpers that she wishes she could be a girl. The other helpers invite her to put on a girl outfit and hang out with them. After getting euphoria when someone calls her a girl, Pandora concludes that she is a girl, leading back to the events of the first chapter.

Back in the present, Pandora asks Noor if her nightmare means that part of her wants to hurt Isabelle. At Noor's prompting, Pandora admits she gets frustrated with Isabelle, and that she wants Isabelle to 'use' Pandora. Pandora feels worthless without being able to fulfill her purpose, and she thinks she is bad for feeling this way. She also notes that the only reason she is fighting her programming is that Isabelle wants her to, and her programming requires her to make Isabelle happy.

Noor says that Pandora's nightmares might be the effects of her programming trying to force her back into compliance. Noor also assures Pandora that she isn't expected to break out of her programming completely over night, and that she expects Pandora will eventually find other reasons to overcome her programming. Noor also prescribes medicine to help Pandora sleep and reduce the nightmares, and Pandora gives Noor a hug.

As the chapter closes, Noor says she is proud of Pandora, and Pandora recalls a happy memory of the friends she made at the training facility.

Trivia

• Chapter Eight is the first chapter in which Veronica does not appear, the first chapter in which Con does not appear, and the first chapter in which Zero does not appear.
  • As a consequence, the number of characters who have appeared in every chapter to date dropped from five to two.
• This is also the first chapter in which Isabelle appears only in an altered form (as a dream Helper).
• Prior to the release of this chapter, readers in the Pandora's Tale Discord server voted for Noor as their favorite character to appear in Book 1. Xan commented that Noor fans should know that Noor would have a big role in Unbecoming.
• This is the second chapter in a row where no new named characters are introduced, but where a previously introduced character's name is revealed.
• The image of Pandora getting hit in the head by a ball is an unintentional reference to [i]Venus Envy[/i] by Crystal Frasier.
• The sound Pandora makes upon first being noticed in the Helper girls' room is the same sound she makes when Adrastea approaches her in the previous chapter.
• The facial expression Pandora makes when she says she gets frustrated with Isabelle is the same facial expression Adrastea made in the previous chapter when she said Eric Michael Fishguard is not a good man.