Mike carefully lowered the syringe into the vial of the precious green liquid. He extracted a few drops before pulling it back out, making sure the excess fell back down. He couldn’t waste a drop of it. He believed he had diluted it enough so a single drop would only detach a single body part but it would still be random.
After extracting the dose he walked over to the medical table where his colleague Jessie waited for him. She laid completely flat with her hands at her side. Mike examined her for more than what was appropriate before looking at the one part he cared about. He would’ve taken her fully apart if he could but then he’d also need to do the same and that’s what got them in this mess in the first place. He still needed to get Jack back for this.
“Ready?” he asked Jessie, who extended out her hand in response. “Try to concentrate on… on my dick, imagine it coming off. It might not do anything but it’s worth a shot.” Mike suggested as he carefully began to squeeze the top of the syringe.
A drop began to form at the tip ready to fall off when the door to the room flung open, surprising Mike. Instead of a single drop he squeezed the rest of the syringe onto Jessie’s skin. In an instant her lips, left leg, right ear, hair and genitals all fell off.
Mike looked at the broken door as Jack stood there out of breath after busting it open. “The door was locked for a reason Jack…” Mike gestured towards Jessie only briefly noticing his partial success.
“Sorry all hands on deck… there’s been an event… a big one…” Jack explained before looking over at Jessie. “Hey it worked… sorta.”
Mike looked at Jessie who was reattaching her leg before looking back at Jack. “How big are we talking? Five… ten people?” He asked Jack, relaxing a little bit as he could at least get his dick back now. Jessie was also listening while also trying to find where her ear and mouth had gone.
“At least a hundred or more… this is a new one… it was raining…” Jack explained. This had caught Mike’s full attention and he got up to go down to the conference room immediately. He didn’t even look back towards Jessie or Jack to see what they were doing.
Jack smiled as Mike ran off down the hall. He hadn’t lied to him but the man had forgotten his dick. Jack picked it up and pocketed it, getting it back wasn’t going to be as easy as Mike had hoped. While he was doing that he spotted Jessie’s lips on the floor as well. She hadn’t spotted them yet and was reaching for her ear instead. “Mind if I hang onto these, say no if you don’t want me to…” Jack teased Jessie, pocketing them as she turned to see what he had. She would’ve yelled at him if she could and she almost ran out of the room after him before recalling she was lacking clothes.
Jack caught up with Mike at the conference room where there was absolute chaos. The projector had a map of the affected area. While people were discussing what was going on. Jessie managed to make it just in time before the department head entered the room. She glared at Jack who gave a mischievous grin. Mike was too busy focusing on the event he didn’t even notice.
“This is the day we’ve been preparing for people, a mass detachment event has occurred. The cause of the event was a single rain cloud which disassembled approximately one hundred victims during the initial event and several more with the left over puddles and saturated belongings of the victims. The CDC has quarantined the area but with slow response times and so many victims we can’t promise everyone can be restored correctly.” The department head explained as he spotted the mouthless Jessie and sighed. “We’re breaking you up into four teams. We need a team to gather more liquid samples, a team to tag and bag the body parts, a team to sort out belongings, and a team of assemblers.”
Mike was so focused on getting to work that he forgot what he was trying to accomplish before the call came in. Though he wasn’t the one missing anything he wasn’t before. He didn’t even take notice of Jessie as they received their briefings. Mike wasn’t surprised to find that he was on the assembly team. He headed out the door as soon as he was given his instructions.
As for Jessie, protocol made it clear that anyone currently missing body parts weren’t allowed to assist at all so she’d be staying behind. That was unless Jack gave her the two parts she needed. Jack was rushed out of there so quickly that he didn’t have time to return Jessie’s mouth. She probably didn’t want Mike’s dick again so she would’ve had to stay behind anyway. Jack did at least have time to lock the parts in his locker. As much as he would’ve found it funny to give Mike’s genitals over to a stranger, taking detached body parts to a detachment event was grounds for termination or worse.
It took a few hours for Mike and his team to arrive at the site hit by the rain. By the time they did, most bodies had been moved to an empty warehouse along with their belongings. Under normal circumstances, the body parts and their clothes would remain together. In this event most clothes were still saturated with the contaminated water and weren’t able to be handled. The best they could do was keep any ID with the body parts.
Due to Mike’s projects he had been handed over some of the more complicated disassemblies. His first job was two paramedics who had fallen apart when going to examine a third woman. Single body assemblies didn’t take a whole lot of effort but multiple bodies could easily lead to unintended swaps. That’s how he ended up with a vulva, he and Jessie had been chosen to be test subjects in being disassembled while Jack had been assigned to put them back together, just incorrectly. That was the only reason why Jack still had his job after what he did.
The first step was always a gamble. Some people had unique head shapes while others were all very much the same. It was hard to even determine gender when it came to the head. This was a problem because the brain was inside the head, so if you got the wrong one, you could end up swapping people’s bodies. Having three heads complicated this further, though Mike did have photos of the scene to reference. He placed the three heads on a desk and got the three blank faces and laid them in front of them. He grabbed each woman’s ID and looked at the photos of where the parts landed as well as the markers placed on them. After he was satisfied, Mike grabbed the first face and pressed it to the head he thought it belonged to. Now the head was more complete, with cheeks, a chin, jawline and eye sockets sealed with skin. Next Mike grabbed one of the jars that held a pair of eyes and examined the ID again. Unfortunately two of them had brown eyes so he had to make a guess as he grabbed the orbs out of the jar and put them into the head.
The eyes blinked confused and then fear. Mike hated being on the other end of this and earlier protocol would’ve required the head be built last to avoid this unnecessary stress. Though Mike’s argument was it would be easier to avoid mistakes or limit the damage if the person could identify themselves. So Mike picked up the poor woman and aimed her towards the projector screen he had set up.
‘Are you Alana Morris?’ Mike typed. ‘Blink twice for yes.’ Mike relaxed as she acknowledged that’s who she was. ‘You have been through a disassembly event, I am here to fix you.’ He typed. ‘Unfortunately, your body parts were mixed up with two other people, to limit the damage of making the wrong assembly, I have only attached a face and eyes to your head. I’m going to show you what you look like in a mirror, I need you to confirm that you have the correct eyes and face.’ Mike stepped in front of her with a mirror, showing what she had been reduced to. Her eyes widened with shock. ‘I know this is a lot to take in, I’ve been in your position, but I need confirmation. Two blinks for yes to both, three for only one, four for no.’
Alana blinked twice, confirming that Mike had gotten things correct. ‘Okay good, now I can reattach your ears and mouth,’ Mike informed her. ‘In regards to your ears, the phenomenon has removed any signs of them being pierced, so if you noticed they are unpierced when they should be, that is why.’ Mike held up the pair of ears that were closest to this head from the photos. Alana gave him two blinks and he was able to put them back on, allowing her to hear again.
“Okay good,” Mike much preferred it when he could just talk. “While I do have a picture of your mouth I still need confirmation,” Mike said as he grabbed the lips that he was certain belonged to her. Once again Alana confirmed and he put them on.
“What’s going on? Who are you…?” Alana began to freak out as she regained her ability to speak.
“You were responding to an event known as a detachment event, caused by contaminated rain. Anyone that touches this green water falls apart. Your hair falls off with your scalp, making it look like a wig, your ears and nose come off, eyes fall out of their sockets, your face falls off your head, your head detaches from your neck, your neck detaches from the body. Your arms fall off your torso, they then fall apart into two halves, your hands come off your wrists and all your fingers fall off. Legs, feet and toes do the same. Your nipples, breast tissue, and genitals also detach into individual pieces. You don’t need to worry about me with those, they are stored away for you to reattach yourself. Your ass comes off your pelvis and your pelvis separates from your torso.” Mike explained for the third time since he was first exposed to one of these events. “We take care because while a body part can’t be put in the wrong spot, it can be swapped with someone else and you fell apart with your colleague as well as the patient you were responding to.”
“You’ve experienced this?” Alana looked at Mike the best she could. Mike was glad she asked that question, it meant that she was distracting herself instead of freaking out.
“Oh yes, the organization that puts people back together prefers to recruit people who know about these events and that’s usually someone with first hand experience. I was exposed when I got a glass of water at my previous job. Fortunately I was the only one affected. Still I know this isn’t a pleasant experience.”
“And what causes these events? How long have they been happening?” Alana inquired again as Mike began to prepare to assemble her further. He had grabbed one of the noses and placed it on her head before answering.
“The first recorded incident was in ‘97, in a school in Australia. It got a couple of teachers after hours. But they’ve happened sporadically since then. Any source of water can be contaminated, the only indication is that it’s green. Under chemical analysis it just comes back as H2O but there’s something undetected in it. I’ve successfully diluted it enough to only detach a few parts. I was working on that before this call came in.”
Mike had grabbed Alana’s neck and placed it under her head for better support. He then went through the limbs, letting her watch as he put them back together. Putting bodies back together was the best part, he enjoyed watching it be done before he started doing it himself.
“I personally believe it’s magic. It randomly happens, and the body is perfectly fine. It creates this smooth skin where they should be attached. The fact they can only be put back where they belong or swapped with someone else. It also only affects humans.” Mike continued to explain as he put Alana’s body back together, checking with her before making the connections. It didn’t take long before she was back on her feet, though flat chested and lacking genitals as well as missing her hair.
Alana checked out her body, making sure it felt right. She wasn’t sure she had gotten everything correct. “I can’t believe it got rid of my tattoos, I paid a lot for those…” she complained, still trying to ignore the insane situation or that she was naked in front of a stranger, even if she was lacking her privates.
Mike went to grab Alana’s hair for her and pulled it out of the bag it was kept in. “Your hair is wet…” Mike remarked as he grabbed it. It shouldn’t have been wet. Alana wasn’t there when the rain hit. Mike recalled the photograph of it where the parts had fallen, her hair had landed in a puddle and hadn’t been dried. Mike was too focused on wondering why the hair had been wet; he failed to notice that he had lost all his senses. He and Alana both fell apart touching her hair.