PART 3

Robert had always hated zero-gravity deployment in deep space.  It was so tedious, the aimless floating, the inky blackness all around with no fixed point to orient oneself...

Wait a minute.

Robert slowly began to gain awareness, tried to put into order some of the thousand thoughts whizzing around.  He wasn’t in the service anymore, was he?

The hospital.  The procedure.  That damn girl...  The places and events slowly assembled themselves in his mind.  The last thing he recalled was her putting him under and...I’m sleeping, he thought.  Dreaming about my past.

Except, this wasn’t like any dream he had experienced before.  His thoughts were far too lucid. Besides, he’d never had a dream about, well, nothing.

There was no light, no sound.  Every attempt at movement resulted in frustration.  He concentrated, tried to sense some part of his body touching something, his head on a pillow, anything. His heart began racing...

Or did it?  Sheer terror filled his thoughts as he realized that he couldn’t feel his heartbeat, or the blood that should be rushing to his head, only the sensations of panic and adrenaline.  He was, quite literally, alone with his thoughts.  It was almost a relief when he detected the sensation of falling.  Quite subtly at first, then faster and faster.  The black void around him was frustratingly static, but the feeling of accelerating out of control was unmistakable.  So this is how it ends, he thought, feeling deprived of even the basic human right to flail around madly in his last moments...

***

He was lying on his back in cool, damp grass.

There had been no impact.  It was almost as if the field he lay in, and the cloudless blue sky above, had scrolled up to meet him like an image on a computer screen.  Stunned, he looked around and tried to figure out where the fuck he was.  A steep hill rose up on one side of him, dense woods on the other.  Straight ahead, the terrain dipped down, but he could see the roofline of a house poking up over the horizon.  His childhood home.

He felt oddly comforted by his surroundings, but something was still amiss.  He still had no physical form to speak of, and when he looked down at himself to verify this fact, then back up at the sky, it was as if a camera were panning and tilting instead of his head moving.  And the sounds... it wasn’t that he could hear the birds chirping, per se, but he knew they would be, just as he knew there was a plane whirring across the sky.

He looked up to see it. It was an old propeller plane from a distant age, an artifact from some old movie pasted into his subconscious.  As it crossed in front of him, it let out billows of smoke behind it in little rows, forming letters.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Robert stared at the fading letters as the plane circled around for another pass, bewildered.  Whether he was dreaming or dead, this was all quite strange.

I CAN’T UNDERSTAND YOU.  TRY TO THINK IN WORDS, IF YOU CAN.

What the fuck, he thought to himself, forming the words deliberately in his brain in an attempt to follow the bizarre instructions.  The plane circled faster this time.

THAT’S BETTER.  HOW DO YOU FEEL?

A conversation, hooray.  Very, very strange, he thought.  Please tell me what’s going on.  Another plane joined the first, and they flew in tandem as the messages grew longer.

YOUR BODY IS BEING PREPARED AS WE SPEAK, ROBERT.  WE’VE FOUND IT’S IN OUR PATIENTS’ BEST INTERESTS TO KEEP THEIR BRAINS OCCUPIED DURING THE PROCESS.

Curiouser and curiouser.  His physical self was nothing more than a brain floating in a jar, now, he thought, maybe he could let the rest go finally.  Maybe.

So what do I do now?  Robert asked, wondering how his convoluted, racing thoughts must look to the anonymous operator on the other end of this unique conversation.

OUR SYSTEM TAPS INTO DEEP MEMORIES...PLEASANT ONES, WE HOPE.  LET YOUR MIND WANDER.

Robert tried unsuccessfully to shrug his nonexistent shoulders. Despite the bucolic scene, the personal nature of the memory, there was an overwhelming sense that it was just a construct, a communication channel. And they were telling him, well, it sounded, good?  With some difficulty, Robert tried to relax his mind.

Abruptly, his surroundings changed.  He found himself on a busy street corner, blinding lights piercing the night, as sleek vehicles from the early 22nd century whizzed by.  He recognized the scene; shore leave in Manhattan, early in his military career.  His viewpoint spun around as he caught sight of words scrolling across a marquee across the street:

WELL DONE.  VERY STRONG RECALL, DOES THIS SCENE HAVE SPECIAL MEANING FOR YOU?

Yes.  No.  I’m not sure… Robert felt disoriented and disconcerted as pedestrians walked right through the space he felt he occupied.  Why can’t I feel or move anything?  In dreams I have a form at least...

THIS ISN’T A DREAM, PER SE.  SURE, WE’RE STIMULATING PARTS OF YOUR BRAIN TO GIVE YOU VISUAL FEEDBACK, BUT YOUR PHYSICAL SENSATION IS BASED ON YOUR NEUROMUSCULAR SYSTEM, AND, WELL, YOU DON’T HAVE ONE.  THIS WAS ALL IN THE PAPERWORK YOU SIGNED OFF ON, YOU KNOW.  DIDN’T YOU READ IT?

Of course I did, Robert thought, wondering if it was even worth trying to lie.  He felt a bit sheepish now about skimming the documents in his haste to escape his life.

OF COURSE YOU DID.  TRY TO KEEP YOURSELF ENTERTAINED, WE’LL KEEP YOU POSTED.

Wait, wait, his mind pleaded.  How long will it be?  I want my new body...

SO IMPATIENT...A TYPICAL MALE ATTRIBUTE.  Robert could almost feel the casual disdain behind the words, wondering to herself who was on the other side of this conversation.

After a few seconds of silence, the words resumed scrolling.  WHICH BRINGS US TO OUR NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS.  NOW THAT THINGS ARE CALIBRATED, LET’S MOVE ON TO THE SECOND AND FINAL PHASE OF YOUR ORIENTATION.  IT’S SORT OF A DEFRAGMENTATION, IF YOU WILL.  IT’S RELATIVELY NEW, BUT WE’VE HAD GOOD RESULTS IN THOSE PATIENTS THAT SURVIVED IT.  READY?

Robert’s thoughts raced nervously, wishing he could detect sarcasm in the scrolling text.

YOUR THOUGHT PATTERNS ARE BIZARRE.  I’LL JUST TAKE THAT AS A YES.

Wait, what?  I...but it was too late, as the scene around him dimmed and faded into blackness.

The frustrating lack of a physical presence persisted, but overwhelmed by a new sensation, something Robert could only describe as a “tugging” in his mind.  The same feeling one gets when trying to dredge up an old memory, or try to recall the word that’s on the tip of your tongue.  Only it was more than that.  It was every memory in his brain, every sight and sound and smell, all coming out at once, yet in some ordered fashion.  He couldn’t explain it.  It was both exhilarating and terrifying, and if he had something to grab and hands to grab it with, his knuckles would be white.

There was no sense of time passing as one vivid memory after another played before him in brilliant color and detail.  Some were more prevalent than others.  Long-forgotten images of his dear mother, a beautiful woman who was taken from the world when he was just a child, seemed to play in slow motion: her facial expressions, gestures, the intonation of her voice, all imprinting themselves in the forefront of his mind.  Similarly with his sister, his best friend growing up, a tomboy who nonetheless possessed a uniquely feminine and wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor.

Things continued similarly as he recalled the other women who had moved in and out of his life, all their little quirks and mannerisms seeming to melt together into a bubbling cauldron of awareness, as their memories flew by.  Other thoughts seemed to get pushed aside as quickly as they could be recalled:  The loss of his parents; horrors of the two wars he’d fought in; being told the news that his sister, eager to follow her big brother into the military, had perished with thousands of others during her first deployment.  The loss of his legs, and the strange feelings it had awakened in him about his own body.  All the tragedy, all the pain...it was still there, still a part of who he was, but somehow “filed away” to make room for something else, a new future, perhaps.

Then, there was her.  Robert had tried to forget her, a young, dark-skinned beauty he encountered when on leave during his first go-round, when he was still young and virile.  They met in a bar on the very street corner of the earlier “scene” he seemed to dredge up out of nowhere.  She may have been a prostitute, or just a friendly local girl, he wasn’t sure...he was too confused and scared about everything to kiss her, much less anything else.  He’d been with girls by then, of course--mostly brief, fumbling encounters--but something about this one brought him to his knees.

Robert’s bizarre experience gradually slowed to real-time as the memory of their encounter replayed.  Their eyes meeting across the room, her offering him a drink.  Her bright eyes and engaging smile as they sat and briefly talked.  Slow-motion now, as she reached across the table to gently touch his arm.  He closed his eyes, wishing he could feel it…as they opened, he could see the tortured, sad look on his face…

Huh?  He hadn’t been able to see ‘himself’ throughout this whole experience.  Suddenly, he realized what was happening, as he looked down to see the slender arm with painted fingernails, feel the rough, hairy skin of the man she sat with.  Of course.  It was her, this is the one the girl in the capsule so reminded me of.  I made myself forget her, because I was too scared to admit--I wanted to be her.

“I can’t do this,” the man muttered, looking away from her with a defeated look.  He looked almost foreign to her now.

His--no, her--sensations were all real now.  Her arm, slim and feminine, resting on his.  Her soft legs rubbing together under the table.  The long hair brushing the back of her neck, the feel of her breasts and the way they sat in her bra.  All real.

She smiled, knowing she’d reached her destination.  She was Angel now.  She looked at the scared young man across the table, smiled, and spoke in a soft, feminine voice, it all felt so natural, so second nature.  She wasn’t sure if these were the same words she heard so long ago--it ended much more awkwardly, she was sure--but this is what needed to be said now.  This little bit of history was to be rewritten.

“It’s okay honey, I understand.  More than you’ll ever know.  I’ll be fine, Robert, and so will you.  Goodbye, dear.”  A little smile appeared on his face, as the sights and sounds around her became indistinct.  Before it all went black, something caught her eye, a little matchbook on the table that hadn’t been there before.  In tiny letters, it read:

SUCCESS.  READY TO GO, ANGEL?

Yes.  Finally.  A sense of calm came around her, surrounding her consciousness like a warm blanket as everything went dark and silent.

* * *

“Psst.  Hey.  You awake?”

Angel heard the faint voice as she slowly eased back to consciousness.  Another dream, she thought to herself, being used to the cycles of sleep and wakefulness that her recovering detached brain had gone through.  Something seemed different, though, which she couldn’t quite place.

One by one, her other senses came to her.  The first thing she noticed was the smell...a light, antiseptic sort of smell, pungent but not altogether unpleasant.  She felt a light breeze on her cheek--I have a cheek?--the thought shot through her mind as the fog lifted.  Another sound came into focus, quiet background noise, people talking and a crowd laughing.  “TV off,” the first voice said, and the other sounds went silent.  “Hey!  Wake up, I’m so bored,” it said, a little louder.

Angel tried to take stock of her physical situation.  As she had done when rousing to consciousness every time since the exit from her old body, she tried to feel the presence of her hands, her feet, anything...still nothing, she thought.  Damn.  The next item on her checklist was usually trying to speak.  She imagined her mouth opening, forcing air through it, at this point fairly certain she’d experience the usual frustrating lack of response.  Much to her surprise, she heard a soft croak and felt air pass her lips.

Lips!  she smacked and licked her lips, they felt terribly dry, but she had them.  Running her tongue over them, she could tell they were different.  Big, soft...new.  Angel started to hyperventilate, and realizing that she had eyes now, opened them.

“Yay!  you’re up.  Oh wow, I love your eyes,” gasped the voice, which now had a face to go with it.

Still groggy but rapidly approaching alertness, Angel blinked several times and took in what she saw in front of her.  The voice belonged to an attractive young lady, long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, who stared at Angel with big blue eyes and smiled.  It was what Angel saw below her pretty face that shocked her.

Only about an inch of her neck was exposed, the rest covered by some sort of thick metal collar, adorned with flashing lights and a couple of buttons and switches.  Below that, there was... nothing.  Angel could see a set of tubes dangling from beneath the collar, which led to a row of machines against the wall.  Other than that, she could see right through to the wall behind her.  Looking more closely, she could see the girl’s head and collar were mounted on some sort of a metal stand with four wide-set wheels at the bottom, like an IV stand.

“Oh my God,” Angel sputtered, her voice still croaky and dry but unfamiliar, unmistakably different, she almost felt as though someone else were speaking.  “You...your head is...” her first instinct was to bring her hand to her mouth, but her arm and hand failed to respond.

The girl laughed.  Angel could see the one clear tube vibrate a little as she did, then noticed one of the many machines pumping air in rhythm with every word the girl said.  “It’s weird, isn’t it?  I kinda freaked out the first time I saw myself too. I’m Jennifer, by the way, your new roommate.  They try to match up patients that are kinda at the same stage in their procedures.”

“Hi,” Angel said tentatively, still a little unnerved at her own voice.  “I’m...Angel.  I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little out of it.  I feel so weird...”  Slowly, Angel’s mind started to make the connection between her lack of sensation and Jennifer’s previous statement, and started to panic.  “I need to see myself.  Is there a mirror?” she asked, feeling the pulse in her neck racing.

“Oh yeah, I bet you’re anxious to see.  There’s one on the wall over there..  Just say ‘rotate left’ and it’ll turn you.  Oh crap,” Jennifer said, giggling, as uttering the words made her own head pivot on its stand with a faint mechanical whirr.  “Rotate right.”  Her head turned back.

Why do I need voice commands to turn?  Angel thought to herself, although deep down she knew the answer.  “Um...rotate left,” she said, her lips trembling.  She heard the same whirring sound from around her neck, and her field of view changed.  Her mouth hung open as she took in the sight.  Perched atop another metal stand was the beautiful face she had seen in the vault days before, still bald, but now animated, with a stunned expression and pale orange eyes wide open.  She let out a yelp of surprise, which she was surprised to note was barely louder than her speaking voice.  “Oh my God,” she said softly, “I’m...” a tear ran down her cheek as she began to smile.

“Awwww,” Jennifer said as she noticed Angel’s reaction.  “You’re so hot, I think you made a really nice choice.  You seem a little surprised about the whole, you know, ‘head’ thing.”

“I just...I don’t know what I expected.  Why didn’t they attach the rest of us?”

“Didn’t you read the forms, silly?  It takes a while for the brain to stabilize in the new host, having a whole body with organs would be a shock to the system.  They do like a billion tests before they put you together.  It goes head, then trunk, then arms and legs last.”  Jennifer sounded almost exasperated as she gave her explanation.

“Wow, I feel stupid, I had no idea.”  Angel instinctively tried to turn her head to face her new roommate, but all she felt was a little skin pulling against the collar that kept her alive.  “Rotate right.  So, Jennifer, what’s your story?  Are you here for...full body replacement, like me?”  Angel wondered Jennifer knew about her former identity.

“My story’s a little different.  I dunno if you remember, but there was a big shuttle crash in the mountains a couple months back.  I was one of the flight attendants, turns out I was the only survivor.  The company’s insurance wasn’t going to get very far towards putting me back together but I had some, shall we say, interesting information about the pilot that they didn’t want made public. I’d heard about this place and, well, after a little persuasion they gave me an all-expenses-paid visit.”

“So...what happened to your body in the crash?  Is that your...”

“My real head?  Yeah.  Naturally more of me made it out alive, but not much...I had one badly burned arm and this nasty mess that ended somewhere below my ribcage, it was pretty gross.  Without the chance to come here I’d have been a messed-up vegetable in a rehab bed for the rest of my life.  Even so, I’ve been like this for almost three weeks now, I was starting to go a little bit crazy.  It’s so nice to have someone to talk to when the nurses aren’t around.  Don’t worry, I think it’ll only be a few days for you,” she added, sensing the panic on Angel’s face.

“Thank God,” Angel replied.  Her panic having subsided, she realised she was beginning to get a vague sense of enjoyment from the near-complete helplessness of the state she was now in.  She furrowed her brow, twitched her nose, stretched her jaw, taking stock of all the things she could move, which weren’t many.  An odd excitement flushed through her, substituting, she imagined, for the lack of other parts to show arousal.  “So, what’s your new body like, Jennifer?  Is it, y’know, an upgrade from the old one?” she asked, trying to distract herself from these new, frustrating sensations.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Jennifer replied with a gleam in her eye.  “I was short, skinny, sort of shapeless before.  My new one has some lovely curves, I can’t wait until I can be in it.”  She closed her eyes, a gleeful smile creeping over her face as she contemplated it.

“Hi, ladies!”  A cheerful female voice interrupted their conversation.  A white lab coat flashed into her view, and Angel looked up, as best she could, to see an all-too-familiar face.  She hoped with embarrassment that it wasn’t the same girl from her pre-op adventures.  

“Angel, you’re awake!  You look a lot different from the last time I saw you.”  Confirming her worst fears, Angel began to feel a flush of humiliation in her face.  “Welcome back,” Amy said, leaning down and resting one hand on either side of Angel to give her a kiss on the cheek.  “You look great.  Even better once this starts growing in,” she remarked, running her hand over Angel’s smooth scalp.  Angel felt a little chill over what little skin she had at the sensation of being touched and handled with no way to reciprocate.

Amy busied herself checking both women’s vital signs, making small adjustments to the machines that kept their disembodied heads alive and healthy.  “Everything looks great.   By the way, Jen, your body is coming out of hibernation nicely, it might be ready as soon as today,” eliciting an ear-to-ear grin on the blonde’s face.

“How about I take you both for a walk and show you off?  I have the portables here to put you in if you want.”  Angel looked over at her companion with a puzzled look, and Jennifer’s head twitched strangely.

“Oh, duh, I was trying to nod, stupid me.  Anyway, let’s go, I have to get out of this room for a while.”   The girls watched as Amy rummaged through a storage cabinet and took out a metal canister a few inches deep and about the same diameter as the collars they wore.  “Breathe out all the way and hold it,” she said to Jennifer, whose cheeks sunk a bit as she obliged.  Amy flipped a switch on her collar, then began disconnected the lines leading into its bottom edge.  She lifted Jennifer’s now untethered head clean out of its stand, and quickly and efficiently screwed the new device to the bottom of it.  “You okay?”  She asked, as Jennifer took short, cautious breaths.  Angel stared, fascinated that she could survive in such a state.

“Cool, isn’t it?”  Jennifer said, in a somewhat fainter voice, as Amy put her back down in her stand.  “It’s good for a couple of hours, after that I think the blood, like, can’t be recycled anymore or something.”  Angel could see a little valve on the new device which opened and closed as she breathed and spoke.

“Scary,” Angel replied, nervously, as Amy prepared the other device for her.  She exhaled on cue, then went through a panicky moment where she felt where she might faint.  Next she found herself in the not-altogether-unpleasant position of being steadied against Amy’s chest with one hand while her “base” was screwed on with the other.  She heard a little beep and a click, and before long she felt her blood pressure rise back to normal and air pump through her trachea from parts unknown.

“Could you carry me by my ‘handle’?”  Jennifer asked, smiling.  Amy untied her ponytail and re-did it on top of her head, then used it to lift her out of the stand.  Having no such convenient part to hold her by,  Angel was held against Amy’s hip, giving her a strange vantage point as the technician walked out into the hall with her charges.

Strange as the sensation was to Angel of being a disembodied head carried around, it obviously wasn’t an unusual sight to those that worked there, most of whom smiled and nodded at the trio as they passed by.   The place was bustling with activity, technicians walking by pushing torsos on gurneys, carrying limbs around, occasionally wheeling a “live” patient in a chair in some state of partial assembly.  Angel took it all in, a bizarre new world in which she somehow felt completely welcome.