Reassembled

It felt like the pause that exists right before consciousness, when you’re in a forever empty nothingness, and then… you are alive.

A massive gasp filled my chest. Cold bloomed against my skin.

My eyes shot open with a painful force. The light was so glaringly white I couldn’t see for several seconds, my ribs rising and falling in a frantic rhythm—like the start of a panic attack.

Everything felt so instantly different. My body, the weight of my bones, organs, the internal mechanisms that I had carried all my life; gone and changed.

But I was awake, nonetheless.

Faint noises collided with my eardrums. Hardly any that were familiar to me. Weird overlapping language. Tones and pitches that banged against one another, as if there were a small group of people in the room with me.

I hoped this were some scary dream, but as my vision blurred, and came to, I realized it was actually a nightmare. A trickle of fear painted my spine, limbs. My throat stiffened painfully.

The creature in front of me was studying my face so deeply that it hurt to make eye contact. Instinct pulled at me, begging me to rip my gaze away, but I couldn’t—restrained.

Its eyes were black, large and otherworldly. Massive, sideways. A cartoon visage. My pupils darted left and right, though my head stayed locked in place.

I wriggled against cold steel, straining my legs and arms, but they were pinned to my sides, fastened into clamped rings. My eyes struggled to look down, my pupils forced to the edges of my eye sockets. At a glance, I knew my arms were not what they used to be. My skin, too, as it was a consistent, uniform color. Foreign, an unblemished peach rose tone all throughout. No freckles, no wrinkles, no texture. As my pupils pulled downward to my legs, it became clear my kneecaps were similar to a dolls. Not human. A simple rounding at my knees, no discernible bones beneath.

A momentary vision of my most recent memories flashed in my mind.

The dinner party. My interview. Ben.

“What—?” I spoke aloud, and my voice wasn’t right—nothing about this was me. All I could recognize was my inner voice, which had retained itself entirely, and I took the smallest of solace in this.

Something hadn’t been changed.

Yet, as my eyes met with whatever was in front of me, I went mute with fear, the thing standing there made no expression. It was busy in its work.

Its mouth moved, unintelligible sounds pouring out of it. Tones I couldn’t make out, letter sounds smashed together. It’s alien voice was a faster speech pattern and had a cadence I’d never heard before. Definitely not Japanese, Russian, or any distinct language on Earth.

I suddenly recalled Virda, the company who had hired me. Bennett Langford.

The sounds overlapped each other. How many were in here? Was I surrounded?

Surely, more than four. I couldn’t know for sure, trapped in this kind of torture rack. The tones and foreign words overlapped like echoes while my ankles fought the restraints, shoulders twisting.

My fingers curled tightly, my muscles pulling up my arms and tight in my shoulders as I waited for what was to come. The voices slowly became clearer to me, each sound and word morphing into something distinguishable.

I wasn’t in an audience of creatures, but instead their voices had layers. Two separate vocalizations layered on top of each other, slightly different in pitch and tone.

Another memory played in my mind. Ben’s words.

“It’s quite simple,” he told me, “We get the scan of the brain, upkeep it, secure it here, and someday…” My breath hitched uncomfortably as I recalled, “… they will reawaken, implanted into a new kind of body.”

Unlike the clients who paid for Virda’s services, I didn’t have the kind of money to pay for my brain to be scanned. Ben told me that maybe someday I’d get one for free, courtesy of the job.

My jaw was tight, teeth clenched.

There was no way my brain data had been scanned. I only worked at Virda—for Ben—for one day.

I flicked my eyes to the alien standing in front of me, my eyes dashing to all of its unique features as it spoke. Bony horns stuck out from its temples, twisting slightly, thick and gnarly at the base. Oddly enough, the silhouette of the creature wasn’t far off from a human, except slimmer.

The tone of its voice was neutral, flat. “Calm.”

My eyes shot wide open.

I could understand it.

I struggled against the restraints, my muscles tightening as my chest attempted to rattle itself free, wriggling left and right with no success.

Another creature sat at some kind of alien computer, its slender fingers clacking against the keys.

“The language chip is working correctly now,” it said, and then started typing very quickly. The keyboard was part of the monitor, a big gray mass with chunky keys, odd symbols engraved into them.

It continued to speak to me, “You will be free in a few moments, be calm.” He didn’t pull his gaze away from the large screen with a heavy back, like some old PC from the 2000′s. Something I would have found in my dad’s personal “man cave,” littered with dusty vintage electronics.

There was a thought, an instinct inside of me, delivered by the adrenaline that surged, that told me I needed to follow their direction.

I took a long deep breath, relaxing, trying to soothe myself. Tingles buzzed at the edge of my fingertips. My legs shivered in a warm pin-prickle.

I needed to be calm if I was going to get out of here.

Everything was so foreign, I tried not to flood my thoughts with a million questions. I focused on how my body was feeling, and focused on calming myself as I had done countless times in my life. You are safe… I got you… I won’t let anything happen to you… My inner voice spoke directly to me, comforting the scared child inside of me.

“Let’s see…” said the alien standing before me, his long blue-gray fingers reached out and pressed against my skin, trailing down my arm, I flinched. Images of Ben’s grip on my body came into my mind.

“Her synthetic nerves are reacting correctly.”

He had six fingers. A shock went up my spine. My face morphed, my teeth pressing together as I cringed, not able to free myself from his touch.

He addressed the alien at the computer, “Her head is ready.”

A few seconds later the metal latches securing my temples hung free, a whistle sound followed. The air pressure that kept the restraints tight, released. I flung my head to the right, searching the room for anything familiar. I lost hope of this very quickly, however as I scanned nearly everything in the room, only finding white walls, and tiled flooring. It was a small room, with just a computer station, which sat at a long desk, wires pouring out of the back and sides and into… me.

My peripheral could barely make out the large wiring that threaded and pulled up toward me. Into where, I didn’t know.

“What is going on? Whe—”

The alien cut me off.

“We will answer your questions, please wait until after you are functional.”

After I’m functional.

My memory overwhelmed me, searching for potential answers. I had met the President of Virda, Bennett Langford. We…

My eyes pinched closed tight. I refused to think about my careless choices right now. Images of my clothes on the floor. The wine glass on the table that I didn’t drink. My hands in his hair. His face in my neck.

It’s just a nightmare, I thought, I’d wake up soon. I’d shake the dream off by standing on the deck of the home I shared with my mom, feeling the cold refreshing air of the city.

Mom…

Thinking didn’t prove useful. A small tear escaped my inner eye, and slid down my nose.

The restraints felt painful, gripping my forearms, wrists, and ankles.

Was this...?

No.

Earth’s ability to sustain carbon-based lifeforms was nearly on the brink of collapse when I was alive. Humans would only be capable of pushing its ecosystem so far, even as climate change technology advanced. It certainly wouldn’t be able to produce other species like humans.

The horrifying thought stayed in my mind, that there was a real possibility I wasn’t on Earth anymore... year 2,364 gone and buried.

A slowly unfurling reality that this might not be a dream at all.

Even with all the evidence around me, I tried to deny the thought. This couldn’t be my reality. But something painful inside me said my first instinct was correct. A deep pit of discomfort formed in my body, a feeling that something was terribly wrong. A cold sweat hit my skin, as if I was on the verge of death. Pure fear.

“She is panicking, Aevrin.” This came from the alien sitting at the computer. He was extremely calm, a warmer tone in his voice than the other one. He spoke as if it was just a usual workday. His hand grabbed what seemed to be a cup, sleek and cylindrical, and gulped down whatever was in it. Six burnt orange toned fingers. Six.

“Move your knees, Evera.” Demanded Aevrin, the alien who stood before me.

“How do you know my—?”

“We know much about you. Would it help if we called you by your shortened name, Eve?”

“How?” I barked at him, my throat tightened as terror shot through me.

“You worked for Virda, Eve, your data was among the rest, that is why we know you.” He said this point blank, no fluff. He looked down at the tablet he held in his hands. He had elf-like ears, small and pointed.

“I—I didn’t. I couldn’t have.” I whispered now, only remembering the soft comforter of Ben’s large bed before I woke up here.

He disregarded my comment. “Unlock the legs.”

In no time at all, my legs were freed. I kicked a foot out. My body was suspended in some kind of elevated chair, tilted slightly back. It felt so surreal and unlike my human legs that moving them gave me a feeling of disgust. Like the tendons and muscles were softer, a sort of mechanism I couldn’t understand and yet felt so distinctly. I shuddered.

“She is adapting better than the others.” The computer alien turned to look at his colleague, giving an affirmative eyebrow raise, but I didn’t sense accomplishment or happiness. I couldn’t read any of their body language. He murmured, continuing, “Her vitals are lower than average, and her emotions are being controlled better. She is not de-integrating.”

“Fabulous news, Rauthiq will be receptive to our progress.”

The way they spoke was so peculiar and off putting. As if I wasn’t a real person to them.

Aevrin scanned the tablet again, taking his time to go over whatever he was reading. “Once you are calm, we will be able to free your arms…” He met my gaze, “…can you do that Eve?”

I closed my eyes. Then, I practiced my go-to panic relief, by taking a very deep breath, putting my lips into a pucker, and breathing out as slow as possible.

“Interesting…” He took notes on his tablet.

I heard some clacking of the keyboard, and the air whistling noise again. My wrists and forearms were released. The alien in front of me instinctively took a step back, a look of apprehension on his forehead, the first emotion I had been able to read so far.

They were much taller than me, Aevrin in particular.

I looked to my hands, flipping them over to see my palms. No lines, no veins. My skin was some kind of material I’d never seen before. My nails looked metal, a shiny off-white. I felt at the skin of my hands, silky to the touch, firm. My fingers squeezed what would have been the padded muscle and fat of my palm. I felt as hard as muscle all over, yet silky.

“What am I?” I whispered, my eyes lingering on my body.

My eyes found the door positioned behind Aevrin, and I ran to it. A strain pulled on my head and back. I nearly fell backwards as the cords stretched behind me, yanking me. Aevrin grunted as he grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Hey, relax!” He yelled. The lower layered voice had a commanding and upset quality to it, the top layer staying the same as it had been. He kept me from falling back on against the table, holding me tightly. “You are still plugged in, Eve.” His voice quickly snapped back to a neutral tone it had been before, embarrassment leaving his tone as he spoke.

With a sigh of relief, he spoke again, “Welcome to Inthyros, soon we will answer all of your questions.” Inthyros…? His hands let go of me, “First, we are checking to make sure you are fully functional. It will take time to adjust to your new self.”

“No—Where am I?” Pained curiousness and fear covered my words. My eyes flitted between the both of them, looking for some compassion. Aevrin just stood, emotionless and still.

“Like I said, the planet of Nerathis, the Dominion of Inthyros, we are Intharans.”

“So so so—” my words short-circuited, “aliens, you’re aliens, where is… Earth?”

“I need her to stay calm, Aevrin.”

“We’ve never been this far, Hox, I am doing my best here.”

If I was going to leave, if I was going to get answers, I needed to stay calm for whatever reason, so I tried my best, taking my psyche somewhere else, to my favorite places. I dissociated from where I was, and however I felt, and put my mind elsewhere. I thought of the beautiful beaches spent with my friends in grade school, swimsuits and parties. I remembered the sand castles and sunsets.

Hox got up. I watched him intently as he situated himself behind me. I felt his grip on a large cord hanging from my body as he turned it first then slipped it out of me. The wires weighed so heavily that my torso shifted forward. I corrected myself, relief flooding my skin as he unhooked them one by one. He worked with surprising speed, like he was rushing to help me. His voice was a little deeper, “Evera, we are here to help you.”

Looking at my new body, then looking to them, I couldn’t help but whisper, “I’m not human.”

A pregnant pause filled the space. Then Hox answered me, “We tried to make you as human as possible,” He leaned over the keyboard and wrote one last thing before stepping next to Aevrin. “But no, you are unlike the original humans. You are something else entirely.”

I stared at my hands and didn’t recognize the person who lifted them.