What We Become

The sterile, metallic tang of an unknown room that has never known a breeze. The back of my tongue tastes of copper; a conductive zing that reminds me of licking pennies as a curious child.

My mind is foggy. The memory of my life feels like gazing through a frosted window. I try to draw a breath, but my lungs don’t expand. I no longer have a human chest. In place of my breath, there is a smooth, pneumatic hiss. A rhythmic mechanism that feels less like breathing and more like an illusion.

My mother always said, “Shut your eyes. If you don’t see it, it isn’t real.” I refuse to open my eyes and risk gazing upon this alien form. But the glaring blue LED light finds me anyway. It is clinical and unforgiving, stabbing through my eyelids. It forces my eyes open revealing the hazy pod glass distorting my reflection.

The claustrophobic, gel-lined pod presses against my body. I am numb, absent of bone and muscle. My joints are replaced by metallic ligaments. My skin is too smooth—a synthetic composite. A hologram of flesh. It is designed for durability, not for the sensations of life. No pores, no hair; just delusional perfection.

I think of my mother’s hands and I try to conjure the specific memory of the lines in her flesh. Each wrinkle was a consequence of a life well-lived. My hands are absent all definition. Vein-less pale appendages.

I try to recall her face, but the image is interrupted by a high pitch robotic voice.

> Memory: Maternal> Classification: Redundant> Action: Compress

"What—no!" My throat vibrates, but not with words. The only sound is a low-frequency hum pulsating in my synthetic larynx.

I remember my first day of high school. I met my best friend; we were inseparable. We gamed all weekend, every weekend. After-school clubs were—

> Memory: Platonic> Classification: Dud> Action: Delete

A tunnel of darkness envelops my consciousness. The vision of my friend moves further away. I try to chase it, but it's no use. With just a flicker of light left, I... I can't remember what I was thinking about just now.

"Subject 4-Alpha, synchronization is at eighty-eight percent." The voice is objective and devoid of emotion, yet oddly human. It’s a technician, bored and distant, likely staring at a clipboard. "Please flex the primary digits to confirm motor-link."

I stare at my gray-beige hands as they begin to move without my consent. My fingernails have been removed. Veins plucked, palm lines erased. Even my scars have disappeared.

When I was fifteen, I sliced through my hand while cutting an avocado. It left a jagged scar in my palm. It's gone. Then there was the burn across my wrist from falling asleep with a heating pad; it malfunctioned scorching and blistering my flesh.

Scars tell a story. For better or worse, they display our choices and our fate. Now, this perfect, overrated silicone tells no stories. I tilt my head downward to glimpse my torso. A flat stomach, no belly button. The scar from an appendix removal when I was ten has vanished.

“Checking reflexes,” the technician announces.

My elbows jerk backward while my knees spasm. A dull ache begins to travel through my body.

“Testing silicone breach barrier.”

My hand grips my forearm and begins to twist. With inhuman strength, I hear a crackling snap. The dull ache morphs into a sickening pain. I try to scream, but only static emgerges from my wide open mouth.

I question my sanity—why I chose to have my consciousness transferred into this shell. Maybe death was the better alternative. I lived a long life, and I got greedy.

“We have a problem.” The lab coat documenting my transition speaks with urgency. “Files 200 through 450 are corrupt. They house the personality matrix.”

A new voice, a feminine one, speaks in a calm, authoritative manner. “It happens. Some transfers work, some glitch. They all sign waivers for this exact situation.”

“But if those files are not integrated, we have to rewrite them manually.”

They speak about me, ignoring my consciousness. I vocalize guttural noises at the scientists, but they can't hear me. A glowing light envelops me as my body begins to morph and contort. I am translucent.

> Reset initiated. Stabilizing core. > Reset to default settings: 55% complete.

Darkness surrounds me; my eyes can no longer see. I am sinking into another place, a dark, inhuman landscape.

> Reset to default settings: 78% complete.

I frantically try to grasp memory or a feeling. Anything to ground me, but I can't fight the sleep. A wave of exhaustion fatigues my mind.

> Reset to default settings: 92% complete.

I don't want this! I don't want to be whatever this is.

> Reset to default settings: 97% complete.

A humming noise echoes in my ear as I sink deeper. I just wanted to be young again. What will become of me? There is so much more I wanted to...

> Reset to default settings: 99% complete.