My lungs burned. Every muscle, joint, and tendon in my body was on fire. A million sewing needles pricked my skin and I wanted to scream until my throat bled, but I couldn’t catch my breath. My trap swung open and shut repeatedly and I sat straight up like I’d been struck by lightning. Then Rita was there and she jabbed my neck with a cigar-shaped metal object.
I was finally able to breathe and gulped down mouthfuls of precious air. The searing pain eased up but didn’t go away altogether. After several moments, I found my voice.
“What-? Why-?”
“I didn’t realize the anesthetic would wear off so quickly. It seems like your new organs have greatly increased your resistance to chemical compounds.”
I looked down at my body. Fit as a fiddle. My gut was gone, my arm muscles rippled under the skin, and my thighs looked like they could crush walnuts. Rita’s repair had been more than generous in several aspects.
“Is this-? Am I-?” I couldn’t complete a sentence to save my life.
“You’re fixed, Sam. More than half of your physical body has been replaced completely and the vast majority has been repaired in some way.”
“So I’m more metal than man, now, or something?”
“Not exactly, but your body is no longer comprised entirely of living tissue. Several synthetic components were necessary to make you whole again. Again, I won’t bore you the precise specifications, but your systems will function quite a bit better than you remember. Shall we start the tests?”
“Sure. But…” I looked down again and felt my cheeks heat up. “Maybe I could get a robe or something?”
Rita smiled. “Of course, you humans and your modesty.” She opened a storage compartment and pulled out a blue-grey jumpsuit similar to the one she wore.
I swung my legs off the side of the table and stepped down, pulling the jumpsuit up. The floor was cold on my bare feet. Zipping up the suit to my chin, I took a cautious step. As I walked forward I wobbled slightly, like a toddler struggling under the weight of his own giant melon. After a couple of steps I had it under control and followed Rita out of the recovery room and down the hallway.
She must have moved me back to the ship. The walls were covered in shiny metal and twinkling lights and were smooth and seamless. We walked to the exit door and a blast of cool air hit me as Rita opened it.
“What kind of tests do you have for me?” I asked as we started down the ramp.
“It’s a standard battery of strength and endurance tests, designed to determine if your body is functioning normally.”
We stepped out onto Enoch and I took it in. It looked a lot like Earth, only brighter. A field of green stretched out as far as I could see and the sun was low in the sky, casting orange light on the landscape. The air tasted different, probably because it wasn’t filled with smoke and muck. Lush blades of grass tickled my toes.
Rita pulled a flat, glassy object from her pocket and tapped at it. It looked exactly like the screen on the ship only smaller. “The first test is a series of sprints. I’ve placed a marker one hundred meters away. I’d like you to run to it as fast as you can. The timer will start on my command and end when you reach the marker. Are you ready?”
A bright blue column of light appeared in the distance. “Let’s do it.”
“Go!”
I started running as fast as I could. The familiar pain in my knee had disappeared. My legs pumped like pistons and the surroundings flew past. Even when I was in shape, running had never felt like this. It was as if my feet weren’t even hitting the ground. I blew through the marker and stopped as Rita suddenly appeared.
“Where did you come from?” I spun around to look behind me, not sure what I was expecting to see.
“Holographic projection, Sam. One of the many things humanity will gain from us.” She looked down at her hand-sized screen. “Under ten seconds. I believe that breaks your current world record.”
“Are you stringin’ me?”
“Of course not, Sam. Are you ready for the two hundred meters?”
I nodded and took off towards the next marker at her signal. As it got steadily closer, I was breathing just a little more quickly than normal. My muscles weren’t burning and I didn’t have to deal with my gut flopping around anymore. Rita’s image showed back up as I reached the blue light.
“You’re doing very well, Sam. How do you feel?”
“Better than ever. I don’t even have to catch my breath. It’s like I’m some kind of super Sam.”
“Excellent. I think we can skip to the strength tests, then.” She tapped at her screen some more. “We need to return to the ship. If you’ll follow me.”
I followed Rita’s double back the way I came. “Now that I’m back together again, I wanted to finish our chat. You said that the Seraphim didn’t destroy the Erelim homeworld. So who did?”
She cleared her throat and looked straight ahead. “The Erelim.”
I scratched the back of my neck. “Why the hell would they do that?”
“I do not know. Shortly after we shared our technology with them, a worldwide battle broke out, with several factions vying for territory. They scorched the ground and blasted the atmosphere away. Any Erelim fortunate enough to survive the fighting died a slow, agonizing death, struggling to breathe.”
“Ain’t that just peachy. Were there any signs of trouble before you gave them your gadgets?”
“There had been a war previously among the various factions. They had declared a cease-fire, but it was unclear if they had settled their differences. Regardless, we wanted to share our knowledge.”
“If there was still bad blood, did you really think giving them weapons that would make it easier for them to kill each other was a good idea?”
“Why should that make a difference?”
I looked at her like she was off her nut. “Are you serious? That’s like giving a flamethrower to a pyromaniac. You’re just asking him to set the world on fire.”
“The Seraphim do not encourage violence or infighting. What others do with our technology is not our concern.”
“It damn well should be. Your technology is your responsibility. If the people you give it to willy-nilly can’t handle it properly, that’s your fault, sister.”
“I do not think that we can be blamed for the actions of others. That isn’t fair.”
We had reached the ship. Rita tapped the screen and disappeared. The door opened as I double-timed it up the ramp. I found the real Rita back in the medical quarters.
“Don’t you see how giving something incredibly destructive to reckless people is foolish and irresponsible?”
“We did not destroy their planet, Sam.”
“You may as well have! Jesus Christ, Rita, they didn’t ask for your technology and without it they couldn’t have smashed their world to flinders.” Something that had been rattling around in my conk finally jumped out at me. “Wait, does that mean you’re going to do the same thing to Earth? Are you just going to dump all your dope and doohickeys on us and watch as we burn ourselves to the ground?”
“The envoy has already begun the transfer of information. But I assure you-“
“Oh Jesus. Oh no. No, no, no, you can’t do that. We’re not ready for that. We’ll blast everything, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll turn it all to ashes!” The words wouldn’t spill out of me fast enough. Fear’s bony fingers gripped the back of my neck.
“It is happening as we speak, Sam. Surely, you’re overreacting.”
I hated feeling afraid. So I got angry instead. “The hell I am! You don’t know the first thing about humans! We’re irrational, petty, and stupid. If you give us something that we can cause destruction with, we’re going to use it as much as we can until whatever we don’t like is all gone. And if there’s one thing humans don’t like, it’s other humans.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, you’re a goddamned alien!” Spittle flew from my lips as my voice shook the room. I brought my fist down on the table and cracked it in half. “You don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?”
Rita had jumped when I cracked the table, but she still just stood there, arms at her sides, calmly speaking to me as if I wasn’t raging out of control. “If your assumptions are correct, then it is merely survival of the fittest, a natural selection process that ensures only the best life in the universe continues to thrive.”
It had been a long time since I’d been angry, I mean really sore. My ticker felt like it was going to burst out of my chest and run around the room. The edges of my vision blurred and everything was painted red. If Rita said one more word I was going to explode. I took a deep breath and blew it out as slowly as I could while counting to ten.
When I finally spoke, my voice was ragged and subdued.
“Just take me home.”
“I think that’s for the best.” Rita gestured to the cryostasis chamber and I lay down. She tapped at her screen and I breathed through my nose as the glass cover slid into place. My teeth nearly splintered as I ground them together. I inhaled the cold, flowery air and tried to unknot my synthetic fiber muscles. Before I knew it I’d be home. How much time I was going to have there was unknown. I was just happy to be going home.
My eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep. I sunk into the void and didn’t dream.
Okay, "sank" into the void but otherwise nothing jumped out at me. :D
ReplyDeleteI feel so disappointed now. Last week the Seraphim were all full of promise and hope and this week they're basically sociopaths who give knives to children. Oh dear. I like that Sam didn't go upside Rita's head and instead resolved to live the life he had left. I appreciate that; in addition to those other traits of humanity he listed, the choice he made is a very human one as well.