The Shapeshifter Chronicles

by Peralta, Samuel

  Isa's shadowy face seethed with rage. Jack backed up as fast as his feet would allow, his head aching in pain as oxygen worked its way back to where it belonged.

  Isa lunged. She moved faster than Jack anticipated, seizing his arm, the bone beneath his skin fracturing from her unnatural strength. She pulled Jack towards her as the door closed. The auto-clave sunk into darkness.

  Snap...

  Click…

  Pop…

  Psst…

  The sanitation cycle initiated, slowly filling the jacket surrounding the machine with searing steam. The heat inside quickly became unbearable. Jack choked, his throat parched.

  Eyes already wet from the unbearable pain that wracked his torn body, Jack began to weep as his unescapable fate was made abundantly clear. A voice in the darkness giggled. Isa, speaking from the black, whispered in Jack's ear, still holding his arm tight. Too tight.

  “Now you’re mine forever, Jack.”

  A Word from Christopher Boore

  What do you do when life flips you upside down? Me? My imagination starts to go to strange places. Stories start to form and if the situation is really stressful, the stories get ugly.

  You need a little background to understand the inspiration for “Breakdown”.

  Two years ago... 2014... summertime... August. Where were you? I'll tell you where I was— mortal hell. I had a Mitsubishi with an alternator that seemed intent on a slow death and oil leaking from my valve gaskets. My wife's mini-van, which was already threatening a world of issues, also decided to flat out kill its alternator. I had a full blown cold, on heavy meds, which made me anxious already.

  At the bio-tech facility, where I work, we were having major problems with our chillers, and the steam boiler was working on a suicidal meltdown. I was on-call, permanently due to needing the money and at the time I was averaging close to 20+ hours of overtime a week. Needless to say I was stressed out. Everything, especially mechanical things, seemed to be trying to kill me. The mini-van even made a solid attempt. The alternator I changed out was also bad, the wheel flew off when the family and I were on the way home one Friday, causing an emergency pull-over and a pile of aggravation. I still have a nasty scar from the burn I received when I reached into the engine to retrieve the kicked belt.

  The building I work at is fully automated, we take home an iPad and can remote in to the system when we get alarms and hopefully remotely tweak a setting or change lead/lag on a piece of equipment to avoid a drive in. Sometimes we can't; at times the building needs hands-on lovin'. There are times I feel like I get back on-call (nowadays we rotate shifts, one week on, two off) and the building is angry at me and throws me some problems to fix. Has a tantrum.

  This is where I first thought, what if the automation had an A.I., and a complex personality? What if the automation could make itself a body and inhabit it? What if that automation was in love with an unaware, caring maintenance man who was going through a rough patch...what if the building used its communicative power to lure the character in, incorrectly assuming he felt the same way. What if there was some tech to put that personality into a body?

  If I'm supposed to say something profound, or eye-opening, I probably missed the mark. “Breakdown” is just supposed to be a story of my real amplified anxiety, mashed with some fast-paced horror.

  I don't think I'll ever be that writer who leaves you contemplating your very existence; I just want to tell fun stories. “Breakdown” is that. My summer of stress-induced terror, personified.

  I will leave you with this one thought though, what do you think happened after the auto-clave incident? Did Isa's consciousness die with the body, or was it stored in a backup? Could she do this all over again, without anyone clueing in to the fact the automation was responsible?

  Feel free to stop by my website and sign up for my newsletter for any updates on upcoming projects: http://caboore.thirdscribe.com/

  And please check out my Amazon store page at http://www.amazon.com/Christopher-Boore/e/B00ELG5TT6

  Not Quite Her

  by K. J. Colt

  THE OVERLY CLEAN SMELL of Seattle Central Hospital had become a symbol of rebirth, of starting my new life as someone else died. Within the cold walls of the palliative care ward, lit by hazy fluorescents, I’d stolen five unremarkable identities.

  Every three months, like clockwork, my body shifted into an entirely new person. The Change wasn’t in my control, but luckily, the person I became was.

  Cordelia, a 70-year-old woman suffering through Parkinson’s final stages, was my next target. A death-facing woman with a reasonable bank account, angelic criminal history, and few family members made her perfect for me.

  Sitting at her bedside, I took the old woman’s hand and absorbed her life force. Our papery skin, long deprived of youth, made us sisters. She was old. I was old.

  Society ignored the aged. A shuffling woman with breasts to her waist paled in comparison to fertile twenty-somethings, heavily made-up eyes gleaming with irrational hope. Their sights set on houses, husbands, cars, and shoes.

  I fought hard for the scraps of normalcy they took for granted, and yet envied them.

  Five years ago, I’d loved a man, had tried to tell him about the real me. He’d shattered my trust in people, and that changed me.

  A tear escaped. Another month of bingo, bridge, and socializing with gray-matter-depleted geriatrics would kill me, but I couldn’t see another way.

  A nurse in scuffed shoes came in to check on Cordelia’s machines and tubing. She looked up from her clipboard to me. “Here again, Rosie?”

  I smiled at her. “Nowhere better to be.” That was the truth. My three months of being Rosie were ending, and soon I’d shift into Cordelia. Normal people needed to drink water. I needed to shift, but my heart wasn’t in it. Another pointless identity…a life without meaning is no life at all.

  In my twenty-five years of real age, I’d come to see shifting as a regenerating process that rebuilt my cells. Yet I, the person inside, remained the same.

  “You’re a saint to keep visiting,” the nurse said.

  “It’s not saintly to keep a dying woman company, dear.”

  The nurse sniffed in appreciation, ticked Cordelia’s chart, and left.

  The arrhythmic beat of Cordelia’s heart sounded from the monitor, making me hyper aware of time passing by. The average person takes about 23,000 breaths a day. At 70 years Cordelia had taken roughly 587 million breaths. There weren’t many left. Upon her death, the synapses in her brain would stop firing, yet she’d continue on as a sort of a ghost in me.

  A frazzled woman wandered into the room, her eyes bloodshot. “Hello,” she said shakily.

  She looked to be in her mid-thirties. Blue eyes sparkled wet under thick lashes. Thick brown hair curled down her pressed shirt to swing an inch from the belt of her jeans. Lips stretched into a pensive smile.

  Feigning the kind of groan you’d expect from a woman suffering from arthritis, I got to my feet.

  “Oh, no, no,” the woman said, rushing forward. “Please, keep sitting.”

  Before I could pull away, she touched me. I didn’t have time to scream at her to stay away, to lash out at her so as to avoid tempting the Change. Feeling their vitality made me miserable. I don’t want to hide anymore. “I really must go.”

  “Please don’t.” She burst into tears.

  Senses heightened, I mapped the DNA of this woman. My common sense screamed at me to leave, but now the idea of becoming Cordelia disgusted me.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “Yes.” Within me there was no human decency, no sympathetic smile for this stranger. To care about her would mean giving life to the repressed parts of my soul.

  She offered her hand to me. “I’m Claire.”

  Claire. A heavenly name. Bliss plastered a stupid grin on my face, the rapture seducing me into contentment, and I let down my guard. I stared at her and internally wrestled the ra
venous urges.

  “I’m Rosie,” I said.

  Claire’s smell rushed through my veins. I was high on her, and I took her hand eagerly.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked. I took my seat, no longer in control.

  She pointed hopelessly across the room. “Well, that’s literally my death bed.”

  Damn. Terminal patient. Could my luck have been any better, or any worse? The Change wanted this. It showed me the rogue, imposter cells of her cancer mapped out across her flesh, consuming the alveoli of her lungs.

  Calm. Calm. The waves of elation, electrical compulsions, crashed against my soul. Claire was going to die, and that made me happy because I wanted her life.

  “I’m sorry for your friend.” She nodded at Cordelia. The complexion of her face went patchy. “I’ve only got two weeks…” Tears tracked black and beige through her makeup. “I ignored my health. I’ve failed my family.”

  A vision of a gorgeous man with beautiful, straight teeth bringing breakfast in bed encapsulated me. I’d already received one of her memories. That man, Claire’s husband, Heath, was now rubbing my feet. Other feelings awoke. Stop it!

  “My mother died of breast cancer. I can’t do that to my husband and child. Two weeks to live. How can I possibly…? It’s so unfair.”

  I forced myself to stand. “I have to go.”

  Claire jumped to her feet and grabbed my bare arms, which toppled all resistance. The subsonic boom of the Change went off like a starter gun. Bones knocked, joints shuddered like shifting tectonic plates.

  “No,” I whispered. Not here.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I hated her for touching me, for talking to me. Without warning, I found myself hugging her against me, sapping up the biological information the Change needed to complete itself.

  “Let go,” she said, struggling.

  The atoms in my body split apart. The tremor of energy rocked my life-sustaining cells, and the Change began.

  The first wave of pain hit me like an unrelenting stabbing. “Christ,” I said, gasping. My ears buzzed, my heart bounced uncontrollably. Whatever focus remained was shattered, dulling my consciousness, putting the Change into overdrive.

  “I’ll get the nurse and—”

  “No…please,” I pulled myself together, straightening and forcing a smile to my face. Be tall. “I was just so moved by your courage. I’m having an arthritis flare-up, it’s normal, but the bus ride home is a long one for me. It’s not far. Could you take me?”

  “Sure,” she said, looking fraught with concern.

  “What a dear you are, but I must say goodbye to Cordelia first, is that all right?”

  “I’ll be outside,” she said.

  When the door closed, I yanked Cordelia’s morphine drip from her arm and shoved the spiky end into a vein. Contentment mingled with a fog of relief.

  Less overwhelmed, I joined Claire. “Where did you park?”

  “In the basement.”

  Claire guided me to the elevator. Downstairs, I felt safer in the dimly lit parking lot. She pulled out her key fob and an Audi flashed its lights.

  She helped me into it. Cushioned by leather and comforted by raspberry scents, I relinquished control. The genesis of the Change sizzled, yet the morphine created a buffer between us. Blood rushed hot through my veins, stinging like nettles. I bit the inside of my cheek.

  “Where do you live?” Claire asked.

  “Number 13A Banker Terrace in—”

  Adrenaline surged. A ligament in my left arm tore, and I stifled a cry. Claire’s eyes were on my face as her fingers tapped on her GPS.

  “Got it.”

  “I might take a nap,” I said. “I’m so weary.” The morphine dosage wasn’t enough—agony doubled my vision as I slipped into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Pain awoke me. I was in my room, at home, and Claire, her form blurry in the distance, clutched a cell phone to her ear.

  Bubbles of her speech popped. “Hello,” she said. “I have a woman—”

  “Stop!” I threw my sweat-coated body at her, propelled by rubbery legs. The phone flew out of her hand. Another wave of agony hit. I curled up on the floor, gasping. “No ambulances. No hospitals. Please.”

  “Rosie, you’re burning up. You have to go to the hospital. Don’t ignore this.”

  I unwound myself and got back into bed. “They’ll pump me full of drugs and I’ll die there. Have mercy.”

  “Are you dying?”

  “No, it’s severe arthritis. Fetch my vodka from the freezer downstairs.”

  Trust slipped from her features. “You’re an alcoholic?”

  “God almighty, girl, it’s for the pain!”

  The squeaking cupboards and the thuck of the fridge door echoed down the hallway. Claire returned holding the bottle. She flicked the light on and gasped. “You look…”

  A bone in my right arm cracked. Here we go.

  “Bring the bottle here. Quickly.”

  I searched for my painkillers and took a handful at once, washing them down with vodka.

  “Your hair is black. It was gray, and your face…it’s smoothing up,” she observed.

  “Hold my hand until I’m asleep again,” I said.

  Moving the chair closer, she took my hand, and the Change sped up. This hadn’t happened before. Every bone started snapping and splitting, and when my hips twisted violently, the shock knocked me out again.

  * * *

  The sheets were itchy and sticky. A woman’s voice faded in.

  “I’m sorry, Heath—”

  Heath. Claire’s husband, I thought, experiencing the few memories surfacing with his name.

  “—I just got caught up. Just give him mac and cheese, he’ll do his homework and get to bed. He’s already ten.”

  Where had she slept? It must have been morning. Or not. The bedside lamp was on. A glass of water caught my attention, and while I guzzled it down I noticed the smooth skin on my hands.

  “You’re awake,” Claire said, putting her phone in her purse.

  “What’s the time?” Damn, my voice was exactly the same as Claire’s.

  Her eyes widened with fear. “It’s…6:00 a.m. Thursday.” She leaned forward, and I noticed the dark circles around her eyes. “Am I going insane?”

  “No. Please don’t call the police.” Yes, that had happened before. I struggled to sit. “I know it’s weird… let me explain.”

  “The fact you can… I don’t even know what to call it.”

  “Shift, or Change.” I carefully watched her; people usually didn’t deal well with my uniqueness.

  “Is this some radioactive thing? You’ve got my hair, my freckles, everything.”

  “I know.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m…Rosie…” May as well just spit it out. “She’s only one of many identities I’ve had.”

  “Identities,” she repeated. “So what’s your real name?”

  My memories were sketchy; I wasn’t even sure I was born a girl. There was one name I gave myself, a consistent way to refer to myself. “Jay.”

  “Yesterday, you were—”

  “Old.”

  “And now you’re—”

  “Younger.”

  “Me!” She arched an eyebrow.

  “You’re taking this really well.”

  “So what are you?”

  I shrugged. “Not normal?”

  That made her laugh. “Where are you from? When did you—?” She stopped. “Sorry.” She lifted up her shirt, showing the bruising around her ribs. “Why don’t you have these?”

  Glancing downwards, I noticed my change of clothes: a V-neck t-shirt and linen pants. No blouses or skirts sitting up to saggy breasts, which were pert and full.

  “You can keep them,” she said, referring to my outfit. “They’re a spare.” She waited.

  “I don’t have many memories before nine. I know I’m from the East Coast, and…” I felt guilty abou
t this part. “I don’t have your bruises because I don’t have cancer. I never get sick.”

  Suffering bloomed in her eyes. “You’re a perfectly healthy me.”

  “I’m sorry.” The discussion saddened me, but it also thrilled me. She spoke to me like a person, wanting to know me, not running screaming from the house.

  “It was awful watching—” she started.

  “Sorry. I didn’t get a chance to warn you.”

  “Ugh, this is like a bad telephone echo.”

  That made me laugh, and it was her laugh but in my style, which only made me laugh more. Claire joined in but that laugh turned to a chesty cough; she heaved to get enough oxygen in, and when she wiped her lips with a napkin, there was red smeared on it.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “My lungs.” She looked up from the napkin to me. “What do you want from me?”

  “Want from you? Nothing. I change every three months. You just touched me at the wrong time, and it happened. I was trying to become Cordelia.”

  Now that the Change was done, all the desperate thoughts, the lies, they’d disappeared, leaving me lucid again.

  “Where’s your family?” she asked.

  I gave her a despondent look.

  “No one?”

  I shook my head. “If you hadn’t gotten me out of that hospital…”

  “Oh.” She became thoughtful. “The doctors, yes. I can see why you needed to get away.”

  “Exactly. You saved me.”

  “What will you do now?” she asked.

  The sting of tears made me blink faster. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to live a long life.”