by LK Walker
“I remember you like that. You were a hard arse back then.” Zander had been cold towards me, regimental, even a bit scary. The perfect soldier. “What changed?” I ask him but I already know the answer. I can recall the moment it altered. When the little girl was lying on the ground bleeding and I couldn’t help her. I know when, I just don’t know why.
“Do you remember the little girl who’d been shot?” he asks.
“Hard not to. You wanted me to fix her.” Not enough time has passed for my dread to have faded. When I think about it, the girl’s screams still fill my ears and I can feel the warmth of her blood soaking through my clothes.
“I could see the fear in your eyes. You wanted to help but you couldn’t. For the first time since I had met you, you dropped all your defenses.”
“I was so scared she’d die. I didn’t know what to do to help. Being mad at the world felt worthless. I felt worthless.”
“Do you remember afterward? We sat and talked for a while. You started to tell me about what was happening with you. I had no idea what you were dealing with until that point. For some stupid reason, the person I had taken over from, Magda, had withheld a lot of information from me.”
I shake my head.
“Why couldn’t I see your face?”
“How we bring you forward is still very touchy. The intricate way optics are integrated into the brain makes it difficult to provide your mind, the one being pulled forward, with the information the eyes here are gathering. Our technology isn’t good enough yet. So, we short circuit the connection by sending the messages directly from the visual cortex, via computer, to be assimilated with your thoughts. The only problem is we need a physical attachment to the computer to achieve it.” He tugs at a cord going from a small black unit at the head of the bed we are seated on. The cord runs up my spine and, from what I can feel, is attached to the base of my skull. Zander gives it a wiggle. “When this isn’t attached, your primary input is through my visual field. If you look somewhere I’m not looking, you’ll see the last image I saw from that location. Although, we blur a lot of the images in case whatever I saw is no longer in context with what you’re looking at. But the computer can feed in most of the information to give you a sense of seeing it yourself. Getting the feed from my visual cortex to the computer is easy enough, but it has its limitations. For instance, I don’t see my face often enough and our brains tend to distort our own features, anyway. That’s why you saw the blur.
Before the transfer team made the first connection with you, they had ironed out the bugs for your primary liaison and, after months of work, Magda was able to project her own image. When they hooked me in so quickly, there was no way I could project an accurate representation of my face. They initially allowed me to project an image of what I thought was my face. That was early on in our encounters. You freaked when you saw me. Started attacking me. Apparently, I was projecting something resembling a psychopathic killer. So, the team had to do some workarounds in the system. It was a little buggy at first, but they managed it.”
“You’re welcome,” the quiet man in the corner says.
Zander shuffles closer to me, turning his legs so his knee rests on the table, his body is square on to me. He looks at the quiet man and then back at me. Off a guess, I would say Zander’s nervous.
“I don’t want you to think I’m manipulating you and I’m not saying you should consider this when you make your choice, but whether you chose to be here or not, I wasn’t always playing a role. In fact, they nearly removed me as your primary when they found out how close we had got.” He whispers the last bit to me. It’s for my ears only. I can feel his hand stroke my arm and I think of the memories, with him, alone. He was real all that time. He must know what I’m thinking. My cheeks burn as I recall grabbing him by his belt and kissing him.
“I have a boyfriend. Jack.” I say his name for reassurance. I can’t look at Zander right now. Instead, I focus on my hands. They’re still trapped in a pair of ridiculously thin gloves that cover up any sign of flesh. I wiggle my fingers and the material shuffles around. They can’t be useful for anything. Without hesitation, I grab the end of my middle finger and pull. Without any hitch, the glove comes off.
“No.” Zander cries. It startles me when he grabs at my hand, trying to keep the glove on, but it’s too late, it's balled up in my other hand. I look down at my skin, expecting something terrifying to happen. Zander covers my hand with his. His are much bigger than mine and I lose sight of what lay beneath. I only caught a glimpse of the back of my hand, but something wasn’t right.
“Cara, look at me.” Zander pleads.
He tries to hold on, but my fingers are small and slide out of his grasp just as easily as they had from the glove. My hand’s all there, four fingers and a thumb covered in perfectly formed flesh. The only problem is—it’s not my hand. I never realized how well I know them. The nails and all the tiny creases, the little scars that you can hardly notice, make up a distinguishable canvas. Zander is no longer groping to stop me from seeing it. He’s now standing in front of me. He’s talking in a placid tone, but I don’t hear a word of it.
“What the hell?” is all I can muster before stripping myself of the other glove. A matching pair of hands. Unfortunately, neither of them are mine. I grapple at my face trying to discern whether I’m feeling my face or someone else’s. I have no idea what mine feels like, no reference point to tell. It’s not like I’m in the habit of groping my own cheeks. I can hear Zander asking me to calm down. I stand up, forcing him to take a step back. There isn’t a mirror in this room. I need to find one. There must be one here somewhere. The next step I take rips the cord from my neck. The room shivers a bit and the edges blur. I can now understand why this is so weird, Zander has explained it. It’s all from his eyes. I head for the closest door. The hinges screech as I throw it open. It’s a bedroom, and I only say that because there’s a bed in here, nothing else, no mirror hanging on the wall. It’s in no better state than the last room, although when I take a breath of the air in this room I realize they may have tried to air out the lounge before my arrival.
I’m trying to make sense of what I’m seeing through Zander’s eyes, how he has viewed the world and how the computer attempts to fix the gaps. It’s impressively seamless. If only I could persuade it to show me me. It would have that information. Zander’s looked at me enough, but that’s not how it works. Maybe I can’t check my face out, but there is still other flesh undefined. I rip the long-sleeved shirt up and over my head and look down at my body. There’s nothing there, an empty gap, until Zander enters the room, that is. Obviously, his eyes had never had the chance to check my naked body out before. I look down again, seeing what he’s now seeing. That’s not my bra, nor my breasts peeking over the top. I look a little further and I see the edge of a tattoo snaking around my right hip.
“Cara, when we were at the compound those gloves were able to project an image of your real hands. Here they’re useless.” Zander has grabbed my shirt and is trying to get me to put it back on. “Sit down and I can explain.”
His hands are on the bare skin of my waist. I can feel them there. I can see where the pressure of his fingers indents the skin, but it’s not my waist. The sensation of him stroking my skin suggests differently. It’s hard to ignore. My body or not, it still excites at his touch.
“I’m registering a trace. We have to pull her. Get her hooked up.” The quiet man’s voice is loud from the other room, and it’s quavering.
I’m trying to see the full extent of the tattoo Zander raps his arms around me, covering the ink and he uses his weight to drag me back into the other room, throwing me onto the bed. “I’m sorry,” he says to me over and over again. His weight shifts on me and I feel the wire reconnecting with the back of my head. Everything shimmers again. Zander’s lips lock on mine and he kisses me fiercely.
“Come back to me soon,” he whispers into my ear. “I promise I’ll explain.”
&nbs
p; I sit straight up in bed. My room is nearly the same size as the one I’ve just been in, but without the tawdry wallpaper. Instead I’m left with the monotonous cream walls that are my bedroom. At least the air is fresh.
My skin is crawling from the experience as I fumble for the light switch next to the bed. I must squint to see anything in the bright light. It’s enough to see my hands. And they are mine, I turn them over a couple of times to check. I pull up my top. Bare, unmarked flesh. I fall back onto my pillow and fight to steady my breathing.
Chapter 19
“Cara, this is Maree Skarlow. Maree this is Cara Sullivan.” Eli makes the introductions. Maree is my boss, my actual boss. She’s employed by the government to run the project, in collaboration with my brother. He gave me a full briefing on Maree before she arrived so her cranky attitude wouldn’t rub me the wrong way. Well, not on the first day, he’d joked. He’s hoping I can manage a whole week. She barely says three words before I understand why Eli thought it prudent to give me a heads up. Her tone is clipped and, other than an obligatory handshake, she has dismissed me by turning her back and heading for the door. Either I’ll have to prove myself before I get some respect or she’ll have a nickname like the last boss. I’m really hoping for the first.
It’s hard to believe I’ve already been here over a month. The building’s a big place and I’m only now finding my way around all the floors. Nine in total and they’re expansive. The cafeteria is on the second floor. I must admit I could have probably navigated to it in the dark after being here a week.
Maree’s office will be next to mine. It’s the next stop on her grand tour of the building, after meeting me. I overhear her telling Eli that it will suffice.
While she’s off meeting the rest of her new colleagues, I do my best to set up the ‘sufficing’ office and then get back to my work. The work I’ve been handed since arriving here hasn’t been very taxing, although I’m hoping the arrival of my boss might improve things. It doesn’t take her long to look over the remainder of the building. I guess that means she hasn’t engaged with the rest of the staff any more than she did with me.
Maree stands in the doorway to my office. There’s no leaning against the frame. Her back is straight and her hands comfortably at her side, no twitching or any sign of discomfort. Her dress sense reflects her attitude, hard and in control. It’s all black with straight lines. Her dark hair sits perfectly in a bob and a single strand of pearls encircles her neck. I can imagine she needed every ounce of that control to get her to the position she’s in now, especially as she only looks forty. I muse that she’s been asked to run this project with the Department of Defense because, with her attitude, she’ll feel at home in their company.
Maree doesn’t announce her presence with a friendly ‘hello’. Instead, she uses my name as a greeting, before she asks me to get her a few things and put them in her office. Basic items, mostly stationery, nothing I haven’t thought of.
“They’re already in your drawer,” I know not to exhibit any inclination of my pride when I answer. No one likes the smug.
That was an approving look I got, right before she said, “Thank you.” That’s a change, there’s hope for her yet.
*****
Five weeks on from the shock of glimpsing my body housed in another’s skin and my sleep has been peppered with dreams, all my own. The first couple of weeks I was glad no one was hijacking my mind while it lay quiet and vulnerable, although I never took any sleeping pills to stop them. By week three, when Zander hadn’t made an appearance, I was starting to worry I wouldn’t get to see him again. Week five and worry has turned to fear. JT hasn’t had any contact either and he’s stressing as much as I am. Something must be wrong and there’s nothing we can do to help.
In the first few weeks after our last contact, JT and I talked on the phone every lunchtime. We had a standing appointment to call each other at 1305 hours. The five minutes at the start of my lunch break was to give me time to find somewhere where I wouldn’t be disturbed. JT longed to return to our dream world to check out whether he had a new body too. He’s rather proud of the one he has now and didn’t like the idea that in the future he might be a muscle-less slob. During those phone calls, we went over what we saw and did several times, exhausting any new sparks of interest.
With the weeks that have passed, and with nothing original to say, we’re down to a text message a day and even they’re becoming one-liners, mostly ‘still nothing’.
At least work is going well. Two weeks ago, I accepted a promotion from Maree. She had been waiting for some guy to take the position but he’d originally accepted it on the basis it was in San Francisco, not Seattle. It’s the same reason I haven’t seen Captain Jackass around here. For some reason, he declined moving, something about his wife’s job not being flexible. Not that I’m complaining on either count. It turns out, over the past few weeks working for Maree, I have “proven myself and would slot right into the role”. They were Maree’s words, not mine. Again, I’m not complaining. I love my new title and the salary package that comes with it—Assistant Manager–Operations. Funny thing is, I still work for Maree, still organize everything, I just no longer answer phones or do the filing. I also do a hell of a lot more work than before. There’s no sitting around idle anymore. Jack already complains that I work too much but he says it jokingly. He tells me that he can see how happy it makes me and he’ll only get on my case about it if that changes. I’m not sure it will. I honestly don’t mind the extra work. It keeps my mind busy and, for the first time in my life, I think I actually enjoy my job. Who knew that was even a possibility?
Part of my role as the Assistant Manager–Operations includes keeping a track of who, on the government side of the organization, is up to date and on task, and to gently motivate those who aren’t. Although the line seems to be becoming more blurred as time goes on. As a result, I have somehow managed to become the unofficial liaison between the government and the military sides of the project. It sounds hard, but the two main culprits are my brother and my boss, so it’s not overly complex. The hardest part is taking sides. I work for the government now, they’re my employer and it’s expected that I do everything with them in mind.
Generally, that’s not all that difficult, we’re usually talking staffing issues or product stocking. Today, though, something has set Maree and Eli off. I’ve come in to see Maree in her office to ask her to sign off on a few request forms and she and Eli are in a heated argument.
“Later,” Maree says to me when I open the door. Her face is deadpan. I have learned not to poke the beast when she has that look on her face, and it’s the darkest glower as I’ve seen her pull yet. Eli must be a slow learner. His face isn’t much better. Although he doesn’t look at me, I can see his scowl from his profile. The skin on his forehead is nearly forming knots. I back out of the room with a pursed-lipped smile, with the intention of scurrying away, happy not to have to stay.
Two quick steps are all I take before I slow my gait, out of the line of fire, but close enough to hear what’s going on. I need to remember to tell Maree that her office doesn’t have much in the way of sound proofing. Both she and Eli are talking in raised voices which only compounds the problem.
“This project is going to be dead in the water if they stay on board. I’ll kill it. Why would you assume I would even consider accepting it?” Eli is enraged. It takes a lot to initiate that.
“I’m only just learning about this myself, so pull your head in and watch that tone, Colonel. I’m not the enemy. Teaming up with them is against my better judgment too, but there doesn’t seem to be a way around it. We will find a way to work with them.” Maree’s voice is a little quieter, but her words still carry clearly through the closed door. Instead of trying to listen in, I leave them behind. Curiosity would normally get the better of me, but I would have to stay standing in the area outside her office. There’s no way I can look like I’m casually hanging out there.
On the bright side, Eli is coming for dinner. I can dig for information then. I try to think what could get him so worked up. Patience is not my best quality.
Chapter 20
I’ve been outside to grab a couple of sprigs of mint to put in our cocktails. A little bit of fancy to make the dinner special. It’s Eli’s birthday, so I’m making a fuss. As I come back inside, the smell of roasting chicken fills my nostrils and the kitchen windows are covered in condensation making it impossible to see through the glass. Together, these give me a feeling of comfort.
Eli arrived while I was out in the garden. I can hear the distinctive rumble of his voice coming from the hallway. Even now, away from work, his voice is gruff with a distinct air of frustration.
“Happy Birthday.” I grab him up in a hug as soon as he appears around the corner of the kitchen.
“Thanks, sis.” There’s no real sentiment in his voice, he really is in a bit of a funk.
“Bad day, mate?” Jack asks him, giving him a friendly pound on the back as he walks past. It must be obvious for Jack to say anything.
“You could say that,” Eli replies.
I pick up a couple of tumbler glasses off the counter, fill them with the cocktail, top each with a mint garnish, and hand one to Eli, before leading him into the lounge. Jack stays behind to check on dinner. It gives me and Eli a bit of time by ourselves to discuss what happened. I doubt Eli would open up in front of Jack. He’s a bit of a stickler when it comes to confidentiality. Jack isn’t in the organization so he won’t get a sniff of it.
“Are you okay?” I ask with a real inquisitional tone to my voice. “I can’t believe they did that.”
I know my brother well enough that he’ll hold onto a secret, even from me, so I fish for the truth. It’s not the most honest thing to do, but I want to know what riled him.
