Nathan’s conversation with Caroline was brought to an abrupt halt. He had just gotten into the building, and he was about to receive an irreversible injection that would probably alter his body. He began to quiver, anticipating the situation and going over the details. How long would it take? What would be done to his brain? What kind of person would he become? Would it hurt?
“You have about a minute. Choose your questions wisely,” Caroline stated. Looking at her, Nathan knew that she was hiding something about her emotional state. If he had to guess, it was probably pity. This time, he knew she was right to feel it.
Why’d he even choose this? What kind of idiot would decide to walk away from their life? Could he back out of this? There was nothing he wanted more than that. He desperately wanted to go back home and hug his mom and maybe plan some sort of big family reunion.
“Can I go back?”
“The decision was final when you walked in here.”
“Do I have to take the injection?”
“Yes.”
“What if I resist?”
“We’ll strap you down.”
With each answer, Nathan’s shoulders sank further and further.
“Can I talk to my mom? My dad? Jim? Anyone?” he pleaded. He wanted to at least say goodbye, even if he wouldn’t ever see them again. Just a phone call, anything to hear their voices one more time.
Perhaps the only person he was satisfied with his last interaction with was Jim. Last night, they’d played some video games together, and spent the next three hours voice chatting together, talking about their lives, and the most random stuff imaginable. He could live with that being the last time they ever talked. At least they’d ended on a good note.
The last time he’d interacted with his big brother, they’d fought. They’d called each other assholes, and vowed to never speak to each other again. That couldn’t be the last time they’d ever interact. That couldn’t be how he would remember him.
The last time he talked to his mom… he couldn’t remember when that was. He hadn’t seen her in months. He’d been meaning to get around to it for a while, but things had been pretty busy. Perhaps seeing her should’ve been a higher priority than the wild goose chase he’d conducted. But it was too late now.
“Too big of a security risk. You’re going to be dead to them in under a week, and there’s no way you’ll be trustworthy enough before then,” Caroline replied coldly.
“How do you -”
“We cloned a brain-dead version of you, killed it, and the police will discover it soon.”
Not even a phone call. They were going to think he was dead. Nobody would ever fathom looking for him; that was how they did it. That was how they’d manage to procure thirty-one nobodies without raising the slightest amount of suspicion. He finally knew what had been done; a single ordinary death, even after they went missing for an entire week, wouldn’t be suspicious or missed at all. They wouldn’t screen for cloning; that was too expensive.
One thing was for certain: The police weren’t in on it. That wouldn’t be feasible, considering that police bodycams were live-streamed 24 hours a day. So, the Department of Autonomy was able to fool them completely.
But he couldn’t talk to his family ever again. He’d have to live with this.
There was no use in suffering. There were more important questions.
“What’s the injection going to do to me?”
“Your DNA will be rewritten. That’s the easy part.”
“But doesn’t DNA not -”
“No, rewriting your DNA doesn’t actually change you. So, instead, we will kick your cells into overdrive, forcing them to divide far more rapidly than usual, to act as a sort of reset. Finally, every few hours, your cells will be… forcibly disorganized. Tissues will be torn apart, bit by bit, and your body will reform them corresponding to its new blueprints.”
Caroline was reading from a pamphlet.
“How long does it take?”
“About a month.”
“What kind of person am I turning into?”
There was a knock on the door.
----------------------------------------
“Is there really no way we can cut funding, Chris?”
“No. If we stop funding the Department of Health, the numbers will stop adding up. There’s no reasonable explanation we can find to cut the genetic modification program abruptly.”
“What about costs?”
“If we cite costs as a reason, we’ll draw investigators. No cash will be freed up for the Department of Health, they’ll know that, and then the conspiracy theorists will get confirmation that they’re right. I’ve been over this, Natasha.”
“Well, what if we said we were redirecting funding somewhere else?”
“They’ll expect new programs, programs that we’ll have to fund. Overall, we won’t gain any funding to be used elsewhere.”
There had to be some sort of solution. Natasha could find it. They were fighting unknown, advanced aliens; they needed every penny redirected.
“Okay, what about an internal transfer? We stop the focus on new genetic modification projects, strip the serum program down to the wire, and focus on R&D with more immediate, practical results?”
“With all due respect, Natasha, I think you aren’t thinking of the potential of genetic modification. It isn’t merely a long-term thing; we both know it only takes a month to conform a human being’s biology to new DNA.”
Natasha shuddered. How could he be so nonchalant about that?
“You really should be spending more time learning about what we do, Natasha,” he added.
“I get that from everyone, Chris. Give me a break.”
“Well, recently, we’ve made a breakthrough. Turns out the DNA conforming process is far easier to replicate than we thought. It should be financially feasible to alter others’ DNA on a large scale.”
“What scale are we talking?”
“We could apply augmentations to a small mining colony, right now, for under a billion dollars.”
“With no decline in quality?” Natasha asked, completely astonished.
“None. The only bottleneck is security. If this technology makes it into the public eye, then they’ll know how we came into existence, and the hunt’s on for our old identities.”
“But, not only will we predate the technology, but they already know about clone transplantation. GVD patients get their bodies replaced all the time. I doubt it’ll be that bad.”
Chris threw up his hands. “Regardless, the point is, this department shouldn’t be gutted. The work we do is valuable, and it’s usable right now. We could make super soldiers. We could fix any vulnerabilities the aliens find in our brains.”
“Could the serum be used on the aliens?”
“We’d need some tissue samples to find out.”
“Ask Phoebe about that. I’m sure she’d be delighted to find one for you.”
“Far too delighted for my tastes. I don’t get what you see in her, Natasha.”
“She’s diligent and passionate. What’s not to like?”
“She doesn’t care about anyone but us.”
“It’s our job to suppress our empathy for the people we hurt. They’re necessary sacrifices for the greater good, Chris. That’s practically all we do here - we make the sacrifices that nobody else would be able to make. We make the decisions to help Antares that nobody else can stomach.”
“Natasha, there’s a difference between suppressing empathy and having none to begin with. I’ve seen how callously she treats sending people to their deaths. It’s like they’re just some statistic to her.”
“Look, you’re working with the Department of Health. You’re working closely with other people, and your staff sees suffering every single day. Phoebe doesn’t work there. She sees technology to reverse engineer, information to look at. It’s harder to have empathy for people when you never see them. And, besides, she cares about us!”
“I don’t want her replaced or anything. I just think you should keep your distance from her, and make sure that she doesn’t hurt anyone too badly for the sake of progress.”
“We aren’t close,” Natasha blurted out.
“Yeah, sure,” was Chris’s retort.
Why did everyone think that? Things between Natasha and Phoebe were completely professional. And they had to stay that way, regardless; she was Natasha’s subordinate, after all. Acting on any feelings would be incredibly unprofessional, and the power dynamic they had would make any relationship impossible anyway.
She left the room, heading to her quarters. Paperwork was the least fun part of her day, but at least it was predictable. The briefings she read wouldn’t give her gigantic headaches, or fight every single decision she made. Well, most of them wouldn’t.
----------------------------------------
Instead of the usual, sleek look that the Terran Republic’s ships tried to adhere to, this spacecraft had abandoned all resemblance of form in favor of function. They hadn’t even spent any money on paint - the colors of the different types of equipment, and the metal that made up the outside of the hull, were completely visible. It looked like the ship was bristling with slots for weapons, but all but a single laser had been removed in favor of more reactor space.
Blaine Forester, the lone pilot, boarded the ship. On the inside, it looked like it hadn’t even been meant to support life. Everything from the airlocks to the oxygen generator seemed like afterthoughts, carted in at the last minute. All the controls were remote, jury-rigged via exposed red wires that ran through the ship’s maintenance tunnels. The cockpit was tiny for such a large ship, barely giving him room to stand up and take off his spacesuit. Any EVAs would be cumbersome, and the escape pod was barely accessible.
But this was a simple, short mission, and he doubted he’d even see any major combat. He just had to watch the ship pilot itself into the correct zone, see it fire a laser while preparing to make a jump, and then guide it back to base. It was an easy job, given to him by an admiral of the Terran Space Force, with explicit instructions not to ask questions and not to tell anyone about it. The base he’d been asked to report to was in the upper quadrant, within the sphere of influence of the Antares system. They were probably trying to figure out how to neutralize its defensive capabilities again.
He was a soldier, and he followed orders. It was some experimental TBI plan, the vessel also made by the TBI - it wasn’t an ordinary anything. But he would gladly keep the secrets; he was lucky to be trusted, and he knew what would happen to him and his family if he were to try to squeal.
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The engine activated, without his input. It had been explained: The ship was mostly automated. He was only there to pilot the ship back home after the automated routine had initiated the jump - something about an experimental hyperspace engine that didn’t use much power? Weren’t jumps, once initiated, easy for a computer to complete? There was something they weren’t telling him, though he wasn’t about to ask questions.
He was a suitable pilot, however. He could get the ship back, wherever it went.
It was headed towards… empty space? No, there was something there.
Looking at the sensory unit, he saw a gigantic alien vessel approaching. He did a double take, confirming that he was on an intercept course with the vessel. But that was fine. Maybe that was the target; perhaps they were testing their laser out on an alien ship. They were too far away to do anything, regardless.
He began to look around - there were cameras all over the room, a bunch of different kinds of sensors. He was being watched from at least fifty different angles with visible light alone, and the rest of the ship was covered at a similar density. Storing that footage must have been a nightmare.
He watched the ship get bigger and bigger, the distance readout getting lower and lower, until it passed a magic number - 100,000 kilometers. Then… the ship’s jump drive began to prepare to jump. It began, as usual, by tethering the rest of the ship to the drive.
That was an enormous draw of power, rapidly depleting the batteries. Usually, tethering lasted less than one second. Now, it had been active for five; it couldn’t last longer than fifteen before it ran out of charge.
Immediately, he got a notification about the laser finally being able to fire.
It had been completely charged up, drawing even more power from the batteries, with the engorged reactor unable to even come close to matching the power required. They intended to shoot the alien ship from a hundred thousand kilometers away - relatively far for a laser, which meant it would be a bit dispersed, but it would work.
Finally, after charging for five seconds, the laser fired.
And the ship, laser and all, winked into hyperspace.
----------------------------------------
“Dammit, Phoebe! You violated my orders!”
“I’m sorry, Natasha! I’d already sent the go-ahead, and my cancellation came a day too late!”
“Civvie or labbie?”
“Neither. They found a Terran Space Force pilot.”
Natasha groaned.
“Your branch needs to be more centralized, Pheebs. This is the fifth time something like this has happened.”
“We both know that centralized branches are far less secure. The high information latency is what allows us to do so much with so little risk of being caught.”
“Well, this is a disaster. The pilot probably already knows too much, so we can’t just let him go free. He knows what our ship looks like, and the TBI could identify that he went missing and question him. From there, they’ll learn too much about the test drone program.”
“So we eliminate him. Stage a suicide, and nobody will care. Problem solved.”
“How can you be so -”
“It’s not that big of a deal. Just one person.”
“We’re talking about murder, Pheebs! Stars, I just don’t get it.”
“They’re sacrifices. Besides, we save far more people than we kill. It’s one, compared to an entire planet. What’s even the point of trying to get empathy for people, when it makes it harder to help them? How do the rest of them even do this, if they care so much about individuals?”
“With a heavy heart, Pheebs. That’s how it’s supposed to be done.”
“Well, I like my way better.”
“Look, we need to figure out something else. He’s got to have some use to us alive.”
“I doubt he knows anything that I don’t know already. He’s an insider, but that doesn’t mean anything - he’s far too low in rank to give us important information. He is experienced, though. He’s a decent tactician, and he has a far better head on his shoulders than most of the Terran Space Force. He knows a disturbing amount about them, too - he’s one of the few who knows how the weapons and engines work.”
“Does he have a future as an officer? He might still be useful later on. We could bug him or something.”
“No, he doesn’t have any powerful connections. Perhaps, if the Terran Space Force were a meritocracy, he could be an admiral eventually. But those positions are bought by corporate trillionaires and their families.”
“Well, that’s a shame.”
“Perhaps -.”
“Yeah?”
“Never mind.”
“No, seriously, what?”
“He has potential that would otherwise be wasted, and the Antares Authority’s cabinet has been pretty overburdened lately, and we lack experience with offensive battle tactics, which would be extremely helpful during this crisis…”
“But that’s still murder, Phoebe.”
“It wasn’t murder for me.”
“He isn’t you. You were a special case, Pheebs. One that we can’t replicate.”
“The Terran Space Force is full of society’s rejects with no lives to get back to. They also have elevated rates of GVD, and people outside of Antares are unlikely to disclose their GVD or seek treatment, so nobody will suspect anything.”
“The chance of that is still -”
“All I’m saying is, it might not actually be murder. It’s worth looking into.”
Natasha let out a sigh.
“Fine. But we’re only going ahead if you know he’ll turn out like you.”
“Got it.”
----------------------------------------
There was a tiny drain on the reactor. This was noticed by one Verd, and the one Verd who noticed paid it little mind. Those idiotic primitives had just thrown a small asteroid at them - as if that would do anything. Their projectile deflection system was incredibly sophisticated; there was no way anyone could find a way around it! A captive stellar reactor could even deflect a small moon into hyperspace without breaking a sweat.
That time an alien ship had launched their moon at him had been hilarious. He loved seeing the looks on their faces before they got vaporized like everyone else.
Perhaps that had been too kind of him.
—
Hyperspace operated similarly to a fourth dimension - real space was the “bottom” of hyperspace, and, the further “upwards” someone went, the further into hyperspace they were. The unit for distance in hyperspace was a “klick” - originally slang for a kilometer, but repurposed for hyperspace distance after it had fallen out of fashion in the ordinary world.
Most hyperdrives jumped to about 0.3 klicks - the higher you went, the further you could go in a single jump, but the more power was required to get there - and to get back into real space. With the battery power available, he estimated that the ship could manage about 0.8 klicks while still managing to return.
The ship had been launched 50 klicks into hyperspace. No power had been drawn from the batteries.
This was impossible - impossible according to their interpretation of the laws of physics, at least. The fact that it had been launched so far meant that power must have been drawn from somewhere else - maybe the alien ship?
50 klicks out, it should’ve been quiet. Nothing should have pinged off the ship’s radar. But there were a variety of objects here. Most of them were identifiable as weapon parts and projectiles. Some, however, were simpler - the likes of asteroids and sheet metal. And there was his ship. There wasn’t any traffic here, not even any alien ships like the one he’d fired at. He was the only person.
Using 50 klicks of hyperspace, he could go almost anywhere - perhaps multiple galaxies over. But it would take a very long time, and his family would suffer once the TBI found out he hadn’t gone back.
So, with a sigh, he plugged the rendezvous point near the Antares system into the computer, optimizing for the 50 klicks of distance he had to cover. The TBI was getting a little brazen - basing themselves less than a light-year from Antares was practically looking for trouble. The Antares Authority was made up of freedom-hating commies who used babies as lab rats, cloned humans to make organ farms for their hospitals, and wiretapped every single one of their citizens just because they could. But they were too economically influential to centralize diplomatically, too well-armed to forcibly conquer without destroying their infrastructure, and their citizens were too smart for propaganda. It was a goddamn shame that they were still allowed to exist in the Republic.
Using the reactor, it would take hours to generate enough power to descend, so he just sat back and directed the reactor power directly into the descent, bypassing the batteries. A computer wouldn’t have done that; no programmer would have predicted how far out they’d gone, and its programming would lead to it trying (and failing) to descend instantly with battery power. The TBI was lucky they had brought him into the test ship - if he hadn’t been there, it would’ve been lost.
Descent worked slightly differently from ascent - the biggest differences being that descent takes far less power than ascent, and that descent can be done in chunks, while ascent must be done all at once. Without those two facts, if hyperspace had operated slightly differently, Blaine would have been marooned.
During the hours-long descent, he caught a glance of his reflection and ended up completely disappointed in what he saw. The stubble on his face was disgusting; he’d have to shave that later. Why did male faces have to be so gross? Men were truly the unlucky gender - a disposable race of people sent to be in the military, as they were fit for nothing else. He loathed women. They had it all. They lived their lives in goddamn easy mode, getting everything that they wanted, being beautiful, and refusing to share their bodies with him.
Approaching the rendezvous point, the ship’s automation once again took over as it matched its velocity with the station, and then docked with it. Once again, it was cumbersome. A plastic tube that he swore was only supposed to be used in emergencies, was used as a semi-permanent docking fixture, extending from the ship to the port. The station’s airlock opened, and the pressure equalized. He was notified that he could proceed whenever he was ready.
The station was somehow even more clunky and utilitarian than the ship. It had been built in an attempt to be as small and inconspicuous as possible, at the cost of literally everything else. He even had to crawl through the docking port to finally get into the station.
After breaching the airlock, he found himself in what looked like a simple buffer room. Those were relatively normal. However, they usually had people in them, greeting him and showing him to his quarters - or to whatever ship he was assigned to next. This one, however, was empty - just a ten by ten by ten cube of whiteness, with doors. This had to be investigated. But he was exhausted; he’d sit for a few minutes first.
He finally realized how stale the air in the test ship had been - by comparison, the normal air in a larger station felt incredibly fresh. Almost… fragrant, like roses. It was so comforting. Breathing it just made him want to sit right there, inhaling the beautiful air forever.
And then he slept.
----------------------------------------
Not paying any mind to Nathan’s question, Caroline simply answered the door, smiling at the nurse. It was a syringe, full of about a milliliter of yellow liquid. Nathan immediately recognized it as the genetic modification serum that was given to most of Antares’s fetuses, but it was diluted - something extra had been added. That was probably what caused the month-long conforming process.
“What kind of person am I turning into?” Nathan repeated.
“Well, why don’t we find out?” Caroline asked, trying her best to give a malicious smile. It was obvious that this didn’t reflect her true feelings.
“Roll up your sleeves and hold out your left arm.”
Nathan hesitated.
“Do you want me to call security, Nathaniel?”
Nathan complied, rolling up his sleeves. Only after a few seconds of hesitation did he hold out his arm.
“There we go.”
The nurse grabbed an alcohol pad, preparing the injection site. Meanwhile, Nathan wondered if the nurse was on board with the whole thing. He wondered what they’d been told. Perhaps, if he were to inform them about this situation, maybe they wouldn’t agree to this. He was quite charismatic; perhaps he could give a speech…
Nathan felt a jab as the needle penetrated his skin and the nurse injected the entirety of the serum into his veins.
It was too late.
—
Nathan was shown to his bedroom.
There was a mirror there. Perhaps it would be a good idea to log what was happening to his body. So, where better to start than with a baseline? He stripped down, paying no mind to the camera - he didn’t care if the threat analysis program would see him naked, after all - and began to look over himself.
His body could only be described as familiar. It was like home - it wasn’t perfect, but he’d gotten used to it, he’d grown in it, he’d left his mark on it, and it was his. There were flaws, sure, but he’d gotten used to them and worked around them. And they were a part of him - the small amount of hair on his chest, the too-small nose, the slightly pudgy belly that defied his otherwise lean physique (or maybe that was just where his organs were).
That’s where he was right now. His body was his, and he liked it just the way it was. Well, except for the fact that he wanted to be a little more muscular, but he’d been working on that.
But they weren’t going to make it worse; he doubted that. He could deal with a change. He wasn’t that attached to it. Sure, things would be shaken up a bit, but it was going to be fine. What kind of people were that attached to their bodies? He never paid attention to it, and nothing important hinged on him having this body in particular. Whatever they did, he’d be okay with it.
He took a deep breath.
Everything was going to be just fine.
----------------------------------------
Blaine Forester woke up to a sharp pain in his left arm. His eyes opened just soon enough to see a transparent yellow liquid exiting a syringe and entering his bloodstream. Seeing him wake up, the nurse made a hasty retreat out of his cell, though taking a second to ensure that the door had locked behind them.
The room was small, the interior painted a dark, dull gray. There were overhead lights, but there wasn’t a window in sight.
He had no idea who had captured him. Perhaps they were TBI agents who wanted information out of him, by force if necessary. Perhaps they were rebel insurgents. Perhaps they were part of the Antares Authority’s evil baby-experimenting division - that was the most local, and the most probable captor. If it was them, they’d probably want intelligence on the experiment he had helped carry out.
But what was the yellow liquid for? Perhaps it was some sort of truth serum. If so, his family was doomed. The TBI would know that he’d squealed, and they’d kill them all.
It couldn’t be a truth serum; truth serums didn’t exist. The TBI hadn’t been able to develop one, and they were the best in terms of technology; a bunch of commies couldn’t beat them. It was something else. It wasn’t going to be that bad.
He took a deep breath.
Everything was going to be just fine.