“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”

-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

***

My head spun around with such force that put to shame the reentry of a planet in shambles. Not that I had ever experienced one. But this certainly beat it.

“Ugh!” I groaned yet instead of a lazy noise, a muted cry came out of me as air rushed into my lungs.

I tried opening my eyes, and whilst it worked, everything was a blurry mess. I blinked in quick succession, every consequent blink making my vision slightly clearer. Though not by a lot. I could feel the lamp on top of me, threatening to blind me. I put a hand on top of my face as another groan escaped my lips.

I was panting.

I was disoriented.

Yet… yet I felt well. Even in my sluggish thoughts, my mental agility surprised me, and I felt no difficulty in raising my arm whatsoever. I pushed my hands into the surface where I was lying.

Cold.

The surface was cold and smooth, a metal of some kind. I pushed hard, but once again, I didn’t find much resistance. Actually, I felt as if my hands had been completely needless. I lay down again and instead of using my hands as a support, I put all my strength on my back. I raised it without any issues. Whilst it may not be surprising for most people, my constitution left a lot to be desired. I was never able to do crunches.

Not only I was born with a rather feeble build, but these last five years I have been too busy with my studies and research to find the time or will to exercise.

I laid down again.

And then I raised my back one more time.

It was addictive. The easiness of movement, the responsiveness of my body. One more time. I found myself panting again, not out of pain or jolting awake, but because my body needed the oxygen.

“Are you still going to go with your weird gym sex tape or can we continue?” Hermann Schneider’s voice criticized on my left.

I jolted awake, truly now this time, the surprise pushing me to the opposite side and making me fall from the table from its right side.

“Oh, that must hurt.” I heard him comment.

No. It didn’t hurt, I barely felt it. I recovered instantly, standing up as if the two-something meter drop – as I was standing up when I fell – barely registered on my body.

“Sorry,” I said after standing up. “I was a bit disoriented. My body felt so…”

“Light? Yeah, I get it. I have seen too many evolutions, and also experienced it myself.” The doctor explained. “Though you should first do something about that.” He pointed something down with his pen.

I looked down at my body. I was surprised by the muscle density. Sure, I may not be ripped, but the volume alone left me speechless. A body of this type could gain muscular mass without any issue. Not that I needed it if the stories about biological ascension were true.

Then I actually looked down.

“Oh.” My jaw dropped to the ground.

“Yes. ‘Oh’.” Hermann pointed out dramatically.

“What the hell is this arm?” I shouted after noticing the third extremity hanging between my loins. It looked like some kind of sexual toy Mérida and Makoto shared, not my…

“Honestly, I must congratulate you on your self-control.” The doctor clapped with sarcasm. “Some men have too many expectations and come out of evolution with horse cocks. Literal horse cocks.” I was too stunned to pay attention, but I swore I heard him giggle. “You know what pain is having to extirpate dicks because people are overcompensating for something? And don’t get me started with women! They always think their waist is way thinner than it is and then we have to make a full body surgery because they ruptured their spines or forgot their organs! Auuuugh!”

Hermann was literally panting after his outburst, and way deeper than me.

“Sorry for the outburst, I just hate people.” Same, man. “Your evolution has been a rotund success we didn’t even have to intervene. You can look at a mirror there.” He pointed again with his pen.

I walked to the mirror, my steps were more sound than ever. My body exuded confidence. I didn’t even need to look in the mirror to know my body. Everything was different, yet somehow, I could tell that I was myself.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Your brain manages the evolution for most of the procedure, so the end result tends to be a mixture of your current self, your evolved self, and your desired self,” Hermann explained, doing something in the background from all the noise I heard, but I was too focused on the reflection to reply.

The most obvious thing – besides my third arm – was the change in height. Prior to my evolution, I was rather short. 1.69 meters. Even though Proxima b’s gravity was slightly higher than Earth's, I was really low on the spectrum. Sub-human tended to grow over time, with the median male height currently at 1.85m and female height at 1.73m. So yes, most of my contemporary students were taller than me.

Yet now…

“How tall I am?” I asked Hermann. He surely would have my exact height if they had been monitoring my ascension.

“2.02 meters.” He answered. “You are lucky we fill the vat with lipids and nutrients, otherwise you may have starved your body after acquiring more than 30 centimeters of height. And that’s without factoring all the body fat you permuted into muscle mass, which if I may add, was nowhere enough. Anyways, that was resolved automatically, so it wasn’t much of a problem.”

I raised my arm and posed, curling it into a biceps. Hmm, that’s quite the ball… I wonder how much I could get if I trained…

“Now, could you please stop with your antics and dress up?” Hermann came to my side with a hospital gown in hand.

“And my clothes?” I asked.

“You sure you want your old clothes?” He said as he eyed me up and down.

“True.” I took the gown out of his hands and donned it with a sweep. “What am I going to wear then?” I said whilst tying the knot on the back.

“I’ll have you a tracksuit of your size by the time you finish signing your documentation.”

“There’s more?” My eyes shot wide open.

“Oh man, you are in a world of pain.” Hermann patted my shoulder as he laughed. “For actual clothes, though, there are some storages and galleries around the station. One small warning. You will find out that the more… eccentric designers tend to live in space. If you like normal clothes… don’t expect them here.”

“…Alright?” His words didn’t inspire any trust.

“Go through that door and a nurse should attend to you and give you the remaining documentation.” Hermann pushed me with a loud slap. “Oh, before I forget. Congratulations on your humanity!”

Feeling too naked for my liking, I preferred to not show skin if possible, I followed Hermann’s advice. There a robot waited for me. It was too metallic and utilitarian to be a human, but nonetheless, I approached it with respect.

“Doctor Hermann mentioned something about coming here and further documentation,” I said.

“Indeed,” The robot responded with a pristine voice. “I guess you must be mister Lorem Ipsum, am I right?”

“That would be correct, yes.” I nodded.

“Contrary to what Doctor Hermann may have stated, you only need to sign a paper. More of a waiver than anything.” The robot pushed a piece of paper through the desk and a pen.

“Can I read it?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I still couldn’t decide if it was a robot or a synthetic human. “You can sit down at those chairs in the meantime.”

As the whatever-they-may-be stated, it was just a waiver. Nothing as fancy or complicated as the acceptance of immortality paper. The whole contents could be summarized in a hospitalization agreement. I would spend the next month on the space station so the medical personnel could confirm that my transition was successful and there were no flaws in the process.

None of the statements, both implicit and explicit surprised me. I already knew that I would have to stay for a while on the station and the evolution procedure was far from perfect. That showed how complex the whole process was that even after two centuries, there still was a non-zero chance of failure. And higher than that, if I went by Hermann’s words. However, I guess it wasn’t the same running into complications mid-process than weeks after having evolved.

After pondering that there was nothing damaging on the waiver, I signed and handed it to the robot at the desk.

“You will find a set of clothes in the changing room.” The receptionist added once I was leaving. “And you should have received a notification about your private quarter’s location on your interface.”

I had been so enthralled with my body that I had forgotten to check my interface, even if the red dot was threatening to blind me.

“Holy-fucking-shit!” I shout at the inane amount of notifications.

“Language!” The robot called out.

“Sorry.” I apologized, though that reinforced my opinion of the receptionist being a true automaton.

Then I noticed something. I was scrolling through the notifications without using my fingers.

“Uhm, wouldn’t you know anything about interfaces?” I asked the receptionist.

“Basic stuff, but I should be able to guide you.” Definitely a robot, humans don’t talk like that.

“Why can I control my interface with my mind?”

“Your interface has been replaced after your biological evolution.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I explained. “But why can I now control it with my mind?”

“Your neural cortex has been reinforced by the evolution, allowing you to get installed with more complex hardware that subhumans may not support as a rule. This new connection is strong enough to be completely cognitive.”

“I see…” It didn’t change much but it was a neat upgrade. “Thanks for the info.”

“Glad to be of service!” The robot said with bountiful, human-like emotion.

I went to the changing room and changed into the tracksuit plus a set of undergarments and slippers. I also recovered my old clothes, because even if they didn’t fit me any longer, I liked the tunic’s design, so it was likely I could get it adjusted by a tailor.

I bid farewell to the receptionist and got out of the medic wing, which I discovered was called that way after downloading the Terra Nova’s Enclave map. Yes, that was apparently the name of the space station. Fitting I guess. Though wouldn’t Mars be Terra Nova?

Meh.

I strolled through the station without giving it much thought, the main lobby being my approximate destination, as I brushed through my DMs.

“UHN newsletter, UHN banking update, school graduation message, Tycoon update, oooh… Gotta read that later in more detail. Hospital message, housing update, Mérida message, Makoto message, Mérida message, Makoto message…” I sighed. “They are going to continue to spam them unless I answer, won’t they?”

I opened the QEF DMs and messaged Mérida. [Yo, where u at?]

[U alive?] She instantly responded.

[Yup] I answered.

[We on a coffee shop. Sending u location] True to her words, Mérida sent me the location with the station’s map included.

[Omw]

[Make haste. We already finished the coffee]

[Then get more]

[I dont want more coffee] I waited a few seconds as I saw Mérida was still writing. [Makoto neither]

I sighed. [Just w8]

I stretched my arms and activated the interface’s map function, an arrow appearing on the top of my vision and a path illuminated in front of me on the ground. “Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother.”