Then I stop, and ice-cold darkness washes over me like sickly tar.
Iexisted.
Oh god. Oh fucking hell.
“When?” I say, looking at James. “When did they do this to me? When did they—when did I stop…being human?”
James hesitates. “I don’t know. The technology required for this kind of transfer would have taken years to develop. Based on what I know about Global Dynamix’s research timeline, I would estimate?—”
“March fifteenth.”
The words come out of me before I realize I’m saying them. Both Mia and James go still.
“What?” Mia asks.
“March fifteenth, 2038.” I can see it now, the memory surfacing from deep within. “They told me it was a routine procedure. Enhancement protocols, they said. One last procedure. I went under and when I woke up, everything felt…different. Sharper. Stronger. I thought it was just the upgrades, but?—”
I stop. I’m remembering something else now. The doctor with the mustache. The one who leaned over me just before the anesthesia took hold. The one who said?—
“I’m sorry.”
“Nate?” Mia’s grip on my shoulders tightens.
“There was a doctor. Right before the procedure. He looked at me and he said ‘I’m sorry.’ I thought I dreamed it, but—” I press my fingers against my temple, trying to hold myself together. “He was real. And he knew. He knew what they were about to do to me.”
I pause and look at both of them. “They killed me. On that table.They killed me.”
My vision is starting to blur, the room wanting to spin.
“I’m not me.” The realization is a physical thing, a weight crushing my chest. “I’m just—I’m a copy. A fucking copy running on hardware, pretending to be a person.” I shake my head as the horror consumes me. “I’m…dead.”
“No.” Mia’s hands move to my face, forcing me to look at her. Her eyes are fierce, shining with unshed tears. “No, Nate. You are a person. Whatever they did to your body doesn’t change who you are.”
“I’m not human!” I yell at her, the terror pouring out of me. “I’m not a fucking human anymore! I’m dead, they fucking killed me. I died and they…I…”
March 15, 2038.
The day Nate Whitaker died.
The dayIwas born. This version of me. This thing that walks and talks and feels and bleeds but isn’t really alive, not in any way that matters.
“I remember my whole life,” I whisper, staring at my arm, at everything that’s wrong. “I remember all of it. Even the parts I don’t want to remember. But was that me? Was that really me, or was that a dead man whose memories I inherited like—like a hand-me-down coat?”
Neither of them has an answer for that.
We stay there for a long moment, the three of us, in a sterile room on a remote island, surrounded by the wreckage of everything I thought I knew about myself.
Finally, James clears his throat.
“I should close the incision,” he says quietly. “The tissue will heal quickly, faster than human tissue would, as you know, Nate. But it needs to be sealed properly.”
I nod. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. I am both boiling with anger and grief, and yet numb to the core.
As James works, stitching my artificial flesh back together, I stare at the ceiling and try to find something solid to hold onto. Some piece of myself that still feels real.
Mia’s hand finds mine again. Her fingers intertwine with mine, warm and alive and human in a way that I’m not.
She’s human and I’m not.
