Elyssa, who was walking next to Lucie, abruptly came to a standstill at the sight of the large room. Joey and I almost bumped into her.
“What the…” Joey shut his mouth. His eyes widened. “Oh. Shit.”
The air changed as we stepped into the chamber – denser, warmer, humid. My skin prickled. The walls were lined with tall glass pods stretching from floor to ceiling, each one pulsing faintly with internal bioluminescence. Pale pinks and sterile blues bled into shadows.
The creatures inside the first few pods weren’t quite human. Fetal silhouettes suspended in a translucent fluid thick as syrup. Limbs half-formed. Muscle cords still knitting themselves around synthetic bone. Fungal veins webbed across their torsos like bruises, branching from a central stem that pulsed faintly in time with the lights.
“Oh my god,” Elyssa breathed.
The further into the room we walked, the more finished they became. Each pod seemed like a time-lapse in slow motion – evolution in vertical sequence. One body had formed eyelids but no mouth. Another had hair, long and dark, floating like seaweed while its lower jaw remained exposed metal scaffolding wrapped in skin mesh.
“They’re… growing,” Joey said, his voice hollow.
At the far end of the room stood the pods with fully formed bodies. Male and female, Black, brown or white, tall and short, soft and athletic. All of them beautiful. Unnaturally symmetrical. Symmetry that was too perfect – not uncanny, just intentional.
They wore simple white gowns that hung off their bodies like wet paper, clinging to skin that shimmered faintly under the fluorescent glow. Some had their eyes open, pupils dilated, but they didn’t move. Not yet.
“Why are they just standing there?” With unsteady hands, I pressed a scented tissue against my nose.
“They’re waiting.” Lucie’s voice was quiet. “For input. For identity. For someone to tell them who they are.”
“Isn’t this place full of security cameras?” Elyssa nervously glanced around the room.
“Of course, but I’ve deactivated them.”
“Hello?” The line cracked – Raphael, unbothered by the body horror. “Joey, put me on AR. I don’t trust you to pick an aesthetically pleasing body that matches my elegance. I want to see for myself.”
Joey groaned. “I didn’t bring my AR lenses.”
“Bullshit. You’re just intimidated by me.”
“Oh my god. Fine, I’ll send you a video – happy then?” Joey gritted his teeth. Not awaiting his AI friend’s reply, he lifted his arm, scanning the part of the room with the full-grown bodies. “I just want to get out of here,” he muttered, quieter.
His gaze met mine. I only nodded. The nausea grew with every second spent in here.
“Do we just let him… pick one?” Elyssa rubbed her arms, looking at Lucie. She tried to sound casual, but the tremble in her voice betrayed she was only talking to hold on to that one glimpse of normalcy she could muster.
“The bodies in here are customizable in every detail.” Lucie traced her fingers over the pods with aloof interest. “Designing and growing one of your own preferences, however, can take weeks. Zafyra let me choose one, so I went with one that resembled my design. Luckily, young girls with blonde hair and big boobs seem to be popular around here.” She rolled her eyes.
“How I see it, a body is just something we’re given at birth.” I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded. “And in your case, given by design. It’s something we borrow, temporarily, and eventually give back to Earth. How we treat it, how we care for it, and how we dress it – that’s who we are.” I gestured to the pink streaks in her hair.
Lucie nodded slowly. She tilted her head, thinking it through.
“I like that thought.” She smiled.
A demonstrative cough on the other side of the virtual line reminded us of Raphael’s presence once again.
“I like that one over there.” Over Joey’s shoulder, I glanced at his screen. Raphael had highlighted a tall, broad-shouldered Black body in the back of the room – even the beard closely matched his design in the app. “He looks like me.”
“He does look like you.” Joey took a deep breath, running his hands through his red curls. “Alright, so… how do we… do this, exactly?”
“Wait, are we sure we can just take this body?” Elyssa’s doubt-filled hazel eyes met mine. “Lucie, you said you deactivated the cameras, but how do we know there’s no built-in safety measures when we touch the pods?”
“I’ve deactivated those, too.” Lucie forcefully blew out air, but even she didn’t seem so sure anymore. “If Zafyra can successfully steal a body, then so can I. I’ve followed all of her steps to not trigger security.”
“Alright, let’s just get this over with, shall we?” Joey clenched his teeth, then glanced at his wristware display. “Raphael… you really will help us, right?”
“Promise,” the tinny voice said after a brief pause. “I just need to free myself of this—in fact, we need to act fast. On the off chance Qonexis is alerted by unusual activity—”
