Today, it becomes nothing but a vestigial organism. Today, like a scientific astral projection, I inhabit a body built to last, built to rule.
Today, I become Evolved.
Dozens of experiments have led to this moment. Carefully chosen volunteers, some whose memories were scrambled like eggs, some who forgot their own names when they came to, but my scientists are confident now—they’ve cracked the human code. They can move any of us, at my behest, from one body to another. From the newfound pedestal of my elevated body, I’ll select others who are worthy, and together we’ll ascend to command all the lesser organic cogs in the settlement machine, who will finally know their betters.
The revelation will take time. The people surely can’t accept this right away, or they’ll all want to Evolve, and then who would uphold the settlement’s lower pillars? Who would I rule, if all could cheat death? No, the truth must be veiled until the appropriate moment.
Then I, and the others worthy of Evolution, will exert total control over the Daylands. And, if all goes according to plan, the Shadowlands, too.
From the Shadowlands, we can seize the source of the radiation, formerly death to us all—now the ultimate power source for new, better bodies.
The body we’ve built for me, painstakingly carved from supple and smooth altered Pagonian plate, is indistinguishable from the one I currently lug around. If only for appearance’s sake, it will still hunger and thirst, still tire with use, still shed appropriately scarlet blood when struck. Except it will never bend to time. It will never age. The radiation that threatens to poisonmy mortal body will empower my immortal one, ever absorbed through its synthetic skin.
The new body stands defiantly across from me now, still nothing but a perfect corpse, begging for a spirit to animate its beauty.
On the other side of Evolution, the Daylands’ throne will belong to my family’s dynasty alone. When I’m done, so will the Shadowlands.
Yet my whole body trembles as I lie down on the stretcher, as I hold Ednit’s silent, professional gaze with wordless trust. I do not watch the needle go into my wrist. I stare at the ceiling until it starts to swim.
What am I, if not a million memories, interwoven into the ever-shifting tapestry of a self? Will I not still be me, when the induced sleep fog fades? Shivering all over, hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms, I slam my eyes shut.
And open them.
And from across the room, I’m staring at my body on a stretcher, hollowed out like freshly cleaned animal bones, spirit torn free of muscle and sinew, my self reignited in a perfect Pagonian form.
“Chloe,” Ednit says, voice clipped but wavering with wonder, “can you hear me?”
“My name …” My new vocal cords creak and ache, unfamiliar with use, but even now, the sound is resonant. Glorious. “… is Chloe.” I swallow hard through my strange throat before trying again to form familiar syllables. “I can hear you. I’m here. I’m … me.”
Ednit drops his comms tablet altogether. It clatters on the floor, the screen maybe cracking, but neither of us cares. He lets out a childlike whoop, throwing his hands into the air. “Stars above, we’ve done it!”
My name is Chloe, and I am the first of the Evolved.
But not the last.
Aspect is the only thing holding me upright. My knees are like gelatin, all the fight gone out of me. Gently, Aspect holds me up against thewall, lightly smacking my cheeks with alternating hands until I fully return to myself.
“Stars,” I gasp, sagging against the mech’s steady body. “Stars above.”
My persistent nightmare—strapped to a table, groggy but terribly aware, recognizing myself but not my body—it wasn’t a nightmare at all, was it? Just a memory, stubborn as the rest of me, that even the Daylands’ best Morpheus technician couldn’t fully remove when they—
When they … transferred me into an elevated body.
When IEvolved.
“Why didn’t theytellme?”
Aspect tightens their grip on my sinking shoulders. “Tell Kori—what?”
I blow out a deep breath, but it does nothing to steady my staggering heartbeat. “Chloe—my mother—found a way to move all of someone’s memories at once. To move their whole person. And they built better bodies, fueled by the radiation instead of destroyed by it.”
“Isn’t that—a good thing—for Kori?”
I squeeze my eyes tight to lock the tears in. The room spins wildly behind my eyelids.
A lifetime spent suffocating in an armor suit, if ever I wanted to see the sun. An entire existence living a lie, at my mother’s knowing behest. I’ve seen her wear her own armor suit countless times, and for what? Just to convince her citizens that she was exactly like them—even as she plotted to exert deathless, merciless power over all of them, and eventually the Shadowlands, too?
Was anything real?Anything at all?I know now that my nightmares were maybe the realest thing in my head, but what about everything else? How long have I been living in a facsimile of a human body, my flesh-and-blood inheritance abandoned entirely? Where is my original body—reduced to ash like a malfunctioning mech, or kept in cold storage somewhere like a sick trophy of Ednit’s experiments?
