The Black Seas of Infinity by Dan Henk Read Free Book Online Page B

The chamber
was deathly silent, blocking out all noise, but I was sure the
soldiers were near. The capsule lid was transparent, frosted by a
crusty yellowish stain creeping in on the edges, but still lucent
enough that I could still see. I strained my eyes, my body
peculiarly suppressed, but I could make out no movement. There was
a weird light, and suddenly I was looking at the same room, but
from a slightly different angle. Then I noticed that I no longer
felt the cold wet clothes against my skin. My muscles didn’t ache,
and I couldn’t hear my breathing, or my heartbeat, for that matter.
There was no pain in my leg. I moved my head forward and looked
down. There was no neck tension; it was all one fluid motion. I
felt detached, at the controls of some strange vehicle I was
intrinsically linked to. No smells assaulted my senses. No bite of
angry nerves. No painful drought of saliva in my throat.
    It all seemed a hallucination. Weird red
symbols flitted across my field of vision. A sensation rushed over
me, and I suddenly felt invigorated. Everything was optimized.
There was no lactic acid buildup, no stiff musculature. I had done
coke before, in college, and it was sort of like that, but without
the jitteriness or paranoia. I felt awesome. I peered out, my
eyesight crisp and sharp, as if I were looking through the lens of
a camera. I could imagine whirring and clicking noises as my vision
focused on the doorway, my sight obscured by the translucent screen
of the capsule.
    A head, encased in a black gasmask, peered
around the corner. I looked at it hard. My eyesight magnified
automatically, and instantly I was viewing it in detail. I could
see the texture of the rubber as it met the olive green metal ring
of the hose. I mentally backed up the magnification. They had
arrived, but it was too late! It had worked! I was in the body! The
capsule opened, and I stumbled out. I knew for a fact this new form
was incredibly heavy, but it felt so light! I could see my former
self, still entombed within the capsule. It appeared I was asleep.
It was then I was distracted by a sudden chain of thoughts. What if
it was taken by government forces for experimentation? What if they
somehow found a way to bring me back? To pull me back into a body
they had done who knows what to? Removed limbs? Torn out body
parts? Imprisoned me in some dark chamber with the intent of
torturing out whatever info I had? Too many thoughts. Too much that
could go wrong! I had no choice. I had to destroy it. Then a
disturbing thought crossed my mind: What if destroying the original
body somehow affected me in this host body? What if that was all it
was, a host, and I really needed the original?
    I was paralyzed with indecision, and this was
no time for it. If this was just temporary, I didn’t want to go
back. My old life was shot. I peered back at the soldier. There
were now two gasmask-shrouded faces peering around the corner. They
apparently were at a loss for what to do. I shambled over to my old
self and looked on in bittersweet recollection. I examined the face
I saw every day in the mirror. But it no longer seemed to be me, as
if it were a duplicate, an imperfect copy. I could see my life writ
therein, the scar on my chin from a car accident in college. The
subtle wrinkles forming near my eyes. The jowls that had just begun
to show, unnoticeable to most but readily apparent to me. The two
days worth of stubble, a sandy blond haze across gaunt white
cheeks. The receding hairline, visible as a pale shadow despite the
shaved head. If I thought about it too much I’d get lost in reverie
and lose everything. I jolted forward and punched straight through
the capsule lid. Extracting my hand, covered in gore, I watched as
the soldiers opened fire. It looked as though I had just killed a
human, and I’m sure they were taking no chances.
    Bullets were bouncing off of me in all
directions. I turned and advanced on the soldiers. The hail of
incoming bullets was