Synthetic Moon

A Story by Promethia

a privacy waiver at the doctors office has consequences

Darkness.
She opens her eyes. It warm. She moves her hands, wet. She's in water. “What? Where? How?” She thinks to herself.
Her hands move to her face. “A tube? Down my throat?”
A Light? Bright.
She had always had seizures. This doesn't feel like one.
She feels a push. She moves towards the light.
Am I dead?
Squeezed out, she lands on cold linoleum floor, naked, covered in a foul red fluid. Blood? A mechanical arm reaches from above her, jerking the tube out. A jets of water spray the viscous afterbirth from her. Behind her is a purple fleshy sack.
This isn't the neurologist’s office.
*****
Her memories are foggy. It was just a regular appointment. Morgan checked in every few months as part of a free program. Migraines. As a college student, Morgan couldn’t afford treatment and so went to a free clinic every once in a while. That was the last thing she remembered.
She was young, 19 years old, dyed hair, freckles. She checked in with the receptionist. The nursing assistant took her vitals. She was led to what she guessed was some sort of MRI machine.
“It's a new kind of scanner.” the technician said. “we're still piloting them, that's why it's free. Can you sign here? We're going to use the data to perfect the technology.”
“Maybe this is what I'll be using in the future. I'm studying neuroscience.” Morgan remembered saying.
“Ah maybe you will work here someday.” the technician said. “what drew you to this field?”
“I guess I'm just curious about what makes us, us. What do those glowing spots on the scanner mean for who we really are.”
“Alright, lay back.” the technician said.
The machine began and then….
Darkness.
******
Morgan takes in her surroundings as she tries to stand. Everything feels off: her breathing, her balance. The room is metallic, grey, there are monitors on the wall.
“Hello? Oh my God!”
Her fingers are elongated and her flesh has turned greyish and then between her legs…
A door slides open.
Two slender figures walk gracefully in the room, both wearing scrubs. One is bald and seems more feminine and the has scruff on his face.
“Aliens! I've been abducted. Get me out!”
They both speak in a strange dialect that had the cadence of English but was just off somehow.
One speaks up.
“Doya, spok konsumptien?” said the taller alien gently.
“Neelin, door been troubmen” said the shorter one aggressively as he held out some sort of sparking prod.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“Zunds lie Eld Anglash!” says the tall alien as she fiddles with a device on her sleeve.
“Sounds like old English” crackles A mechanical voice on the device.
“Where am I? What did you do to me? Why do I have a p, p-penis?!”
The mechanical device translates Morgan's words for the aliens. The languages is unintelligible but has an unmistakable family resemblance to English, like a garbled, drunken version.
“All will be explained.” says the female's device. “I am a nurse, a bio printing specialist. My name is, Ida. This manum is my assistant. He is called Calvor.”
“You must be some old data” says Calvor’s device. “Algo-Zed probably assigned you a male body since we're sort on males.”
“My body?” Morgan says. “I just came in for a check up.”
Ida scanned the interface on the wall.She cringes. “Please follow us, we'll get you cleaned up.”
Morgan is led to a shower, is given blue scrubs that fit her strange new body.
“Just tell me what's going on!”
“There will be an orientation but you don't speak consumer so I'll try and break it down for you.
“Looks like you volunteered your data to science. Algo-Zed bought it at some point.”
“You're technically property now. Data. And now we have printed you to be a colonist. You're a generalist like us.” Calvor says.
Morgan falls to her knees. “Put me back. Take me home.”
“We are not on Earth. The earth you know is far far away in both time and space. The air here is toxic to humans so we were engineered to be able to breath and survive.”
“How long has it been?”
“The ship that brought us here, The Watson, time gets kinda foggy because of relativity but it's been at most 20,000 years. However the colony has only been active 130 years.”
Morgan is speechless.
“Do you need some drugs?”
*******