Seanday Massacre 5/6: The Switch

I felt swamped in darkness, I blinked open my eyes and the world around me swirled in a sea of colour and light. Retching, closed them again and dropped cross legged on the ground. Daring a look, only pulled the air from my lungs, and turned my stomach. I dropped my hands to the ground to steady myself.

What the hell was going on? I hadn't been drinking, I thought again--no, nothing. Colours and light were bleeding through my eyelids. Reaching up I desperately tried to blot it out with the heels of my hands, I pushed them back to run my hands through my hair and knocked something to the ground, "Damn, my cap." With eyes still squeezed closed I patted the ground around me. "Got it," I muttered and pulled it back on my head.

With shoulders hunched and my hands in my lap I took a deep breath. I really didn't know where I was, or how long this psychedelic blindness would last.

There were noises, voices, I realised. "Hello?" I said in a loud voice, "Who's there? Where am I?" The sounds continued all around me, but nobody answered my pleas.

A feeling of hopelessness, crept over me like a dark shadow. From the noise around me I heard a distinct voice, something that rang familiar. "I think I've found him, over there!"

"Hello?", I called out.

"Found him, he looks in poor shape though. We need to get him somewhere quiet."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a warm breath on the side of my face. "Don't worry you're going to be OK."

"I can't open my eyes," I tried to explain.

"OK, it might be a side effect. Keep them closed." I felt a hand. "Let me take you somewhere quiet and a little darker while we figure this out."

I struggled to my feet with the help of my unseen guide. We started to walk, and I stumbled a few times only to be steadied by my new friend. "You're doing fine, just keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them." I nodded my head.


We left the street and went through a series of doors. He stopped me with a palm to the chest. "Wait here for a moment," he told me. I felt his warm hand, and after I heard him move away I reached up and touched my chest. I felt skin, this was somehow wrong. I traced my hand across my chest; a thick muscular torso. I traced my hand down fearing the worst, but sighed when I felt a waistband; at least I wasn't naked.

I felt his hand again, "This way." He walked me through the room, and I bumped into a table. "Steady." I heard the screech of a chair on the floor and his hand guided me over. "Sit down for a me." I did.

Reaching out in front of me, I felt the coolness of a tables surface. "Ok," I heard the voice say. "Try opening your eyes, we've dimmed the lights."

Slowly I opened an eye--a little at a time. The room was dark, in the shadows I could see a man standing his head tipped to the side. Reassured I opened the other eye, and blinked. "OK," I said cautiously.

He drew in closer, and I could see him more clearly. He wore a white shirt, dark hair and a full beard. He pulled a small torch from his pocket and switched it on. I instantly screwed up my eyes again fearing the worst.

"I just need to check. It's important, you've experienced a serious trauma," he told me with concern.

I felt his fingers on my face. "Trust me," he pleaded. I relaxed and he gently pulled my eyelids open and swept the light across my vision a few times. He made a sympathetic noise, and then repeated the process with the over eye.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked.

"Do you know who you are? What's your name?"

My mouth parted, but I couldn't answer him. I thought, what seemed like minutes but I couldn't remember.

"Ok," he reassured me. "What month is it?"

"July," I answered.

"Good, year?"

"2015."

"How old are you?"

Without thinking I replied, "Forty three."

There was another voice--a woman--coming from the darkness, "Seems to know only general knowledge, and fractures of his history. Try it again, general knowledge then hard fact."

The guy in front of me nodded and started to question me again. "What colour is the sky."

"Blue."

"What goes meow?"

I smirked, "A cat."

He leaned in closer. "What's my name."

"Bertram Russell."

"Good." There were relieved murmurs from the darkness. "Do you feel well enough to turn up the lights?" Bertram asked.

I felt my stomach, "I'll give it a try."

Bertram nodded, and the lights slowly brightened. The room revealed was large, a glass wall opposite separated us from a large machine in the next room. A few feet away were three others; two men, and a woman. They were younger than Bertram, and looked concerned.

"Do you know where we are?"

I shook my head, "A hospital?" I shrugged.

"No, it's a private research facility studying Metaphysical Displacement."

I looked at him blankly, he may as well be speaking in a foreign language. I had no idea what he was talking about. The woman shook her head, and buried it into the shoulder of the man next to her. I looked back he Bertram, "What's wrong? What is it?"

"This is going to be hard to believe, but I think you should see the evidence."

He led me into the next room. The huge doughnut machine had a table which appeared to move through the mammoths central opening. The table was covered with a blue sheet, it was covering something--A body, that I could figure out.

Behind me the others watched from the other room. The woman's eyes where puffy and red as she dabbed a tissue at her nose.

Bertram slowly pulled back the sheet. Inch by inch it revealed a man in his early forties.

I looked at the man, his hair, his face. Something told me I knew this man. "Who is he? What happened?"

"There was an accident," Bertram began to explain, "an overload. It was meant to scan his body, but a spike in the supply corrupted a subroutine. Instead of scanning and shutting down, it continued and initiated a full Metaphysical transport."

"A what?" I asked.

He sighed and looked upset. "It sucked his whole being out of his body and sent it."

"Shit, you can do that? But sent it where?"

He looked at me, for long time. I looked at him, and then down and my body. "You're kidding."

"It looks like the energy grounded through this body," he replied. "All that's left is an empty body on the table. It's still breath only because due to the lower brain function."

Wheels were turning. "This guy? Me? You mean--" I began to stutter pointing at the unconcious body.

"I would appear that way. We'd have to investigate further. There are some fragments of your memory intact within him."

"Look, you've got to fix this," I begged.

"I wish it was that easy, but--"

"But what?"

"There's only one person with the skills to develop a way to reverse the process."

My heart sank as I followed his eyes to the table, "That's you."

"You're joking"

"We can only wait, hopefully your memory will return in time and you can continue your work."

I wandered back to the other room and sat at the table. This was so fucked up. Was I thinking with the brain of the zombie guy laying on the table or--I patted my back pocket and pulled out a wallet, "Or was I Christian Reynolds?"

The woman offered me a tissue, and smiled.