MA 21 (Patreon)

“You know, you’ve proven to be quite the adversary, Robert.” Exmuritious sat in his overstuffed office chair regarding us from behind a desk that had the same square footage as the state of Texas.

“As you’ve so carefully crafted, I am no longer Robert.” I tried to sound confident, but my voice had that ‘old woman shake’ I hated so much.

“I can guess you’re after the origins and meanings of Ambition, am I right?” 

I nodded, brushing invisible lint off my leggings. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just ask?”

“Like you would have told me? You would have stated,” I tried to do my best Exmuritious inflection.‘If you were meant to have such information you would possess it,’ or something.” I tried to do my best Exmuritious inflection.

He gave a slight shrug and a nod and handed the drive to an associate wearing sunglasses who stepped out of the office and probably into a parallel universe or something.

“Well, since you’re not in any position to cause any danger to the Project, I can tell you.” He turned on his computer and triggered the overhead projection screen so we could all see it.

“Abu-Dhabi. Actually, the desert outside of the city itself. You see we needed a large amount of sand in order to achieve optimal results.”

He directed an overhead satellite image, then scaled in several times so we could see from above what had been erected.

It was an immense pyramid-shaped outline with a hanging stylus. Much like the much smaller version I’d seen at Transmigration studios when they had switched my body.

“Jesus,” Karyn said. “You’re going to really have some kind of mass event? That pyramid could hold hundreds of people!”

“One-thousand two hundred and thirty-seven, to be exact,” Exmuritious said.

“You’re really going to swap the souls of one-thousand two hundred and thirty-seven people?” I said. “Won’t that cause a bit of chaos?”

Exmuritious grinned. “It’s not so much the chaos, as to the destination. You see, we’re not just swapping a bunch of people into another bunch of people. We’re going to be placing all of those souls into one individual who will stand on the dais.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “Why would you—“

“Think of it, Robert,” Exmuritious said, standing up and starting to pace. “All those life experiences. All those memories, all those personalities, all focused into one single person. Think of the amount of knowledge they could gain, life experience, skills—“ he spoked with such passion and animation it was hard not to feel excited.

“Scientists, musicians, prodigies from all fields of study. Engineers, Philosophers, poets, businessmen, financial geniuses. All focused into one mind, one body, with many souls.”

He touched his chest reverently.

“You,” Karyn said. “You’re going to be standing on the dais, aren’t you.”

He grinned a tiger’s smile. “Indeed!”

I swallowed. “Why?”

He looked at me, confused like I had asked the one question no one had considered. “Well, why not?”

“Don’t you think that if we were meant to have access to multiple lifetimes' worth of knowledge and memories, God, the Creator, or whoever is up there would have allowed that?”

“Who says they didn’t?” Exmuritious sat back down. “Who says they didn’t provide this very process in order for us to achieve that very thing!”

Well, he had a good point at that.

“Who says you won’t come out the other side not as the most enlightened individual,” I pressed. “You’ll also be migrating those peoples’ neurosis, psychologies, faults, and flaws. You could very well become a monster.”

He shrugged. “Our projections show a small chance of that, true. But also an overwhelming chance of complete success! I’ve always been success-focused, not limitation-focused, as you well know by now.”

I ground my teeth. “And are the…how many was it?”

Karyn answered me. “One-Thousand Two Hundred and Thirty-Seven.”

“Yes, One-thousand two hundred and thirty-seven people. All those scientists, mathematicians, musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs. Are they all volunteering for this mass transmigration?” I tapped my nail on the desk. “Or are you doing like you did Karyn? Stealing their bodies.”

He shrugged. “No, they are unaware of what we are attempting to accomplish. They think this is a musical event by a popular rock-and-roll band.”

I crossed my arms under Joyce’s breasts. “That’s what I thought.”

He smiled. “Which leads us to next steps.”

Karyn gripped my arm, a little painfully. Joyce had tender flesh.

“Obviously, your intentions regarding this process are well documented. You feel Ms. Adamson’s body was taken against her will—“

“Which is absolutely true!” I said.

“Regardless, we can’t have you being a loose cannon so to speak.”

He sighed, glancing down at his tablet.

I swallowed, and put my hand over Karyn’s.

“Which is a pity, because you were doing good work, both at the Salon, and here at LMI. You’ve really become a valued member of the team, Joyce.”

He signaled for two of the assistants to restrain us.

“I thought we had enough leverage over you with the risk to your permanent status within your old body, but I realize now we were mistaken.”

“No!” I said as they peeled Karyn’s hands away from me. “You weren’t! I won’t say anything.”

Exmuritious shook his head. “I can’t trust that to be true, Robert.”

“Please, just take me, and leave Karyn out of this?”

He shook his head again. “She is as much a danger as you are.” He got up, and turned off his tablet. “Take them down into holding cell B8 until I can decide what to do with them.”

Strong hands bound us with energy-cuffs behind our back. I looked at Karyn. “I’m sorry!”

She gave a small smile. “Wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”

***

We huddled together in the small metallic cell in the basement of the building. I’d inspected the walls, it was hermetically sealed from everything I could see. No seams in the stainless steel walls, just a single door, bunk bed, commode, and small sink with a meager flow of water. We took turns washing and drinking a bit of water from cupped palms.

After awhile, I stretched out on the top bunk and Karyn slept on the bottom bunk. It was impossible to tell the time, the only light emanated from the small glass square in the door.

As far as I could tell, we were the only ones down here. We’d shouted a bit to see if anyone else answered, and unless the cell was also soundproof, we were isolated.

“At least we’re together,” Karyn said, the next morning? Afternoon? It had been at least 24 hours, or so I thought. We’d been given three meals through a slot in the bottom of the door.

Calling them meals was a kindness. All three consisted of twin bowls with a gray paste dropped in that tasted vaguely like beef bullion. We ate it, washing it down with handfuls of water.

“True,” I said and gathered her in my arms on the lower bunk.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?”

I shrugged. “Well, if they were planning to kill us, I think they would have already.

She nodded.

“They could just keep us here until after Ambition.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Karyn said. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Robbie.”

“Sorry for what? This certainly isn’t your fault.”

She started to cry. “Of course it is! If I’d just listened to you at the very beginning, I never would have gone on that trip in the first place!”

“Um, honey—“ I hugged her tight. “I hate to tell you this, but I never told you not to go. In fact, I encouraged you to go because it all sounded legitimate.”

“Maybe so, but in my mind, you were telling me ‘if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’ “ She imitated me speaking.

“That’s a terrible impression of me.”

“Says you.” She smiled. “I nailed it.”

“It does sound like something I would have said.”

“Something you have said.” Karyn squeezed my fingers. “And if I’d listened to you, even if it was imaginary you, we wouldn’t be in this mess and at least you’d still have—“

Her voice cracked.

“You’d at least still have your body!” she started to cry.

I shushed her, rocking back and forth. “Shhh, honey, no sense crying over what was. We have to focus on the now, and the future.”

She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.

We sat, huddled on the bunk in each others’ arms for awhile.

“Got any ideas?” she said, after a time.

I sighed. “Nothing coming to mind.”

She nodded, huddled into me, and before long, I heard her soft snores.

The time in the cell was agony on my back and joints as Joyce’s arthritis flared up. I stretched, extricating myself from Karyn’s arms, laid her down gently on the lower bunk, and laid the thin cotton sheet over her.

I went to the window and peered out into the deserted hallway. A light flickered in the distance, and I had no idea of the scale or size of the basement.

It looked like we would be down here a long time. I needed a cigarette badly and craved a decent meal even more. What would they do?

I tried to place myself in Exmuritious’s shoes, and came up with two options: Death or Transference into a body that could not expose them. Either way, our options were dwindling.

We were well and truly fucked.