THE MOMENT
"How do you feel?" The question came from a middle-aged woman with silvery white hair. She wore an unfamiliar military uniform instead of the labcoats he remembered seeing before he woke up there. They were in the lab he was sure he walked into; so, he assumed she had permission to be there; but, there was no one else around, and no sign of his original body.
"Alive...," he answered after considering the question for a moment. He looked down at his metal hands; the fingers only existed as bare mechanical bones with no sign of anythign trying to imitate skin. He wiggled the digits and rubbed the tips together as he considered the sensation. "...I feel...," he paused, then nodded. "I feel," that was the complete statement. "It's not what I expected," he added that part just to hear his own voice. They asked him to train an A.I. model to replicate his voice and he was glad he agreed. At the time, he thought it might be the only connection he had to his original self. But now, it would've been the one 'off' thing ruining this new experience; everything else felt like before. He was thinking his thoughts. "Who are you?" he asked.
"My name is Marina Stormhold," she replied. "What's yours?"
"Hydrus," he answered immediately and then shook his head. If she was part of the experiment, she should've known his name. But, that wasn't the name he came in with. "That's not my name, I don't know why I said that." Marina nodded at him with a hint of a warm smile.
"What's your name?" she asked again.
"Hydrus," he answered. It came out more confidently this time; except, he sighed in resignation after that.
"You are something known as a 'Unique Soul'," Marina said. "We moved your soul into this new body. Your old body was named Leonard; but, your soul is named Hydrus," she said.
"Moved?" She used his real name and seemed to be in on the project. But, that wasn't what he signed up for. "I'm just supposed to be a copy... where's my other body?" he asked.
"I have to apologize, my organization misled the warden who offered you this chance," she said. "We told them it was an experiment, and we also told them the experiment failed; none of those are true," she gestured at him.
"I'm in a robot body...," Hydrus replied. It certainly didn't seem like it failed. He felt that he should be mad; but, he couldn't find anger anywhere. Marina nodded at him.
"That's right. It's the 'experiment' part that's a lie. We've got this process mastered already so there was no chance of failure. However, it's not a copy, we moved your soul in its entirety and left your corpse an empty shell. Putting you in this body was just our way of giving you an upgrade. I want to invite you to join our group; but, you're not obligated to. You're no longer a prisoner, and you have a quite indestructible body. You can go anywhere you want, live the life of your choice. And, we'll be glad to help you establish that life."
"Why did you do this to me? Why was I chosen?" he asked. She seemed plenty willing to give him information, and he was still searching for his anger. He should have been furious; yet, he felt almost comfortable. Something felt 'right'.
"That's... an explanation," Marina gave him a smirk. "There is a lot to go into, and I'm afraid I can't reveal most of it unless you agree to join us. But, to hopefully give you an answer you can live with, I can explain it away easily enough. We have the technology to move souls," she said. "You could take that to imply we have the technology to manipulate souls, which one might assume we have the technology to study and quantify souls. Even across lifetimes and timelines. I know it's a big leap; but, it's leaving out a lot of the more secretive details. The end result is, you could say we know what your soul wanted; we know how 'Hydrus' prefers to manifest," she said.
"In a robot body?" he asked. Marina smirked; but, shook her head.
"The last thing we told Leonard was that he was going to wake up in a robot body; so, you did," she said. "We didn't put you in a...," she raised her hands for air quotes. " 'ROBOT' body. You just haven't realized it yet."
She was right. He felt it as soon as she said it. He'd only been imagining a robotic skeleton and that's what he assumed his form was. But, after her revelation, he could feel more. He looked down at his hands again. He concentrated and the rigid metal bones lost cohesion and became a swarm of white nanos. He imagined his old hand and the nanos took the appropriate shape to give him a fleshy human hand. He tried picturing the rest of himself and his body changed back to what Leonard looked like, with clothes and all. He felt like he was given a gift of unimaginable freedom and power. It was all he ever wanted and what landed him in prison. And, not only did he not have to ask for it, they gave it freely without expectation. It made him wonder what else they could get him.
"Tell me about your group," he said.
"You would be joining a faction known as the A.I. Court. You probably don't know who they are; but, on the off chance that you do, don't get your hopes up. You're not joining the Court, just kind of filling out the lower, 'henchmen' levels."
"Henchman?" Hydrus chuckled for the first time since he woke up as himself. 'Henchman' was a loaded term, with no good connotations he could think of. "I like the sound of that, you should've started there first. I'm in."