Common House Magazine

Someone screams in the alley below, startling you awake. Though surely you didn’t just hear what you think you did. When you squint into the shadows, you quiet your breathing and listen to see if it happens again.

It’s nothing.

You sigh shakily, telling yourself that you definitely heard a… squeal. Of joy. Not a scream, just some neighbours coming home after a night out. You tell yourself this so you can ignore the hairs standing on the back of your neck. You don’t know what’s happened.

And you’d rather not think about it.

Rubbing the sleep from your face, you find the discomfort slipping from your mind. Instead, you frown, unamused by how the party crowd often conveniently forgets all about the noise ordinance regulations when they’re having fun. It’s not like you’ve never had a late night out at the bar, shrieking and joking into the still night air, but this time it’s you being awoken by them. It’s you who is frowning at your alarm clock and wondering how restful seven more minutes of desperate sleep would be.

“May as well get out of bed,” you groan. Still you can’t quite shake this lingering feeling, even buried deep. Something doesn’t quite sit right about ignoring that chilling sound, but by the time you summon the courage to check outside your window, whatever caused the screams is long gone, and there’s nothing left in the alley to warrant worrying. Predictably, you shrug off your uncertainty and set about getting ready for work.

There are only 8947 hours left. Just over two more years of volunteer work, and then you can afford another upgrade. If only you didn’t have to sleep, you could smash that volunteer credit out in no time. The brain fog from your rude awakening isn’t going to be much help in focusing today though. Knowing you have a full day of work ahead, you momentarily scour your brain for a good reason to call out. Unfortunately, you’ve never been late to work, much less absent. It’s not like you can just call out. You’re not sick.

It’s impossible to imagine, really, that people used to have to worry about that kind of thing. The Isoria Institute makes sure that nobody ever knows illness, starvation or suffering. It’s nice to have free medical care, healthy foods, fresh water, non-irradiated air, and a nice apartment. The last time you’d been sick, actually sick, was back in elementary school, back when they were still sorting out all the kinks in nanotech. Now you never have to wonder if you need a doctor; your nanobots send daily progress reports to the IHS, monitoring your vitals preemptively. If you need treatment, they send you a notice: a simple time and place. Now the rest of the world wants into the Isoria Coalition, seeking the efficiency of our microscopic doctors.

After all, who wouldn’t want to be free from illness? Or free to push the bounds of human imagination. Our little robots are miracles. Metal doctors that regulate your white blood cell count, or identify and repair the DNA within cancerous growths. They're also capable of some truly legendary bio modifications. A lot of people improve their employability by installing extra sets of arms, or express themselves with velvet-soft furry ears and tails. You, yourself, proudly display your emotions on reprogrammed skin cells. They look like stars, flickering across your cheeks in muted, softly glowing hues. Nanotech could also fortify your bones and muscles and allow you to resonate with “extra” parts made from your own copied cells. Some enthusiasts are trying to grow fully functioning modified bods now too—cloning their cells in molds of colourful xenomorphs and fantastical beasts. You so badly want to be a popular “puppet” performer, to build yourself into a winged actor. There are some dragon wings that have all the proper capabilities for flight, if you went through the process of having your bone mass reduced. If you could find an “in” with the entertainment industry, a unique appearance like that would pay for itself… and could very well set you up for a life of opportunities in fame and travel.

Getting there is hard work, between shifts and art fairs and sleep, but it will feel so worth it when you get to claim that privilege. A little over a year of cartoonish makeup and waxing your horns. Of chirping in a nauseating customer service voice and hoping silently that somebody spends their social credit taking home some of the Art Cafe’s soulless memorabilia. Your boss refuses to add any of your more ambitious pieces to the display though. Boring white and black and puke-colored pastels it is.

Like usual, you spend your shift standing around like a doll, mechanically smiling while taking orders and pouring tea. After-hours, you scrub the floors and chat with your coworkers while divvying up the tips. The familiar thud of the garbage bag into the steel dumpster signals the end of your shift.

On the train home, your pulse pounds between your ears as you desperately clutch at the pole, squeezed in between so many bodies piled into the car. Early risers all around you grimace, frowning at your post-work smell, pungent in the chemically clean train. Everyone watches you, wanting to know what surfaces you’ve touched before they look away. You don't really mind. The only thing on your mind is a hot shower and the soft embrace of your bed while you stumble half-awake through the streets.

For some reason, there’s something a little unnerving about the towering, lifeless walls tonight. The thin, tall enclosure of infrastructure reminds you of lungs, with their sprawling tendrils of pipes and wires, of lifelines to the businesses below and the residences nesting above. The flat, unassuming walls are strange, bleak in the dim neon lights bleeding in from the main roads. Shadows play against the wall, and then my prey cuts through the servicing alley ahead of your door. My massive shadow blots out the light for a second as I follow the dissenter, disguised in sheep’s wool.

I see you stop, frowning in confusion. It looks like you’re looking for something, a source out in the alleyway. No matter which way you look, there’s nobody there. The droning ambience of the city continues as normal.

I tell your nanobots to plant a thought: you’re just hearing things.

You blink, shaking your head dismissively. “Creepy ass alley.”

But your fingers stall on the lock. Something is moving, reflecting shadows on the wall past the “City Personnel Only Beyond This Point” sign. There are… noises. There are never noises. Uniformed workers always rush through it, their heads bent and eyes fixed on the arrows on the pavement. Nobody ever stops. Nobody smiles or laughs in the passage.

Tonight, it’s not laughter, not anymore. You hear us.

Leave it be, ignore it. Something nags you, but you abandon your apartment door nonetheless. It could almost be courage that drives you forward into the sunlit passage, squinting to avoid blindness from the whitewashed walls. That would excuse your act as something other than pure foolishness.

You cup your hands over your eyes and squint down the alleyway. You shouldn’t have done it.

Someone’s on the ground. Writhing, crying. I’m there too, making sure this deviant is losing consciousness, carefully cradling their twitching body in a gentle embrace. You stop, trying to back away and quietly reclaim your ignorance, but it’s too late. Now you see me. Six slitted eyes study you mid-witness. I flutter my wings, casting iridescent rainbows onto the cracked surfaces. Hesitating. Stalling, collecting your biometrics. All good, even with your heart rate stressing a whopping 130 BPM. Higher than ideal–but… well, your fear is understandable.

Your mouth drops, the sounds coming incoherently at first, and then hardly loud enough to pick up a panicked “Who—what?”

Running is futile, but I can’t blame you for trying. It’s truly unfortunate. You could have lived your entire life blissfully unaware.

It’s tragic to watch your mere two legs carry you back into the servicing alley. Into a maze designed to keep citizens like you out and to disorient those who try regardless. The cracks and wires won’t help you this deep in the unknown.

My thoughts push out your own. Stay still. Let me catch you. I try to stop you.

Granted, you do get further than most. I must need some maintenance, to be so suddenly outmaneuvered your turning of the corner, to slam head-first into the wall. A new web emerges on the concrete surface, immortalizing our encounter before I pursue your scent.

I can’t imagine why you seek safety in your apartment of all places. The electric lock assists me, popping open quietly at my bio-signature and allowing me to squeeze through your doorway. The moment I round the corner, staring down your hall into your workshop, resignation is painted clearly across your face. Your white freckles reflect the fear paling your skin.

“P-please stop!”

I’m sorry. Your heart rate is still abnormally fast. Are you okay?

“Fuck you,” comes your breathless dissent, painfully forced from taut lips.

Now now, there’s no need for that kind of language.

Your body tenses when I reach out, trying to comfort you, and yet you continue to resist. Predictably, the cool touch of chitin only seems to revolt you, spurning my act with a reflexive flinch. It’s not your fault, I assure you. But it does little to assuage the fear in your eyes. It instead seems to transform you, lighting a rebellious fire. You scream and clasp your hands over your ears, tactlessly trying to block out my voice.

That’s not how it works, silly.

I suppose to you, a serrated claw is nothing more than a mark of a beast, a serrated edge on which your frail life might end at any moment. Still, I pat your head, attempting to relax the fresh outcast in front of me. When you go limp, it’s much easier for the stinger to slip into your back, dividing skin dermis and delivering the dose.

You’ll be okay. You were already ours, you just didn’t know it.

Ah, I’ve made a mistake. Your irregular breaths inform me of your heightening panic. I can never tell when the truth will only hurt more. Your eyes are wide, petrified as your body seems to betray you, but this is necessary.

You can’t be free, not like this. What if you forget to put your coffee cup in the bin? You might forget to do your taxes. You might, one day, pursue an impulse, an undeniable urge to discover what it feels like to shove a stranger into traffic. Your fantasies, without our moderation, could become someone else’s nightmare.

But… you were such a good citizen. So hardworking, so excited to change and free yourself from the sentence of gravity. You clearly take pride in those horns, so I won’t let them be ruined.

I see when the pain finally hits you. All that grabbing and crying you’re resorting to is ultimately useless, but it’s not like I can blame you for this, either; I remember how it feels when your pulse pushes and there’s nowhere for the blood to go anymore, how gross the pouring sweat feels.

Just stop. You can’t tourniquet this like some poison. You’ll only end up hurting yourself.

It’s in your native nanocells, reducing your anatomy to stripped vessels and nerves, melting your bones out of your pores. You wish you could scream, but your body denies you your voice.

It’s better to just give up.

Even mid-chrysalization, you manage a pained glare.

Don’t look at me like that. You’re not dying. I guess you already know too much. If we could wipe your memories, it would be so much easier. Unfortunately now your apartment, the café, the streets… these places are now no longer where you belong. We can’t have you running your mouth, sharing Isorian secrets. You’re one of us now, so you have to look like it. Nobody will listen to a monster.

Eventually you will understand. You will have to stay with us if you want to live. Maybe you’ll dissent again, grieving the loss of your hopes and dreams, but you will eventually see that there is no alternative. You’ll comply. You’ll change your loyalty from your ethics to your survival, join our cause, and march to the beat of progress. You all do.

You do want more, don’t you?

You finally go quiet and still, your breathing relaxing into a rhythm. I sympathetically sag, relieved. Easily now, I begin to carry you back while you sleep through the painless start of your change.