Steel Beneath the Skin Read Free

Ella shook her head and made a desperate attempt to look professional. Aneka spoke first.
    ‘Why would aliens kidnap me, turn my hair white, and perform cosmetic surgery on me?’
    ‘Well… Do you notice any other differences? Small things, maybe.’
    ‘Got a mirror?’ Ella pointed to a sink near the door which had a small mirror over it, and Aneka headed over to it. She looked into it, frowning as she turned her head from side to side. Then she turned and started twisting around to peer at her body. ‘I used to have a filling in one of my molars. I think that’s gone. Nothing else I can see… There was a chicken pox scar on my neck that I can’t feel.’ She looked down, pressing at the skin of her right thigh with a thumb. ‘The bullet wound I had here... that scar’s gone too. Odd, but…’
    ‘And there’s just the memory loss? You don’t feel any different?’
    Aneka frowned. ‘You’re skirting around something. My memory’s fragged, but I’m pretty sure I’m the kind of person who prefers not to be bullshitted.’
    ‘I’m not actually sure what that means, but… maybe you should sit back down.’ She looked like she would be a lot more comfortable with Aneka sitting, so Aneka sat, perching on the bed and pulling her knees up to her chest. ‘I’m not really sure how to explain this…’
    ‘Just say it. I’ll ask questions if I don’t get it.’
    ‘Okay… The aliens who took you were called the Xinti. We think they were organic beings once, but that was thousands of years ago. They kind of… uploaded their minds into huge computers, used different bodies, robotic and engineered biological, according to their needs.’ She paused, her eyes fixed on Aneka. ‘And… that’s what they did to you.’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘You’re, basically… um, a robot. A synthetic organism anyway. There’s a cybernetic chassis with an organic body hung around it. Your mind is running as a program on the computer that controls it all. An emulation.’
    There was silence as Aneka sat staring at Ella. She did not appear to be angry, or violent, or anything really. Just stunned. ‘That’s insane,’ she said after about a minute. Her voice was quiet, and uncertain. ‘I’m… I feel like… me. I can feel… I feel…’ Her voice stopped. She stopped. She just sat there, unmoving, not even breathing, her eyes blank.
    ‘What happened?’ Gilroy’s voice said over the speakers. ‘The readings on her electrical activity just dropped sharply.’
    ‘I think… I think she crashed. Shock? I’m going to sit here until she comes back.’
    ‘ If she comes back.’
    Ella did not answer, she just pulled her knees up, mimicking Aneka’s posture, and settled down to wait.
    ~~~
    Aneka watched as text scrolled past her vision field. She did not take it all in, but what she saw seemed to be diagnostic information. Actuator systems, power systems, biological activity, sensors. The final statement was an “unexpected process halt” report stating that her systems had successfully dumped short term memory to long term after the event. Ella had been telling the truth. At least that was what it looked like considering that she was watching her body go through what amounted to a start-up health check.
    Ella was still there, where she had been when Aneka had blacked out, which was four hours ago, according to the downtime statement she had seen. The lights in the room had been dimmed and the redhead was sprawled in her chair, eyes closed. The rhythmic breathing, the steady rise and fall of her chest, indicated that she was, most likely, asleep.
    Aneka sat still and took in what she could see. The room, and the one beyond the window as best she could tell, had bare metal walls which looked like hammered steel. The floor was smoother, but with ridges which presumably improved traction. There were screens which looked more or less like the LCD screens she was used to, but a lot thinner and in some cases transparent,