Michael was shaking in his sleep, cold sweat bathed his body. On his chest he felt something heavy and warm. The air was laced with the scent of Jasmin. Soft hands caressed his forehead.
He woke up startled.
But she smiled at him and raised her head from his chest. “My name is Jake,” she said. She was pretty. Perfect pretty with violet hair. And Jasmin air. She knelt on the floor by his bed.
Sean was gone. The room empty. Michael looked to the window. How long have I been asleep? The sun will not rise here, he remembered.
“I’ve been sent to help you with post-extraction withdrawal. It’s a new service we offer Korektor soldiers,” Jake beamed.
Michael sat up. “How old are you?” The warmth of her hands felt nice on his chest. He felt guilty for liking it and removed himself from it.
“I’m two. Exactly,” she said, then clarified, “Eighteen in Old Earth years for you.”
“I can do the math. You’re just a baby. And I’m a very old man.”
One of the job perks was that while on mission, inside the sim, one didn’t age. Only back in the base reality, on Proxima Centauri Vega. It was a double edged sword, for it meant that it was impossible to maintain family life in present Proxima Centauri while serving inside simulations.
She brushed his hair from his green eyes. “You’re very handsome, Michael. I’d like to help you, I’ve been trained in all the pleasure arts.”
He pushed her away and backed against the wall. “Don’t touch me please.” They have nothing to do but come up with witless ideas, Michael thought of the Order.
Jake pressed a button on her digital handset and her hair changed to brown. “Do you like this better? I can be anyone you want.”
“Thank you, but it won’t be necessary.” Is she real?
“It’s important before a new mission that soldiers find their center. It’s been found that copulation is most repairing. We understand Proxima Centauri Vega can be jarring post-extraction. You need support.”
She wasn’t wrong, but he couldn’t do it. He was closed shut, replaying his past lives.
“I am clean and fixed so there’s nothing to worry about. I can do it all if you prefer.” She started to unbutton her dress.
Michael lunged forward and stopped her fingers. “Please don’t. It’s not for me.” In her hands he felt a dose of comfort. He dropped them at once.
“I’ll be most humiliated if you refused me.” She brought her lips to his and kissed him softly.
But the Korektor soldier felt nothing. All the feeling was gone. He ran out of the room in trepidation, as Jake looked on.
***
A few days later, it was his roommate Sean who helped Michael find his center. He brought him a handful of Nantak leaves to chew. They were officially illegal on Proxima Centauri Vega, but the Order had turned a blind eye, so long as soldiers continued to function and fulfil their missions.
The effect was sedative and numbing. Material Review was no longer soul crushing. Michael became more social, and was able to share meals with other Korektors. Jake came around again, and he enjoyed talking to her. The Nantak leaves did the job. He attended training sessions, ate well and regained some of the muscle he lost.
But reinsertion day was coming tomorrow. And he knew what that meant. Reinsertion was painful, for on Old Earth it required birth. He knew that birth was painful for the host and for him too. He hated it. He would have no memory of anything until realisation at age fourteen on Old Earth. He vowed that this time would be different. This was to be the last time he would be doing this.
As if the Order could read his mind, a message came in on his handset. The beep summoned him to the Hall of the Great Pillars.
An hour later he found himself kneeling before the Order again, with the White Woman’s stabbing eyes at his back. What do they want with me now, one day before reinsertion? He wondered. He hoped they would replace him or scrap the mission.
“The Korektor Michael, rise,” the Order commanded scratching the wooden handles of his throne with his nails.
Michael came to his feet. The room seemed brighter today. He noticed they withdrew some of the cyan curtains to reveal the facing star. The air was dense and humid. Michael’s eyes travelled to the Olive treed throne the Order occupied. He wondered, if I burned the precious seat, would the Order wilt? Everyone bore their eyes into him. From officials to aides to advisors to butlers. They all seemed to know something that Michael didn’t. The dozens and dozens pairs of eyes did not lie. It felt like a spectacle they all turned out to see, with Michael inserted as the performer unbeknownst to himself.
What do they want with me?
“After careful deliberation, we’ve decided to make some changes. An overture to your difficulty.” The Order gripped his throne’s handles.
Michael held his breath and the ceiling seemed to lower on top of him.
“We agree that loss of audition is an impediment. Communication on Old Earth is key. We have decided, if you accept, to permit the injection of —- Chater-La.”
A hush fell over the cavern-like hall. As if a forbidden word had been spoken. The vaulted ceiling now seemed to rise taller and expand. Indeed, the word had not been mentioned in eons. The Chater-La serum was reserved for the selected few. It was rare, costly, and—- irreversible.
“The injection will take all day. Thereby delaying your re-insertion. I will be clear though, Chater-La will not make you hear on Old Earth once auditory faculties have been overwritten. When you try to speak you will still sound like a babbling fool to all,” the Order explained. “But speaking will no longer be necessary.”
Michael didn’t need to think about it or understand further. It was the stuff of legends. “I accept. I accept it all,” he said quickly, as he knelt back down in gratitude.
The White Woman stepped forward. Her face stoney like a marble statue. “You will have to be taught how to use it carefully. And most importantly—sparsely.”
Michael’s eyes shone with newfound hope. Chater-La would offer him a supreme advantage before his enemies.
The White Woman moved closer and raised her chin. Michael grabbed her porcelain hands and kissed them in reverence. “I am most grateful,” he said.
“Come, we haven’t much time,” she said, and Michael followed with urgency out of the hall. His grey felt cloak now swooshed noisily behind him. Or perhaps it was all the stabbing eyes at his back. They all seemed to collectively gasp. But like a puppy following his master, Michael quickened his steps after the now pleasantly demonic White Woman. And he ignored all else.
***
In the evening, preparations were underway for Michael’s injection. Word had spread, and it became something of a ceremony, a once-in-a-star-system-time event. For only five persons in all of Proxima Centauri Vega had ever been injected. He would be the sixth. And the last. As the serum was no longer to be found.
Jake immersed him in a hot bath and scrubbed every inch of his body. He was not allowed to eat or drink. He found out that indeed, Jake was not real. She was a robot. Many Korektors married “Jakes”. It was the practical solution to family life. She would wait, even years for their return, with no rancor. But his time on Old Earth made it impossible for him to connect to a Jake. He was but a ghost trampling old grounds.
At the end, he donned a white tunic. It felt soothing against his naked skin. He pushed aside any last thoughts of doubt. The decision was made. The injection accepted. He trusted his first instinct.
Jake walked him to the injection room. Proud. Her ponytail swinging. She was to be the concubine of a Chater-La injected Korketor. Her computer accessed everything she needed to know about the change. It spit back augmented senses surhumain. She smiled positively in the only way she knew how.
Michael entered an amphitheater of sorts, the arena for his upcoming change. The eyes and faces and bodies and looks belonging to dignitaries, officials and the Order of course, simultaneously attacked him from their higher seats. They seemed to float in the space and not be attached to anything. They bore their eyes and dug their looks under his skin and he wished for them to all go away. But nobody would turn down a ticket for the momentous procedure.
A shiny metal table was placed in the middle with a dialysis machine. Michael entered the center ring and his head spinned. All around him seats rose and elongated to touch the ceiling. Metal. Functional. It was small tough, not an arena. But all 545 seats were occupied. And some even stood against the walls, pushing for a good vantage point. A veritable spectacle and he was the entertainment.
“Strip.” The White Woman ordered like a circus master.
Michael dropped his tunic exposing a warrior’s physique to hundreds of attendees who collectively gasped at the nude soldier.
The White Woman struck her glassy eyes examining his body. “Lay down.”
He did.
With seeming pleasure the White Woman proceeded to bind his arms and legs with metal clasps to the table. Michael did not flinch. He didn’t care how much it would hurt. It was a gift of immeasurable proportions. Wars have been fought to bring, or steal, the serum to Proxima Centauri Vega. But still he knew it would hurt. He took a deep breath and felt the crowded theatre around him breathing for him.
The woman gazed into his eyes with sadistic satisfaction as the needle attached to a tube approached his veins. He looked at her with no fear, but it was merely a curtain, for he was human after all, and deep down ablaze with trepidation.
Vile woman. This is my ticket out of this hell of a mission.
She punctured his veins in four places on his body, inserting thick painful needles inside. Michael grit his teeth at the sharp metal rods that lodged at his veins and at the evil hands which handled them. She turned on the dialysis machine and it started to drain his blood into a large clear container. He felt himself dying and drifting away as all the blood was drained from his body and placed in a large urn for all to see. His liquid. The fabric of his constitution was on display. It was red and alive. And he never felt more naked.
Then the precious pink Chater-La serum was brought out. A choir sang cloaked in white, and chanted, and a high priest blessed the moment as the serum was carefully poured into the jar and mixed with Michael’s blood.
They counted exactly five minutes of mixage. Less, it would not take effect, more, Michael would die on the bed and the serum wasted. They held their breath as the clock ticked down. Jake holding Michael’s hand though he did not feel her. He was technically dead.
At precisely five minutes, the dialysis machine began to pump the blood containing the serum back into Michael’s veins. It took 30 minutes. Jake squeezed Michael’s hand. The priest prayed and the choir roared, their voices rising louder and higher in ecstasy.
The White Woman looked to the Order. We may have killed him.
Jake put her head on Michael’s chest, come back to my service. The White Woman sought to banish her, but the Order maintained it.
Teetering between life and death, Ani infected his brain again. Michael was unable to move but his mind raced to the past and to Ani’s life in the Duat Caves. On every mission, another piece was revealed to him about her curious journey. On one mission, he couldn’t remember which, he found her logbook, and in it she told the story of the only friend she had come to know in the cave:
A huge ship came into the docks, dwarfing the small port, almost crushing it. The smugglers used small fishing boats, but this was a veritable merchant vessel Ani only heard about from legends told by her father. It was richly designed and adorned, its mast scraping the cave’s ceiling. The people that came off that ship were large and white, holding metal swords and shields. The smugglers called them Romans. The smuggler pirates overwhelmed them and took their metal and tied their arms and feet. The pirates were so happy, like she’d never seen. They celebrated night after night, for Ani could only suppose they liked what they found on the ship, though she could never get a good look inside.
But what they liked most was not made of gold but made of flesh. Her name was Sita. She was the most beautiful girl Ani had ever seen. She was 17 years old and came from India. She wore an orange Sari and many beautiful jewels. Her hair was long and shiny and cascaded down her back. Her mere presence quickened the heart of any who would gaze upon her. She seduced them all without even trying. Perhaps this scared them, thought Ani, for she quickly learned that beauty was power. And so, Sita was taunted and pushed and shoved, as she was the only girl there among many many men. Sita kept calling for “Augustus”, saying she just wanted to go home, wherever it was, in this imaginary land of India.
Ani felt bad for Sita, but didn’t know how to help. Sometimes, when one dirty bearded man tried to kiss her and Sita screamed, Ani threw a rock to distract. When this happened, one Roman, her Augustus, shouted in anger to “Leave her alone!”. Ani could tell that he really cared about her. He used every trick in his sleeve to keep Sita safe from the clutching smelly hands of the pirates. Sometimes it worked, they accepted such and such gold. But sometimes it didn’t, when no gold could substitute for the yearnings of the flesh, and Sita folded. When this happened, Ani ran back to her part of the cave and covered her ears.
Michael opened his eyes in horror.
A collective huh fell over the amphitheater.
His body trembled. Then shook, growing in intensity. It exploded into uncontrolled convulsions. The whole table rocked and it required four men to hold him down. The choir stopped their singing, terrified. He vomited his empty stomach. It felt like fire was coursing through his veins. He screamed in agony and begged for it to stop. His skin turned hot pink, and his eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets.
Jake cried for them to “Do something!” but was summarily dismissed.
The White Woman said in elation: “Let it flow! Suffering is temporary. But legend is forever!”
Michael could not hear anything except the sound of his own throat, screaming in terror. There was nothing except pain and no way to stop it. Half the amphitheater cleared out, they could not bear to watch the brutal torture, or withstand the blood curdling screams. The serum seeped like acid into every pore, every organ, every nerve.
Those who did not turn their eyes, witnessed a pivotal moment. The cross roads in the history of Proxima Centauri Vega were etched in blood that day, with the blood of the soldier Michael. After which, he would be forever known as The First Korektor Soldier Michael La of the Order, Guardian of the Last Correction of Old Earth.
***
