Day Trip - Part III
Aaralyn awakens to her new reality
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
The ball bounced off the concave disc in the center of the room's floor, the shape of the disc naturally returning the ball to play. Aaralyn Roth dove to the floor, her arm outstretched, and whacked the ball with her racquet, sending the ball up toward the concave disc on the ceiling. Aaralyn was teamed up with Lillian Evergreen, a tall fourteen-year-old girl with long blonde hair that had been pulled into a ponytail. Lillian circled the room with long sidelong steps, keeping low to the floor - well, as low as she could in the low gravity of the Taurus 1 station. The girls were opposed by sixteen-year-old twins Silas and Griffin Emberheart. Silas elbowed Lillian as he pushed toward the center of the room, positioning himself to return the next volley.
"Hey!" Lillian cried out in frustration.
"We're not going to let you and your little freak friend win again," said Silas. The ball bounced off the disc on the floor, and Griffin returned it with a backhanded strike that directed the ball back to Silas, who pounded it off the floor disc so hard that it nearly hit the ceiling disc. It just missed, however, and Aaralyn, who had anticipated the aggressive play by the twin brothers, had run to the back of the court, up the curved wall, and leapt back toward the center of the court as though she were jumping from a high dive into a pool. The racquet caught the ball just as it bounced off the ceiling, returning to the ceiling disc and bouncing off at an angle the boys could not hope to hit before it hit the far wall of the court.
"That's game!" said Aaralyn with a cheesy grin that she knew would irritate the two brothers.
"I don't know what you're so happy about." Griffin directed his comment at the girls who were high-fiving one another. "It's not like you'd be able to win if you weren't cheating."
"We didn't cheat!" Lillian shot back. "Just because you guys are too big and slow doesn't mean we're cheating."
"Every time you play with that freak on your team, you're cheating!" Silas was still trying to catch his breath from the match, and he wiped the sweat from his brow with a towel.
"Don't listen to them, Aaralyn," said Lillian. "They're just jealous that they'll never be able to beat us because of how awesome we are. Well, how awesome you are."
"Don't you need to, like, recharge your batteries or something?" Sarcasm dripped from Griffin almost as heavily as his sweat.
Coach Endo Kasumi opened a section of the transparent court wall. Coach Endo, a small woman from Japan, had moved to the Taurus Triplet to teach and coach the children of Aion Bio Robotics who live aboard the station. She was a master in several forms of martial arts, had experience in several sports, including baseball, soccer, and basketball, and could coach just about anything. And though she was a tiny woman, when she spoke, the students listened. Those who made the mistake of talking back or failed to follow her instructions found themselves sparring with her one-on-one - and no one ever beat Coach Endo - ever.
"OK, that's all for today. Hit the showers and go home," Coach Endo said, addressing the group of teens as she stepped into the 360 Ball court. Silas and Griffin stepped out first, heading for the boys' locker room.
"Good match today, Lillian." Coach's stern face didn't match the compliment, but Lillian knew that was just how Coach Endo was. She dipped her head in a short bow and stepped out of the court. Aaralyn was about to follow suit, but Coach put a hand out to stop her.
"I know those boys are giving you a tough time, but when you pull crazy stunts like you did today, you're simply giving them more to harass you about."
"Coach, I'm sorry that they are too immature to accept that I'm better at sports than they are. Well, actually, I've seen their grades. I seem to be better than them in a lot of areas."
"I understand, but you don't need to rub it in their faces. You'll never make friends that way."
"I'm not going to apologize for who I am. It's not like I chose this," Aaralyn said as she gestured with both hands, waving them down in front of her as though indicating she meant the whole of her body.
"I know, Aaralyn. I'm sorry about what happened to you but don't use your uniqueness as a weapon against others. You're going to have difficulties with people because of your physical differences. I'm telling you not to intentionally use your differences to inflame conflict."
"So you want me to tiptoe around everybody's feelings? You want me to hide what I am so people don't get upset? Is that what you're saying?"
"No, not at all."
"I have to go. I promised Aunt Naamah I'd be home on time today." Aaralyn turned sideways and stepped past the coach through the door, cutting the conversation short. "Carl is coming over for dinner." Aaralyn rolled her eyes. "I think they like each other, but you didn't hear that from me."
Aaralyn left Coach Endo in the 360 Ball court, exited the gym, and walked into the central corridor of Taurus 3, the residential and commercial level of the Taurus Triplet. She turned to the right and walked past the entrance to the locker rooms. Silas was standing in the doorway of the men's locker room with nothing but a towel around his waste. His hair was wet, indicating that he had likely just come from the shower, though Aaralyn knew he hadn't been gone long enough to take a real shower.
"Hey freak," Silas called out to her, not moving from the doorway. "Why don't you head back down to the lab where you belong, you freakin' lab rat!"
Aaralyn tried to ignore him, but this jerk, standing there without a shirt, had these chiseled abs that were impossible not to notice. How did he do it? Maintaining muscle mass on board the station was notoriously difficult, but Silas made it look easy. Wait. Why was she thinking about this? Sure, Silas had great abs, but the guy was a jerk. She kept walking, fully intending to ignore him completely.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Silas growled as he stepped away from the locker room door and grabbed her elbow.
"You should let go of me right now," said Aaralyn, keeping her voice low.
"Are you threatening me?!" Silas said too loudly for how close he was. It was like he wanted other people to hear him.
"Why don't you go put some clothes on!" Lillian called from the other side of the station's hall. Aaralyn looked in Lillian's direction and noticed her coming out of the small cafeteria next to the gym. She held a smoothie in each hand.
"I figured you would head straight to the showers after our match," Aaralyn said to Lillian.
"Yeah, well, I wanted to celebrate our 11th consecutive win by getting a smoothie. Here's one for you. It's strawberry banana, your favorite."
Aaralyn accepted the smoothie with her left hand. In one swift move, she brought her right hand around in a circular motion, first bringing her hand to the outside of Silas' arm, then pulling back, breaking his grip on her. Then her right hand shot out, palm open, hitting him in the sternum just hard enough that Silas stumbled back toward the locker room door.
"Don't touch me again," Aaralyn said as she whirled away and walked down the corridor with Lillian practically skipping beside her.
"What was that for?! You better watch your back, freak!"
"That was awesome!" said Lillian between sips of smoothie. "I wish I had moves like you. Those jerks would think twice before messing with me."
"You know, Griffin really isn't all that bad. He's just dumb and goes along with whatever his brother wants. I think he might actually be afraid of Silas." Aaralyn took a long sip of her smoothie. "Ah! Brain freeze!"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but is it even possible for you to get brain freeze?"
"Of course it is! I'm one hundred percent human from the shoulders up."
"That's right. I'm sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry about. What happened to me was awful, but I'm trying to make the best of it. Did you see that move today? I basically flew from the back wall to score that final point!"
"I know, it was awesome!"
The girls slowly walked past the entrance to West Hall and stepped up to the door of Naamah and Aaralyn's cabin, number 3114. The door slid open despite usually requiring the tap of a key card against the near field reader.
"How did you..." Lillian began.
Aaralyn's goofy grin betrayed her little secret. "I programmed the door to open when I wave my hand within six inches of the card reader. Watch this." Aaralyn waved her hand again, and the door closed. She waved once more and said, "Open sesame!" The door slid open.
"So cool!"
"I know, right?! I dissected my key card and attached the NFC chip to the inside of my palm."
They stepped inside the small, two-bedroom cabin, and lights turned on, a warm glow making the small space feel cozy and inviting.
Lillian plopped down on the small couch.
"Hey, remember, you haven't showered yet!"
"Oh, that's right. Sorry!" Lillian stood up and placed her empty smoothie cup in a trash receptacle in the wall near the cabin's door. "Hey, what's this?"
A message on a small whiteboard was attached to the wall outside Naamah's bedroom. The message read: 49 27 6C 6C 20 62 65 20 68 6F 6D 65 20 6C 61 74 65 2E.
"What do these numbers and letters mean?"
"That's a secret code my aunt uses when she leaves little messages for me. Well, it's not really a secret. It's just a text message converted from ASCII to hexadecimal."
"Hexa- what? Is that some magic spell?"
"It's math, silly!" Aaralyn glanced over at the message briefly. "It says, 'I'll be home late.' That's weird. I thought Carl was coming over. Thursday is usually game night."
"How did you do that?! You did that conversion in your head?" Lillian smirked. "OK, so I feel like I've been seeing Naamah and Carl together a lot lately. Do they have the hots for each other?"
"Eww! I don't want to think about that."
"You should spend the night at my place tonight. Give the love birds some space."
"Stop it! You know, I don't know about you, but I'm starving. I'm going to go down to the lab to see what's taking them so long. Come with me?"
"No, I better go get cleaned up. You guys have fun with game night." Lillian placed her palm against the door release plate, and the door slid open. "Let me know if you change your mind." The door slid closed again behind her.
After throwing on a clean pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt, Aaralyn left the apartment, heading directly for one of the four hallways leading to the space elevator's central superstructure. Naamah and Aaralyn's living quarters were just a few compartments from North Hall, near the grocer and the school. Each of the main halls was like the spokes of a wheel, connecting Taurus 3 to the Elevator's main structure. A short ride down the lift, and Aaralyn was walking down the North Hall of Taurus 1, Level 1, where Aion Bio Robotics held their labs for classified projects.
Each lab on this level was secured with heavy-looking bulkhead doors. None of the labs had windows that looked out into the hall, making the hallway feel narrow and claustrophobic. At least it was brightly illuminated. Aunt Naamah's lab was lab number three. Aaralyn approached the door and placed her hand on the card reader. When the light turned green, she leaned forward and allowed the biometric scanner to scan her retina. The door opened noiselessly, and the positive air pressure in the lab caused the air to rush around her as she entered.
Aaralyn would never forget her first moments in this lab, waking from the worst nightmare she could imagine. With a glance around the room, she noticed the lab appeared empty, but as she wound her way around high-backed lab benches full of expensive-looking equipment and robotic limbs, she saw that the light was on in Naamah's office. The office was one of two offices situated along the far wall of the lab. Through the window, Aaralyn could see Naamah and Carl sitting at Naamah's desk, their back turned to the window. A video file was pulled up on the screen, and Naamah had just pressed play. Aaralyn quietly approached the door and pressed the intercom button next to the door, careful not to let her breathing give away her presence.
"Why are we reviewing this footage again?" Carl asked as Naamah began playback of the footage captured after Aaralyn had been brought to the lab, her body broken and dying.
"I know it's hard to watch, but I just have this feeling that we've missed something," said Naamah, scrubbing through the footage of the medical staff trying desperately to stabilize her niece.
Two Aion Bio Robotics security personnel appeared on the video screen in the lab. Naamah slowed the video playback to normal speed.
"We'd like to ask her a few questions about what happened on board the elevator," said the first security officer. "As the only survivor of the incident, she may have information critical to our investigation."
"She won't be able to respond to questions for some time. Can't you see the condition she's in? The poor girl is barely alive." This was Naamah's voice. Her back was turned to the camera, but she could be seen gesturing to the girl who lay on the table, a blood-soaked sheet covering all but her face, which was mostly obscured with an oxygen mask.
Naamah scrubbed the video forward, watching at an accelerated speed as she and her team worked on the young girl. Large machines appeared on the screen next to Aaralyn. Countless tubes and wires were connected between the machines and the on-screen Aaralyn. It was immediately apparent that these machines were not only monitoring every electrical impulse in her body but were also keeping her alive by breathing for her and cycling her blood.
As the hours and days rushed past on the video screen, Aaralyn watched in horror as her body was slowly reconstructed from metal, plastic, and composites. She was thankful that Naamah was scrubbing through the video as quickly as she was. She didn't think she could hold her lunch in if the video were slow enough to show the detail of the trauma her body had experienced.
As the body of the on-screen Aaralyn came together, Naamah finally returned the video to normal speed.
The image showed Aaralyn lying on a table in this very lab. Her body now mainly constructed of robotic prosthetics. The only remaining organic part of the girl that was left appeared to be her head and neck. There was so little of her left! They had even shaved her head!
It's no wonder the other kids think I'm a freak. I am a freak! Am I even human anymore?
Aaralyn looked down at her hands, repeatedly turning them over and back - opening and closing her fingers. Tears began to stream down her face, and she placed a smooth, robotic hand over to her mouth to stifle a cry, ducking down out of the lab window and sitting with her back to the wall.
"Did you hear something?" Naamah asked Carl, turning to look out her office window at the empty lab.
"No, nothing."
Naamah turned back to the video screen and continued to scrub forward, stopping again when she appeared on the screen next to Aaralyn.
The on-screen Naamah pressed a small button where Aaralyn's sternum should be. The button made an audible click, and a twelve-centimeter long and six-centimeter wide roughly octagonal section of Aaralyn's chest popped up about one centimeter. Naamah slid the cover down, revealing a small toggle beneath an additional plastic cover. She lifted the cover and flipped the toggle. A blue light from within the small cavity in Aaralyn's chest illuminated Naamah's face. The blue light started to pulse throughout Aaralyn's body like blood pulsing through arteries. The pulsing increased in frequency over the next few seconds until becoming a network of solid, brightly illuminated lines. Naamah remembered this moment - waking Aaralyn from her sleep. The light shining from the young girl's body seemed unnatural but beautiful, almost alien or angelic. Then, the light faded until only one small blue light pulsed gently inside the recessed cavity in Aaralyn's chest. Naamah slid the cover back in place and pressed the cover down until it latched into place again.
"My sweet girl. I'm so sorry." This was the on-screen Naamah speaking to the girl on the table. Naamah placed her hands on Aaralyn's face, and the young girl's eyes fluttered open.
After a moment, Aaralyn's eyes seemed to focus. "Where am I?!" distress clear in the young girl's voice. "Where are my parents?"
When she heard her aunt's voice coming from the video, Aaralyn arranged herself to peek through the window again. What was Aunt Naamah looking for?
"Aaralyn, it's me, Aunt Naamah. You're safe now. You're aboard the Taurus Triplet station in one of Aion Bio Robotics' labs."
"Where is my mom?"
"I'm sorry, Aaralyn. Something terrible has happened."
"Is my dad here?"
"Aaralyn, listen to me. There's been an accident."
"I want to see my parents..."
"They..." Naamah's voice caught as she thought about the fate of her sister, Leah, her brother-in-law, Ted, and the other people on board the Elevator. All those people... dead. "There was an accident on board the elevator, and your parents didn't make it."
"Will they be here soon?"
"Aaralyn, there was an explosion on the Elevator. We found you in the elevator stairwell. You were badly injured, and... your parents... they died. I'm so sorry, Aaralyn."
"What do you mean, 'they died'? I was just with them a few minutes ago."
"Aaralyn, I know this is difficult to process, but the accident happened three months ago. Your body was so badly crushed that we couldn't salvage it. We placed your brain into stasis, kind of like a coma, while we built a replacement body for you. Once you were connected to your new body, we used a form of virtual reality to help teach your brain and your new body how to talk to one another. You lived in that dream-like state for about ten weeks but shouldn't remember any of it."
"I want my mom!"
"Oh, Aaralyn. I'm so sorry."
"Where is my mom?!"
With tears streaming down her face, Naamah scrubbed the video forward again.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Carl put an arm around Naamah's shoulders. "You've seen this before. Why keep going over it?"
"I just keep feeling like I missed something..." Naamah's voice faded as the video playback returned to normal speed. On the screen, a sleeping Aaralyn was still on the lab table, but another form moved through the shadows of the dark lab.
Naamah gasped when the shadowy figure came close to Aaralyn as she lay on the table, and the lights of the monitoring machines illuminated the man's face. She recognized the man as one of the security officers who had come to interrogate Aaralyn. He pressed the small button on Aaralyn's chest, causing the small compartment to pop up, then slid the cover down a few centimeters. He drew a small case from a breast pocket in his coat. Opening the small case, he removed a small disc-shaped object and used one finger to transfer it to the underside of Aaralyn's chest plate.
Naamah paused the playback. "What is that? What did he do?"
"I'm not sure, but the fact that he came in during the night would seem to indicate that he doesn't have Aaralyn's best interests at heart."
"Aaralyn! She's probably wondering where we are." As Naamah stood from her chair, Aaralyn scrambled as quietly as she could to hide in the shadow of a cabinet on the far side of the lab. Naamah and Carl left the office and made their way across the dark lab to the door, which opened when they approached.
Naamah stopped, turning to face the lab. In her mind's eye, she could see Aaralyn lying on the lab table, broken and helpless. "I knew I had missed something. I can't believe I didn't see that until now!"
"If that was a tracker he placed on her, she could be in danger." The servos in Carl's exosuit whined quietly as he stepped through the door and into the hallway.
"We need to find her." Naamah glanced at her wristwatch. "She should be home from school now."
As Naamah and Carl disappeared down the hall, Aaralyn stepped from the shadow and approached the table she had laid on for three months. She placed her hand on the cold metal. A tingle ran up her arm, and a deeply unsettling feeling washed over her. Was she being watched? Tracked? Was she in danger? If the security officer she had seen on the video had placed a tracker on her, were they trying to ensure she never left the station? As the only survivor of the incident on the Elevator, she was the only one who knew it wasn't an accident. She had already told station security everything she could remember about that day, though she didn't recognize either of the two men who had appeared in the security footage.
Aaralyn left the lab and opened the door to one of the emergency stairwells that connected the three rings of the Taurus triplet. Her augmented body and the low gravity made taking the stairs three at a time a trivial activity. Moments later, Aaralyn was walking through the door to the apartment where she and Naamah lived.
"Hey Aunt Naamah, hey Carl."
"You're home late..." said Naamah, trying very hard to act casually but failing to keep her concern out of her voice.
"Ready for game night, Kiddo?" Carl’s servos whined as he stood to his feet.
"Carl, I've asked you not to call me that. It's creepy." Aaralyn turned her attention to Naamah. "I'm going to wash up. Practice ran long tonight, and I'm sweating like a pig."
Naamah raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that Aaralyn's artificial body was not capable of producing sweat.
Aaralyn stepped into her bedroom and just stood there, alone, in the dark.
Quietly, she said, "Lilly, nightlight."
A dim light began to glow on the bedside table. She turned and faced the mirror on her bedroom wall.
Slowly, she lifted the hem of her shirt. The seam around the cover over her chest cavity was nearly imperceptible. She pressed gently against her sternum, and the small cover depressed and then sprung out, protruding slightly from her chest. She reached a finger under the cover and felt a round object adhered to the underside. As she lacked fingernails, she found a small ruler on her desk and used it to pry the object loose. As the object fell, she released her shirt and caught the small disc. It was about the size of a half-credit coin. She turned the object over in the palm of her hand and saw tiny engraved lettering on the adhesive side. She held the disc up in the dim light and could just make out the letters "ABR" and a nine-digit number - probably an item number or serial number.
ABR.
Aion Bio Robotics.
Aaralyn snapped the disc in two, letting the pieces fall to the floor.
⸻
"Sir, I think we have a problem."
"What is it?"
"The asset knows about the tracker."
"Understood. I think it's time to bring her in."
What to read next
Day Trip - Part III was the conclusion of this three-part short story, but there is much more to come from the Bio-Synth universe. This isn’t the end for Aarlyn or her friends either. If you enjoyed this short story, I encourage you to subscribe so that you can be notified when the next story is released.
See below for Parts I & II of Day Trip:
The following stories that are are also connected to the Bio-Synth universe:
This story & your narration are so awesome!! Amazing job !! I’m so looking forward to the continuation ! You have me hooked & anxiously waiting 😳