I kick my legs beneath me as I wait in the all too familiar foyer, the slightly chipped dull yellow paint taking me back to my days of study and my former job teaching in the nearby buildings. The old teaching building, a central point on my old campus, was well overdue for a renovation and in fact one was planned so long as the right funding could be secured.
It was why I had been called in today, despite being made redundant several months ago, the college needed money and knew I needed it as well. The email had been bare to say the least, mostly just confirming the time to come and the forms to fill out if I was interested in earning some ongoing cash.
Looking around the foyer, not seeing a single soul aside from myself, I quickly fish my phone from my pocket. With an uneasy feeling I pull up the email, the fear I had come at the wrong time slowly sinking in.
Dear Mr Hughes,
I hope this email is finding you well.
I wish to extend an invitation to you to join our newly funded R&D program.
We have recently secured funding to renovate the old Raymond Hall Building, as I'm
sure you are well aware is sorely needed. However, we are in desperate need of
volunteers to join the program and subjects in order to complete our end of the
arrangement.
As a part of the funding agreement we have budgeted to pay certain participants
for their time and effort, some even in an ongoing capacity. Due to our previous
professional relationship I am reaching out to offer you one of these ongoing
paid positions in the program.
Further details will be available closer to the start date.
If you are interested please come to the Raymond Hall building at 0700 next
Tuesday along with a copy of the attached forms (completed please).
On a personal note. I do hope you consider the position, it would be wonderful to
see you around the campus again.
Best wishes,
Rachel Mawab, Liason for Swap Clinic R&D Projects
Looking at the time I breathe a small sigh of relief, finding that I was right about on time after arriving quite a bit early. I slump down in the maroon padded seat, the vinyl cover worn down and filled with various holes revealing the aging padding inside.
"Jordan!" coos a warm matronly voice, an ever so slight Turkish accent slipping through.
Looking up I watch as the doughy woman I hadn't seen in months quickly waddles up to me, her five-foot-five heavy-set frame hidden poorly beneath an ill-fitted labcoat. Her long black hair is tied back in a bun, the dyed silky locks being held in place by dozens of little pins.
Her deep brown eyes look down at me fondly, her soft rounded cheeks dimpling as she grins ear to ear. In her hands rest a small clipboard, a single sheet of paper sitting resting inside the clip.
"Hi Rachel" I call out, standing up from my seat as I put away my phone. I barely manage to get to my feet before the doughy older woman embraces me, quickly planting a quick kiss on each of my cheeks.
"I'm so glad you came" she chirps, placing her hands on my shoulders as she pulls back to look me over. She gasps a little, her eyes darting up and down my torso. "You're so skinny! Have you been eating properly?" she asks, the memories of being dotted over by my old department head soon coming back in force.
"I have I have..." I say dismissively, placing my hands on her shoulders as the signed forms crumple against her. "Oh, right... I brought the..." I begin to mutter, the shorter doughy woman quickly turning to snatch them from my hand.
"Wonderful" she coos, looking over the forms in search of all the right signatures. "This will be so much easier, we already have your payment details and... I mean, it will be so good to have you back working for us" she muses, quickly correcting herself.
"I... yeah, it's been hard to find another..." I mumble, cutting myself short as I watch Rachel begin to waddle away. She waves for me to follow along, my stride quickly allowing me to catch up to her.
"Oh I understand, academia is a rough business" she mutters shaking her head. "I'm just sorry I couldn't keep you on, but Hollie had just bought her apartment and Wendy was looking to start trying for..."
"I know I know" I huff, not wanting to be reminded that I was simply the most expendable of the fresh hires. As we walk along I start to notice the renovations were already underway, the painted plaster walls having been peeled back to expose all manner of fresh wiring within deeper inside the building.
"Mind your steps" Rachel chirps, shifting and swaying as she begins to walk over various bundles of power cords and data cabling. "We needed to set all this up for the tests, so this part of the building is still a bit of a mess for now"
"About that..." I muse, leaning over to try and see whatever was on the clipboard. "What are the tests? I just know it's with the Swap Clinic"
"How did you know that?" Rachel snaps in surprise, clutching the clipboard to her heaving saggy chest.
"It's in the email... your job title?" I chuckle in confusion, my laughter only growing as the older woman deflates a little.
"Oh, of course" she sighs, tapping her forehead. "I swear, I'm getting more forgetful every day."
"So... what's..." I begin to try and ask again, pausing as Rachel ducks into a nearby room. The once rather small and cramped classroom is filled with wiring, the cables running through to the next room thanks to a large series of holes in the wall.
A large metal machine sits in the back right corner, a mirroring machine being visible through one of the many wall holes. The device itself appears half-made, with large panels missing to expose the delicate innards to the world.
A team of researchers race around the tight confines of the classroom itself, soldering together connections and looking over script and command lines on a series of nearby computer screens. One of the team looks up at me, the short Philipino woman in her early thirties smiling giddily at the apparent volunteer before quickly redoubling her efforts with a set of circuit boards.
"Fantastic, simply wonderful" coos Rachel, immediately having forgotten my question. "Is it ready? Can Mr. Hughes take a seat inside the..."
"Um... Rachel?" I interject, reaching out to wave and catch her attention. "What's all... What are we..."
"Oh, right" Rachel mutters, tapping her head with the clipboard again. "We recently got funding from the Swap Clinic, as you know, to test the functionality of this new generation of swap...machine...things" she states, waving her hand at the device. "Namely, we're exploring what other capabilities these things could have beyond those normally marketed."
"What..." I wheeze, carefully stepping over thick taped cables as I approach the machine. "What do you mean by..."
"Well..." Rachel softly mutters, gritting her teeth as she struggles to meet my gaze. "Uh... Simon?" she calls out, looking to an older balding man typing frantically at one of the computers. "Can you..."
"You're here for a longer term test" the man mumbles, barely looking away from the screens.
"Right, right..." Rachel coos, "because we're paying you weekly for the..."
"But what is the test?" I ask, leaning with one hand on the looming steel frame of the machine.
"Oh..." Rachel chirps, smiling over at me. "Well this team is testing how animals handle living in a human body, seeing if they can learn with the expanded brain power" she explains giddily, her gaze darting to the left as she looks through one of the holes in the wall.
Following her gaze I watch as a larger wooly sheep is carried kicking and bleating into device not unlike the one sitting beside me, its small cloven hooves thrashing about as it tries to kick the researchers and grasp the side of the doorway leading into the device.
With no small amount of effort the team manages to shove the sheep inside, a loud crackle of electricity soon following as the force inside the machine seems to quieten the fluffy dirty creature. Soft bleating only ever so slightly breaks out over the sound of the shifting energy, the occasional snapping of bones and ligaments being followed with disturbingly more human-like yelps and groans of pain.
I watch in awe from my room, the researchers around me stopping what they were doing to observe as well, as the sharp energized humming and zapping of the device rapidly dies down. For a moment there is nothing, no sound nor movement. Suddenly, a figure erupts from the device, a middle-aged naked blonde woman lurching forward from the machine as she scrambles to find comfort on all fours.
Her warm voice comes out in unintelligible baas and bleats, her eyes wild as the sheep frantically tries to make sense of what had happened to it. The researchers all race over, grabbing the naked woman and helping her to her feet as her heavy sagging chest and wide backside jiggle with every movement.
"Another success" Rachel coos, the sound of hooves against the wooden floor soon entering somewhere deep down the hallway. "Baa-bara will make a fine addition to that flock, she'll be helping out with the fox problem in no time" she chuckles, emphasizing the sheep noise at the start of the former woman's name.
"You...." I mutter in shock, looking back at Rachel with a wide-eyed expression. "You can't be serious about..."
"Oh, we're very serious" she retorts, tapping at her clipboard with a pen as she strikes something off her list. "Just think about it, there are so many possibilities to be harnessed with this study."
"Why the fuck would you want feral naked people running around like..." I grumble back, placing a hand on the edge of the machine to keep me stable and beyond its frightening threshold. "What's the point of..."
"Well of course that's not the end goal" Rachel chuckles, waving at me dismissively. "We hope to see if they can gain a more human-like intelligence using your more highly developed minds. That way we may be able to train them better, to do what we say with greater understanding"
"It will also let us communicate with them" chirps the tiny Phillipino researcher, the short girl leaping to her feet from the ground as she beams nervously. "Like, how we can make their conditions better... or why they won't eat their dry food just because it's a different..."
"What she's saying is..." Rachel interjects, giving the young researcher some side-eye. "Hopefully we'll be able to understand them better, both from a social and interpersonal perspective but also from a cognitive development standpoint."
"But..." I cough, glancing over into the other room as I watch the middle-aged blonde kick and grunt against the researchers leading her out. "Why farm animals? Why not..."
"Lab mice?" Rachel says, finishing my sentence. "Well..."
"We've done that already" the tiny researcher chirps excitedly, pleased as punch with the announcement. "it's how we calibrated the systems to work cross-species, it takes so much more effort to make the quantum fields properly entangle with..."
"The volunteers hated it" Rachel sighs, shaking her head. "And the mice kept trying to get out of the facility. With it being on campus... well it was hard to keep a lid on things."
"Hated..." I begin to mutter, the tiny researcher rolling her eyes before cutting me off.
"I was fine" she grumbles, folding her arms over her flat modest chest. "It was the others that couldn't stand the lack of stimulation in the enclosures. You just needed to make your own fun of it, like the giant wheel could be used for roul..."
"The farm animals come from our new property" Rachel coos, trying her best to talk over the excited grumbling of the smaller woman. "Well out of the way, large area that we can properly monitor for your safety and for escapees, and it gives us a wide variety of test subjects."
"And you'll have more to do" the researcher chirps, stifling a giggle. "More than mouse casino.. that is... unless you want..."
"You'll be able to help out around the farm. You know, helping with herding, 'acting' in the tours or even taking guests on rides" Rachel states, tapping the top of her pen against the clipboard. "Or just slack off and explore, it really depends on the day and our enterprise requirements. View it like a working vacation with variable hours"
"And a body of some... some animal" I manage to cough out. "While they do... whatever in my body for... how long is this even for? What will happen to my mind trapped inside that... that thing?" I practically squeak, my heart hammering in my chest.
"The contract is per teaching term" Rachel states in a dry and matter-of-fact manner. "You'll accrue payment on a weekly basis, earning bonuses for tasks performed around the farm of course. You can quit at any time, just let us know...however you can, though we will take a penalty cut from your payment based on how far along we are from the end of the test."
"And don't worry about your mind" the researcher coos, sticking out her tongue as she taps her temple. "I still feel fine up here, and I was inside the small brain we've tested. The prelim studies seem to show that it becomes harder to learn new things once swapped, especially really complex ideas."
"See?" Rachel coos, gesturing to the overly excited young scientist. "She's fine, and you'll be fine too. We wouldn't be doing this if we were sure it was safe for the volunteers."
"But... but... what if my body gets... like injured or..." I croak, trying my best to find a reason to back out. "What if something happens to me?"
"We have a world-class medical facility on site, and the place is monitored twenty-four-seven" the researcher chirps excitedly, her eyes lighting up as she brings up the advanced facilities on the farm. "Everyone will be outfitted with subdermal GPS tracking chips, a combination of invisible and regular fences should keep everyone where they're meant to be."
"See?" Rachel chuckles, reaching out to pat my shoulder reassuringly. "There's nothing to worry about, it's the easiest job you'll ever have in your life. I mean, at least you won't be one of the teachers trying to explain English to horses and chickens."
I sigh as it sinks in. She has a point, the money I'd be earning from this was far better than what I'd be earning at even a full-time low-skilled job. It sucks that I wouldn't be able to spend it, the direct deposits simply sitting in my account and paying down my rent while I'm away.
Swallowing hard I look up, giving Rachel a nod as I step back into the machine.
The researcher claps her hands excitedly, squealing with glee as she races around to test the connections of the innumerable cables on the floor. Rachel for her part just smiles warmly, writing a little note on her clipboard before singling to one of the researchers beyond my line of sight.
"You made the right..." she begins to softly coo, her voice quickly disappearing behind a veritable wall of static.
The room fills with the smell of ozone, the metal components inside the prototype machine arcing electricity from one piece to another as the insane voltage rips through the insides of the terrifying device.
I can't even take a seat before the building air pressure around me pins my body in place, my eyes being the only things left to look around as I feel my insides begin to bubble and shift. I try to gag, to throw up at the sensation of my slowly moving and writhing organs.
The crackling arcs of electricity soon begin to reach out towards my body, burning at my clothes as the thin streams turn to an odd plasma inside the prototype field. As the energy reaches my skin I let out a pained hiss, my pale flesh appearing to warp and deform under the surrounding pressure.
I let out a cry of terror, my eyes darting around for help. A subtle crackling comes from a speaker inside the machine, the electric static fighting to be heard over the noise of my warping innards. "Okay Mr Hu..." the speaker crackles, the voice dropping for a moment before coming back a little clearer.
"You see...
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