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For a moment, the body that used to be Mackenzie thought she could move.
Small shocks wracked the spine in feeble, frenzied twitches and left an itch across the skin. She imagined flexing the fingers, pulling the wires from the arms, and hoisting the body from the tank in a slough of amniotic sludge. She imagined the new skeleton she’d been given would feel more natural once she was back on her feet, then there would be no itching and no twitching as she adapted to her new casing. If she was outside the tank, she could walk or smile or find others on the ship like her, people who unmade and sewed themselves back up. Then she’d have friends. She’d be Mackenzie again. Not just muscle or tendon or cartilage stretched across bone. She’d be a her, and a human. Maybe even a little bit more than that.
But the fingers weren’t flexing at all. The body itself was still. Only the organs inside her and the swirls of goo encasing her moved. She felt the uncomfortably wet pulsing of the heart in the chest, and it pumped so hard her heartbeat felt more like a shiver. She felt it in the throat, the fleshy space between the bones of the wrist. It was hot. The shivering heartbeat swelled and palpitated into a hiccup, and another set of shocks coursed inside her as the liquid sloshed around. With the buzz of metal splintering glass, the goo slipped past her and the body sunk into the fetal position at the base of the tank.
Another crack reverberated up the tank. Fragments of glass sprinkled across her face, and a jolt more powerful than the electric wires stung her. She could feel it like a livewire. Glass on her face, her arms, her knees drawn to her chest.
Adjusting to her new self proved surprisingly easy. She bolted upright off her back and positioned herself to keep her stitches from pressing into the floor. Though painless, the staples keeping her from spilling everywhere acted like little ridges that snagged on every thread of her now-damp shirt. Each movement was a reminder– she was still fresh. Better, but painfully new. Not quite Mackenzie yet.
While her limbs fired on all cylinders, her brain slowed. A muffled voice called for her, and a hand cut through the fuzz to shake her. Blearily, she accepted the hand and wobbled along as it eased her from the basin of the tank.
There she found a sleek metal room with no windows, a single bolted door, and rows upon rows of identical bio-tanks bubbling with bodies. Metal pipes ran from the tanks to the ceilings and walls where endless buttons and sliders sat on consoles lit by screens. Diagnostics flashed across them in rapid succession. Temperatures, oxygenation, blood pressure, all organized by species, time, and location of abduction. It seemed an awful lot, but then again, remaking the world must be a tedious job. She appreciated the organization, though the sight stung a bit. She missed her shelf of binders. Mackenzie had just organized a new binder and filled it to the brim with stickers and looseleaf pages inked by glitter pens and scented highlighters. What had she written?
“Hey!”
Mackenzie flinched.
Towards the door, two girls huddled together in a picture of sheer horror. The first girl slouched hard, like an insect curling into itself. The sight of her stirred almost nothing in Mackenzie, but the congested hacking of her breathing brought the image of a machine to mind that she couldn’t quite place.
Beside her, a stout and solid girl with butter-yellow braids held a circular hand saw at arm's length. She conjured images in Mazkenzie’s mind of cat fur stuck to jelly bracelets, and scraped knees padded by isopropyl dipped cotton balls. Even as she stood before Mackenzie, a gash cut into her forehead and dribbled blood down her cheek. A stream of red curled toward her ear and dyed her hair with dried, brown flecks of blood and skin. Mackinenzie felt the phantom dripping of blood sliding down her own ear canal. She wasn’t injured. She was perfect. Why was her eardrum throbbing?
Her train of thought stopped short at the face right in front of her. A girl in a halo of green with hair slicked to her temples squeezed Mackenzie’s hand. This was the girl who spoke before, she was sure of it.
“Hey,” the girl said again. Mackenzie saw the girl's face pressed close to hers as their heads bowed over a book they weren’t meant to read in class. The girl thumbed through the pages and pointed out each of her favorite illustrations. She loved the foliage in the thicket of the rainforest picture. She loved the details of the poison dart frogs, and the small informational blurb about the green anaconda. She liked when the orange flicker of fire turned blue, and she liked the clicking sound the burner made when she held it between on and off.
“Mary,” said Mackenzie.
The girl in the green smiled. “Hi”
The pieces of Mackenzie slotted into place. Tampa. Tabitha. Mary. It seemed as if the last lingering threads of her that hadn’t been woven were pulled taut, and she was human again.
And her friends would be too. Tampa. Tabitha. Mary, the girl she stood arm and arm with in the afterbirth.
“Mary,” Mackenzie said.
“Yes!”
“I like you.”