Chapter 2:
The next morning I jumped out of our bed and rushed into the kitchen. Emily was already making breakfast and I quickly embraced her from behind.
“You know what we’re gonna do today, right?”, I asked her.
“Of course.”, she answered. “Can you get the milk from the fridge, Honey? And the cheese too, please?”
I went to the fridge, grabbed everything and brought it to the kitchen table. Emily then took the pan with the scrambled eggs from the stove and put half of it onto my plate.
“I’m so excited already”, I said. “When do we want to go?”
“Whenever you are ready”, she said.
I think I have never eaten my breakfast that fast in my life. I shoveled the scrambled eggs into my mouth, ate half a toast in two seconds and then went back to our room to get dressed. A quarter of an hour later, I stood ready at our front door.
“What subway do we need to take?”
“The central line”, Emily answered while putting on her jacket. “Let’s go then”.
We walked to the station together and entered the platform. “07.05.2031”, it read on the sign above the track.
“Crazy”, I thought. “I am already 24 years old. Time really flies…”.
The next second, our bullet train rushed into the station and came to a stop. We entered, found some seats and prepared ourselves for the rapid acceleration of the train. I hated those trains since I first rode them, going from 0 to 400 km/h in five seconds was just not fun to me. At least the ride only took 30 seconds and we could leave quickly. When we exited the station, we stood directly in front of the Institute.
After going up what seemed like a thousand stairs, we entered the main hall and were greeted at the entrance desk. I showed my ticket and the receptionist frowned.
“I got it from Rebecca Smith”, Emily explained. “Then I gifted it to my boyfriend.”
The receptionist smiled again. “How nice of you. Alright, then follow the signs to our experimental department and show the ticket at the reception there. Have a nice day!”
We thanked her and followed the signs for what felt like an eternity. The institute was gigantic, even larger than it seemed from outside.
We arrived at the experimental department and were greeted again by a receptionist. This time however, not a real person sat before us, but a hologram of an animated woman. Although AI was already capable of doing normal jobs, it was quite rare to see one in contact with customers or visitors. I showed my ticket again and the hologram scanned it.
“Seems to be in order”, the automatic voice said. “Please follow the hallway on the left to the last door on the right. Have a nice stay.”
We didn’t bother to thank her, as Rebecca appeared from said hallway and greeted us.
“Hi Emily, hi Bill! I didn’t think you would make it that quickly. Would you follow me?”
She turned around and marched down the hallway. We followed her and had to run a bit, as she was walking quite fast.
“Really horrible that AI, isn’t it? I was against it and wanted a real receptionist, but I was overruled. They said it would be cool, as we are the experimental department. Oh, and there is one thing I should tell you, we have some problems with our power source, but nothing that would stop you from using the machine!”
I immediately thought of getting stuck as something ugly, but I quickly dismissed that thought. The people here were experts, they knew if it was safe.
Rebecca led us into a room with a big glass pane on the left wall. From here, you could already see the BodyMod1 with its control panel right beside it. Rebecca gestured us to sit down at the only thing in the room, a transparent desk. She took out her PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and showed me a consent form.
“Read it thoroughly and discuss it with Emily please. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
With that, she left the room and closed the door behind her. I wanted to read the form, but it was just too long and in my excitement, I just signed it. Emily was equally excited and didn’t even say anything.
“Strange”, I thought, “She is always the more careful one, why not now?”
The next four minutes, we just sat there in silence while waiting for Rebecca to return. She returned on time and upon seeing the signed form, she clapped her hands and told us to follow her.
“You are actually only the second person to try it”, she explained. “But don’t worry, it went completely fine the first time, we could reverse all changes made to our subject.”
She led us into the room with the machine.
“Here it is, our masterpiece.”
