Recombination

any way. Complete stasis and permanence, never recorded in our history. Extraction of a blood sample was successful only after you were awake and only during the first few hours. After that, it was not possible again. You are if I may say it in such an unscientific way, an immortal unit.

  Background noise became a little louder at that point, with changes in amplitude. I wrote it off to shock, but my subconscious mind started forming a feeling of the slight chill down my spine that made me turn around. There was no one behind.

  - Do these machines always hum like this?

  - Hum? No, they are completely soundless.

  - I’ve been hearing a sound ever since we came in, maybe it’s just in my mind…

  - I can’t say what are you talking about, but surely hope it’s just something passing.

  - Go on professor. You know, it is kind of unusual for me to see such a young person with such a high academic title…

  - Yes, that’s part of our problem. You see, symbiont amplifies intellectual abilities for some men. They are trained for scientific explorations, then we infuse them with medical treatments which don’t allow full extent of testosterone levels in the organism, thus extending their functioning time. Such men are called unnamed ones, because they are not entirely members of their gender, and can’t belong to the other one. I used to be one of them until a few days ago.

  - You were?

  - I was. This body is just a clone husk without separate consciousness; I control it from my chamber at the Archives.

 

  ---

 

  - He is here.

  - Him.

  - Connect… connect quickly…

  - He can hear us, but he doesn’t understand… amplify…

  - He is coming here… connect quickly…

 

  ---

 

  The Archives looked like a hall made of neon tubes. Walls were covered with milky white Plexiglas chambers, and the ceiling was illuminated with some kind of light that resembled sunlight. I looked around and everything looked just the same all the way my gaze stretched. I tried to imagine what was being kept at these Archives, but nothing came to mind.

  - What’s this all about Professor?

  - These are the Archives. Were the transformed ones are deposited.

  - A cemetery?

  - A cemetery? No, certainly not! All those men are still alive, in the same form of hibernation you were in. We just keep them here.

  - Then I don’t see the problem, I woke up, surely they will too.

  - Unfortunately, no – said the young man in front of me, whom I still had difficulties calling a professor – Indeed, I fear even a thought that something like that is even possible.

  - Why should you fear?

  - I’ll show you – he said while approaching one of the chambers. It glowed a spot roughly size of a palm – this here is me.

  He touched the glowing field and the plastic became transparent. Humming in my head amplified again and started forming a kind of melody. I could almost hear voices in it, like some kind of slow music.

 

  ---

 

  - He can hear us! He can hear us!

  - He’s not close enough, draw him closer!

  - No use, it’s not enough!

  - Contact! Contact!

  - Stretch further, touch!

 

  ---

 

  Whirling mass in front of me could hardly be recognized as once being human, but I could decipher some traces of humanity at certain parts. The problem was only that those traces would appear and disappear at random, in places they should never be found in human anatomy. Still, this creature in front of me was human. Not anymore, but once it was.

  - Professor, what’s going on here?

  I could feel a strong grip on my forearm. He must’ve grabbed me in an attempt to prevent me touching the thing I was looking at. As I turned my head, I could see that young man who brought me here was totally changed. His hair stood like electrified, and the eyes were like two flashlights of fluorescent green without pupils. The voice coming from his mouth was his, but the lips weren’t moving.

 

  ---

 

  - Heeeeeaaaar… usss! Wooords…. Hard… speeeeak…. Waaaatch!

  The world around me twisted, the Archives faded away, and an avalanche of images started in my mind. Me in a lab coat, a set of beakers and vials, a young woman smiling at me across the bench. I return a smile full of love. My hand marks something on the touch screen, I know it’s a direct link to the bunker servers and those are the data I wish to be kept because the test is complete. Once again, out of habit, I look down the microscope and feel the horror coming up my spine as I realize something is wrong. The sample in front of me has the organism culture very similar to the one I’m working on, but still fundamentally different. Surrounding changes, I can see another laboratory and several men in haste action. They all wear military uniforms with marking unfamiliar to me. On one of the desks, in front of a scientist I don’t recognize, there is a sample with my mark on it. A delivery error has been made, my latest strain of symbiont sample was switched with theirs. A confusion begins, a fuss, steel chambers close and I realize that they have started Code Black, sterilization of the lab. Although there’s no sound I can almost hear the lab workers starting to scream as the air is being replaced with flammable gas and they turn into living torches. There’s no time to alert anyone, the procedure is going to start here also, and I know there is only one solution. I take out the syringe and inject myself with the latest strain because, scientifically superior, I’m sure it will keep me from annihilation long enough for me to complete my notes and warn the world of what’s coming. My skin begins to luminescent and I fade into oblivion. The fire comes and wipes everything in front of me.

 

  ---

 

  The fire slowly faded away and I found myself back at the Archives. Pressure on my arm had disappeared, and that fact made me look for the Professor. His body gently caved in itself without a sound, until there was only a fistful of matter not unlike dust bunnies we could once find under our beds. A door behind me suddenly opened and there was just the young man that already brought me in.

  - Forgive me, I don’t know what happened. Clones usually last a couple of years, and this one was manufactured recently…

  - Have you noticed something odd?

  - Not really, I opened up the chamber in order for you to see my true body when the psychic connection to the clone broke. That triggered automatic disintegration and awakening of this new unit I directed back here. What did you see?

  - Te mass at the chamber moved and you grabbed me by the hand, and then it happened…

  - It moved? Impossible!

  - Look for yourself – I started while turning towards the chamber, but the thing inside was perfectly still, like an old log.

  - That’s what I was telling you about, the body becomes totally overtaken by symbiont, the organs begin melting in solid mass until there is only a bunch of biomass that emits nothing outwards. The consciousness remains for a certain period of initial immobility and in that period we manage to control the clones, but that is all. It happened to all men, this Archive is the place of storage.

  - And the women?

  - Well, that’s a totally different story...

 

  ---

 

  As I laid by my guide’s body that evening, watching moonlight dance across her skin, I couldn’t help myself thinking about what she is going to turn into. The story that clone has told me surpassed any imagination, something like that could only be the stuff nightmares are made of. I kissed her gently and fell to sleep.

  - Wake up! Wake up!

  - Wh..? Huh! What happened?

  - You were dreaming, tossing and turning as if electrified! I couldn’t wake you up!

  In her eyes, I could see a reflection of fear, hon
est, deep fear. She knew what I’ve decided even before me, with that female intuition they all have about their men.

  - You don’t mean…

  - I do. I have to see it with my own eyes.

  - But no man has ever returned from the underground! The danger is immense!

  - Regardless, I have to. Besides, you’ll be there to protect me – I said jokingly – they used to be just like you once, you know.

  Ali ni jedan muškarac se nije vratio i podzemlja, opasno je!

  She flinched as if I had slapped her. I went over the limit.

  - Don’t remind me – she grasped – I’ll come with you no matter.

 

  ---

 

  Corridor was narrow, with smooth walls showing no signs of time passed. The material they were made of was unknown to me, but it did have out mild light and felt warm under my palm. If it wasn’t so hard I’d think it was organic, tough I could remember that some of the natural materials were a lot harder than anything manmade. This could easily be something like that. As if I said it out loud, I could hear her telling me:

  - We didn’t make these corridors. They were here since your time, and the material is a secret lost in the past. Someone worked hard to lose any notes about it…

  - I was wondering, they seem organic.

  She looked me under her lashes and snorted:

  - Nothing is impossible,we are close to them now…

 

  ---

 

  - Is he going to discover something new?

  - I’m almost certain. Even here he seemed to know more than he admitted.

  - What if they attack him?

  - He has help alongside.

  - That girl? You think she’ll be enough against the mature ones?

  - She will, her metabolism has been accelerated when we gave her the assignment, she is almost ready for transformation.

  - Isn’t that a bit dishonest to her?

  - We kept no secrets;