***
The room is silent, except for the beeping of the heart monitors attached to both me and Dax. We are lying on cold slabs of steel, strapped down and slightly elevated, as nurses in white scrubs and lab coats move about the room, preparing things for our departure.
Our disguises will go much deeper than what we’re wearing on the outside. The DNA altering serum that Professor Neville invented just a few months ago, has never been used, making us the test dummies.
“Explain to me how this works again?” Dax asks the nurse as she removes the armor on his left arm and peels back the sleeve of his flight suit. He sounds as nervous as I am.
The nurse smiles at him and patiently explains. “Professor Hinkley found hair and skin fibers in the suits you are wearing, and was able to extract the DNA of the officers wearing them. These syringes contain the DNA of Captain Jack Knightly and Sergeant Grayson Barnes, along with the serum that will connect their DNA to yours temporarily. The bond lasts twenty-four hours. Once you are injected, their DNA will latch onto yours, temporarily changing your appearance to match theirs. Should the guards at Stonehead decide to do a DNA swab, your blood or saliva will pass for theirs. No one will have any way of knowing your true identities.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Dax says with a shrug. “Does it hurt?”
The nurse’s smile gets a bit tight, but she keeps it plastered to her face in that way nurses do when they want to reassure a patient. “We are not sure, but the Professor’s research indicates that the transformation could be a bit … jarring.”
Dax nods grimly. “Great. Sounds like fun, let’s do it.”
The nurse visibly relaxes. “Wonderful. I will just step out of the room for a moment, and return shortly with another nurse to assist me.”
Her steps are noiseless as she leaves the room, the sliding door swishing shut behind her. A few moments of tense silence pass before I finally turn to Dax. “Look,” I say, deciding to get right down to business. “I know you don’t really like me, and I’m okay with that. To tell you the truth, I’m not crazy about you either for reasons that have nothing to do with Blythe, and some that do. But you and I made a pretty good team out there today, and in the end, we both want the same outcome for the Resistance. Can we just agree to put that aside and work together without it getting weird?”
He seems to consider this for a moment, watching me through narrowed eyes as if trying to figure me out. “You’re right,” he says slowly. “I don’t like you.”
Silence follows and I roll my eyes, scoffing out loud at the idea that I could try to make nice with this jerk. It was a dumbass thing to do.
Dax’s laughter is unexpected and my head whips around at the sound. I find him looking at me, his shoulders and chest shaking with humor. The tension melts from my limbs and I laugh as well.
“Now that we got that out of the way,” he says, once the laughter has passed, “I don’t trust you, and I’m not shy about admitting that. I think there are things you aren’t telling us, things that could affect us all in the long run. You have to understand that the Professor is like the father I never had, and these people here, the Bionics, are like his children. I won’t let anyone, not even you, fuck with that. You don’t like me, I can tell. But like each other or not, we do make a pretty good team. You’re a quick thinker and you’ve got big balls of steel. That, I do like about you. So I agree, let’s do what we have to do without letting the other stuff get in the way. This is about the Resistance. It’s bigger than us, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say with a slow nod, deciding that I might not dislike Dax as much as I thought.
The nurse comes back in with her assistant and each of them takes a place beside us. The other nurse quickly removes the armor from my left arm and rolls up my sleeve like the other nurse did Dax. Moving as one, they clean us with alcohol swabs and tie off our arms with tourniquets, each searching for a good vein. Again, as one, they lift their syringes from the silver tray between them, careful to ensure that they each have the right one. My nurse pauses, needle poised inches above my skin.
“Ready?” she asks as the other nurse asks Dax the same.
“Just get it over with,” Dax says, his voice a bit edgy. “I hate needles,”
“Oh, come on, you can do this,” I encourage him. “We’re doing this for the Resistance.”
“For the Resistance,” Dax agrees as he turns back to his nurse. “Do it.”
The prick of the needle is nothing compared to what follows. Tiny pinpoints of light flood my vision before melting into swirls of color as pain explodes like fire in my veins. My entire body goes tense and spasms uncontrollably as if I’m having a seizure. I writhe and grit my teeth to keep from screaming. Even if I did scream, I doubt anyone would hear me over Dax’s enraged bellows as the transformation grips him. I am soon to follow and the pop and snap of bones realigning in my face is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. What feels like hours, is really only a few minutes by the time the pain ceases. The burning in my veins slowly subsides into a slow tingle, a side effect we were warned would occur but would only last for a little while.
The tingle feels good, like a flood of extra adrenaline, rushing from my head to my toes. As the nurse releases me from the table by unbuckling the straps holding me down, I leap to the floor, energized and ready to go. Dax does the same. When I look at him, I’m stunned by what I am seeing. He has been transformed into a Caucasian man in his mid-thirties. Green eyes stare at me from beneath brown eyebrows, and much thinner lips curl into a smile.
“Sergeant Grayson Barnes, at your service, Captain,” he says with a laugh. Even his voice sounds different, its pitch higher. The Dax I know is gone. “Dude, you look like you’re going to be sick.”
“It’s just so weird,” I say, tilting my head and staring into the unfamiliar eyes. “I know it’s you, but my mind is telling me you’re someone else. This is crazy.”
“Me?” He laughs and points at the mirror behind me on the wall. “Take a look at yourself, bro.”
I turn slowly, my shoulders stiff with tension. I know that I will not see my own reflection but I am unprepared for what meets me in the mirror. The face staring back at me is not my own.