Mark felt cold. It was as if he was laying outside on the most frigid day of winter. He tried to move, but found his limbs locked in place His head could move, but only very slightly. A dull buzzing filled the air, and Mark's eyes were soon blinded by a flash of white light.
"Eht!"
His entire body was tired, it was all he could manage from his lips. He tried to move his arm, only to be reminded of its constraints. He struggled, but only managed to make his arm cuffs clang. He felt himself losing consciousness again, his eyes felt heavy, and his muscled weakened. Just as his eyes started to close, two dark figures broke through the light.
"He.. help..."
With that desperate plea, Mark's body failed.
Noise. Sounds. Voices. He was waking up again, in another place.
"Last one's up, looks like everyone can share the misery now."
He leaned his head toward the voice. It felt like the world around him was moving, and not his head. Mark had to lay still for a few moments. He just closed his eyes and left his body motionless. When his feebleness faded slightly, he let his eyelids rise. They did this on their own, and no longer felt heavy, which was a good sign. Gradually, the blurs and shadows filling Mark's vision solidified into people and things. He caught a glimpse of a man, perhaps 20, looking down at him before the man looked away and walked off. Tilting his head slightly in an attempt to follow, he caught sight of a few more people. They seemed to be wandering aimlessly, or just standing in place. The room that held them all was fairly barren; a very dimly lit white room with a tiled floor and ceiling. There were no windows, and the only features to be seen were small, flat beds resting on metallic columns and mirrors placed along the walls.
Mark lowered his feet to the ground cautiously. When he felt that he was standing on something solid, he slid himself off the bed. As soon as he was on his feet, he became disorientated again, and began to stumble. He nearly fell over, saved only by the bed he had just gotten off which he grabbed at the last minute. For a while, he felt that he couldn't move, that if he let go, he would just fall through the floor. His entire body felt terrible. Mark had never felt so sickly, weak, and nauseous. He began to climb back onto the bed, but he was grabbed on the shoulder and stopped.
"Don't lay down, you will get better faster if you keep trying to stay up."
Mark managed to swing his head around, and saw the smiling face a young woman looking back.
"Everyone felt this way when they first woke up, the more you move around the faster you will feel better."
The woman took her hand away and ran it through he fine blond hair. Mark reacted by subconsciously deciding to turn around and walk to her.
He pushed himself off the bed, and in spite of how gently he did this his arms still felt as if they were straining. After two steps off balance, he tossed himself around so that he was now leaning against the bed with his back. He lifted one arm halfway, reaching for the woman and stumbled toward her. His head instantly began to spin, but this time he fought it. To him, it felt like walking while submerged in sand. It took all of his energy just to take a step, but as the woman said, with each step, his body felt lighter and stronger. Before he knew it, he had reached the woman, and was leaning on her. He looked up, while breathing rather heavily and saw her smile once again.
"Good, you feel better now don't you?"
Mark opened his mouth to speak, but could not finish. He simply nodded his head. Then...
"Good to see that each of you has experienced success, cheers!"
The room became engulfed in light as the multitude of lamps embedded in the ceiling came on at once. The confused crowd all shielded their eyes as they tried to adjust to the brightness. As he was still fighting the pain in his eyes from the light, Mark slew his gaze toward the voice he had just heard. He could make out a single figure standing on a small balcony over the room. It was an older man with grey hair arranged in bowl cut, he wore thin framed glasses and a long white coat over dark trousers. As he leaned on the railing of his balcony, he gave off a twisted smile, something that would go on to be his trademark amongst the people looking on below.
"Now that you are all conscious, I can explain what is going on. Each and everyone of you is rather lucky. No longer are you bound by the frailty of normal humanity. My genius has given you enhanced bodies and..."
There were some who could not agree.
"Enhanced? You did this to me? Reverse it right now! I had the company in my hands, the entire company!"
Mark watched on as the enraged teenage boy kept shouting. The boy stopped looking at the man briefly and focused on his own reflection in the mirror that he was next to.
"How can I take my position now that I've been reduced to this? I look like a child!"
The scientist released the rail on the balcony and leaned back with a sigh, smiling all the while.
"You won't even let me tell you what I've provided and you are concerned over money, and status? I assure you that such trivial things are best forgotten. You are all now test subjects, but it is not the end of your lives, this is only temporary, and..."
The angry boy started up again, but Mark was still mulling over what he and the scientist had said; "enhanced bodies", "I look like a child". What had been done to their bodies?
Mark broke away from the woman that he had been leaning on, but she grabbed him.
"You heard, and now you want to understand what happened. I don't know who you were before now, but you are no longer that person. I found out when I looked at myself, just like everyone else. Only look if you are ready."
Mark paused after that, weighing his options. In the end, he decided that he had to know and turned his back on the woman so that he could see his reflection. Although he felt much better, he was still weak, and found that keeping his head down kept his head from spinning. He stumbled on towards the wall until he practically ran into it. When he saw the reflection of his hand against the smooth glass, he took a breath and looked up.
At first, he wasn't alarmed. He saw his own face, but after looking at it closely, his first impression seemed more and more to have been an illusion. The reflection could not have been Mark's face because Mark wasn't a girl. In the mirror, he saw an older female that he had never seen before.
"What?"
Moving beyond the face, he found long brown hair that he confirmed was his with his own hands. Scanning the reflection, he saw that his entire body had changed, he now had a thoroughly feminine figure. Thin waist, smaller arms and legs, wide hips, breasts, long hair. He had been completely changed.
"I hope that this isn't too much of a change for you. I was lucky, I only seemed to have been made older, but some of the others were very shocked when they saw how they changed."
She stared into his eyes through the mirror.
"I guess that means that you were a boy before?"
Mark turned toward the woman who was behind him once again, and nodded slowly, too shocked to speak.
***
"I will get out of this, and when I do, I will ruin you! Ruin!"
The argument between the scientist and the boy was still on going.
"Fine, fine. If you can't be convinced to do this for the good of science, I'll tell you about the grand prize."
He folded his arms behind his back, and started to pace around the ledge on which he stood.
"In return for aiding our research, you will be allowed to present us with a request - for anything. But that only goes to the subject who gives us the most data."
The room was engulfed in silence as everyone now gave the scientist full attention.
"Very good, you understand now."
He stepped forward and rested one hand on the railing again.
"Now, I will explain this project. You have all been given enhanced bodies, selected only on the basis of which ever body accepted your "soul" the easiest. Each transplant appears successful, and we have sufficient data on normal human functions. We are now at the phase where your enhanced abilities will be tested. All of you will be released into the city above this lab where you will attempt to perform two tasks."
He took his hand and raised it out in front of him, while pointing up with one finger.
"One, survive. We will provide your bodies with required maintenance, which includes the use of special sleep units that you need to stay healthy and specific nutrients you need to live. All other shelter and food is up to you to get."
He extended a second finger.
"Two, fight. The best way to test your capabilities is by having you do battle with each other and normal humans. This is where the prize comes in. Obey the rules, and beat everyone else, and it is yours. What are these rules you ask? No killing of anyone with enhanced bodies, we can't afford to incur such damages. No fleeing, but even if you tried this, you would shortly become weak and die without sleep units and our nutrients, oh and your bodies also contain tracking devices and shock implants. No attacking any of the lab staff, which would be unwise anyway, superhuman or not, you're still human and we know exactly how to stop you, this is science not magic, you aren't bullet proof. I suppose that this is clear."
"Good. Now we will take you to the body maintenance facility, and show you how to use the sleep units and give you some henodextonin, that is, the nutrients you need to stay alive."
The wall at the back of the room opened, and a horde of men in large white suits and masks came in. Everyone was herded away.
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