Humanity 2 0 Year 001 Day 055

HUMANITY 2.0

YEAR 001, DAY 055

"So what, I'm a fucking alien now?"

Emily's voice, grating with fury and indignation, pressed on me like a ton of concrete. She was back in big-sister mode, and despite her small frame, draped in an unbuttoned blouse with only her bra and panties on beneath, she was somehow staring down at me as I sat on the opposite bed to hers in her hotel room. She was slowly recovering from the sickness that I'd inflicted on her -- not really a sickness per se, just the side effects of the retrovirus that changed her from human to hominus, my own, new kind of people. I was just now explaining that to her.

She wasn't taking it well.

"No. You're Emily. That hasn't changed, and as far as I'm concerned it nev-"

"What AM I, Ben? What did you fucking do to me! I can see tiny little things, hear everything in this building, and I feel like I can punch a hole in the wall without even trying now! And this fucking body, whose is it? I remember being me, what being me feels like. This is not that. Am I, like, a clone or something of the real Emily? Or a cyborg robot android alien thing?" Her hand gripped the blanket tightly, turning her knuckles white. I could tell that under her fury was a raw terror.

I'd planned to have this conversation at least a week from now, when her recovery was complete and she had had time to get used to her new state; unfortunately, I didn't know exactly how she'd respond to the new capabilities her body had, and how strange they would seem to her. I'd been hoping her sickness would mask things long enough for a gentle introduction, and she'd be ready to believe me when I explained that yes, she was turning into a new kind of human engineered by my alien visitor, Experimenter 15226.

"You're Emily! There's only one of you, and I don't know anything about any cyborgs. You are Emily, you are not someone else, you are you, I am Ben, and we are the same people as always, neither of us is crazy, there's no Celestines or whatever Mom saw around, everything will be fine."

"FINE?" Her voice when she got angry always hurt my ears. I hoped there wasn't anyone too close to the room, or the hotel's security might decide to visit. "FINE is when everything is normal, Ben! Fine is not when aliens come and fuck with your DNA and do God knows what else! Fine is when you wake up and you think, 'I am still the same person I was when I went to sleep.' This is not fine!"

"I trusted her, for what it's worth." I shrugged. "Emily, think about everything you listed off to me. Is any of that bad? Aside from getting you sick for a few days -- which is clearing up -- do you feel less healthy, less smart, less anything?"

"Less ME!"

I groaned and hung my head low. I thought to myself; why hadn't I just done this right away? Or rather, why hadn't I just done it later? I could have just made up something stupid and dragged this out until she cornered me and demanded the truth - but at least then, she'd be well again and maybe not so moody. Maybe then she'd actually have bought it without me having to fight her so hard.

"And you didn't tell me ANY of this before? You just decided to barge in, without calling, after disappearing for three weeks and making me worried sick -- I dropped out of a semester of school for you, Ben! Then you use your magic bullshit dick powers to seduce -- what, your own fucking sister, me -- so you can turn me into another alien, Ben?" She hissed. "This is the plan? Your-"

"No!" I stood up, throwing my hands up. "There wasn't a plan! There wasn't even a plan about other girls! It just happened! When have you ever known me to have a plan!" I held out both hands. She regarded me silently.

I kept going. "I completely fucking forgot I even had a crush when we were young, okay? I barely understand how this pheromone thing works, but once you started to react, all that happened -- well, I realized something, Em." I sighed. "I realized I didn't want to go on for however many hundreds of years without you. I just... I'm sorry. If I had thought there was half a percent chance you'd have believed any of this before we-" I stopped myself, not wanting to remind her right now.

She didn't say anything, but seemed to give a withering glare to some point in the distance out the window. I used the time to think. It was maybe something I should do more often, I realized then. "Listen. Emily, if you never want to see me again, I'll understand. I'll cover the hotel bill. All your lost tuition, too. I owe you that much. The Experimenter gave me some money before she left, so forget about even trying to tell me not to."

She was silent for longer, and wouldn't even look at me. I wondered if she ultimately believed all of it. I had no way of knowing just how odd this sensation her body was giving her really was. 15226 said that the girls would know something was very different about their bodies, but was it enough that they'd believe my insane story about aliens and turning into a new species?

Only one way to find out, I guessed. "Em, do you-"

"Leave." She said it with a simple finality and wouldn't even look at me. I looked at her more closely for a few moments, feeling the shock set in as I realized she wasn't shouting in anger, or making a spur of the moment decision. She'd thought this through.

I felt crushed. I had offered, and even though I'd meant it, I had really intended my offer to leave if she asked to just show my sincerity. All that newfound confidence I'd built up since I met the Experimenter wilted in an instant. My belief in the plan, the whole mission, building a new civilization... none of it mattered, none of it was something I had much to do with it. Emily didn't trust me, and if she didn't, I didn't feel like I could even trust myself.

I'd told her I would do it, though, and if I had any chance of changing her mind later, I knew I couldn't break my word now. I hated it, more than anything I wanted to just throw my dumb promise away and tell her she was mine now - but it was time to go. I dragged myself up out of the bed and nodded. "I love you, Em. And I meant everything. I'll go now."

She sneered to noone in particular. "Oh, get over yourself."

"You're sure you're okay? Call me the moment you feel worse, for any reason. Bethany might be awake by then and it's safe to tell her-"

"Who's Bethany?"

Holy shit. I froze in place. I had utterly blanked. How had I made such an idiot mistake?

"I don't know a-" She stopped. "Wait... Dr. Bethany Lazar was her name, wasn't it. The doctor from that hospital trip when this all started. Ben, do you mean you -- fucking hell, I already know." She ticked off fingers on a hand. "You get home, bang your sister, then she gets sick while she turns into a mutant, and you're just so goddamn tired of waiting for me to feel good enough for another round of monkey sex that you look up your doctor girlfriend and stick it in her too."

"No! It wasn't-"

"Was she good, Ben? I hope she was good! Because I'm-"

"Emily! Stop this!"

"Get OUT, Ben, before I fucking kill you." I'd never seen her like this. Her shouting rage had vanished and she was now all focused, icy fury. I felt a flash of fear run through me. She might well be able to do it, I thought; supposedly, the women I made love to would develop their hominus abilities far more quickly than I would. I didn't remember exactly how much stronger than a human a hominus was at the time, but she didn't either. For all I knew, what she intended as a simple slap might put me out cold, or even break my neck.

"She's not my ex... and I'm sorry. Um, just get some rest, you might see this differently after some time-"

"You'll be lucky if I even fucking call you, Ben."

"Whatever you do, don't go to a normal doctor. You could ruin everything." I hoped she wouldn't cut me off entirely. I needed her.

She held up three fingers. "Three... two..."

I closed the door behind me and stood in the hallway, taking a deep breath. Hopefully the next conversation wouldn't be as brutal. If there even was one... dread and depression began to creep back into my mind. I was already exhausted before I went in; the last two days had basically just been me hustling back and forth between Emily's hotel room and Bethany's house, looking in on both as the retrovirus changed them.

Emily, as I'd somehow expected, was coping much better than Bethany - at least physically. Bethany was almost twice my sister's age, and my sister had the advantage of having very similar DNA to my own. Emily mostly slept and ate, and with Bethany functionally comatose except for waking up once a day or so - in a delirious state, I might add - to eat voraciously then pass out again, I was feeling a bit lonely. Neither of the two women had made for good company in their current condition.

I had just gotten back to my apartment well after sunset. I crashed down onto the couch, letting out a long breath. I glanced over at my computer; the thing had once been my lifeline, about all I did during my free time, but now it was like that was all a thing of the past. I was really busy, and to be honest, aside from my tiredness and twisted feelings about Emily at that moment, I was feeling physically better than I ever really had in my life.

The sense of purpose the Experimenter had been trying to instill into me seemed to be taking some kind of hold, but only really in those introspective moments did I ever really think about it. It would be months -- years, really -- before I really began to believe in it. Knowing I hadn't completely lost Emily and that I could -- probably -- bring her around in time helped keep me going.

Unfortunately, my current situation left me lacking some satisfaction. It felt crass and hollow to even be thinking about that right now, but my body still wanted to continue its mission even if my emotions had deserted the cause. After that long stupid yacht trip, I'd enjoyed sex exactly three times -- and the changes the Experimenter had made to me had my body chemistry, by that point, were demanding sex much more often than that.

It wasn't some uncontrollable monster -- she hadn't wanted to make me into an animal -- but it was like this hunger always in the back of my head. Emily and Bethany were both unavailable, and while I was tempted to flick on the computer and relieve my discomfort in a way that had been all too common before I'd met 15226, it felt like a joke to do so now. Watching fake tits bounce and hearing even more fake orgasms didn't appeal to me. I decided this would be a good opportunity to prove to myself I still had control of something, at least.

I shambled over to the fridge, grabbed a beer, and made myself something to eat. I don't remember what. My bed was useless -- oh yeah, I guess I never mentioned that. Turns out the little teleportation trick the Experimenter had used to take us to the Vault, well, ruined the bed frame. Not in any way that obviously proved it was an alien visitation, of course; that would be too easy. Somehow the structure of the bed was weaker, and as soon as I had tried to lie down that first night I got back to my apartment, the whole thing collapsed underneath me.

I got poked in a few places by errant springs. I put band-aids on the resulting injuries, but even the deeper cuts were already almost healed. Sooner or later I'd have to get a new bed, but I was too busy with Emily and Bethany's care to bother with all that right then. Instead, as I often had in the last few weeks, I just grabbed the blanket, tossed my clothes into the hamper, and laid myself out on the couch.

Probably a half-hour had gone by and I was almost, but not quite, asleep. I was in that sort of strange place between when I was suddenly awoken by the sound of the door opening. I heard a clear female voice -- not Emily's, or Bethany's, or Nadine's for that matter -- calling out.

"Hello?"

I was still in a daze, and in my disoriented state, I was treated to the sight of a gorgeous blonde entering the apartment. Some vague sense of recognition lit up in my head, but I was too fogged up to put anything together. I had barely slept the last two days and had been a walking zombie for the last half-day, and after the beer, I was pretty out of it. She stepped inside, looking around gingerly, and then noticed me.

"Oh -- um, are you Ben?"

I shook my head and sat up, forcing myself to wake up. "Yo..." I managed to croak out.

"Um -- hi, I'm Nina. Do you remember me?"

"Ah. Hi. Nina." I grinned widely, like an idiot. I remembered her, I just didn't remember where I remembered her from. It seemed funnier at the time.

In my defense, any straight man looking at Nina for the first time would have a difficult time producing any other reaction than just a dim smile. Nina was -- and still is -- a stunning woman. She was about my height, or my height at the time anyway, at five feet and nine inches... tall for a girl. She had a svelte and athletic figure, accented by the jeans and boots she wore, and she had this long-sleeved green top and a deep blue sweater jacket on.

The long coat really accented her big boobs, which swung just so as she bent down to look at me with concern out of those pale blue eyes of hers. She could have been a model just as easily as anything else she put her mind to. Her cute face, large blue eyes, and short, wild blonde hair were what really woke me up; I'd seen her dozens of times in class, but it didn't fail to wake me up completely even now. Most girls looking like her would grow their hair out long, but Nina liked her hair up in this complicated-looking semi-curly thing she had going.

"John said he sent you a text..." - my hand was already fumbling for my phone - "... and I'm here to just pick up my telescope from his room. He had to leave town on short notice so he just gave me his keys and said to come pick it up whenever. Don't mind me, go back to sleep." She waved at me casually.

My eyes just as casually followed her ass as it swept by, hidden by the accursed sweater jacket as she went into John's room to pick up whatever it was. John never could hold onto girlfriends; I'd never known him to be without one for more than a month, but he'd also never had one for more than a month thus far.

"Uh, okay, let me help you." I unsuccessfully tried to remove the blanket, then managed it on the second attempt.

I realized the room was draftier than I remembered. Belatedly, I recalled why as I looked down; I was naked under the covers, and Nina was staring with one raised eyebrow at my half-erect package. I wanted to hit myself for how careless I was being about this entire thing; I hadn't quite gotten comfortable with my new dimensions down there yet, and I had trouble sleeping in my underwear; I had taken to just not wearing them when I slept. Some idiot part of me assumed I'd crashed in my clothes and had reported as such to my brain before I threw off the covers.

"Shit, sorry!" I pulled the blanket back over my body.

"Hmmmm?" She looked up at my face with this odd expression, unlike Bethany's or Emily's when they got an eyeful of my tool. "Well, thank you for sharing, but don't expect me to comment. Just stay there while I get my telescope. Don't worry about helping, I've moved it around plenty of times by myself." She gave a small wave as she vanished over into John's room and I heard her shuffling around and moving something.

Some part of me wondered what kind of hot blonde owned a telescope; I pulled myself off the subject and tried to think about more important things. I was more than just attracted to this girl, and she'd gotten a direct view of my prick. Did the power just fail to work?

The Experimenter had told me I couldn't expect for it to work on every woman, and even if it did, she had to feel at least some spark of attraction to me in order for it to work. I entertained the thought for a time that she might be a lesbian, but then I realized that was awful egotistical of me to assume she was gay because she didn't immediately jump on my cock.

I shrugged. Maybe she only liked men as white as she was, I thought, then I tried even harder to push that away; that was even more unkind of me to assume with only what I knew right then. It was the brutal truth of those days that a lot of people thought that way, though. It was a shame, especially in my case, because it wasn't like I actually fit in with virtually any demographic.

Emily and I had always stood apart from just about every ethnicity out there, and with Mom in the institution and Dad in jail, we'd only had one another for years. Remembering that brought me back to the anxiety of what Emily would ultimately decide. I dragged myself up off the couch and into my room to put some clothes on at least, while I dwelled entirely too much on worst-case scenarios for how things with Emily would turn out. Each time I thought I'd found the worst possible outcome, I thought up some way it could turn out even more disastrously.

With only a small part of my mind in the moment, I picked out some random shirt and pants and yanked them over my body then went back out into the living room feeling like hell. I got out of my room just as she came out of John's, with the big black thing slung over her shoulder and a bunch of wires and such all wrapped up.

It wasn't long, it was one of those shorter, wider telescopes they use in real astronomy, and it had some kind of computer or motor or both attached to it that I guess accounted for how long it took her to break the thing down. I wondered if it was just a hobby or if it was her major; it seemed like professional equipment, and a bit bulky. She was tall, but not big -- her slender figure bent an odd way under the scope's weight, and while she didn't look pained or overloaded, it still looked awkward.

"Let me get that down to your car for you, at least." I walked over, proffering it off her shoulder. She paused for a moment, looking away and vaguely smiling, but didn't resist and let me heft it.

"Oh, fine. We don't have to go far. Just keep your clothes on. No more surprises."

I nodded, and followed her outside into the hallway. John and I rented a small condo in a complex outside town, rather than live in the campus dormitories; our complex's hallways were open to the air, though rooms were on both sides of the hall. They were wide enough to drive a small car down, though you'd have to somehow get it up the stairs first. I followed at her side as we went over to the elevators.

"I didn't even know John had this thing in his room. How long did he have it there?"

"A week or two, I think. He mentioned he had a roommate, but he said you were missing, actually." She pressed the call button for the elevator.

"Oh, that." I rolled my eyes. "Well, it wasn't like that. I only went missing to everyone else. I knew where I was almost the whole time." I tried to shrug, but with the thing on my shoulder, it was only half a gesture.

"Pfft. Isn't that the same thing?" The doors opened and we went in. She looked over at the panel and hit the button for the fourth floor. I eyed her oddly. The parking garage was on the terrace level, and my place was on the third. We were going up when we should be going down.

"Isn't your car-"

"I live one floor up. That was why John borrowed it. He and I have a class together, and your horndog roommate couldn't stop hitting on me. I think he thought he could use borrowing the thing as an excuse to get me over to you two's place some time."

"And?"

"And what?" She peered at me as the elevator opened to the fourth floor.

"Did it work?" I smiled.

"Not for him." She smiled back, and gestured for me to follow her out onto her floor. "Maybe if he'd tried it when you were around it might have."

"Is that so?" I pulled up alongside her. Maybe my power hadn't completely failed. "You never know, I might be even more transparent than he is."