Kyle's eyes slowly opened.
His vision blurred and his mind foggy.
He sensed two figures around his uncomfortable hospital bed.
When he attempted to speak, all that came out was a mess of nasal exhalations and guttural groans.
“It's no good kid. Everything you say is gonna sound like someone trying to whistle through their ass cheeks until you learn to use those new vocal cords“ Garrett Mercer informed him. “Here, use the pad”.
Raising up slightly from his bed on weakened arms, Kyle typed. “What's happening? Where the fuck am I?”
Mercer nodded. “I’ll let Nish answer this one.”
His sight starting to return, Kyle focused on the name tag of the second man, Dr Nish Hamilton.
The man was scanning through a lengthy checklist on his pad: “Appendage restructuring, Skeletal enhancement, respiratory and vocal-cord installation, all complete.” he was muttering out loud.
Nish continued, “You’ve just finished your last session Kyle and everything looks optimal. You’re still in the OR but we’ll move you to recovery in a minute and after a few days rest, we can move you on to landing prep.”
“Full immersion training begins now though,” Mercer added.
Kyle lifted a tired arm and gave a half-hearted thumbs up as his memories of his mission prep came back to him.
This was who he would have to be now. At least until they did the reversal procedures on the way back home. When would that even be? They better have kept his fins like they told him they would.
How had he gotten here? He could have eked out a life in Tau Ceti. It didn’t have to be this way. But his actions had definitely had consequences…for everyone.
There was nothing for it, he would have to begin to accept his current situation. For the foreseeable future he was going to take the name Kyle Lewis and just keep moving forward.
Kyle then realised that no one had spoken for an awkward amount of time and he'd been internalising while staring blankly at Nish's new human face.
Sensing a potential mental breakdown, Nish interjected, “Let's get you moving to recovery, shall we?”
A comms burst flared on Mercer’s smartwatch at that same moment. He read it, jaw tightening, then gave Kyle a quick, almost apologetic nod.
“I'm needed on the bridge. Rest up, the real work starts soon. We're gonna go save a planet, son!” He tapped the metallic bed frame as he left. It took all Kyle’s remaining energy to not roll his eyes back into the top of his skull.
“We're only a lightyear out from Earth now so the AI has been able to cobble together some decent transmissions,” Nish added as he started to wheel Kyle’s bed out of the room.
The corridor curved past the transformation bays. Kyle counted twelve beds occupied—twelve more operatives being rebuilt for Earth.
Some were further along than him. Matthews sat upright, testing her new hands, flexing five fingers that had been three a couple of weeks ago. His skin still had that gray-blue tint of a deep-water Conservatore, but the surgeons would bleach that out next.
Others were just beginning. Kyle heard the bone saws before he saw the operating theater. Someone was getting their dorsal ridge removed—the cartilage structure that ran from skull to tailbone. They'd grind it down, harvest it for grafting material.
Through reinforced glass, Kyle spotted the habitat tanks. Dozens swam in formation—graceful, powerful, still whole. The non-ops crew. Engineers, analysts, medics. All the roles that didn't require boots on the ground.
All the roles that didn't require you to stop being yourself.
Kyle typed: They really are a bunch of smug pricks.
He showed it to Nish who stifled a smile but one corner of his mouth had raised, just a little.
They both knew. The ones in the tanks weren't smug. They were just luckier.
As they turned around the corner into the Recovery Wing, Kyle got his first real look at his new life. Fluorescent lights, checkered tiles and light green decor everywhere. This section of the ship had been reconstructed to look like a mid‑90s hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
“Here we are. You relax and I'll check back in with you in a while,” Nish whispered.
As he left he switched on a large television and left Kyle with the newest transmission the AI had been able to compile. The sounds of The Rembrandts filled the silence and Episode 14, Season 2 of Friends began.
“Ohhhhhh, this is the one with the Prom Video,” Nish chuckled slightly as he left Kyle.
The same blank stare had returned to his face as he attempted to take it all in. Just then a laugh track filled the silence.