Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad! Read online

  He pressed the button that would normally shoot drugs into Bill’s system to wake him up, but since he was comatose, it was simply the first step to rebooting his patient. The second step required the electromagnetic pulse to turn off the nanotechnology in his system. Before doing this, Victor noticed movement behind Bill’s eyes. They were shaking back and forth behind their lids. Bill Chevsky was in REM sleep. He was dreaming. He was in there.

  Victor’s experiment had worked. He had successfully reimaged a human mind.

  “Welcome back,” he said, pressing the button to send the EMP.

  Bill booted, his body jolting as if someone had shaken him awake.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Bill?”

  His patient stared at the ceiling for a moment and then turned to him. Bill cleared his throat and shifted on the operating table. “Did it work?”

  Victor smiled.

  Bill cloned it.

  And then he jolted again on the table and fell flat. He opened his eyes.

  “Bill?”

  His patient stared at the ceiling for a moment and then turned to him. He cleared his throat and shifted on the operating table. “Did it work?”

  Victor smiled.

  Bill cloned the smile again.

  And then he jolted on the table and fell flat, opened his eyes, and repeated the same process: the same throat clearing, the same shift on the table, the same question of whether or not the experiment had worked. He was on an endless cycle of rebooting.

  Victor shook him, tried to snap him out of it, but nothing worked. After the third or fourth cycle, Victor’s smile had turned to a look of confusion, then fear. However Victor changed his expression, Bill matched it identically. Soon it became maddening. The jolt and the throat-clearing and the shift and the question—it never ended.

  While Bill Chevsky continuously attempted the impossible task of pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, Victor checked the display on this monitor because it read something awful.

  image size mismatch.

  One byte.

  Bill cleared his throat.

  IDOL

  BY MICHAEL LAIMO

  Money can’t buy you love.

  The road to happiness is best traveled with material things.

  Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

  Three familiar adages, all making perfect sense in a rather uncommon way to Anna Wesley. She, an only child of parents long lost to the ills of cancer. A store clerk whose limited education and experience afforded her only odd menial jobs throughout life, making it difficult to eke out a so-called living—a lifestyle paltry in its ways. Studio apartment in the burbs. Assemble-it-yourself furniture from the local Furna-kit store. A kitchen consisting of nothing more than a dual-top porta-stove and a cubicle refrigerator capable of holding three days of food, at best. Vegetarian, of course.

  Happiness, love, beauty. All these emotions, instituted through an idolization of Crystal Rivers. Movie star. Pop music icon. The Crystal Rivers, whose unerring talents first drew Anna into her fan club. And then the charm she radiated—it made Anna realize how much they were alike. Once Anna discovered their commonalities, she thoroughly researched every existing fragment of Crystal’s history in an effort to strengthen her vast knowledge of the life and times of her idol.

  Meeting this woman who formulated the materials of her dreams had become an essential endeavor. Her familiarity with Crystal’s world—her psychological involvement—prospered beyond a crude, universal obsession. It harbored urgency, whether it be amassing assorted objects of merchandise bearing the image or representation of the lithe blonde, or even a random expression paralleling the icon herself. When modeling herself in an effort to emulate the full spirit and appearance of the pop star, be it through dress or hairstyle or makeup, she made certain to use only those brands that her icon commercially endorsed.

  Modeling herself after the object of her adoration didn’t exist on a smooth plane of subtleties. It was in Anna’s greatest interest not to imitate but to duplicate Crystal Rivers to the highest possible degree, thereby garnering an unmatchable measure of self-satisfaction. Of course, Anna’s art simply imitated life, and she scoffed at those who insisted that she might actually be the pop star herself—time and time again adoring fans sought an autograph and a handshake from Anna in their quest to rub shoulders with an icon. Illegal impersonation, Anna knew, was a step best left unexplored, although not every time did she shun the advances of admiring fans like herself. She’d embrace them, and then slip away into obscurity before the crowd grew too large.

  These crazed fans weren’t exactly like Anna. No. Indeed, others found pleasure and even occupation impersonating their idols on stage and street: Elvis, Michael, Madonna. But Anna, she derived personal satisfaction in becoming the artist Crystal Rivers to the best of her abilities. She aimed to feel just as Crystal did, her mind at times drawing upon the innate talents of the pop star, even so much as recalling intimate details of her private past that only Crystal herself would know. Was it possible that clairvoyance played a specific role?

  Anna’s fixation on becoming Crystal Rivers happened purely through a chance discovery. Anna had never taken part in the institution of face-painting and trendy dress-up that embraced the art of “keeping pace with the masses.” Her obsessive behavior had relied solely on the collecting of things that fostered a relation to the one and only Crystal Rivers.

  Then, something changed all that.

  During one week, on a daily basis, minute to minute in fact, she’d followed the televised happenings of Crystal Rivers’ European tour in support of her latest album, Take What You Need. Catching a support special on the Celebrity Channel, a piece of raw footage was aired, rocking and adjusting focus as it made its way into the singer’s dressing room. It caught Crystal sitting before a mirror, applying makeup. She’d just begun the lip liner, the first of many applications that would transform her into the idol adoring fans knew and loved. Her face! The resemblance was uncanny. It was Anna’s face ... Anna who’d never worn an ounce of makeup—and to this day had never glimpsed Crystal without her thick blushes, mascaras, and lipsticks. She’d taped the program, and then watched the clip over and over again, frame by frame, as the pop star morphed herself from Anna Wesley lookalike into Pop Icon Crystal Rivers.

  Soon thereafter, Anna initiated her transformation into Crystal.

  Every cent of her income went to the purchase of cosmetics and apparel. Her hair was dyed to match the most current tint on parade. Her eyes, a shade darker than Crystal’s, were lightened through the use of contact lenses. A small rose was tattooed on her shoulder, as well as the freckles and beauty marks that adorned Crystal’s arms and chest. Her life savings remedied a variation of breast size, and in a month Anna proudly offered the public 36Cs matching those that Crystal so frequently flaunted.

  She took vocal lessons, learned to lip synch Crystal’s songs while acting out every dance move. Soon thereafter, she was able to sing every track in Crystal’s repertoire, looking up her most recent set list from her tour, dressing up in one of fifteen outfits, and then posing before a mirror and singing along with a karaoke tape.

  Uncanny facts came out in Anna’s research of her idol’s past. The performer was born on the same date, in the same year as Anna. Her parents passed away from the ills of cancer as Anna’s had. They worked similar jobs throughout their teen years, each doing her best to make ends meet. The only dissimilarity in their lives was the level of success each had attained by the age of twenty. Perhaps it had been their upbringing; Anna moved in with a foster family in the Midwest. Crystal was raised by an aunt on the shores of California. Anna tried to imagine what would’ve happened if the opposite had occurred. Would she be singing to sold-out crowds every night? Would Crystal be holding down jobs at the Quick-Mart?

  What would happen if they met face to face?

  In less than a week, she would find out.

  Anna used every cent fr
om her most recent paycheck to book a flight to Los Angeles, three days before Crystal’s concert there. In a rare in-store appearance at Borderlands Music, Anna would dress her best to emulate the singer, and then arrive moments before Crystal did and embrace the hordes of adoring fans.

  It was an interesting plan. She was certain security would whisk her away, and since she really wouldn’t be guilty of any illegal act (she was only dressing up as her idol), the uncanny resemblance would trigger Crystal’s curiosity in her look-alike.

  It would work.

  Two days before Anna’s scheduled flight to L.A., Crystal Rivers was involved in a tragic car accident; one too many drinks behind the wheel of her Porsche left her twisted like a ragdoll beneath the dash of the car, an arm and half her leg left behind in an irretrievable pulp. The star went to the ER and then immediately into intensive care, and the public waited for word on her still unreported injuries.

  Four hours later, men came for Anna.

  They posed as uniformed meter men fixing to check the oil heater in her apartment (it occurred to her only as the rag filled with harsh chemicals was forced over her face that the building was heated by gas). They abducted her. Upon waking six hours later, Anna found herself face to face with her idol.

  Crystal Rivers. The car crash had transformed the former teen beauty queen into a Bride of Frankenstein. She lay on an operating table, unclothed, her skin blue and bloated as though it’d been submerged in water for a lengthy period of time. The bruises were abundant, deep bloody blotches that resembled port-wine birthmarks littering her torso and limbs. What remained of them.

  Her left leg disappeared at the knee, bandages with black stains covering the severed stump. Her right arm was completely gone, the wound exposed by a series of metal wires holding back the skin at a dozen protracted points. Her face was a balloon, the features lost beneath the dips and dives of her injuries. Her blond hair had turned muddy-brown, an effect of the dried blood still in it.

  Up until ten hours ago, Anna had been buried under the lifelong dream to meet her idol; now, she was too repulsed to simply make an approach.

  “Anna,” a voice said.

  She turned and realized that this place was no hospital, but rather a small private room in someone’s house, with books on the wall, furniture, a chandelier, a sheet-covered table dressed with medical supplies. A middle-aged man stood before her, dressed in a tennis shirt and khakis, his hands pocketed and fidgeting as if treasuring for change. Peering over a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, he said, “Anna Wesley. Welcome.”

  “Where am I?” she asked. “What am I doing here?” She felt a hot pulse in her veins that ran to her head, forcing lightheadedness. Everything went hazy, as if she’d just woken from a dream.

  The man grinned, lips thin and wet in anticipation. He looked like a boy experiencing his first naked woman. Stepping forward, he reached out and took Anna’s hand. “My God, the resemblance is uncanny.”

  The situation grew more surreal by the moment, and for the first time in years, Anna wanted nothing more than to simply be Anna Wesley. “Why am I here?” she asked again.

  “You’ve always wanted to meet your idol, no?”

  She turned to gaze at the unmoving body on the bed. It looked nothing like the pop star, or like herself for that matter. She’d never seen a person so compromised—tubes snaking out from beneath ruptured skin, four computer screens casting green glows, periodic beeps as if communicating in some alien code. The dreamlike feeling began to feel more like a nightmare. “Yes,” she finally answered. “But not like this.”

  “We weren’t sure how long she’d live,” the man said. “That is why we rushed you here.”

  She turned to face the man again. His smile dipped into a serious flattening of the lips. He looked as if he’d just heard about the death of a family member, or was about to take on some serious task. Behind him a door opened up and a number of men appeared, those that perhaps had abducted her, Anna thought. Anna noticed a dark splotch on her host’s shirt that could have been a remnant of his lunch, gravy or ketchup, but might very well have been blood. Crystal’s blood. The men, six in all, surrounded her.

  To her immediate right, a blond-haired man wearing a blue leisure suit asked Anna to follow him to a sofa six feet away. She obeyed, settling herself uncomfortably into the paisley cushions. “I find it hard to believe that you kidnapped me just to fulfill my lifelong dream,” she said.

  The man smiled. “Anna, we did bring you here for a reason. We want you to become, so to speak, the next Crystal Rivers.”

  Anna’s heart expanded with a whirlwind of excitement, adrenaline racing through her body, causing her to tremble. What did he say? Would she really become Crystal Rivers? She felt a rush of heat, and used her hand to wipe the beads of sweat sprouting at her hairline. “Are you saying you want me to replace Crystal?”

  The man grinned. There was something about his demeanor she didn’t trust, as though a flurry of lies waited just beyond his smile, each and every one battling to get out. She looked around the room. The other men surrounded Crystal’s body, moving objects about on a table: syringes, scalpels, clamps, and other surgical supplies. What was going on here?

  “Yes, as a matter of fact we do.”

  She took a deep breath that burned her lungs. “How did you know about me?”

  “Birth records,” the man said. He’d been waiting to tell her this, that much was immediately clear. “You and Crystal are twins, separated at birth. Given Crystal’s tendency for drink and drug, we knew that someday she’d self-destruct and that we’d need you to replace her. Understand, too many dollars are invested in Ms. Rivers. We’re businessmen, and we needed to protect our investment. Like many other Hollywood idols, Ms. Rivers has amassed the very best professionals this planet has to offer—cooks, stylists, personal trainers, and in the case of emergencies, lawyers and doctors. We, Ms. Wesley, are Crystal’s doctors. We are here to make sure she is taken care of.”

  Anna tried a smile. It failed. “Then why am I here?”

  Without warning a needle was plunged into Anna’s right shoulder. She turned but the pain was severe, paralyzing her in seconds and forcing her to succumb. Her world went hazy, the nightmare now taking over. Two men grabbed her and jammed another needle into her leg, above the knee, injecting her with a clear serum.

  “As we said, Ms. Wesley, you are here to replace, to become, Crystal Rivers. But only in part. The accident destroyed one of her lungs, a kidney, and her spleen. She needs transplants. The only suitable organs must come from a family member.”

  “Christ!” Anna said, trying to move. Her body was frozen, caught in the grasp of the anesthesia. She looked at Crystal’s body, lying in a comatose state and unaware of the horrors about to take place to save her. The horrors that caused Anna’s heart to pound for its life. “But she’ll never be able to perform! She’s missing an arm, a leg!”

  The man stood. Two men dressed in white gowns lifted her incapacitated body and placed it on a surgical cart. “Like I said, Anna. Crystal Rivers has the best doctors and surgeons on the planet. And they can perform cutting-edge microsurgical procedures.”

  The man said something else, but Anna’s world went black. It seemed a moment’s time passed. When she opened her eyes, she remembered what the man had said, but didn’t believe it until she saw the men carrying away her amputated right arm.

  Limb transplants.

  UNPLUGGED

  BY ADRIENNE JONES

  When I told my friend Allen I planned to spend a year living alone on the side of a mountain, he didn’t respond the way I expected. No concern for my state of mind, no inquiries as to how I was holding up since my wife left. I thought he might suggest I seek counseling before embarking on this Thoreau-like journey of seclusion. Taking a self-indulgent year off work was the kind of thing men in their twenties did, not career teachers of a certain age. Of course, a younger man might take a year off to travel and gain life experience. Me, I wante
d the opposite, a defense perimeter away from experiences, an impenetrable bubble of nothingness to curl up in and lick my wounds.

  Still, I sort of wanted Allen to talk me out of it. I was feeling sorry for myself, and craved an indication that someone gave a crap if I disappeared.

  But Allen just scowled at his coffee, shaking his head. “You know about those bears in the Adirondacks that learned to knock on doors? Wouldn’t catch me living up there.”

  “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.

  “Seriously, I saw it on TV or I read it somewhere, I can’t remember. But these bears are getting smart. Evolution, right? If they get hungry enough, they knock on doors and wait for someone to come out on the porch. Then they attack, sometimes in groups. It’s freaky, man. Fuckers are climbing up the food chain, so be careful.”

  That was two months ago. I didn’t believe Allen then, and I don’t believe him now. But when you live on the side of a mountain, nearest neighbors a mile away, a knock at three a.m. is unsettling. And though I hadn’t thought about Allen or his evolved-bear theory in weeks, I was suddenly sitting up in bed, listening to my front door rattle, and picturing a bear crouching alongside the porch.

  I climbed out of bed, kicking over a bottle as I stumbled through the dark, my sock now wet with warm beer. I sloshed down the hall to the front door, leaving the lights off as I peeked through the kitchen window, seeing two shadowy figures on my porch. They weren’t bears. They were police officers. I recognized the tall, freckled redhead, had seen him on my grocery and beer excursions into town. We were on nodding terms. The other cop was shorter, with a rounded belly. He knocked again and I jumped back from the window.