The Anomaly

Waking up

Ernest felt his consciousness coming back to him. Opening his eyes he found himself in a room that was both very familiar and very wrong. Familiar because he had spent a good proportion of his life before Miramar in rooms just like this one. Wrong because its walls were missing the faint traces of random patterns, the ubiquitous alien metal-stuff from which the station was constructed. In their place were bare painted surfaces. This wasn't a room at all – this was a cabin.

As his consciousness solidified, his mind reached back to the night before: his meeting with The Capt'n, their talk about his new expedition to the luridly named 'Vortex', reminiscences of the good old days, rambling ever wider as the drinks kept coming. Then what?

And the cabin was not the only thing out of place. It took a moment to register what it was: while his body felt oddly leaden, the splitting headache he surely owed to the night before was notably absent. Raising his head from his pillow, blinking sleep from his eyes, he registered the bulk of The Capt'n filling up the frame of the cabin's only door.

Ernest peered blearily. "Where am I?"

"Come now, Misery. Those are hardly auspicious first words for a navigator."

A realization struck Ernest with horror. He lifted the sheet that covered him and looked down the length of his abdomen. "This isn't my body. Clayton what the fuck have you done?" It was a long time since he had last used The Capt'n's real name. He did everything he could to imbue the word with the flood of anger that was rising within him.

"It's all agreed and legit." He held up a piece of paper. "Got a proper consent form and everything, your signature at the bottom."

Ernest peered at the piece of paper. "That's not my signature, that's just an 'X'."

"It was the best you could manage at the time. Perhaps you were feeling amorous." The Capt'n winked at him suggestively. "Got your thumb print and DNA. All perfectly valid."

"This is kidnapping ..."

"Not at all. Just borrowed your services for a time. Your original self will be waking up back on Miramar Station about now, happily unaware that any of this has even happened. You should be grateful, Misery, I'm saving you one hell of a hangover."

Ernest looked down again at his body. "You decanted a copy of me?"

"The old scan and scram routine. Don't worry, it all went fine." He waved his hand like a conjuror on a stage. "Misery, meet the brand new you."

Normally a man of few words, Ernest did not possess a great well of profanity. Still, everything he had he now put to good use, excoriating the Capt'n and swearing adamantly that whatever expedition was being planned, he wanted no part of it, that he would rather perish in the wastes of hyperspace than ever again steer a ship under The Capt'n's command.

The Capt'n held station at the door, smiling his same smug smile throughout, even putting out a steadying hand when Ernest attempted unsuccessfully to get to his feet. While the new body was a youthful one, a certain period of clumsiness would need to be endured as he adapted to the unfamiliar set of muscles.

When Ernest ran out of accusations to hurl, The Capt'n allowed a few moments of calming silence to pass before speaking. "Come now Misery, your understandable disorientation is clearly making you a little techy. How about I take you through to meet the crew. It won't take long, there's only the one of her."

"Unlike me," Ernest muttered, but without any great venom. His tirade had temporarily drained him of vigor. He suspected this body had been in storage for some time and would need to be cut a little slack while it got to grips with being a living, breathing entity once more.