5 How to Feel Content

Larifa:

"He's...a Bionic."

This time, Micah pushed her to the side and it was Larifa's turn to fall into a pile of snow. As she brushed off the white substance from her legs with the backs of her hands, Larifa waited for her friend's reaction, and the longer the seconds dragged out she assumed his response would all the more be explosive. But, like her, the panic in them had all but leaked from their bodies. There wasn't much for them to say.

Larifa found herself shaking her head, before she stood from the ground and tightly grasped Micah's shoulder with a reassured shake. "So...now what?"

To her surprise, Micah broke from his silence with a steady voice, and without an ounce of a tremble from the cold, or shock. "No clue. We can't take him...'it', to the hospital. They wouldn't know what to do with it."

Her brows came together to form a rigid knot. "He's not a thing, Mike. He used to be human."

Micah waved a hand behind him, wafting away her opinion like a snowflake in the wind. "Alright, tell that to the plasma in his veins. Whatever you say."

"Stop being such an ass," Larifa carped, as she resisted the urge to smack the back of his head. To focus her attention on anything else, Larifa dug her hand into her pocket to fish out her phone, and she brought up a search engine.

"What are you doing?" Micah queried, as he too finally stood from the snow to dust the snow off of his pants.

"Trying to find some online advice. 'Where does one go with a sick Bionic?'"

"There are Bionic stores in town, but they're all shut now. The closest speciality store though is probably a few hours away."

Eyeing the slumped figure against the back of the car, Larifa decidedly searched up something different instead. "Mike, look."

Micah paced around to peer over her shoulder, staring at what the search results had brought up, before reading it out loud. "'Because of the plasma in their body, Bionics require room temperatures to function correctly. If their environment becomes too warm, just as humans their bodies will behave as such. If their environment becomes too cold-'"

"'-the plasma flow in their bodies will slow, until they enter into a coma-like state. If this happens, they only require time for their plasma to reach room temperature," Larifa interrupted.

"So...should I?"

Clearing her throat, Larifa risked a glance at her friends apartment. She knew where this conversation was going, and she wasn't exactly selfish by nature but she wasn't keen on taking home a bionic who she found in the street. Undeniably, whoever he was he used to be human. That didn't deter her feelings towards him, however with bionics came legal proceedings. Should she be writing when and where she found him? Does he have any sort of...biological identification on him?

Larfia was just...uncertain.

Turning back to Micah, she briefly closed her eyes before opening her mouth. "I'll take him home."

Micah's blue eyes widened, shocked. "Are you sure? My flat is right here-"

"Listen, Mike, you've...you've got a lot of shit going on in your life right now. I'm not really sure if I could trust you to deal with this, y'know...properly?" Larifa winced as her sentence came to an end, her gaze dropping back to the bionic.

"Well, I mean..." Micah started, before he eventually sighed and raked his hand through his roots, "You're not entirely wrong. I can barely even look after myself, heh."

She sucked in a breath. "No hard feelings?"

"None at all, Tuff," he smiled, as the knot in Larifa's stomach unfurled.

Swivelling back around, they both eyed the open-doored backseat with the strange man half-hazedly slumped across the cushions. Wordlessly, Larifa nodded towards her friends who was taller, although not by much. Micah let out a straggled sigh, before hunching down to pull the man out from the back seat and hauling him over his shoulder. A few unsteady steps and some readjustment later, her and Micah headed towards her apartment through frosty streets.

Larifa had only been to her apartment a few times since moving in only a couple days prior, so even with the muscle memory in every step, she still found it difficult to locate her new home in near darkness. She took the liberty to lead Micah away from slippery areas on the concrete below them, and towards every few working lamposts along the way.

Her apartment complex was small, not situated near anything or anywhere special. With only the remnants of her college loan, and some savings, had she been able to afford a small flat between both Micah and the hospital. Taking into consideration her new job, her workplace was just a bus ride away, and Larifa was well used to public transport. The only thing that she didn't really like about the complex itself, was the mossy poolings of grime in certain crevices, which tended to emit some strange damp smells. Larifa wasn't trying to be picky, but she did prioritise cleanliness over...well, most other things.

Upon reaching Larifa's apartment door, which she almost kicked down, the two got to work with stripping the man of his wet clothes and redressing him in some oversized jumpers and joggers; these were frantically pulled from her wardrobe, and Larifa didn't even know if they'd fit the bionic considering he was slightly taller than her. Wrapping him in a blanket and leaving him on her couch, she and Micah finally took a step back.

Then, they both exhaled. And when they both collapsed onto the adjacent sofa from exhaustion, they stared at each other for a brief period of time before each letting out a sigh between the realms of disbelief and humour.

Micah rubbed his eyes, groaning. "Why are we friends again?"

"You give me something to do, and I keep you alive," Larifa replied blankly, as if she'd had to answer that question a million times before.

"You're lucky I can tolerate you, otherwise I wouldn't even be here."

Scoffing, Larifa turned her head slightly to squint at Micah. "You mean dead or alive?"

"Ha." A spark of awareness seemed to hit Micah, by the sudden surprise in his eyes. "Oh for fuck's sake. I forgot to lock my door."

Larifa shrugged. "It's not like you have anything of value to rob."

"Of M i n i m a l value. Still, not like I want to leave my space open for visitors." Micah paused, his eyes darting around the room as if suddenly aware of where he was. "Nice place."

"Thanks."

"Guess I'll get going then," Micah grunted, as he went to stand. Then he turned to the Bionic, pointing at the bundle of blankets and the mop of dark hair. "Can you handle it then?"

Larifa raised an brow. "By 'it', you mean him?"

"Yes, it, him, whatever you want to call it. I know jack-shit about Bionics, probably as much as you do to be fair. If you need me to come down tomorrow with my car-"

"If it'll start up?" Larifa interrupted.

"-alright yeah, if it'll start up, then just send a text in the afternoon," Micah specified, aware that his friend knew of his regular late awakenings. "You owe me one, Tuff."

She scoffed, again. "Mhm. And how many times do you owe ME?"

"You can give this to me, at least," Micah chuckled. He gave one last uneasy glance at the Bionic, before heading for the front door and calling back out behind him, "I'll just see myself out, yeah?!"

"Yeah sure," Larifa yelled back, before hearing the slam of her front door against its icy hinges.

And with that, Micah left, leaving Larifa alone with the stranger.

***

Bo:

Blue lights surrounded my body, and I could make out tiny micro-lasers that were embedded into the walls of the cylindrical object encasing me. I felt a strange sting working its way down my arms, and down my legs to reach my toes, and I had a want to move.

My limbs felt achy, like I had never moved before, but still I lifted my arms and pushed with what little energy I had against the walls of the pod.

To my surprise, the front of the pod started to open, and a figure peered inside, along with a bright light.

"You can come out now. It's about time you decided to wake up."

I breathed in, inhaling a sweet first breath, and hastily grabbed both sides of the pod in attempts to free myself from this contraption. As I sat up, I took sight of a tall man with wide shoulders wearing a white labcoat, and waited for him to finish with whatever papers he was reading to face me.

When he did turn around, I also took sight of his aged and angled features, and he nodded towards me.

"So, how do you feel?"

I tried to speak, but when I did, a weird straddled noise escaped my throat, and I looked down as I felt the heat in my cheeks.

The man in the labcoat gestured towards me again. "That's okay, just take it slow. You're in no rush." He walked over to me and moved the hair away from my eyes. "My name is Dr Augustus Saxe, but I prefer it when people just call me Auggie." He paused for a second, and then added, "But then again, you're not exactly a person anymore. So you can call me Dr Saxe."

This time when my mouth opened, I was finally able to speak. "Where am I?"

So that was my voice? That's what I sound like?

Dr Saxe didn't answer me straight away. Instead, he continued to jot things down on the papers in his hands, strands of his sandy-brown hair falling free from his bun, and mingling with the stubble across his jaw. Eyes wandering around the room, I found identical-looking pods linearly aligned with my own, the glass to the pods foggy and iridescent. I turned my head down this time, staring at my naked body. My skin was pale. And my fingers are long.

"Before I answer you," Dr Saxe spoke out, abrupting my thoughts, "I need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?"

I nodded.

"Even though we technically own you, under International Laws of Human Rights, we still need to ask you for consent." He took a seat next to me, and with a pen in one hand and some paper in the other, he started to ask informative questions. "Do you know what I am?"

"A human?"

"What colour is my lab coat?"

"White."

"What day is Christmas?"

"December 25th."

"Do you like chocolate?"

"Yes but, I don't like sweets too much."

Humming to himself, I tried to make out the scribbles on his sheet, however his writing was impossible to read. "Looks fine," he mumbled to himself, scratching his chin. "Do you remember anything or anyone from before you woke up?"

I shook my head.

"As I mentioned before, you're not human, at least not anymore. You used to be human before you took your own life. Do you remember that?"

I'm not human? And I committed suicide?

"I'll take your silence as a no," Dr Saxe continued. "It's probably for the best that you can't remember."

"If I'm not human," I paused, the weight of the realisation that I was at a loss of identity dawning over me, dauntingly, "then what am I?"

"You've become what we call a Bionic, a super human."

My breath hitched in my throat. "What?"

"You don't know what they are? I'm pretty sure everyon-"

"I KNOW, I know-" I took in another deep breath "-I know what they are...my head, it isn't coming around this, this situation."

Dr Saxe remained seated, appearing to be in deep thought before he asked me another question. "Don't you think science is amazing? You can't remember anything about who you used to be, and yet, you remember basic, factual information. It's incredible what a person with the intelligence and skills can do, and the control they must have to make this happen is just amazing. Don't you think so?"

"So, you 'made sure' that I couldn't remember my past?"

The doctor shrugged. "It was essential. Unfortunately, it could affect your present goal with us. It's nothing personal, just necessary. Besides," he stood up, facing his back towards me and picking up a syringe, "you're not who you used to be. That person doesn't exist anymore. You've become an entirely new person."

"I-I just...I still don't get it. Who am I?"

He swerved around, with the syringe still between his fingers. "What seems the most familiar since waking up? There must be a name, a single name which you can remember. It will feel right, just right, when you say it out loud."

Gleaming under the shaded light, the needle etched closer and closer to my upper arm. "What's that?"

Grabbing a chunk of my flesh with his free hand, Dr Saxe positioned the syringe before glancing up at me, his eyes serious and steady. "It's the final improvement which I'm going to make to you. You'll feel the effects immediately."

As the cold, gelid needle pierced my skin, and the blue liquid streamed through my veins, all of my anxiety and worries dematerialized, and despersed past a barrier which I would soon later regret having placed up.

I felt calm. And...content.

"I think my name was Bo."