Living a Human Life (Luna 3, Part 3)

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Read Part 1, Part 2

What happened so far:

Nora, a human working on the colony Luna 3, a moon that orbits Jupiter, has been abducted by the Cephalopods, Cephis for short, which are the highly evolved descendants of octopuses, cuttlefish, and squids. They replaced her brain with the neural network of one of the Cephi's arms, which has its own personality. The newly created human-Cephi hybrid Nora-Ceph was then sent back to live her host's life and infiltrate the human society.

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”And you didn’t think to inform anyone that you’d be taking a vacation? In the middle of the week? Not even your employer? Your mother?” The policeman looked at Nora-Ceph in disbelief. She sighed. It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated. None of the other hosts had been missed. Why did Nora have to work in a governmental agency?

”I was burned out”, Nora-Ceph tried to explain, for the fourth time. ”I wasn’t myself. It just … overcame me. I’m sorry that I worried people. But I’m back now and it won’t happen again.”

For the first time in three hours, the policeman questioning her nodded.

”I guess I will have to accept this”, he said. ”But I’m required to send you to a psychologist for an assessment. I’m afraid that you will have to wait until Monday for that though, I doubt anyone will have time for you before that. It’s already Thursday after all.”

”That’s fine”, Nora-Ceph said. ”I can wait.”

”Not so fast. This means you’re required to stay on this moon over the weekend. We can’t let you return to Luna 2, you need to stay in your apartment here.” Nora-Ceph had expected that even hoped for it. This would give her additional time to prepare before meeting Nora’s family. The family of a host was always a delicate matter. If someone would pick up changes, it’d be them.

”I guess I have not much of a choice”, Nora-Ceph replied and tried to look sad. She wasn’t sure if she had succeeded, human emotions were so hard to read and even harder to reproduce. How had a species like this been able to evolve without the ability to change color? Humans were weird.

”I will need your passport, to guarantee you won’t leave”, the policeman said and stretched out his hand. Nora-Ceph reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out Nora’s passport. _@suesa

”There you go”, she said. ”Can I leave now?”

”You’re free to go. Just come back on Monday, so we can introduce you to our psychologist.”

With the end of his sentence, he immediately seemed to lose interest in Nora-Ceph, turned away and totally ignored her presence. Nora-Ceph stood up, closed her coat and headed for the door. For some reason, she felt like someone might stop her, any moment now. Call out for her to come back and demand an explanation, proclaim that she wasn’t the real Nora.

But nobody did.

The street outside the police station was empty, which wasn’t unusual for a Thursday afternoon. People were still at work for at least one or two more hours. Her host would normally be working too at this time. But with the psychologist appointment on Monday, nobody would expect her to come in this day or even the day after. Four days to try and perfect her act. That should be plenty.

It had been one of the biggest problems they had faced with the host project, even bigger than the surgery itself. How was a Cephalopod supposed to take over a human’s life, without having any of their memories? They would have been spotted in no time and everything would have been lost.

After years of secret research, slowed by limited resources and the need for secrecy, the solution had been discovered.

They had developed a machine that was able to map the connections between synapses and interpret the patterns in ways that allowed a complete recollection of any stored long-term memory. The result was a more detailed memory than any human could ever possess, as even things that were seemingly “forgotten” by the host could be pieced together.

The only challenge that had been left was to feed this info into the neural network of the arm, that was supposed to replace the human’s brain. But even that, they eventually managed to do.

Nora-Ceph was still sorting through all these memories. It wasn’t easy to actively remember something she didn’t actually experience. It was a little bit confusing, especially when it came to the part of Nora meeting Quelz, the Cephalopod Nora-Ceph had been a part of all her life.

She had been told it would become easier, that the memories would start feeling like her own and that her access to them would become faster and faster over time. She hadn’t told anyone that she feared that, and what consequences it might bring. There were tales of host-Ceph systems, that had gone mad because the host’s memories had started to fight the Ceph.

They had to be … terminated.

Nora-Ceph finally arrived at the door of her small apartment. She searched for her keys, looked through them to find the right one, then put it in the keyhole and unlocked the door.

Or not. The door wasn’t unlocked, only closed. Nora-Ceph was slightly confused and tried to recall if Nora had been in the habit of not locking her door when she left for the weekend. The fact that she even double checked worried Nora-Ceph.

Her heart beating at a rate that was way too high to be healthy. Nora-Ceph felt the human fight-or-flight response kicking in but suppressed it. As quietly as possible, she opened the front door and quickly closed it again behind her. The room was dark, but she could see light coming through the cracked door of the bedroom.

Slowly, slowly, she approached it, her hands shaking, her breathing irregular. She braced herself, pushed the door open and saw …

A naked, human male lying on her bed.

”Nora!” He called out. ”Finally! I almost feared you had forgotten our appointment today after you didn’t answer my calls all week!”

Nora-Ceph stayed silent. She couldn’t … she didn’t … she had no idea what to say.

”I’m glad you’re here now and hope you don’t mind I let myself in, after all, you were the one who gave me the key. Made me feel special. I mean, how many men can say they have access to their call girl’s home anytime they want?”

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Reference:

How Are Memories Stored in the Brain?

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Picture taken from pixabay.com

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_{GIF was created for me by @saywha and @atopy , rest of the signature by @overkillcoin}