Before

Alyssa’s eyes roll into focus as the display flickers, darting back and forth as she parses the upside-down letters.

Her phone, heavy in her hand, falls into her field of view upright. Time: six-oh-five AM.

“Urrrrrrgh,” Alyssa grumbles, her tongue lolling about as she whips her head forward and returns to some semblance of an upright posture, before slumping deeper into the bench-slash-couch-thing’s cushions. The guy next to her chuckles, while the girl to her right snores.

“Thought you were asleep,” Alyssa mutters.

Andy shrugs. “I guess I wasn’t.”

The waiting area is sparsely populated, a handful of travelers nursing their coffees or teas, a few others watching the news in silence as white-on-black subtitles trail across the TV screen. They must seem like quite the odd assortment to those in the lobby: Alyssa is dressed haphazardly, thanks to rushing out of bed. She’s wearing an open-shoulder blouse with short sleeves, its bright pink outshining both the faded blue of her jeans and the stained neon-pink of her beat-up sneakers.

Andy looks more fit for travel, wearing a dark green short-sleeve button-down that hangs straight on his trim frame, tucked into a pair of black trousers. His square-frame glasses magnify light brown eyes, highlighting a lingering fatigue.

Then there’s Veronica, sprawled out on the couch cushions. Her lean-yet-not-quite-petite physique forms a silhouette under the denim jacket that currently serves as a blanket. Further down, her black tank top has rolled up past the waistband of her pre-ripped jeans, exposing a sliver of rosy-white midriff.

“So, how’s the breakup going?”

Andy raises his eyebrows, a crease or two forming in the otherwise smooth, brown skin of his forehead.

“She’s right there,” he whispers back.

“You’ve been dating Veronica for what, like, five months? And you haven’t noticed she sleeps through anything? Here, watch.”

Alyssa reaches over, brushes aside Veronica’s long, glossy black hair, and pulls back one of her eyelids to reveal a hazel eye darting back and forth.

“See? Like a rock.”

“Well, it’s—” He takes off his glasses for a moment, fidgeting with the frames. “—It’s not going well.”

“Screaming? Crying? Or…?”

“We… can’t stay away from each other. If you weren’t between us she’d have crawled into my lap, and I wouldn’t have stopped her.”

“Tsk tsk tsk,” Alyssa clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “Ya know, I told you guys this was a bad idea, especially with you headin’ out of state. But nooooo, ‘it’s just some fun between friends’ you said, ‘it’s just a one night stand.’ Next thing I know you’re both lovey-dovey and shit. Blech.”

“We’re working on it.”

“Better be.”

Alyssa peeks at the display again and frowns. Six-ten now, and still delayed.

She reaches down and starts poking Veronica’s side, jabbing a finger between ribs at random.

“Whu—Hey, hey, stop! Stop!” Veronica yelps, swatting Alyssa’s hand away.

“Wakey-wakey.”

Veronica sits up groggily, rubbing at her eyes. “Boarding?”

“Nah, delayed again.”

“…Then why’d you wake me up, dumbass.”

“Gonna get a drink. You want somethin’?”

“Sure, uh, iced tea.”

“Okie-dokie. Andy?”

“Coffee, cream, no sugar.”

“Gotcha. Holler if boarding starts.”

Alyssa stands up and skips to the lobby stairs, scampers down two at a time, and sprints toward the coffee shop. Before long she’s stepping onto the escalator, a tray of drinks in hand. She pulls out her phone on the way up, checking the time. Six-twenty, now. It’s frustrating—any longer and she’ll miss her connecting flight. Right as she goes to slip the phone back into her jeans, it buzzes: a text from Aaron.

Have you boarded yet?

nah
fuckers keep delaying

Do you have your costume?

got my spandex
no mask
y?

No response. Alyssa shrugs and puts her phone away.

Weird.

As she reaches the top of the escalator she notices Andy and Veronica have gotten a bit too comfortable, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, holding hands. Ugh.

She trots over and sets the drinks down, taking Veronica’s old seat for herself.

“C’mon guys, I leave you unsupervised for five minutes—”

“Shh,” Veronica whispers.

Only now does Alyssa notice the tension in their postures, how Veronica’s light pink skin has lost its usual rosy flush, and how wide Andy’s eyes are behind his glasses.

“Look,” Andy says quietly, nodding at the TV on the far wall.

A city from the air, shattered office buildings and townhouses, the area pockmarked with depressions and sinkholes.

The screen’s too far to read the subtitles, but the program’s graphics are enough:

BREAKING: Magnitude 8 Earthquake Hits Memphis

Oh.

Fuck.

Butterflies gather in her stomach as she stares in shock.

“Hey, uh, Alyssa? Think your flight might be canceled?” Veronica asks, breaking the silence.

Alyssa glances at the board—six-twenty-five, still delayed—and slowly shakes her head.

“I’m not that great at maps, ‘Ronnie, but I’m pretty sure Dallas ain’t near Memphis.”

“Sure, but… just, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Andy mutters, grabbing his coffee. He hands Veronica her tea, though her eyes never leave the screen as she sips it. “Let’s try to relax.”

“Alyssa, your layover is only an hour, right?” he asks. “Getting a bit tight, isn’t it?”

“Fifty minutes, yeah,” she sighs. “My boss will probably book me a new flight anyway.”

“Really?” Veronica says. “Aren’t you just an editor?”

“What can I say, the man makes a lotta typos.”

Alyssa glances at the TV again, feeling her heart beat just a bit faster. Good chance she’d be there—soon—and here she is lying about it.

Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, more forceful this time. The screen shimmers a bit as she takes it out, a product of one of the many techno-doohickies Aaron had somehow jammed into it. According to him the selfie camera scans for faces, unlocks the phone when it sees hers, and supposedly ensures only her eyes can see certain things on the screen. She doesn’t quite understand how it works, or trust it, especially with her friends huddled so close to her. Especially when Aaron hadn’t even invented most of the stuff, just tried to copy it from whatever cutting edge papers he could grab. She considers cupping a hand over the screen, or holding it close to her face—but that might just draw suspicion instead. Trust will have to do.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

The screen flickers to her new boarding pass, and she finds the flight on the display. Departing: very soon.

Just stay calm.

“Speak of the devil,” she quips, standing up. “Just got a new ticket, boarding right now.”

She swings her backpack over her shoulders. Her suitcase has already been checked on her old flight—it’ll just have to find its way to her eventually.

“So, um, I gotta go.”

She leans in to give Andy a bro-hug and a fist-bump.

“We’re still on for California, right?” he asks.

“Yep. So long as you two don’t third wheel me, and Davy, and everyone else.”

“We’ll try.”

Alyssa hugs Veronica, who responds with a kiss to the cheek and a playful jab in the shoulder.

“Tease,” Alyssa whispers.

They share a laugh and Alyssa turns to leave, the butterflies in her stomach fluttering ever faster.

You should tell them.

I can’t. Not here. Not now.

Then when? Where?

She shakes the thoughts away, and like always they settle in her chest—a sickening mix of guilt and doubt wraps around her heart, choking tendrils worming into her throat. The feeling compels her to stop and turn around, just enough to look back.

“I love you guys!”

“Stay safe!”

“Text us when you land!”

“I will!”

Not lies, but not the confession her conscience desires, either.

The feeling calcifies, staying with her as she breezes through security and as she boards the plane. It clings to her in the air and it follows her down to the earth upon landing, stalking her as she ducks away into an isolated restroom past the gate, beyond the reach of any prying eyes or cameras.

Here, surrounded by dingy tiles and bathed in fluorescent light, her upper body stripped bare, costume dangling from her waist, she begins to work.

She starts with her face, draining melanin from her eyes until an icey blue gaze stares back at her in the mirror, then adjusts her hair to give it a russet hue. Her hands sculpt her features, the movements almost unconscious, driven by muscle memory. As she works she draws on her reservoir, pumping fat and biomatter up from her stomach and thighs into staging pools on her chest and shoulders, the network visibly pulsing and swelling as the fleshy slurry moves. By the time she’s done her torso has become swollen and barrel-like, finer features buried by the summoned reserves.

Under normal circumstances she would draw on far less, just enough material to strengthen her musculature, or grow her extra arms. She’d be armored beneath her costume, adorned in plates of living bone, each one built cell by cell to match the best artificial protection. Without that armor and without the time or resources to grow it anew, she takes a different approach. A technique she’s been working on, but hasn’t fully explored.

The first few changes are internal, stretching a double-walled membrane between the hemispheres of her brain, growing matching dividers within her throat and trachea. Rerouting vessels and nerves that cross the midline, softening her ribcage at key points. Next, her face stretches ever so slightly at the centerline as structures within are prepared, neural tissue sprouted to bridge between them. A burning sensation emerges at the center of her cranium and works its way down her neck, bone cleaving in its wake.

Her head splits open, pulled away by the muscles in her neck and shoulders, each half of her brain pulsing against the retaining membranes, her brainstem and spinal cord widening as the halves of her skull inch apart. Between them is a thick ribbon of neurons, drooping as it grows longer, little tendrils reaching up to guide it into the gaping cavity where her neck once was.

She grabs onto the sink basins and pulls, bone and cartilage in her chest flexing and splitting, stretching the top of her ribcage until her sternum achieves a wye shape. The movement rips apart her doubled brainstem and leaves her with two, one for each branch of her spinal cord.

Biomatter floods into the gap, oozing out from her open flesh as a white mass with pink and yellow splotches, solidifying into flesh and blood and bone. Everything above her jawline is a copy, a clone of the corresponding half, down to the neuron. Below is something new. The gap in her sternum is fused over, new pectoral muscles sprouting from it, wrapping under her skin to meet with second shoulders forming beneath her armpits. A thick central clavicle bridges the gap across her split spine, muscles and tendons filling out the space between it and her necks. Her ribcage reshapes itself, letting off the tension used to pull it open. Excess space is given new purpose, granting her second set of arms a firm root of new bone.

Her costume isn’t so adaptive. Beneath each sleeve is a slot for her new arms, and the neck simply stretches to fit two. She extrudes a domino mask from each of her faces and coats the bony protrusions in glossy white enamel. Nowhere near the coverage—protective and otherwise—of her proper mask, but these facades aren’t her face anyway.

Mitosis stares at the mirror, turning one head and then the other, studying her own movement. Her breath is hot and her skin flush as her body bleeds off the heat of her rapid metamorphosis. Much of her reservoir persists, and she draws on it, building up her muscles, growing armor on her bare forearms, sprouting cleated boots from her feet.

She raises an arm and flexes, examining the limb as muscles contract and bulge beneath her skin. It makes her feel impressive, powerful—heroic, even—but not quite right. Despite all she has changed, that feeling, that guilt, remains.