Shards Ch. 01

Tuesday, September 8th, 2015. It was our 8th wedding anniversary. Nancy and I were spending it the way we had every year since getting married, doing the 13 mile loop hike around Mt. Diablo in the morning, before our anniversary dinner in downtown Walnut Creek. This was the same hike where we had first met, as part of a larger group in college.

It was likely going to be our last anniversary hike. We had decided, now that we were 30, that it was time to start our family, after several years focusing on our programming careers. Hopefully, we would either be parents or Nancy would be several months pregnant by the next anniversary. We'd already been trying for two months. Nancy's next ovulation was due to happen in a week.

We ate our lunch at the summit and were stopped at the top of Eagle Peak when we spotted a bright light to the east.

"What is that?" Nancy asked, pointing toward it.

"Looks like a meteor, but it's got to be huge to be seen in daylight," I answered. The light got brighter and larger, clearly a fireball. I kept expecting it to explode as a bolide. Instead, the light dimmed as the meteor slowed and friction against the atmosphere reduced, until a dimly glowing rock could be seen getting closer and closer but veering to our left.

It looked like it was going to crash a couple miles to the northwest - thankfully still part of the park with no major structures to damage - when it suddenly changed course, heading straight for us. "What the fuck? Meteors don't steer," were the last words I managed to say before the object seemed to explode before impacting the ground, less than 50 yards away. Hundreds of shards flew towards us, giving me only enough time to grab Nancy and put my body between her and the meteor. A torrent of pain exploded through me as I was impaled through my back and lost consciousness.

~~~~~

My next conscious thought was hearing the steady beeping of a heart-rate monitor. I guessed I was in a hospital, but I couldn't open my eyes.

'At least I survived,' I thought.

"Dan?" asked a weird voice, both in my head and ears. My eyes opened, not from my intention, and I saw around the hospital room. "Dan, where are you?"

'I... I think I'm inside you, sweetheart,' I answered. 'I know it makes no sense, but I'm seeing what you see, hearing what you hear.'

"How is that possible?" she asked.

I answered, 'I don't know. How is it possible we even survived that meteor crash? If that was even what it was? Meteors don't change direction like that and, if they explode, it's usually high in the atmosphere. I swear this broke apart before hitting the ground. Those fragments flew straight at us so fast, they should have torn right through us. Did they look crystalline to you?'

Nancy switched to thinking silently. 'I barely got a glimpse, but they looked like icicles, except they were pinkish.'

I thought, 'Pink icicles from a meteor that changed course toward us, spraying us with debris and causing my consciousness to transfer into your body? I'm not even feeling any pain, are you? Are you alright, physically?'

I felt Nancy begin moving her hands along her body, before she gasped. 'Ohmigod, Dan, this isn't my body. It's yours. Somehow, I'm in control of your body, with both of us inside it.' She held up my hands so I could see them.

Just then a nurse came in and said, "Oh, you're awake, Mr. Davis. How are you feeling? I'm Nurse Simpkins. You're at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek." The nurse began checking various readings on the monitor, entering them into a tablet.

Nancy thought, 'Where's my body?' but asked, "How's... my wife?" as I finally recognized my own voice underneath hers in my sensorium.

"She's in stable condition. She woke up about an hour ago, but seems a bit more disoriented," the nurse answered.

I thought, 'How can your body be awake, if your consciousness is in my body?'

'Shhhh, Dan,' Nancy thought back at me. 'I'm sure there's a perfectly illogical explanation.'

Nurse Simpkins said, "We're looking to get you a double room, so you can be together. Right now, she's four rooms down the hall. Although, with the way the two of you are recovering, you might be discharged first."

"Do you know how we got here?" Nancy asked. "We were hiking..."

"That's the curious thing," Nurse Simpkins said. "It's been all over the news. Some other hikers on the same trail reported that a large meteorite hit near you and sprayed you with debris that they swear pierced you from head to toe, knocking you both back twenty feet. They were certain you were dead, given the impact and how shredded and bloody your clothing was when they reached you. But you were breathing, so they called 911 and you were medivacked to our Trauma Center. After you got here, the nurses and docs downstairs couldn't actually find a scratch on you underneath those bloody rags. Almost everything you were carrying was wrecked, but you were fine. The blood proved to be your own, so the police lost interest. There's no sign of a crater. You were admitted because you hadn't regained consciousness. It's been two days. Today is Thursday."

'So much for our anniversary dinner,' I thought, trying to make light of a situation that was getting more terrifying every second.

"Have our families been notified?" Nancy asked.

"We don't have phone numbers for them," the nurse answered. "Your cell phones were both shattered and you only have each other listed as emergency contacts in our computers. We were able to contact your employers through your insurance, so they know you're here, at least. Actually, we could only read Nancy's driver's license. Yours looked like swiss cheese, Mr. Davis, your wallet pierced in a dozen places, even though your buttock was as undamaged as the rest of you. Your primary care doctor came in and confirmed your identity."

"When can I see Nancy?" Nancy asked.

"Dr. Mitchell needs to run a neurological exam, to try to explain your unconsciousness, then we can see about getting the two of you together. You might even be able to go home tonight or first thing tomorrow, if everything checks out. I'll go tell the doctor you're awake. He'll need to be the one to order the IV line removed."

As soon as Nurse Simpkins left the room, Nancy thought, 'What the fuck is going on? I'm scared, Dan. And you know I don't scare easily.'

I thought, 'I can speculate, but I'm not sure how much good that will do.'

'Anything, honey,' Nancy responded.

'Well, one possibility is that I'm actually dreaming.' Nancy's pinch of my thigh answered that. 'Ouch! You wanted me to speculate.'

'Okay, sorry. I needed to make sure it wasn't me dreaming, either. Carry on.'

I thought, 'Okay, next theory. We both know that was no ordinary meteor. What if it wasn't a meteor at all, but something else entirely, something capable of copying your consciousness into my body. That would explain why your body is awake, too.'

'Copied, or displaced?' Nancy's voice in my head asked.

"Displaced," said Nancy's voice from her body, in a wheelchair that she was wheeling into the room. She turned around, closed the door and wheeled herself closer to the bed.

"Displaced, by what?" the Nancy in me asked.

"This throat cannot reproduce my true name, so I suggest you call me Cathy, rather than Nancy Two or whatever." Catherine was Nancy's middle name. Her parents had chosen it so that her initials would be N.C., which would sound like her first name. Hardly the weirdest part of Nancy's childhood. But that's another story.

"What are you, Cathy?", Nancy asked.

"You would consider me an alien, from a world we called Teclewt, about 47,000 light years away, based on the length of your planet's year. My species evolved with four legs and two arms with six-fingered hands. You would probably think we were a cross between a lion and a centaur, without as much fur. I'm still a bit unstable right now on just two legs, which is why I'm using the wheelchair until I am more accustomed to using this sense of balance."

"Okay. So, why are you here, taking over my body?" Nancy asked.

Cathy answered, "Teclewt had been hit by a large asteroid and our ecosystem was collapsing from all of the dust in the atmosphere. Our scientists came up with a plan to preserve us, at least partially. We had developed a technology that used a crystalline form of nanites, both for body repair and for preservation of memory and personality, reinitializing the personality after injection into a host body, usually a clone. Tests indicated we would be able to take over host bodies of other carbon-based species. Our leaders used a lottery to choose between volunteers to have ourselves crystallized, encased in a carbon-shielded space-craft, then scattered in every direction in space at half of light speed. I was among the chosen."

"So, you've been traveling for about 95,000 of our years?" Nancy asked. "You've been alive that long?"

Cathy replied, "I would not term the experience as living. The crystals carrying my recorded memories and persona were basically cargo until awoken in this solar system, so I did not form new memories or consider myself to have aged. A separate system you would call a computer monitored the outside, seeking a sign of intelligence, such as radio or television signals. It intercepted a radio signal transmitted in your year 1920, when it was about 30 light years away from your sun, so about 1950 on your calendar. It took 65 more of your years for the ship to alter course, to decelerate and enter the atmosphere, where the carbon shell burned away, leaving the central core to land. I then needed to find an intelligent being to inject the crystals into, by shattering before impact. This slowed the fragments down, so you would survive their impact long enough for repairs to be initiated. Not the most elegant approach, but workable."

"Why target me?" Nancy asked.

Cathy said, "Having reviewed 95 years of your radio and television signals during the last months of the deceleration phase, I knew homo sapiens is the dominant species, with two sexual genders. I chose the population center of San Francisco Bay for my approach, entering the atmosphere to the east, prepared to fly over the cities ringing the bay until I found a host, preferably female. Just before the ship slowed enough to be able to further alter course, I spotted the two of you hiking on the crest of that coastal mountain you call Mount Diablo and chose you, Nancy, as my host. I did not expect Dan's gallantry in trying to shield you, but the crystals entering his body first left more than enough inside him that I could transfer your consciousness into him while your bodies were on the ground, rather than simply taking your place. The crystals were also able to repair all injuries before the other hikers reached your bodies, although not being able to prevent some blood loss."

More calmly than I expected, Nancy said, "Okay, Cathy. Assuming I believe every part of your story, I gather that you think it's ethical to displace me, but fuck off, bitch. I want my body back. Play 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with someone else."

Cathy sighed. "There is only one way to do that, now. Get this body pregnant, then I can merge into your baby during the birth process and restore you to this body."

I was stunned into silence.

Nancy said, "You want to become my child? What if it's a boy?"

Cathy smiled, then answered, "You are assuming I was a female of my species, just because I chose to occupy your body instead of Dan's. My species was what you would call hermaphroditic, each of us with the equivalent of a penis and a vagina, producing two kinds of gamete cells, akin to your eggs and sperm. It still took two parents to mate to produce a child. Self-impregnation was impossible, at a genetic level. Once a baby was born, both mates tended to it equally. There are terms which would translate to mother or father in English, but they are technical distinctions related to the conception and pregnancy, not parenting. We were also not mammalian, so breastfeeding is not part of childrearing. Both parents were equal after the birth. I only preferred to inhabit a female human to make pregnancy easier to achieve. Dan's presence made it possible to transfer your persona to him without putting you into stasis, otherwise you would have only awoken after childbirth. I could also have chosen a male host and made that work, but not as easily."

Nancy said, "You do realize that it's my consciousness in charge of Dan's body, here, right? You want me to control his body to have sex with my own body, impregnate myself and wait nine more months to get back into my body?"

"Better than having your consciousness paused or abruptly ended, is it not?" Cathy countered. "I am actually quite surprised by the ingratitude you are displaying. I took over your body to preserve myself as an individual and, in some small measure, preserve Teclewtan legacy. I do not know whether any of the other ships sent out ever succeeded or whether our scientists discovered a way to repair our world's ecology, so I might well be the very last of my kind, while there are almost eight billion humans? If I had to choose between you and myself, I would choose myself. However, given the opportunity to preserve your consciousness, I was going to do so. If I had not transferred you to Dan's body, I would have put you in stasis until I could be reborn. I'm sure you've realized I'm telepathic as well? I could have easily replaced you and met his every expectation. He would never have known you were gone. But I would know."

'That alone would make me suspicious,' I thought, expecting Cathy could hear me. 'It isn't a wife's duty to do everything her husband wants.'

"Okay, so maybe not every expectation," Cathy responded, proving her telepathy again. "However, I am confident I could have made the impersonation undetectable. I have access to all of Nancy's memories, which were not erased when I copied them into your body, Dan. The main reason you were unconscious for two days was so the mind-crystals could rewire your brain to support both personalities, while mine was adapting to this brain."

Nancy asked, "If Dan's brain has been rewired, why can't he control his body? Why am I in charge instead of being the passenger?"

Cathy answered, "The crystals laid down new neural pathways. It might be that those are somehow stronger than the old ones. You do not understand your own brains well enough for me to determine if that is normal. That may change over time, as his brain adapts further. Is that really a problem?"

Nancy replied, "Well, I'm the one having to impersonate him with friends and families now, without any telepathy to help. Having him relay things for me to say will produce a notable lag. I don't seem to have access to his memories, only my own. Also, I'm not sure I know how to operate his sexual equipment, since I wasn't born with a penis. You won't be getting pregnant, if Dan's body won't reach orgasm with me in charge. It would simply be easier if I was the passenger."

Cathy frowned, but said, "We both need you to learn how to make it work, Nancy. It's your only path to regaining your body, as well as possibly the only path to giving Dan control back over his own."

Nurse Simpkins pushed through the room's door. "There you are, Mrs. Davis. You weren't cleared to leave your bed, yet."

Cathy responded, "I really needed to see Dan."

The nurse said, "Well, Dr. Mitchell needs to do neural exams on both of you, so let me take you back to your room. After that, Mr. Davis, I'll come back and remove your IV and help you to the bathroom."

"Later, Dan," Cathy said, as she was wheeled out.

'Oh fuck, Dan, what are we going to do?' Nancy thought, once we were alone.

I answered, 'What choice do we really have? It's not like we can call for an exorcism. I doubt human medicine is up to the task, either, if they haven't detected these crystals in our bodies already. Assuming Cathy is being honest and she will return control of your body to you after giving birth, that's what we'll have to do. You just need to find out what it will take to get you aroused and erect, then have sex just well enough to cum inside her until she catches.'

'You say that like an erection is automatic,' Nancy whimpered.

I chuckled mentally, then said, 'It almost is, honey. Ask any boy going through puberty if he is in total control over getting an erection. The truth is, we learn how to avoid erections and delay ejaculation, rather than how to achieve either. I'm willing to bet that these new neural pathways Cathy mentioned will give you the needed control. For example, I can feel you instinctively holding back our bladder right now. The same nerve governs the external sphincter in both genders, even though they're not in the same place. The same nerve bundle governs sensation from the genitals. I can only assume that there will be parallels to what you're used to sensing in terms of arousal.'

Nancy sighed, 'Except, I need to get turned on by a female body. My own.'

'We'll do whatever it takes, so long as you eventually knock yourself up,' I responded. 'Otherwise, we're going to need to find another guy to do the job in my place. I'd rather not pull another person into this mess. As it is, if we're successful, we're going to be raising a baby with Cathy's consciousness inside it, however that's supposed to work. I would rather not add in custody issues with a separate bio-dad.'

'Oh, damn, you're right,' Nancy thought.

Nurse Simpkins returned at that point, removed the IV needle from my arm and accompanied us to the bathroom. Nancy walked smoothly, not having noticeable problems with my larger body. Urination proceeded normally as well, Nancy giggling in my head over pointing my cock in several directions.

By the time we were done, Dr. Mitchell had arrived to do his neural exam, which detected no problems nor explanations for our being unconscious for two days.

Our friend Zack Thomas had a spare key to our condo, so we called him to pick up a change of clothes for each of us, Nancy's keys and my spare car key, as my keyfob had gotten smashed by the shards which impaled us. My car was still parked at the trailhead from our hike. Zack arrived just before the hospital completed our release paperwork, then drove us back to the trailhead, just before sunset.

"What the hell really happened up on the mountain, guys?" he asked, as we left the hospital parking lot. "The news was saying some crazy shit, although they've already moved on to other stories, mostly about the next election."

Cathy deadpanned, "They're remaking 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'."

"No, really," Zack said. "You clothes were bloody rags, but you weren't actually injured? What the hell does that?"

Nancy said, "I remember the meteorite hitting the ground and shards of it flying towards us, grabbing Nancy, then I woke in the hospital. Some kind of miracle saved us, Zack. I don't have a better explanation."

'Not one that won't get us locked up in the loony bin, at least,' I thought. I felt Nancy roll my own eyes at me.

Zack arrived at the trailhead and we thanked him, Cathy suggesting dinner with Zack and his girlfriend Paige on Friday night as a reward. We got into my car. As Nancy started it, I thought, 'What was with the invite?'

Cathy answered, "It is what you would have normally done, is it not? You have double dated with the two of them nine times, since he met Paige. I can tell you want to keep this all a secret, which is fine by me. You are afraid some government entity will turn you into a science experiment, which I would like to avoid as well. To prevent suspicion, we have to act normally around your friends. Not just you, but me too. We cannot afford to isolate just because this situation is 'out of this world'."