The waiting room was sterile, with bare walls, stiff chairs, and dusty magazines curled at the edges. Mark slouched in a chair, arms crossed, his wrinkled clothes carrying the stale scent of sweat. He had spent too many nights sleeping in his car. This clinical trial's payout should last him a week, maybe two if he stretched it.

 

"Mark Simmons?" the lab assistant called, not looking up from her tablet. Her voice was flat, indifferent, as if she had called a hundred names that day and would call a hundred more.

 

Mark stood, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. His knees were stiff as he followed her out of the waiting room.  Without taking her gaze away from her datapad, she inquired, "Waivers and NDAs are signed?"

 

"Yeah," he muttered.

 

She gave the faintest nod and kept walking. The hallway was silent, the air sharp with the sterile scent of antiseptic. They passed through a biometric scanner before stopping at a door labeled 103 Lab - Dr. Calloway.

 

Inside, the lab was pristine, humming with quiet efficiency. Screens flickered with data Mark couldn’t decipher. Cables were neatly routed along the ceiling and walls, feeding energy into the massive machines that lined most of the lab’s perimeter except for two alcoves in the far wall holding large translucent tanks. At the center of the room stood a chair, sleek and metallic, its surface gleaming under the overhead lights with a helmet hanging over top.

 

"Have a seat," the assistant instructed.

 

Mark sat down. The restraints were then closed around his wrists and ankles. His breath quickened, but he forced himself to stay calm. He had been through worse.

 

A man walked into the lab once Mark was settled in. “Mr. Simmons, I’m Dr. Calloway. We will be attempting to copy your mind into a cloned body today. Please remain still throughout the process.”

 

The assistant then checked that the restraints were secure before reaching for the helmet and placing it over Mark's head.

 

"This will monitor your brain activity," he said. "You may feel a slight tingling sensation."

 

Mark barely had time to nod before the helmet sealed around his head, plunging him into darkness. It hummed loudly, a vibration settling deep into his skull.

 

Suddenly, white-hot agony ripped through his mind. Forced along the cables threading through the lab, he could feel the transmission, his consciousness breaking apart and reforming, each thought compressed and fired through the machinery at impossible speed.

 

The pain was unbearable, his mind unraveling into nothingness. Mark’s senses flickered in bursts, each moment disjointed, like a scrambled signal struggling to maintain cohesion. His thoughts were his, but disordered, fragile. Then the process locked in, and his awareness snapped into place.

 

Searing pain ignited every nerve. Flesh solidified, nerves burned, muscles jerked. His lungs convulsed as he sucked in his first breath inside his new body.

 

Unfamiliar eyes opened, taking a moment to focus.

 

The lab looked the same, but something was wrong. The angle, the perspective, it was all off. Mark tried to move. His limbs felt distant, unresponsive. Panic flared as his eyes darted around, the only part of him that responded.

 

Across the room, Mark could see his body in a chair. He was elated. It must’ve worked! His eyes flitted over to the researchers. Why did they look annoyed? They were staring at the screens on the equipment and tapping at their datapads. 

 

Mark then heard Dr. Calloway ask his assistant, “At what point did the subject lose viability this time?”

 

This time? Mark looked back at his body. It still hadn’t moved. It appeared limp.

 

Mark was trying to process what was happening.

 

Dr. Calloway stated, "Proceed with disposal."

 

Terror crashed over Mark as realization set in. He tried to scream, to thrash, to do something. But his body was still, his voice nonexistent. 

 

The assistant walked over to a screen a few feet from Mark and began tapping at a panel. Machines whirred to life. The fluid surrounding him began to drain.

 

He was awake. He was alive. They didn’t care.

 

The assistant turned back towards the chair, eyes never focusing on Mark; she didn’t even bother to acknowledge he was in there. Dr. Calloway never even looked in his direction, still focused on his datapad. 

 

Then Mark watched as the chair containing his lifeless body tilted upwards and released the restraints. He watched himself slide off the chair and disappear into the floor like waste to be discarded.

 

Mark’s vision wavered as the last of the fluid spiraled down the drain.

 

The walls blurred, edges dissolving. Thoughts felt slow, thick, like he was sinking. Mark tried to hold on, to remember why he felt so panicked. He was forgetting something. Something important, but the thought was already gone.

 

Blackness creeping in, he watched two blurry figures move away. Then darkness swallowed him, and there was silence.