Sunshine…Part Two.

There’s a lot of darkness.

Flashes of lightning in the darkness.

The thing is I know what they’re doing.

Trying to bring me back…I’ve been through this twice…

There’s something there…going on outside of me, busy like.

Then there’s the familiar kiss of painkillers.

More darkness.

………………………………..................It’s still dark but I hear Rachel crying…I can hear my kids….grandkids.

“I’m sorry Ma’am he’s in a coma there’s nothing we can do.”

“Nothing…?”

~Rachel?~

“No, we’re not authorized to do more.”

“What? What do you mean not authorized.”

“He went in after he was retired Ma’am he gave up his rights to Firefighter healthcare insurances when he retired.”

“But he went in to help isn’t there a waiver of stuff when he got recalled?”

“There’s a waiver that says he can help and that he cannot sue if he’s hurt or that others can’t sue him in pursuit of his duties. But he wasn’t insured and the coverage you have will not cover his life support treatments.”

“But…”

“I’m sorry Ma’am.”

~Asshole, money grubbing pencil pusher…~

“What about his life insurance?”

“That claim won’t be valid either ma’am as far as I know, but you’ll still get his pension.”

~Hey…Hey!…mark it off as in the line of duty…~

“That won’t save him!”

“Nothing will ma’am.”

“God…I’ll never get out of this hole…damn you Joel!, just dammit!”

~I’m sorry honey…I’m sorry…I had to save her.~

~I never meant to leave you like this.~

“Ma’am there is one thing…”

“What?”

“There’s a medical bio-tech company that is affiliated with your husbands cyber ware. They will pay you for his body.”

“What?”

~No…hell no, Rachel bury me…pull the damned plug and bury me.~

“They’re studying the real life long term effects of the cyber systems on a human body, they will pay for him.”

“How much…”

~What!!! No!, no, no, no…dammit listen to me! I don’t want this.~

“Seventy thousand dead, half a million…alive.”

“What!?”

~No!!!~

“They can collect huge amounts of data by monitoring his systems and trying out others while his body is still alive.”

“But Joel’s still alive.”

“He’s brain dead Ma’am there’s no activity there.”

~Yes there is!, there is dammit! I’m thinking right now!…beep…come on you fucking machine beep!~

“It’s you best option Ma’am, given your situation.”

“But…”

“Ma’am think of it as organ donation, or donating is body to science to help others.”

“But…”

“With the lurch he left you in Ma’am, you have to take the offer…Joel would’ve wanted it this way.”

~Like Hell!, You don’t ever use my name asshole! Don’t you ever!…Please Rachel…please baby…no…~

“Alright…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’ll lose everything with these bills if I don’t.”

“Right this way, I’ll get the paperwork started….orderlies you get him prepped to be shipped out.”

“Let me say goodbye first…”

~Rachel…please…~

I sense her, I do and I can barely feel her kiss…but she’s closer…I think I can smell her…I feel something wet hitting my face…over and over.

I’m screaming inside trying to wake, to move or twitch…I want to touch her one last time, see her one last time so badly!

“Goodbye Joel…I love you.”

~Rachel!!!….God…Please…? God?….I love you too!~

Then she’s gone.

I hear voices…”Hook him back up and get him out of here.”

“His brain was still going?”

“He’s not going to make it…and I get twenty percent finders fee for these living lumps.”

“Dude’s a firefighter, a hero.”

“He’s hamburger, look at him….who’d want him?”

“His wife?”

“And he’d still die and she’d really be fucked…just leave the woman alone, it’s for the best.”

“He’s really not going to come out of it?”

“No, they won’t let him…besides there’d be zero-quality of life.”

“That’s not fair man…”

“Life’s not fair, I’ll cut you in for twenty five thou.”

“Okay…Life jut got a little more fair.”

I’m trying to scream, trying to move and fight because I’m still here dammit…

I’m still here!

~Please…don’t let them do this! Someone!…Anyone!?~

~Help….~

I feel the sweet lull of the painkillers pulling me down, down, down into the darkness…

Sunshine…Part Three.

I don’t know how long I’m in the darkness but I’m not really all there either…the drugs…I know their drugs are keeping me under…and I sleep deep but it’s ever deeper than the sleep I remember that real sleep was.

I do remember the cold!

Cold unlike anything I can ever describe and it was not just outside of me, but seeping inside of me too.

This wasn’t drugged blackness but a hell I have never known.

I can very slowly feel myself losing my mind…they say your brain doesn’t stop but it does once you’re here…everything gets played and replayed and everything is so slow…actually thinking so slowly forming thoughts feels like hours.

That’s when It gets too hard and I stop, and here when you stop you just…I know that I’m losing it and forgetting things, places, people…even me.

I’m so tired.

………………………………....................

………………………………....................

“We’re thawing this one out too?”

~I’m awake? I hear voices, pins and needles and fire fill me.~

“Yeah, some kind of new tech deal.”

~Different voice, two people….men.~

“Nano-remodeling.”

~Three people, this one sounds older.~

“Yeah they’re working on the crispy critters here to see if it’ll work.”

~I don’t understand, I don’t remember…ow this hurts.~

Older voice. “Don’t be crass, we bought these subjects to better understand the exact methodology to run the nano-remodeling. And be careful this man’s a hero. A firefighter.”

“Okay, okay so who are the other ones?”

“Burn victims, suicide attempts, others that were sold to us.”

“Hey I read about this one, didn’t they get doused in oil and set fire?”

“Yes, we’re here to try and help all of them. Get them thawed and stabilized for the process.”

~I hear footsteps leaving but two others still hear.~

~My brain hurts.~

It slowly becomes different, there’s other pains and aches, aches as deep as they go. I’m scared this is very scary.

I don’t know where I am, who I am or what’s going on. Part of me knows it’s a medical place, part of me knows what nano tech is and that they’re using it to fix me? Others?

I know I was sold to these people.

I know I’m at their mercy.

I’m so, so scared.

……………………………….........

……………………………….........

***Sonya…

“Miss Thompson?”

Ow…my ears sort of hurt…I’m not used to hearing again.

“Miss Thompson?”

Someone touches my eyelids and their fingers feel like sandpaper and there’s a light as my eye gets opened and I scream, or try to scream but my throat isn’t used to being used and I barely sound human.

But it forces me to move and writhe and twist on the bed.

Everything is pain.

“Grab her!, hold her down she’s going into shock!”

“Why? What the hell’s going on doctor!?”

“She’s been in cryo for ten years and an induced coma before that it’s sense dep shock.”

“Sense dep?”

“No sensory input at all.”

“Oh God!”

“No, more like hell it’s why we’re doing this, they were slotted and held for parts.”

“For parts?”

“If the donors are still alive their organs are always in better shape for transplanting.”

“Alive…”

“Yes, the ones here when Chimera corp. went belly up had viable brainwaves.”

“Viable…”

“They might have recovered consciousness it treated right.”

“Oh my god so she’s….?”

“Been alive and semi functioning with no input for two and a half decades.”

“Will they be sane?”

“I don’t know if any of them will.”

I feel the bite of a needle twice.

The pain fades but the darkness doesn’t come just…the pain fading…

*** Joel…

Everything hurts when I’m awake.

“Joel? Joel? Can you here me?”

Everything hurts worse as I try to move.

“Yeah…” My voice is screwed.

I look around.

There’s a nurse there looking at me or I think she’s a nurse the scrubs look different with this under tunic to them.

“I feel really hung over.”

“That’s system crash, you ‘ve been swarmed.”

“Swarmed?” She passes me water and I take it sipping it. “Oh holy fuck…water’s never tasted this good before.”

“Language mister you’re still in a hospital.”

“Sorry Miss?”

“I’m Kelly, like I was going to say you were swarmed. That’s nano-rebuilt.”

“Oh sounds major, I thought nano-tech wasn’t that evolved yet?”

“Not twenty years ago, so you remember everything?”

“No, just kinda knew that. Heck I’m not sure that Joel’s even my name.”

“That’s something we couldn’t fix”

I nod but take another savoring sip. “So why? Can you explain all of this Kelly?”

“Okay just close to twenty five years ago you were a newly retired firefighter and had been badly injured and nearly killed. You saved a lot of people to in that ire Joel or it says so in your file.”

“Okay.” That’s a good thing…so far not hating this. I have to set the water bottle down….I’m so weak that I’m shaking.

“The HMO officer was dirty at the hospital and he had pushed your wife into signing you over to this company called Chimera Corporation that were collecting people in your situations where there was loopholes in their coverage or in some cases no one there as next of kin and they kept you all on ice until they could sell you all off as parts.”

“Where’s my wife?”

“I’m sorry Joel she passed away eight years ago, but we’ve tried to contact our children.”

“Okay?”

“Okay? Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Oh I’m sure I’m not alright, it’s likely going to hit me later but right now being empty header’s the only thing from me freaking out. Did these people get stopped?”

“Oh yes they were defuncted eleven years ago. But all of you were in facilities all over the globe.”

“So why aren’t we just dead this has to cost a fortune.”

“Truth is Joel it’s all experimental, it’s part nano-tech and part cloning using stem cells we’ve guided into using the nano’s to rebuild all of you.”

“All of us?”

“Nearly a thousand people all told have come out of this relatively unscathed.”

“Relatively unscathed?”

“Some people like you were in induced coma’s then cryo’d for as long a time. Some have had memory loss like you where there stuff buried deep as the brain was saving itself, others went crazy and we’re not sure if they’ll pull out of it, others are completely blank slates and some just are stuck there in a deeply vegetative state.”

“Shit…anybody remember stuff?”

“Only the youngest ones put on ice, five years plus seems to be the memory, mental line.”

“And we’ve been saved why?”

“Technically it’s a military experiment, they want to see how good the swarming tech works for the soldiers. “

“And they used us as guinea pigs?”

“Yes but they’re also footing the bills including recovery and physiotherapy.”

“That’s why I’m so weak?”

“Yes you’re really, really thin Joel from the rebuild, they harvest a lot of parts off of you and most of you is brand new.”

“And new enough that I’ve never worked or worked out even.”

“Exactly, which is why you’re going o be a good boy and do the stuff I tell you too until you’re better got it?”

I fire her a weak salute. “Yes Ma’am.”

…………I’m really weak as things go and it took about three days to get off the catheter and things going enough to use a walker to go from my bed to the bathroom. I’m six feet tall and I’ve got coppery hints in brown hair and green eyes I’m not a bad looking guy either passing for mid twenties instead of my ninety one years.

I feel ninety one right now though.

My age, or body age is a miracle one they’re hoping will hold out, lots of tests…there’s more than just the military involved with this…swarming might lead to human rejuvination.

Who knows what the serious extension of the human shelf life will do to people. I’m so not used to anything like this. Little things are just gone…like my favorite foods, sports…shaving was hard until I figured out I was left-handed.

Very weird to have forgotten you’re left handed.

I’m on the computer when not resting, and I need to rest with the physiotherapy I’m going through. They say that it must have been there being so much harvested that I’m so thin…I look like a famine version of myself. Okay according to things I’ve been looking up a famine version of my college self.

Apparently there’s a whole degree in physical education I have and don’t remember. I was apparently going towards semi-pro hockey and coaching when my folks died in a fire that spurred me into changing tracks. Nothing it’s all just blank.

But I’ve apparently been given several serious awards and commendations during my forty years on the fire department.

Forty years…I don’t feel that inside, I guess it’s from losing everything…My body though, these are going to be long days.

My kids are coming into see me tomorrow and It’s a little scary and freaky, they’re seniors now and I’m in my mid-twenties. And I don’t remember any of them.

Ho-boy…

Sunshine…Part Four.

Sonya…

Sonya Thompson.

They said that was my name and I guess I believe them. I know it sounds strange and paranoid but the things I’ve heard while I was waking up…Nano-remodelling, and bad companies and being asleep…well in a coma for so long.

Nightmares of fire, of burning aren’t helping me and the fact that they said that someone had set me on fire?

Well there’s a good reason for the nightmares.

But the memory loss is a killer too. I’ve got it really bad, they’re telling me that I’m lucky that I’m not a vegetable like some of the others.

But my physiotherapy is hard, not only am I so weak that it’s scary everything feels strange and alien. I mean even the way the breeze feels on my skin doesn’t feel familiar to me.

They’re paying for us and that’s good I guess but I’m really leery of strangers bearing gifts.

I think the most disturbing thing over the last few months besides re-learning everything is that they let us have access to computers and the net and I looked myself up.

No wonder I’m getting looks from people as I’m getting better, I know I’m very, very good looking I’m filled back out with the diets that they’ve had us on and I’m. five nine, leggy, slender with a nice neck and long graceful arms and I’m very curvy and on my way to maybe my old bust size of 38DD.

But I was an actress, or I was an actress mostly as a kid and a teenager and from the sites and the old news clippings I was really messed up. I was in this huge fire in this immigrant housing complex as a kid and orphaned because of it. They say my family were drug dealers and into the whole gangland thing too. It must have really screwed me up because there’s this long list of shitty semi-famous relationships and drug charges, drinking and riving and then if all of that wasn’t bad enough I went from mainstream actress because of the bullshit I was in all the time I guess to being a porn star.

I’ve watched myself, both in acting and in the porn stuff and…

While I don’t remember being so fucked up I feel it. I feel like there’s something wrong inside of me just waiting to break or something like I’m glass inside or something.

I’m clean so that’s good after being such an addict before but while I’m not craving whatever I was into I feel that telltale fragility that seems to be part of the make up of an addict.

And the porn…lets just say that I did everything and while my brain doesn’t remember my body seems too and some of the movies that I’ve made…they still turn me on.

And I don’t remember any of it.

What a messed up way to discover yourself.

And I think it’s more than a little awkward that some of the staff here has obviously looked me up. Or had been fans since nothing ever dies on the net.

Thankfully I don’t remember Harrison.

Harrison Wheeler the man I had been seeing who was this drug dealer to the stars and into the whole porn star industry…my ex. The guy that had apparently beat me a lot and had gone too far one night and doused me in lighter fluid and lit me on fire.

Karma’s a motherfucker though. While I was under apparent he died of some bad news venereal disease called Kemper, some kind of spore infection that swells and chokes off the sex organs.

They had to castrate him before he died of it.

Sadly at the time there were no cures they could only amputate before it spread and started to clog the lungs or the heart. It got to his lungs and he died suffocating.

Poetic justice if you ask me but it doesn’t kill the nightmares.

I can remember in my dreams burning…actually seeing my hand on fire…pop…pop…sizzle and the sound of fire and the feeling of the smoke in my lungs.

It’s really not fun being in this shape and bolting upright in bed in the middle of the night screaming. At least now in more or less private quarters and of the machines and monitors I’m not having a bunch or nurses running in and everything.

I end up tying off the bag in the trashcan beside my bed and get up and shakily make my way to the bathroom. I’m getting more and more used to seeing myself in the mirror now it’s not so alien seeming to me and the clear and perfect skin doesn’t contrast as bad with the nightmares and the expectation of burn scars.

I brush my teeth and use the mouthwash and get undressed the rest of the way shedding my sleep bra and panties and step into the shower. Taking a shower is one of life’s little pleasures really for me. And no not in that kinky shower head kind of way but actually soaping my breasts is very soothing and sort of erotic for me. Only sort of well because their breasts and they like the attention but more soothing really and I love the feeling of the shower on my back and the almost massage like feeling it has when my scalp is under the spray.

So thinking about cutting my hair though. Long hair is a pain in the ass really and there are times that I’m so sick of it but there’s others when it’s really nice and its part of why the men stare at me.

I know, I know I’m good looking even if that doesn’t register experience wise or maybe it’s some subconscious porn thing. My shrink thinks so or it’s just damage that’s why my memory is shot on the most basic stuff.

I wash it and then I towel it and while it’s still damp I use the blow dryer and brushes and combs and get it looking halfway descent ay least while I let my body air dry.

I get dressed and struggle my way into a sports bra. Yes I’m not used to them but I really need one if I’m going to go and work out. I get dressed in a decent top and a pair of yoga pants and I head out with a bottle of water to the facilities open gym.

I’m still kind of amazed at just how thin some of the clothes that I’ve been given are. I swear I feel pretty naked sometimes. It’s so strange having so much of your mind wiped out. It’s actually scary as hell really with other people and in my case being sort of semi famous being able to see stuff about me but not me anymore of the net.

I go slowly at first with my physio routine and some slow stretches to warm up and the a walk to start with on the treadmill then a light jog for awhile and it really pushes it me maybe a bit much too and after about ten minutes of that I’m done in.

I really hate feeling like this, I mean when you really lightly jog for just a little while and you’re done in for at least five minutes trying to catch your breath and wiping away sweat.

I know, I’m lucky I’m not a vegetable. There’s people here still on machines and will never be off of them. I’m at least able to get around now. Next is the elliptical machine that really helps with the whole muscle groups for climbing stairs and stuff. That’s another thing that’s still hard going for me. And to finish things and myself off I do a little weight training before I drag myself to the snack area and sit down after getting an almond-soy salad and a mixed juice shake thing that’s good for me and heavily masked from the icky stuff by lots of kiwi.

I sit down at a table not too far from one of the other girls Mandy Pine and sip at stuff. Mandy smiles a bit and is looking as worn out as I am.

“Rough one?”

She nods eating something that resembles meat I think. I’m a vegetarian or so my bio has said and I’m trying to stick to it. Besides with the supplements and other stuff like in my smoothie I’m not missing out.

Aside from the fact I can smell that she’s eating something that had the distinct smell of bacon.

That’s really just.

“Want some?” She offers and I shake my head.

“No thanks I’m really trying to stick to what I used to do, it might jog something loose. Besides I’m getting lots of protein as it is.”

She nods. “Yeah it’s not the protein hon it’s all the other stuff. I’ve got a whole new lease on life and I was like you the last time and denied myself stuff thinking it’d make me stay young or pretty or thin and it never really do much other than make me miserable. Now the memory thing…that’s like the best reason to keep it up I’ve ever heard. I hope it works.”

“Me too because that smells really good.”

She laughs and a few others join us. Some are patients and some are staff we’re slowly all sort of socially blending together like this. I’m eating when I see this guy. Short cut blonde hair about early twenties and wearing a bracelet like the rest of us wear. I usually don’t pay attention to people, well guys and, well you know in the attracted way. I’ve got too much going on for that.

But he’s drawing my eye for sure.

Tall at six one or six two. He’s thin from the remodel/remake and yet he’s filling out really, really nicely he must be working hard at it and he sits down and he looks just so…lost in his head? I know we’re all sort of like that but he really has the look bad.

“Hey Mandy? Who’s the hunk?”

She looks at him then she looks him over and I’m not sure if I’m having the paws off I saw him first reaction or not? There’s just something that draws me to him and something so familiar about him. She shrugs. “I dunno but I’d like to know.”

One of the nurses looks at me.

“That’s Joel; he’s an absolute bonafide hero.”
“Hero?” I look at her then him and then her. “Okay I’m intrigued, how so?”

“He’s an ex-firefighter and he’s got a lot of awards for saving peoples lives and stuff.”

I look at him again. Okay it’s in my head right? Just knowing that drawing me in more?

She’s staring at me looking at him. “What?”

“You two actually have a connection.”

“What? Is he one of my ex’s?” I don’t remember any firemen in my bio.

“No, it’s in your file. He was nearly burned to death saving you when you were like just a kid. Its how he ended up in here too he was one of the first cryo-victims.”

Oh…

I remember reading about that…

And something clicks in my brain. Just this snippet of…

~You are my sunshine…My only sunshine…~

Oh…

There’s tears suddenly running down my face.

I did this to him?

*** Joel……………………….

Well that was a really awkward and shitty morning. My family showed up the whole bunch that was still in the region and there were my kids and grand kids and even a couple of great grand kids.

It was more than I thought might show and it was strained to say the very least. My grand kids and great grand kids were okay with then not really knowing me too much since the whole thing had happened and the in the case of my great grand children I was just a story and stuff.

But my kids it was hard because they’re old, they’re old and they’re grey and collecting social security for heavens sake. And yet there was nothing there. It was like meeting a bunch of strangers that were telling me things about me that just didn’t click anywhere in my head and I could tell that they were getting upset and disappointed but I just can’t help it. It’s all gone and I can’t remember what isn’t there.

But human nature being human nature they kept seeming like they thought the more that they talked about stuff that those memories would just magically materialize in my head and we’d just pick right off where things had left off.

And when they didn’t it turned into blame.

Blaming me for going into a place I had no business going into. That I was retired and that I was breaking the laws. That I broke my family because of that and the fact that all my benefits and other things that should have gone to my wife and then didn’t because of what I did.

Nothing like catching hell for stuff that you can’t remember. I’m literally not that guy any more and that pissed them off or hurt them more and it just got to the point were they just up and left.

Some of the in-laws and the great grand kids and grand kids left me their contact information and stuff but not all of them and it was just.

It was just really awkward and shitty really.

And the whole thing had sat heavy in my head and just kind of drained any fight or energy out of me during me rehab sessions. Stuff like having that happen to you just made every thing I was trying to do or they were trying to do just seem ten times as hard.

And it didn’t get me any sympathy either from the others since I was one of the only people who came out of this with any family to speak of so there was really no one that I could talk to about how much this hurt and stuff without getting on someone’s nerves.

Lonely hurtful shit really.

And I guess it was a good thing that they left because I was sort of getting sick of catching hell for something for as far as I’m concerned a stranger ended up doing.

Fucking sigh.

Sometimes life just seems to want to kick you over and over again just to see how much you can take before you end up screaming from the inside out and curling into the fetal position.

I’m done for the day except the massage torture and some pool time but first some lunch and a break. I get a salad because I usually like something crunchy and green. I go with the Greek one with the spinach but also I like it seems feta and olives too and I get two big cheese burgers with bacon and lots of cooked down onions on them and a super smoothie thing and a thing of yogurt for dessert and I’m wolfing down my first burger in that eye rolling into the back of my skull sooo good craving way. My body is still starving I swear and I’m chewing away when I’m getting checked out by a bunch of the girls. Some are patients and some are nurses and I try a smile with them and finger wave with burger in hand to them. Women still make me nervous, it’s gone back to the I have no idea what I’m doing with them thing all over again.

Well I was married, widower now I guess and even if I did remember I’d still likely be so out of practice with interacting with them on this level I’d flop it anyway.

I look down and take another bite feeling a bit guilty now too.

I mean I should feel guilty since all the stuff with my wife and all of the things that I lost right? Am I doing her a disservice?

But I don’t remember her.

I take another short look up and there’s this stunning blonde woman/girl with really model like looks and really nice breasts…hey they stand out and I can’t help but to notice them especially on her cryo-thinned frame.

But then I notice she’s sort of gone pale and spaced out yet staring at me and she’s crying?

Shit…what did I do now?

Sunshine…Part Five.

*** Joel……….

I stop eating and look over at the stunning young lady that’s looking at me and she’s crying. I get up and wipe off my mouth and grab my tray and I walk over to where she’s at and I set my tray down at the table that’s just beside theirs.

“Hey…are you okay?”

She’s still staring at me and it takes a second to have her register that I actually said something to her.

She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands and nods then looks at me. “Yes sir…they just told me who you were.”

“I…Oh…you’re her?”

She nods tearing up again and smiling. “Yeah…I’m…I’m Sonya…” she offers her hand openly not as shy as you’d expect and she’s smiling at me.

Oh goddamn she has this amazing sweet smile that to me feels like she lit up the room and made all the stuff with my kids and all just suck not as bad right now.

“You really should just call me Joel.”

“Okay.”

Damned me that smile again. Shit this girl is a serious heartbreaker. Okay I heard porn star and bad relationship magnet but the girl that she might have been and the girl that she actually is now sitting here is different now…a fresh slate.

“You were upset?”

She nods. “Sort of…I…I remembered you singing to me that song…”

I nod. “I sort of remember that too, it’s fuzzy but it’s still just like one of my last memories I guess.”

“I don’t really remember much either…” She’s frowning at her food tray. “Honestly I’m kind of happy about that a little.”

I sit and nod grabbing my burger again. “Oh I so get that…I don’t remember stuff and I had my family show up with the whole deal and I don’t really know them, or remember them and then there’s the stuff about being married.”

She looks at me. “Married?”

“Widower, but yeah…I had a wife that I can’t remember so…I should be like in mourning but it’s just not there and I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or not.”

She nods along but it the in sympathy kind of nod while she’s taking a drink. “My one blessing I guess…I don’t have anybody to come and see me or stress me out and stuff.”

I look at Sonya. “But it also means you don’t have anyone that misses you either.”

She wipes at her eyes again. “That could be a blessing too Joel seeing how great I turned out the first time around.”

I really, really can’t help myself and I reach over to her and rub her back and lean over to look her in the face.

*Sonya……….

I almost jump when he touches me. It’s not scary but its unexpected human contact and once he’s there though it feels good. Actually it feels soothing like he’s winding me down from me losing it even more.

Sometimes honestly I can get why I was a basket case.

Just thinking about the person I used to be and how messed up I used to be and what I used to do for a living…everything that I’ve read about me.

Yeah there’s nothing like getting to know yourself than second or third hand information.

It just seems to hit me though in this way that makes me hurt…makes me scared and wondering…can memory loss actually change who you are or am I just a time
bomb waiting to go off of all the stuff that made me the person I used to be?

Joel leans over and he looks at me. Like person to person right in the eyes looking at you the way you’d expect from a hero like him to do…still do.

“Hey…Sunshine…it’s a fresh start now.”

“Really Joel? Really or is it just us not being able to remember shit that’s still us?”

He smiles. And honestly I knew he was like retirement age when he was hurt saving me but he’s a young man right now with that old soul and he’s…I have no way in my brain to put the way that his eyes and his smile and him trying to make me feel better is making me feel.

Warm…?

Warm inside like emotionally warm and safe…god safe is feeling good. Is this what a normal female to male non-professional reaction’s like?

His smile is making me cry.

He moves the table in front of him making it squeal on the tiles and he pulls me over to him just like that and into his lap now that there’s room.

“Yes, really Sonya…it’s a fresh start, a clean slate if we let it be okay.”

“Really…just like that…it’s okay?”

He hugs me tighter and rests his head beside mine. “Sunshine…even if it’s not I still got you.”

I…

I can’t control my feelings, if it’s just being me or being screwed up from before I just can’t and Joel doing that has me bawling.

(Snuffling-whine.) “Promise…fuck Joel I don’t…I don’t have no one else…”

He moves on of his arms so one of his hands is free and he hooks my pinky with his…

“I promise.”

Sunshine…Part Six.

*Sonya…………

It was really one of those firefighter right down to his soul things... him coming over to talk to me or rather talk me down out of this funk memory not memory kind of freak out sort of thing.

He calls me Sunshine.

Joel…

He makes me smile when I think smiling is the hardest thing to do in the world.

“It’ll be alright sunshine even if it isn’t.”

Who can have someone sit there and hold you and pinky swear with you and not have their heart breaking?

And it’s easily I think the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I had some of the girls take me back to my quarters after lunch and I’ll be honest I took a long shower as hot as I could get it and rubbed my self off thinking about Joel that much that I almost tore down my shower curtain by accident and after that I went to bed barely dry and curled up around my pillows and I bawled.

It was actually a very good cry. It was that there’s something right and bright and normal in my life right now and that’s Joel.

It was actually the next day at breakfast when I seen him again and we almost instantly settled into being beside each other in the line for food. I smile and blush at him. “Y’know this is odd and a little bent really but I kind of like not knowing anything right now.”

Joel looks at me. “Really, I’m not seeing the bonuses that well I guess.”

“Well it’s like looking at my file. I was kind of off the rails most of my life and I didn’t see anything about schooling so I’m going to assume that this here might be as close to talking to a nice boy in the cafeteria as I’m ever going to get.”

I blush right after that…I might have been all sorts of crazy and trampy before but I’m not now…despite a lot of urges and being that forward is kind of embarrassing and…

“Sonya…?”

“Hmm?”

“You okay you had a strange look there.”

“I…I felt something.”

“Like?”

“Well I was…. (I blush more) blushing from being flirty and there was this odd sensation of like wistful done this before sort of…?”

“Déjá -Vu?”

“More like Déjá -Nostalgia…”

He smiled and he nodded. “I’ve sort of felt that way too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s pretty weird huh?”

“Definitely.”

We eat together most days and most meals. I can’t help myself really and my therapist says it’s perfectly normal given our shared pasts and that I might be holding a torch for Joel sort of out of hero worship.

Yeah I can see that.

The routine gets to be routine after awhile, blood tests and scans, then physio and then time sort of learning stuff. It’s acclimation they say getting us up to speed over the time that we missed and stuff but for me it’s a chance to actually use this to get an education.

But even as the weeks of being awake turn into a few months it’s still Joel that’s in my thoughts.

It’s my fault really.

Masturbating and thinking of Joel might have been the best and worst thing that’s happened to me since waking up.

We were getting so close that I looked forward to seeing him every day and that made me feel all warm inside and we get along really well and he’s doing things that make it even better. Like carrying my food trays or opening doors or even just spending time together.

And him looking at me like I’m a woman…I know he was married and stuff and there’s the things with him and his family that are rocky to almost non existent except the grand children and great grand kids who are sort of interested in him….but…it’s been a long time since he’s been laid.

And I’m a virgin again but one that’s getting to discover herself more and more as I heal and get better.

I swear that I was feeding my hips and my butt and my boobs at least three quarters of the calories I was taking in. I stepped up the work outs too because I’m finding myself a little vain about it.

Again my therapist says that’s normal and it’s my instincts kicking in.

But the first time I really, really explored myself after watching some of my old films on the computer I was very…I wanted that guy…those guys to be Joel.

And after my first heavy self sexual experience I learned another thing about myself. I like sex…I love sex and I’ve found myself thinking about Joel and me all the time. It’s all kind of heavy crushing and stuff on a guy but y’know it’s also nice.

As sexual as I’ve found myself all my dreams and fantasies have been about him and not some of the other guys.

I’m still awkward and no really good at getting hit on though.

Actually I really suck at it and it makes me wonder if the old me slept around because it was just easier?

But I can also see where my therapist has talked to me about my past and the whole need I had to cause chaos in my life because that was the state of my childhood.

Lot’s to think about.

*Joel…………

Things have been going really good and really slowly with Sonya.

I really am finding myself liking her more and more and more despite me trying to think of being the guy that does the right thing.

The right thing being that she has this thing about me where I saved her as a child.

But that’s falling apart.

She’s funny and she’s fun to be with and she’s really sort of restful and calm too. I mean I know women…not that I remember me and my wife but there’s just stuff that is there sort of and women or some of them can be….dramatic.

Sonya is not dramatic she’s just…

And then there’s the fact as we’re going through things and recovering from the rejuv process we’re putting on the stuff that the treatment sort of used…ate.

And who in their right mind wouldn’t be attracted to a long legged woman with a tiny waist and a full set of hips and an incredible ass…sorry but it really is and she’d very well stack…uhm endowed with E cups now.

Add it she’s just plain nice and beautiful in that Soviet/Slavic/Northern Euro ash blonde with long straight hair and blue eyes.

And like I’ve said restful, calm…I’ve been hard as hell around her with no more control that a high school kid with a puberty boner and she’s been turned on too and we’re close but there’s this whole she’s older than she is thing…even though I’m a lot older than kind of let’s us just let those too horny moments slide and we just sort of keep going being Us and getting to know each other and ourselves.

Speaking though about the Rejuv.

I can’t help it I’m nosey and I ask questions.

Some I get answers too and some I don’t.

Like the military applications for the rejuvenation process and it’s really hushed up but from what I’ve heard…discreetly and what I’ve seen from some of the military lab techs that it’s not as promising as they have hoped.

One thing for certain because they’ve tested it on my with my go ahead in exchange for some legal perks from the outside that rejuvenation is not regeneration. Things do not get rebuilt as they were.

It’s all new tissue and that new tissue needs to be you might as well say brought up to speed. Like the new parts are that new they act like atrophied parts that have been immobile too long.

They’ve never really said but it looks like it’s going to be useless the way they wanted it on the battlefield.

Now my two cent’s is that they’re now looking at life extension with this. If it does to them what it did to the rest of us then it will regenerate dead tissues and damaged stuff.

It did that with us and the reason I think we here have had such a hard time with this is that we were used by that other company for body chop shop organ sales and that mixed with being under cryo for so long.

And that’s the thing we have figured out with the memory loss.

The brain stores information chemically and it’s like a battery as much as it’s like a computer. With the power down to nearly nil on some people they just simply lost their charge in their heads.

And I volunteered in that one too…it’s worked towards me getting more information on the stuff I mentioned earlier. They’ve pumped me up with brain meds and chemicals and stuff trying to jump start my brain through stuff like epinephrine and serotonin and all those other things but other than some freaky dreams and a whole lot of mood swings nothing.

Well nothing for me but they did lock onto a dosage that woke some of the zoned out wiped ones and they acted like newborns when they did trip to being awake. Yeah crying and bawling and everything their brains reset to zero.

The déjá  vu stuff?

As best we can figure its chemical brain stain. The old parts not completely made over were exposed to all of our thoughts and feelings but that’s all gone with the memory wipe now the thing is when we have something happen now that produces an reaction in our brains like something we experienced before then we get that feeling.

We’re actually getting moved now.

They’re sure the nano’s are gone and that we won’t die if exposed to some random signal of something that would cause them to misfire or even be contagious but they still want us around for awhile yet to watch out for long term changes and side effects.

So we’re being set up on a whole new site at Berkeley University and we’ll be given an allowance in addition to being able to try to live our lives again. There’s a mountain load of non-disclosure stuff to sign but we’re finally getting out of there.

Great right?

Well…I’m not allowed to go back to Firefighting, that’s pretty much a no no with the project and likely the fire department too. I’m not allowed to go into law enforcement either for the same reasons.

I used the legal team that they set me up with sort of to look into the whole thing with the people who illegally bough pieces of me. Most of them are dead, some are old and the original company that did it was long defunct.

What did come out of it was a pay off from the company that was re-insuring the insurance company that was working the scam with the bio-tech company that did this to us and while I wasn’t allowed to personally go after them legally since there would be issues of how I’m hale and whole they were charged by the government…after I made a lot of requests to the project heads and made myself basically a pain in the ass until they charged them as accessories and made them settle.

There was a nice little nest egg for all of us out of that.

Mine…Mine went to the family. I set up trusts for my grand children and great grand children, paid off some house payments for some of them too. My kids…I sent them checks to spend as they wanted because really at their ages they could spend it on whatever they wanted.

Some more went to the firefighters in my old station anonymously and the rest I spent. I wanted a car and I wanted some guitars even though I don’t know how to play and the rest went into an emergency account if I ever got really broke.

The thing is really what can I and what do I want to do with my life now?

I smile as I heard Sonya swearing in the hallway and grunting and stick my head out of my apartment and see her fighting with a dolley and boxes.

“Hey Sunshine need a hand?”

She looks up and she lights up the place really when she smiles at me. “Joel! Please that would be really nice.”

I step out and pull my door closed to my place and head down to help her.

It’s slow…all of this is slow going and slow to get answers about all of this and as much as I’m worried…She somehow makes it better.

Like it’s her turn to be the one saving me.

Sunshine…Part 7.

Sunshine…Part Seven.

*Sonya…

We’ve been calling it Déjá -Nostalgia Joel and me. He’s been helping me move in and I’ve been helping him move in too and neither one of us really seem to have an idea of just what to do.

Coming back from what we had come back from scrambled us good but almost deep down neither of us feels like we were the whole skilled decorator types. Me I can probably pin that down to when I was in porn and making tons of money I likely had someone else do it.

Moving in was a pain and almost literally. I am a really endowed woman with full and firm breasts that well. I’m that tall long legged statuesque blonde with the boobs that don’t let her see her feet.

Handling boxes and stuff is kind of a pain in the butt when I really have issues holding things like some smaller breasted girls can. Well I can but it really gets pretty easy to jab a boob on the corner of something or poked by the tab of a box.

It’s the little stuff like that that kind of needs adjusting to. I mean if I’d grown up like this I’d know just what my body needs to move without looking like a klutz.

The walls are bullies, the corners are always plotting against me with the stairs and the floor is jealous of my cupboard doors.

You ever whack yourself in the head with the corner of your cupboard door by doing something and you forgot where it was or that it was open? Ow…

And I am a klutz, not a ditz though.

I love to read, actually that’s a lot of the things that I had to unpack was books. And despite the living in the holo-gram screen and terabyte age I still love books and they’re expensive too.

Then again I buy hardcovers. I love the weight of them and they look so good in my apartment on my shelves too.

Joel was a real sweetie and he helped me move in and we’ve been hanging out just as much out in the real world as we had in the facility.

I’m pretty much a full time student know and I’m getting my Graduated skills level one. That’s high school graduation or what it’s called now and I go to classes at the local educational center.

They don’t have high schools here anymore not in California they’ve melded the whole shebang together so that the little kids are being taught by not just teachers but those doing child care and learning to be teachers and so on. Most of the courses I’m taking are a mix of teens and the rest of us are people catching up.

Honestly I’m all for it. There’s like security and teachers and even other students that look out for the whole in appropriate age thing. So otherwise it’s good for the kids to have chances to learn and sort of work beside people of all races and ages.

And as good as I look I at the same time don’t overly stand out either. There are a lot of surgically modified people out there. Even some that are really altered, The asian countries apparently have gotten really good at cloning organs and stuff that they can say for instance give a girl a boob job by doing something to the cells in her breasts and as long as they’re fed some nutrient solution they’ll grow naturally.

It’s an outpatient thing too…they do tests make up your batch which I guess is breast tissue only? And they send you home with a specially padded bra that has an IV pump.

It was oddly fascinating so I looked it up. It’s also really expensive too and it’s a lot freaky to hear kids talking about getting their bodies paid off.

No thank you…not even when I get older, the one thing that I might do is get a reduction or something then.

I don’t know maybe it’s this whole second time around thing but I’ll be happy to have wrinkles and grey hairs when I get them.

I get out of class and talk to a few friends and then smile seeing Joel there waiting to pick me up. He’s been over at another part of the campus where he’s been taking several classes too but he’s taking art classes too but not like the study stuff but like with canvas and paints.

He’s actually pretty good with some of the stuff he’s done so far.

We’re still getting started up in our lives again though.

“Hey how were classes?” He asks reaching out and taking my book bag and putting in the back of the truck.

“Good I’m starting to get a handle on the math I think, though and swear there are times I feel my brain about to cramp from reaching so far.”

“Ouch.”

I side to side dizzy shake my head. “Like uhm…I’m like pretty sure that I never took like math before.”

He chuckles. “We’re you know for the whole Russian accent then?”

I look at him and put on my attempt at a stone faced pout. “Da, I deed not have to take mathamateeks before, I vas too beautiful and desired to need to do anything with such ting I had people for zat.”

He laughs and I laugh too and get into the truck with him and we drive to Silverlake market to go and hunt for dinner. We often just sort of buy stuff for supper together and cook and eat together too and the farmers market there is sort of a twenty four seven thing and its better eating too.

“Still can’t speak Russian yet?’

“Nope just a few words and numbers so far.” I’m taking it as one of my classes. Russian is not the easiest thing to learn either and reading and writing Cyrillic is just brain hurting kind of stuff.

We’re sort of dating now.

I mean we still live at our own places but we travel to school together and we shop and eat together but it’s more than that too. Working out in the gym in our building, doing laundry and well…

We’ve been sleeping together too.

Well not just sleeping.

It took about a month of us doing this semi-cohabitation thing before we finally ended up falling into each other. It was romantic and not. We were watching a romantic movie together and we both were enjoying it and we would kiss and make out during the commercials and stuff. When it got really steamy on the screen well we just got caught up in the moment.

Having my hymen broken for the second time really hurt. I mean the sex was good before and even after that but that part really hurt. And I’ll admit I was scared that the whole porn star actress old slut me would take over but it did and it didn’t.

I like sex…I like sex a LOT.

And I’m good at it and there’s nothing really that we haven’t tried that I don’t like. My fave is on our knees but standing on them with Joel taking me from behind and him reaching around and doing stuff to my breasts.

I think part of that is just because it looks cool and I like missionary…I love the intimate way that we get like that and being able to wrap my legs around him and he still has his hands and mouth….yeah I like sex.

But as much as that’s a thing I’m into it’s not the scary addiction thing that it was before I think. I like cuddling even more sometimes and I like the whole after sex snuggles and lots of other intimate stuff.

I love actually being able to give a decent massage for him. or the way that he picks up on when I’m cold and he’s not…so he’ll take the shirt off he’s wearing so I can wear it and it smells so nice and Joelly that it sort of makes my brain do a happy purr from that and the leftover body heat.

Or when he’ll lift his leg up off the couch a little and let me slip my feet under his leg when they’re chilly.

And in that sort of kinda way we can tell if something is new or not it’s new, it’s new enough that I can just tell that I’ve never had this before.

We get our food and head home it might sound odd but we’re having sardines, they’re fresh and a nice size and we get the man who sells them to do them up. He cleans them but leaves the heads on and then there’s olive oil and chilies with lots of sea salt like a scoop of it and lemon zest and black pepper corns and they almost semi cure on the way home.

We have most of our greens at home out on the planters we started out on the railings of our balconies (Growing food is sort of a trend now.) so we buy some freshly roasted yellow beets and we get some good olives and tomatoes.

Dinner for two with lots of it less than ten dollars. And we both like fish and its good for us so another plus as we cook them outside on his patio with a little charcoal grill. Joel though eats his though heads and bones and all. I’m not that brave.

Dessert is a bit more decadent so while he’s grilling I pour some custard into two ramekins and I make us some Creame Brule for dessert. I like mine nice and classic with just the cream and stuff while Joel likes his with just a hint of coffee flavor in the Creame and he likes some mixed into the sugar that goes on top.

I like cooking desserts for him and this is easy too. I mean it sounds like it might be hard but really it’s just kind of Jello-advanced. I can sort of bake cookies but cake and stuff like doughnuts are still out of my league. But watching him eat my desserts and the yay-happy-cool face makes me really happy when he does it.

Sunshine…Part 8.

*Joel…………

I was pretty broken really when I take the time to look at things after all has been sort of said and done with the research and stuff.

I’m actually lucky and thankful for the memory wipe too because without that taking off the edge I’d likely have gone nuts with everything that I’ve lost family wise and that I can’t do that I used to do.

I’m still pretty sure that even as blunted as it all is that alone I’d work myself into a bad place with all of the thinking that I’d do.

That I’d really, really dig myself into a hole with the why’s and what ifs.

That’s why when I roll over most mornings I marvel at where I am and who I’m with.

Sonya.

She’s my sunshine.

It’s the most screwed up connection when you think about it and the way our paths and our pasts have crossed.

She makes me happy.

I’ll roll over onto my side and I will watch her sleep and she looks so amazing. There are times though when the breath will just catch right in my chest.

Moonlit nights…we have this nice view here and theses really decent windows that flood the apartment with light and I will see her in our sheets naked…she always sleeps in the buff…but the sheets just so and the moonlight coming in on her she looks like one of those fairytale princesses and I want so, so much to give her that especially with the stuff she has going on in her head.

She’s still dealing with her past…she has something there too like me, the tiniest of fragments of things like the thing with us and the fire. She’s read the stuff on that and who she used to be and I know she’s dealing with that.

And she is.

God she’s really, really smart and tough…determined.

And sensual.

The second favorite time is right now.

Morning and when she’s still asleep but just on the verge of coming out of it and the California sunshine is coming in through the windows and she just seems to shine in the morning.

And I’m torn.

Make love to her in the morning or make breakfast.

Luckily for me I’m a multi-tasker.

I make coffee and preset it at night and I do the same with the microwave. I’m actually proud of myself with the microwave. I found these stackable dish-plates that have space between then and I have four things of like pancake crepe batter poured out on them and another for and omelet…egg with cream not milk some soft havarti cheese with the hot peppers in it she likes and some chives and some fresh thyme.

So…I look at my watch and smile and I move just enough to not wake her up until I’m well between her legs and I’m kissing her sex before treating her to oral sex in the morning.

I’m actually good at it and getting better and we’re still sort of like two horny teens with adult minds…Sonya is way more than reciprocal with me with the whole sex thing. I just actually love doing this for her and rocking her world with that warm rush of pleasure some mornings.

And some mornings I get away to get our coffees and some mornings like this morning she’s pulling me up her body.

“Joel, Joel…please…More…I want you deeper.”

It’s sex, its great sex and not a huge marathon but somewhere between a quickie and normal sex. It’s always good. I get a triple play this morning one for her by oral and two the old fashioned way before she get’s me to my own home run.

We spend a few minutes kissing before she goes to shower and I take a sheet and tie it around my waist and make breakfast. That’s just coffee and I get some ricotta and some berries from the fridge to fill the crepes and some sprouts for the center of the omelet and I nuke six slices of bacon while that is going and have it all set out by the time she’s out of the shower.

We smile and share the paper while eating together the patios doors open and the smells drifting in with the sun and the wind and just taking these perfect twenty minutes together to just be us.
Sonya does the dishes while I go get showered and then we’re both getting ready for our day.

**Sonya…………

Mmmm…and wow.

There are some mornings where Joel wakes me up and I’m so much more alive then I think that I’ve ever been.

Oh I do the same to him sometimes when I wake up and it’s this whole horned up teenager thing with us as well as this whole new and deep relationship thing.

He made me cum three times this morning…twice with his making love to me before he came…god I really love his stamina.

But I love the rest of the morning even more.

We have such a good thing now after everything that we’ve been through and everything that we’ve lost…him far more that me.

Me honestly I think I lost my mind in my other life with everything that I know about her…that other me and this reset me to being sane.

I don’t have that kind of damage that I had from the childhood stuff.

I even don’t mind doing stuff like the traditional women’s stuff like doing the dishes or housework. I mean Joel’s no slob and he’s not messy and we sort of share in the stuff but there really are times where I fall into this sort of daydream that one of these days I’m going to be his wife.

And that’s a really warm and fuzzy and happy dream.

I get dressed and go for my usual a nice simple dress. I like the freedom and the comfort plus I feel sexy in them.

Feeling sexy is good.

Not slutty, but I know that I’m a good looking woman even by today’s standards and those are really surgically assisted.

No I like some really nice underthings and I like thigh socks and stockings not together mind you and we live in California so it’s like it’s never really all that cold either so I go with short dresses the longest right around my knees and something cut in the bust to show off my breasts too.

And I’m getting used to being looked at and I mean they’re going to look anyways so I might as well have some fun out of it.

But the best parts are actually when I’m with Joel.

He has this eyes only for me look all the time and then there’s the way that other people look at him because I’m with him.

I love that he’s so proud that I’m with him.

That way that he is with me actually makes me feel so good and wanted and valued and there is still part of me that drinks that up like I’ve lived in an emotional desert.

He drives me to my classes and we take the time to stop in the parking lot and we kiss in the truck for awhile and we kiss at the doors of the school because he always walks me to the front doors and carries my backpack with my things in it and I get to skip into school half the time because he leaves me feeling over the moon.

And that’s the way it goes day after day and week after week. Oh it’s really boring and there’s no drama and we really don’t even fight that much. Little stuff…he does the whole range of guy stuff that has me complain to him sometimes.

Drinking the cartons nearly dry and putting them back.

Guy body stuff…okay I have to adjust my bra now and then but he’s a guy and he does the pass gas and belch and scratch and just sometimes in the worst times and places.

And he is forboden to do the laundry.

He has washed stuff that you don’t wash and he never checks pockets and sometimes he just dumps.

Actually he does that a lot. Did that a lot since I’ve taken him off laundry duty.

Oh I’m not saint either.

I watch the news all the time I’m a media junkie sometimes and he hates it when I use the pumice stone anywhere outside the bathroom and he has this whole aversion that’s funny almost about my feminine hygiene stuff.

And lord getting him to pick some of them up…lol. There’s a phone argument.

But we’re kind of boring now outside the lab and stuff and that’s a good thing really.

School’s hard but I’m not taking easy classes and I’m trying really hard to get my GED and I really want to pass Russian since I am that natively and it’s a long day even by lunch with us getting into the math parts and the more technical stuff.

It’s just frustrating me because I’m not in the habit of doing stuff like this.

It’s not because I’m dumb…I’m not, I’m not and I do have to kind of keep telling myself that.

God even without my memories there is so much emotional baggage with my past. I a smart girl wouldn’t been in the porn industry…right? It’s a struggle sometimes with my self worth.

Kind of makes it gratifying when I do well or actually understand something.

I get out for lunch break and I’m feeing pretty good actually. I score a seventeen out of twenty on the latest math pages and only got messed up on the Trigonometry stuff. I get my jacket and I’m headed down to the local deli corner store when I see.

Someone looking the wrong way…she doesn’t see the oncoming truck.

I see them hit and her car gets flipped and rolls and rolls and rolls.

I’m running towards her even before she comes to a stop.

I get there and it’s full of airbags and I try the door and it’s jammed and I dig through my purse for my nail file.

Modern cars have this gas bladder that is a safety feature for anti impacts by keeping the car frame under a pressure seal of sorts. It’s also able to be used if hit right to pop off parts of the car if you know where to pop the seals.

No…car thieves don’t use this because it takes more stuff than they have to put the parts back on.

I sink my nail file in and pop the seal and pull the door off and the side airbag hisses going flat. She looks freaked out and scared, maybe in shock.

“Are you alright!?” I ask her.

“No…I think I broke my arm.”

“Stay here, until the paramedics show…”
She nods and I take a few steps back..and…and…ow…ow…my head hurts and I’m sweating and I very suddenly need to use the garbage can.

Not good…PTSD?

So much for lunch.

Sunshine… Parts 9 and 10. The Finale

Part 9

*Joel………………..

It’s sex, its great sex and not a huge marathon but somewhere between a quickie and normal sex. It’s always good. I get a triple play this morning one for her by oral and two the old fashioned way before she gets me to my own home run.

We spend a few minutes kissing before she goes to shower and I take a sheet and tie it around my waist and make breakfast. That’s just coffee and I get some ricotta and some berries from the fridge to fill the crepes and some sprouts for the center of the omelet and I nuke six slices of bacon while that is going and have it all set out by the time she’s out of the shower.

We smile and share the paper while eating together the patios doors open and the smells drifting in with the sun and the wind and just taking these perfect twenty minutes together to just be us.
Sonya does the dishes while I go get showered and then we’re both getting ready for our day.

*And Now…

It’s hard not to be happy.

Sonya’s an absolute dream really she’s so nothing like anyone that I have been with in my life and no that’s not memories returning just feelings.

And yeah she can be really odd and quirky especially when it comes with her homework and how focused she gets about it. If you get to where you’re bugging her while she’s in paper writing or study mode she gets really irate.

Okay actually she’s really cute when she’s like that but I value my life and I’ll never tell her that.

And she’s not just obsessed with that but in learning Russian too.

And like things about it all and Russian history and I’m not really going to point out that she wasn’t likely that culturally Russian but with the whole blank slate stuff it.

It well comes with your own obsessions.

Mine’s my family.

No we’re not really talking outside of like a little social media once in a blue moon. But I do keep tabs on them and I follow whatever I can find and I’m building a virtual scrapbook.

I’m a dad still and I’m a grad dad and I’m a great granddad so I really do feel like I have to do this.

I want to at least be that much of a parent even though I lost out on so much of things.

I dropped Sonya off and we shared a great kiss and made plans to meet later and I went to the institute to do more of the work and tests and things with the researchers for the project.

It’s work that I’m willing to do and there’s so much potential too and not just for people the way that I was but quite possibly for humanity.

Yeah, yeah I know that there’s a lot of interest in this for the military and even more than that for rich assholes that don’t want to die yet.

But this is still huge and they are so trying to get past that reset hurdle.

Or around it.

There’s some people I guess are now working with human re-programming that we’ve caught wind of and that’s like using a mixture of a cyber like implant that has like a person’s brain patterns on it that have been recorded over time and then there’s like actual encoded memories?

Yeah I know it’s like spy level stuff and bad science fiction like that ancient book that had all those movies made off of it called Total recall.

We’re not thinking too much of that especially since it might actually be a military thing and all but the rich…the rich are all like ultra-paranoid and they’d never set themselves up to be that vulnerable.

And me it’s brain scans and doing tests that measure function and doing things over and over to measure how my brain works and some other tests for blood and other things looking at gene stuff and I’m okay with that since I’m really involved in this.

But it was just another day of this.

And another day of no answers that point to why Sonya and I came out of this as well as we did. I mean no, we’re not intact but we didn’t get wiped and we’re not vegetables either.

We all kind of want to know.

Well maybe not Sonya, she really just seems to want to get on with her life.

I was looking at more of the tests again with the lab people just seeing more of the same when I get a call from Sonya on my phone.

“Hey, you I’m nearly done here so we can meet and spend lunch together.”

She sounds odd. “Uhm can we rain check that? I was involved in an accident and I’m at the hospital.”

“Are you okay?” Yeah I’m worried.

“Uhm yeah sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well I went and I helped out after there was a crash and I was sick after that so the EMT’s brought me into get checked out and we’re fine. But we need a drive home.”

“Okay I’ll be right there…okay who else is with you that we’re taking home?”

“I don’t know Joel we have almost seven months though to figure it all out.”

“………You’re pregnant?”

“Yes, I didn’t know honestly I didn’t and I don’t think that I wanted to tell you this over the phone but yeah…you’re going to be a daddy.”

I’m crying and I’m actually grinning from ear to ear and I’m wiping away some of the tears and I’m getting looks from the techs and lab people and some of the one’s that have overheard are smiling and I say into the phone. “I’ll be right there.”

“Okay Daddy I’ll see you soon.”

Daddy, I’m going to be a father!

I’m getting handshakes from the people and I know that they might want to talk to me when I see the head of the division and I look at him and I cut him off before he says anything.

“I know, I know that you want in on this and I do too. I want to make sure that the baby is okay and that this whole process isn’t going to do anything to her or the baby but I want time with her first.”

He nods. “Okay Joel all of that but I was honestly just going to say congratulations first and that’s another milestone for you and us is that your little guys actually work after the rejuvenation and her’s as well that alone is a big answer that we’ve been waiting for we can wait on the rest.”

“You go to Sonya and give her our best.”

“Okay I’ll do that.”

I get in the truck and it takes me a few sets of lights to chill out and not drive so fast to get to the hospital. I do stop at one of her favorite coffee places and I get her a green tea that she likes and I stop at a flower place and I get a card and flowers and even a balloon.

Yes I’m going overboard and I don’t care I’m going to do this right.

Part 10

*Sonya………………..

When I see…

Someone looking the wrong way…she doesn’t see the oncoming truck.
I see them hit and her car gets flipped and rolls and rolls and rolls.
I’m running towards her even before she comes to a stop.

I get there and it’s full of airbags and I try the door and it’s jammed and I dig through my purse for my nail file.

Modern cars have this gas bladder that is a safety feature for anti-impacts by keeping the car frame under a pressure seal of sorts. It’s also able to be used if hit right to pop off parts of the car if you know where to pop the seals.

No…car thieves don’t use this because it takes more stuff than they have to put the parts back on.

I sink my nail file in and pop the seal and pull the door off and the side airbag hisses going flat. She looks freaked out and scared, maybe in shock.

“Are you alright!?” I ask her.
“No…I think I broke my arm.”
“Stay here, until the paramedics show…”

She nods and I take a few steps back...and…and…ow…ow…my head hurts and I’m sweating and I very suddenly need to use the garbage can.

Not good…PTSD?

So much for lunch…. Yuck.

*And Now…

I’m still spitting when the EMT’s and the fire department show up with the police and I’m getting checked out because they seen me being sick and I had to sit down right after all of this and my head was spinning.

And there’s this killer headache too.

Then it was into the ambulance or into another ambulance and we were off to the hospital so I could get checked out.

It was a lot of waiting at first.

And time thinking.

I didn’t expect to move like that, to actually step up and help.

And I guess the new me is really different.

But it’s…

It’s really, really just odd that it seemed to be instinct.

Like it’s something that just felt like I’d been there before.

And I’m mulling that all over when I get called into medical imaging for my scan.

There were a few tests and it wasn’t anything that I wasn’t used to by now then they stopped doing the 3-D internal scan thing and the tech looks at me.

“You were pretty brave doing that in your condition.”

“My condition?”

“Oh…well…uhm…”

Okay I’m actually not so spun as to not clue into what she found.

“I’m pregnant?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know.”

Actually I’m fairly stunned by the whole thing and I’m thinking a whole lot as I’m sent to see some other people for an OBGYN checkup just to be sure.

I was in the waiting room there when this girl comes up to me.

“Excuse me are you the lady that help my mom?”

“I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of people here that help other people here.”

“You got her out of her car a few hours ago when she had the accident?”

“Oh…uhm yes I was there.”

She passed me some flowers from the gift shop. “I know it’s not much but thank you. It really means a lot that you did that. I hope you and your baby are okay.”

I took the flowers and shook her hand. “It seems everyone knows I’m pregnant before me.”

She looked around. “Oh it’s just we’re here so I figured.”

“Ah…okay, that actually makes sense.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No I’m good I’m just glad that your mom’s safe.”

She nodded and she hugged me and then she headed off to be with her mother and that has me thinking about me and being a mom and that actually had me feeling a little misty.

I moved to one of the love seats and put my feet up and touched my belly and tears slid down as I hummed you are my sunshine to them.

And…

And it’s this feeling, this feeling like there’s things sort of sliding into place.

How I reacted.

Why I reacted.

Why I don’t remember my life.

Why Joel doesn’t remember his life either.

I close my eyes and I think, I think and think and I try really, really hard and it’s making the headache come back.

But I remember something…I remember wrapping my arms around her.

Not him wrapping his arms around me.

Oh….

You can’t remember what’s not there.

But trying hard I’m starting to remember what is there.

And Joel’s not going to remember being her…not with the huge differences between him and the first Sonya.

But this whole accident, I think it triggered me.

The process does work, it totally works.

Only something happened with him and I.

Switched in the tanks.

Or the treatment was switched in all that had screwed up back then.

What do I do?

I feel my stomach.

No…no there will be tests and tests and more tests if I tell them. And who knows if they’d let us be us, let Joel and I be free?

And then there’s our baby?

I’m kind of out of it through the check up and by the time I’m calling Joel my mind’s made up.

I’m Sonya.

And I’m going to keep this secret.

It’s the only way we can be safe.