Read Space and Time Issue 121 for Free Online

depression. I guess the poor bastard in my body wouldn’t have known that. Who knows how the mind transfer affected him?”
    “It’s going to be okay, Tony.”
    “How? I’m dead!”
    I gently brush the hair out of his teary eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I say. With Tony’s real body gone, all that remains of him is here, in Natalie’s form. Eventually that too will be gone. This was a death sentence. I pull him into a hug.
    “We can keep swapping you before your consciousness fades,” I say. “That should keep your neural patterns intact. In theory, we should be able to keep you alive indefinitely.”
    He shakes his head. “When I went to that swapmeat, I wanted to experience what it felt like to be someone else, to wear a different body, a different gender. But just for fun, just for a short time,” he says. “No, it’s all over for me. Tony Washington is dead.”
    “Hey, you are Tony Washington.” I wipe at the tears on his cheek with my thumb. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out together.”
    “Drew...” Tony looks up and in a moment his mouth brushes against mine. Tony’s lips feel soft, salty with tears.
    He pulls away, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” Tony says.
    “There’s nothing to apolo–”
    “Am I interrupting?” Enrique says from the doorway.
    Tony stands, looks back and forth from Enrique to me, and rushes into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
    “I see he’s taking the news well,” Enrique says. He drops a six-pack on the coffee table with a loud thunk. “Good job comforting him.”
    “That was a mistake,” I say. “He just needs some time alone.”
    Enrique pops opens a beer, takes a sip, and stares at the bedroom door. “The last thing Tony needs right now is time alone.”
    “I’m not going in there and neither are you. He’s distraught, confused.”
    Enrique stares at me. “You’re the one who’s confused.”
    He wears an irritated expression that I’ve never seen before on my own face, and his words give me pause, make me wonder whether the personality of whoever owns this body might be creeping in.
    He grabs the six-pack, opens the bedroom door and disappears inside.
    I expect Tony to throw him out at any moment, but minutes pass and the door remains closed.
    Shit. I punch the sofa cushion.
    I pull my phone from my pocket and work up the courage to dial Natalie’s home number. I had managed to make it back to my own apartment after the swapmeat. Maybe Natalie had done the same. The line rings a few times and I’m just about to hang up when a strange female voice answers.
    “Hello?” she says.
    “Natalie?”
    There’s a long pause. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
    “Natalie, wait. This is Drew. From work.”
    “Drew? I didn’t recognize your voice.”
    “I didn’t recognize yours either. I think we both know why.” I let that hang between us for a moment. We have a bad connection–the line crackles.
    “You were there that night?” she whispers.
    “We have the same problem, but I have the solution.”
    There’s an extended pause. “We should meet,” she says.
     
    * * *
     
    I wait until a police car slowly cruising past the Church’s Fried Chicken rounds the block before I go inside. I wonder why Natalie chose this place until I see it’s empty save for a woman alone in one of the booths and an oblivious teen at the register watching a video on his link-pad.
    The woman is short and heavy, in a black tank top and white miniskirt I recognize as Natalie’s. The clothes are too tight for her current body; the top pushes her breasts into odd fleshy mushrooms. Her short brown hair is badly bleached to an approximation of Natalie’s usual color, and she’s wearing too much makeup.
    She raises a hand. “Drew?”
    I take a breath, forcing a smile as I approach her. “Natalie. You look good.”
    “Your new body must be blind,” she says in a deep, raspy voice. She smirks as I slide in across from her, eyeing my new body