Read Space and Time Issue 121 for Free Online Page B

has a phlegmy cough that hits her when she’s not speaking.
    “Nice work, darling,” Enrique says. He’d objected to Natalie joining them, but she wanted to get swapped immediately so I had insisted on bringing her along. My conversations with Enrique have become more strained ever since that evening he decided to comfort Tony. The two had become inseparable. When I think about them together–my body and Natalie’s body–while I’m stuck in this form, my hands turn to fists.
    Enrique and Natalie enter the dark unlocked apartment ahead of me. I lug a small generator to power the swaplights and Tony strides beside me.
    “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I whisper to Tony. I’m worried about what might happen to him if something goes wrong.
    “It’s the right thing to do,” Tony says. “This body belongs to your girlfriend. And swapping will buy me some more time. Keep my neural patterns intact.”
    “She isn’t my girlfriend.”
    We enter the apartment and find Enrique opening a hard plastic briefcase. He pulls out a familiar string of blue bulbs and a tablet-sized piece of black metal with glinting nodules affixed to its four corners.
    “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” Natalie says.
    “Let’s do this,” Enrique says. “Ladies first?” Following the illustrated instructions printed inside the briefcase, he arranges the lights in a circle, connects them to the generator and removes the nodules, pressing them to Natalie and Tony’s temples.
    The apartment floods with a dim blue light that sends mice skittering along the walls. Tony and Natalie stand in the center of the glowing ring. Instinctively, they hold hands.
    “Party time,” Enrique says. He presses a button.
    The blue lights hum and flicker.
    At that moment, a searchlight shines through the window, washing out the blueness. And a siren shrieks outside while smashing wood reverberates from downstairs.
    “Give me a break!” Enrique screams. “How did they know we’d be here?” He glares at me. “Your sister.”
    “No,” I say. “Lena wouldn’t...” But she had pressured me to turn myself in, and a bust like this would make a great story. I push the thought away, wondering where it came from.
    Natalie holds her hands in front of her face, cups her breasts. “No! I’m still in here.”
    “It didn’t work,” Tony says glumly. He tears off the nodules.
    “Not enough power,” Enrique says. “Piece of junk.” He kicks the generator over and the room plunges into blackness. I hear the clinking of the bulbs as they’re shoved into the briefcase. The searchlight shines through the window again, sweeping through the room, seeking us out. We bolt out of the apartment into the hallway. Loud boot-steps echo up the stairwell around the corner.
    “This direction,” Enrique whispers, racing ahead.
    “This is insane,” Natalie says. She coughs loudly. “We need to give ourselves up.”
    Enrique leads us to an elevator at the opposite end of the corridor. I pull the door open and prop it with a brick. I switch my flashlight on and point it down the shaft, catching the glint of a metal ladder just below.
    Silhouettes appear at the other end of the hall.
    “Turn that off!” Enrique says. He snatches the flashlight from me and it slips out of his hand, clattering to the bottom of the shaft.
    “Shit,” he says. “I’m not usually so clumsy.” He opens and closes his fingers. “What’s happening to me?”
    Tony dangles his long legs over the side until his feet find the service ladder.
    “Wait!” Natalie says to Tony. “You’re not taking my body down there.”
    I look from her to Tony, who’s clinging to the ladder.
    “Tony, the police can swap us,” Natalie says. She suppresses a cough and reaches her hand down to him.
    “That’s where I know you from! The police!” Enrique pulls a gun from his waistband and points it at Natalie. “I thought you looked familiar.”
    “What are you doing? Are