The Nature of Change

Call Me Ender (Andy 03)

Consciousness returns.

Fuck.
Everything's still complete darkness. I open my eyes (I can feel my eyes!) and it's still complete darkness. Hmmm.

Everything also aches. It feels like I've been curled up in the fetal position for millenia. Worse than on a long road trip. I never imagined that this kind of soreness is possible.

There's a sudden urge to stretch.

I push my hands out. One of them passes by a fleshy membrane, and I feel something brush against some... other part of my body. My hands hit a wall. I push. It doesn't budge.

I decide to find out exactly what this place is shaped like, so I command my muscles. All of them. Stretch.

Seven distinct points of contact. The shape is clearly ovoid, and seems to enclose me entirely.

Seven. Points.

Oh, you idiot. Seven points of contact. That's significant, isn't it?

I focus on one of the points of contact that isn't my legs or arms, and command the muscles there to wave around. The momentum transfers up into my butt, shaking it mildly. The other two are very wide, and I connect one of them with the membrane I brushed past to push the walls.

This is an egg. The wide appendages are wings. The butt-shaky bit is a tail.

Holy fuck.

That dude was right.

The urge to break free intensifies. I decide to oblige my subconscious, pulling every appendage in toward me and then slamming it all against the outside of the shell at the same time. The thing rocks a little.

No, you dumbass! Focus your force on one point! I think.

I pick a spot, get everything to touch my hand as a reference, and slam every appendage into it.

A resounding crack echoes throughout the shell.

Crack. Crack. CRACK.

The third hit breaks the shell, and all is light.

Gaaah! Could they have not put blindingly intense lights right over my head?

I lift a hand to the light and squint my eyes.

Slowly, my eyes adjust, and I look down.

There's the tail. A silvery snakelike thing, covered in these tiny shimmering scale thingies. I try to analyze the musculature and skeleton, but it's so... smooth. No visible signs of muscles on the tail. I hold my hands out in front of me, and tada! They're covered in (darker) silver scales. And they're really short.

I look down at the rest of me, and I'm greeted with a long salamander-like body plan, all silver. My chest is slightly lighter-colored than the rest of me. I have a few red highlights on the weird arm-wing shoulder joints, going down my shoulders a bit to my arms.

Next, I take stock of my surroundings. Rows upon rows of dragonets - like me, my subconscious adds - in glass cages, arranged on shelves like commodities in a store to be bought or sold. I seem to be in one myself; I've only traded one confinement for another.

And true to that one guy's word, my laser and my phone are just over there in the corner. But... damn, if they aren't huge. Which means I must be small. Dragonets is right, I cynicize. I push myself into a bipedal stance, cursing the roof of the box as it forces me to hunch over, and waddle unsteadily over to my stuff. I squirm around a bit, positioning myself over the phone to see how my head looks.

Damn, I actually look pretty cool.

Turns out I have these angular red highlights along the top of my incredibly square snout - god, this is weird, that it's my snout - with triangles of red spiking down from that centerline to my cheekbones. One of the plunging lines, near the weirdly fluffy-looking ears, is subdivided into a sequence of squares, descending in thickness down the side of my head.

I flex my wings and tail a little, trying to get my sense of self to extend out from just my old human form and go into my new appendages. It doesn't work. I shake a little more vigorously, and it seems to do the trick. Now I feel like I occupy the entirety of this new physiology. Which might come in handy when I decide to get us the fuck outta here.

<Kid. Take it easy.>

I look up in surprise, ears flattening instinctively to the back of my neck. That's not what I sound like in my head when I think.

<Yeah. Your thoughts are pretty loud. I think you woke up like half the clade when you woke up. That "Fuck" was... resonant.>

<Whoa whoa whoa, slow down,> I think, directing my thoughts at this new voice. <Who, what, and where are you?>

<Here.> The voice sounds like it's beside me. I turn to my left, and in the cage beside me, the owner of the voice is pressed up against the glass. He taps once. I shift to face him completely, subtly cocking my head.

<Hi,> he thinks at me. <We're both dragonets, and there's... what, fifty? Something like fifty more of us here. We all got kidnapped like you. My name's Jeff Kerrigan. Ex-Marine, not that it helps.>

<How can I hear you in my head?> I query.

<Mindlink. Only way we can communicate now. These mouths aren't built for talking.>

<Fuck that.>

Kerrigan laughs. <Good luck. If they figure out you're smart, you're as good as dead. Listen to the instincts they programmed you with; they'll tell you how to avoid detection.>

<I don't plan to stay under their radar. I'm getting us the fuck outta here.>

Kerrigan looks at me with just as much surprise as I must have displayed when I first heard him. <Seriously? You've been here five seconds and you're already planning an escape?>

I cock my head. <You weren't?>

Kerrigan looks away, suddenly deep in thought. <Point taken. What's your name, kid?>

I begin to talk, but hesitate suddenly and inexplicably.

Something within me firmly says No.

Why? I wonder.

I think for a second.

Then it hits me.

This is a chance for a fresh start. To discard all the history, all the mistakes I've made, all the incorrect reputations I've allowed people to build through my own social incompetence, all the group dynamics I've shown, all the first impressions I've messed up. A chance to remake the image others have of me into something better, something stronger, something like me.

Well, there's one thing they got right. My old nickname.

<Andy Voitenko,> I solemnly state through the mindlink. <But... call me Ender.>