The real Melville Arkwright

The DeBeers Incident reveals the dangers if such conflicts grow hot. With cheap space diamonds flooding the market, DeBeers attempted to exert pressure on the Forgeworlder Collective representative. When the threat did not work, the representative suffered a fatal "accident." A diamond-tipped solid tungsten rod then "accidentally" dropped from orbit, annihilating DeBeers' headquarters and the majority of their executives. The corporation largely ceased to exist. There were further incidents, though none so public or violent.
—Anaïs Nineveh, The Exodus: A History, Chapter 3

The head had been shaven recently. The brown eyes had dark bruises around them. The placid expression that Mel had seen a hundred times on the faces of his own roommates. Yet the face was . . . familiar. Like looking in a funhouse mirror. His own generic features, slightly, subtly warped. Mel couldn't see their body; the figure was already in the wheelchair, their arms and legs in casts. Staring at the camera.

"I am called Melville Arkwright," they said. "That's what it says on my driver's license, on my library card, the lease on my apartment, my bank accounts. But that isn't my real name. My deadname. That doesn't matter. According to my birth certificate, I just turned eighteen years old on 8 February 2055. But that's not really my birth certificate, that's Mel's. I'm actually almost twenty; I've been living as Melville for eight months, as soon as I recovered from the surgery so I could pass. When this is over, maybe I'll have a different name."

The voice was a little higher than Mel's own. Not distinctly feminine. An accent that could be generic American or Canadian; maybe Toronto, maybe upstate New York. It sounded, to Mel, as if they were tired. Exhausted.

"This is my testament. They say it's an important part of the process. It goes against my instincts, my training. I'm supposed to keep secrets, not spill them, not leave incriminating video clips behind. But I'm technically defecting. So fuck it," the other Mel gave a tired smile. "In the old Cold War, orphanages were useful for cover identities. There were a lot more orphans due to disease and war. A good way for agents to have a legend that holds up, without needing to deal with family connections. Now, the situation's a lot more complicated. It's not just the CIA, CSIS, or MI9. Corporations are in the game with business intelligence units, and each of the ET groups has its own security and counterintelligence apparatus. A lot of moving pieces."

The other Mel turned their head. Mel could see, now, the fine white lines of old surgical scars around the ears.

"I was desperate. The recruiter told me I could apply for gender transition care, one of the new perks for enlisting in the intelligence services. Got flagged for a different program. They'd already picked Mel Arkwright out for me. 'Suicidal ideation' and 'Close physical configuration,' they said, and the transition—facial masculinization surgery, breast removal—would help cover the differences, and the implants in my skull," they looked back at the camera. "My mission was to infiltrate the Greater Pacific Northwest Collective. They thought the implants would protect me. Let them hack a backdoor into the Hive Mind."

A bark of laughter that sent a shudder down Mel's spine.

"As if the brain slugs haven't seen that shit before. Stupid. I know that now. At the time, though, I believed in my mission. I was making progress. Going through the process. I tried to socialize with them. To help them. I remember sucking a cock in an alley, just so I could bring a condom full of spunk to my roommate. Watched her slurp it down. They liked that initiative. They liked me."

Teeth bared. Not a smile or a grimace, but something with a bit of both in it. The Other Mel's eyes clinched tight as if at a painful memory.

"Then something happened. My cover got blown. The real Melville Arkwright, in Seacouver, made contact with the Seacouver Hive. The two hives talked. I was exposed. They broke my arms and legs, so I couldn't escape."

The Other Mel took a long shuddering breath.

"They were going to kill me. Eventually. After I'd gestated a bunch of slugs for them. We knew the brain slugs had uses for people, and ways to dispose of the body afterward. Never caught them at it, but why would we? We'd fed them our worst criminals. Did you know one of the first brain slug hosts was a certified cannibal? The slugs almost didn't take her when they learned what a prion disease was! But they did. Oh yes. Learned every possible way to dispose of a human body, cleanly and without leaving any evidence behind. Then something happened," the Other Mel's smile was ugly. "Melville Arkwright, the same guy who blew my cover, saved my life. Somehow, he'd gotten the Greater Pacific Northwest Collective to adopt a new host, and they'd made a deal with the Seacouver Hive. Part of that deal meant the Seacouver Hive got me."

That laugh again. Like a dog choking on a bone.

"We'd guessed that the hives and collectives traded hosts with each other. Host trafficking is the official term for it. Though there isn't anything criminal about it, as long as everyone involved is willing. And the thing is, I was willing. My cover was blown. My body is broken. I had known, when I volunteered for the program, that I would probably die joining the hive. That's how bad my dysphoria was. Instead, they gave me a choice."

The Other Mel's face grew serious now. Not even a hint of amusement. The cold eyes of someone who had trained for months to be somebody else, to answer to a different name, who had staked everything on a single, probably suicide mission, and failed. Yet still lived.

"They said that if I didn't want to join, I didn't have to. They mapped the implants in my head. Figured they could work around them. Told me if I said no, they'd take care of me until I could move again and just let me go, but that if I still wanted to join . . . even knowing my mission . . . they would accept me as I am. They wanted me. Not as a tool, not as a part of some spy game. They looked at a failed spy and saw someone worth saving."

The face scrunched up. No tears. Mel had seen older teens like that at the orphanage, the ones from bad homes. The ones who had cried out all their tears a long time ago.

"They told me the other Mel is coming to the ceremony. That he's going to help. As if he hasn't already done enough. I suppose I should thank him," the Other Mel said. Then their mouth curled into a sneer Mel had never seen on his own face. "I wonder what his dick tastes like?"

Another brain slug host stepped into frame. A K'lur'k, with a roll of gauze and some wads of cotton in their manipulators. The bald figure in the wheelchair, that other Melville Arkwright, leaned their head back to let the cotton be placed over the eyes, then the gauze was wound around. Building the first layer of the mask that Mel would see later.

"If anyone sees this," the Other Mel said, as their face slowly disappeared. "I don't regret it. I wasn't Mel Arkwright for long, but they were some of the best months of my life. Now, it's time to be someone else."

They opened their mouth wide to accept the O-shaped gag, which was fastened over the ears. The camera cut out as more layers of cloth slowly erased that face, with the final shot focused on that gaping hole that Mel had come to know so intimately.

The video ended. Jordan and Jenny flanked Mel, and their hands found his thighs, rubbing gently. He could feel their eyes on him. Waiting. Patient. Mel was at a loss. Too many questions came to mind, and yet none of them made it as far as his tongue. That last image of the Other Mel, their face erased. Reduced to a hole for his cock.

The tip of his prick pushed up behind his belt buckle. The girlfriends noticed.

"Thank you," he said. "For letting me know. I appreciate it. I think . . . I've got a lot of questions. But maybe they'll wait until tomorrow. I'm tired, and I'd like to go to bed now."

To Mel's surprise, they didn't just pounce on him. Mel ended up in the middle again, a naked woman on either side, their backs and brain slugs turned towards him. That slightly fishy smell had become so universal that he hardly noticed it anymore. Warm enough none of them needed anything more than a thin sheet.

Neither Jordan nor Jenny touched his erection. Or sought to kiss him. Mel wasn't sure to feel relief or disappointment. He stared up at the ceiling, letting his eyes imagine strange fireworks and shapes in the darkness. Closed-eyed hallucinations, he'd heard them called. Something about random neural activity causing visual noise, sometimes resolved into patterns. So innate that Mel often forgot about them until trying to sleep.

He still didn't know why they'd masked the Other Mel. Maybe it was just that they didn't know how Mel would react, seeing his doppelganger sucking him off. Mel wasn't sure how he felt about that. His very existence had destroyed and saved this person's life. Not on purpose. Just by being. A butterfly that had flapped its wings and caused a hurricane. It felt almost too big to grasp. How much of what happened had been his fault? What did he owe to Other Mel, if anything? What would he say to them when he saw them again, unmasked?

From there, his mind wandered back to earlier, in the grocery store. The indecision, the rumination. Other Mel had a choice about whether or not to be Melville Arkwright. They had slid into his name, worn it for a while, and then slid out of it. That idea made Mel squirm inside his own skin.

Would I ever have dared to do something like that if I had been offered the opportunity? Mel asked himself.

The darkness gave no answers.

As the breathing of his girlfriends grew deeper, the light-spots on the backs of the brain slugs began to light up. The pale glow played across Mel's cheeks, caught between their biological semaphore, the two aliens speaking to each other, even as their hosts rested. Mel closed his eyes to block it out. Presently, he slipped into sleep.