The Upgrade

“You’ve gotta move with the times,” he says this brightly. He feels the need to be cheery and inject some life into this place. It’s getting to him already and he’s only just been collected from the sanitised reception area.

His efforts fall flat. The scientist in the pristine white lab coat smiles a cold and imbalanced smile, “yes, quite.” 

The scientist’s name is Bolton. That’s what it says on his security card. Jonny doubts he’s ever been to Bolton and he isn’t sure why the doc, as he has an inclination to call him, needs the card. Everything seems to be biometric. Doors are opening for the doc as they read his approach. This makes the place all the more creepy. Bad enough that it’s all white and hyper lit so it hurts Jonny’s eyes like the sun beating down on a snowclad landscape.

Jonny feels uncomfortable and out of place. He’s a walking piece of dirt on a kitchen worktop and it doesn’t help that the doc doesn’t want him here. The doc hasn’t said anything specifically, it’s more what he hasn’t said. His speech has been clipped and economical and his interactions with Jonny have been perfunctory to say the least. There’s something off with the doc, Jonny’s gut is telling him this and Jonny’s gut is never wrong.

Neither of them really know why Jonny is here. It’s a mystery to them both as to why he has been granted access to this facility so he can write a story on the ground breaking work the doc and his team are conducting here.

Jonny has no clue as to what awaits him in the inner sanctum of this facility. Only that it is the next generation of tech and it is cutting edge. What Jonny does know is that he doesn’t want to be here. Despite the coldness of his surroundings, he is sweating and increasingly on edge. His lack of sleep and extended stay at the bar near the office really aren’t helping. He’s feeling out of sorts and disoriented and he’s wishing that he had binned today off. That he’d rung in, made his excuses and postponed the whole thing.

Not that he could do that. Not that he has ever done that. He’s not even considered the possibility before, but there is something about today that is not sitting well with him. As the doc ushers him into a lift he defines this a little more clearly.

He’s scared. Plain and simple, there is a fear within him and he can feel it growing and unfurling.

Jonny fizzes with that fear as the lift counts down the levels as it descends. He has a feeling that there are no actual floors that match the numbers that flick swiftly along as the elevator speeds downwards. There’s just the floor that is located deep underground. A location that introduces Jonny to the concept of claustrophobia for the very first time in his life. This is a thoroughly modern burial, he’s going back to the ground. Only there won’t be any ashes and he’s certain that he’s the only dust in the entire place.

“This is a fair way down?” Jonny says, half expecting no answer from the doc.

“It’s a matter of cooling,” says the doc, “that and security.” He adds this pointedly and Jonny gets that the doc really doesn’t want him here. As far as the doc is concerned, Jonny is an unnecessary risk and something of an inconvenience.

“Are you going to tell me what’s down there?” Jonny asks.

The doc smiles a brief smile that dies before it reaches his eyes, “best you see for yourself.”

Jonny shrugs and decides that the doc is not going to be added to his Christmas card list and is not someone he would ask along for an after work drink.

Not soon enough, the lift ceases its descent and there is the customary pause before it opens its doors and lets the two men out of a metal box that was beginning to remind Jonny of a coffin. He follows the doc and pays attention to the man, picking up other cues with his peripheral vision.

They stop at a door and although anonymous, something about it tells Jonny that whatever he’s here to see is on the other side. He shudders inexplicably and wills the door to remain shut and keep its secret. This is so unlike him. He’s the curious cat. That’s why he gravitated towards journalism. He has a nose for a story. His boss has a bit of a crush on him, waxes lyrical about him being a throwback to a time that never really existed. It was his boss that introduced him to the art of drinking. Said it was obligatory for a certain type of journalist. Jonny isn’t quite sure how or why they haven’t slept together. Everyone thinks that they have. Not that they’re an item, just that they have this thing going on. And they have, it just doesn’t include sex and Jonny wonders whether they’ve missed that boat now. That it could and should have happened, but somehow it never did. That happens sometimes, and sometimes it isn’t a bad thing.

The doc has to stare into a screen and touch it and Jonny swears that he also sings to it. Then the doors slips silently open and he’s in. He’s where it is all at. He’s at a party, but he doesn’t want to dance to this music.

“Hello!” 

Jonny was not expecting this.

He knows his eyes are wide and for an insane moment, he forgets what it is he is supposed to do with the hand that is extended out towards him. Then his cognitive functions kick back in and he shakes the hand of possibly the most famous man on the planet.

“Hi,” he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to be behind this door!”

Tim smiles his winning smile and Jonny is amazed at how it works on him. He’s seen it a thousand times on TV and he knows it’s good, but never though that it could be that good. And even it was that good, he didn’t think it would ever work on him. Jonny considered himself immune and manly and cynical and above all that sort of thing.

“Sorry about that,” Tim says, “that was me. I wanted this to be hush hush until you were here. I like to keep things under wraps. Didn’t want to spoil the surprise!”

“OK…” says Jonny, hoping that Tim is going to throw him a bone and explain why he is here. That doesn’t seem to be occurring though, “I’m guessing this isn’t the location of your next movie set?”

Tim laughs and pats Jonny’s shoulder, “no, but I like that! It could be couldn’t it?”

Jonny nods, “I could imagine you dangling above this floor.”

Tim laughs again, “yes, I suppose it’s the kinda place I’d do that. But not today. Today we’re here for something a little different.”

“Which is?” asks Jonny.

“The doc here will give you the detail,” Tim says, “but the short and tall is that I’m here to be augmented.”

Jonny has supressed a grin at Tim calling the doc the doc. That one thing has brought them close and put Jonny at his ease with the man, if not his surroundings. He’s so focused on that bonhomie that he almost misses what Tim has told him.

“Wait a minute…” Jonny is agog at what Tim has potentially told him, “augmented?”

“Gotta move with the times!” Tim says cheerfully.

This should hit Jonny the same as Tim calling the scientist the doc, but it doesn’t. There’s a wisp of de ja vu carried on an ill wind and Jonny’s feeling of unease returns with an ice cold vengeance.

“You’re having a procedure here?” Jonny asks the biggest star of his time.

“Sure,” Tim dials up his multi-million dollar smile, “this is the future.”

Jonny smiles the best he can. Tim isn’t getting any younger. Now he’s up close and personal, he can see that. Jonny knows that Tim still does all his own stunts and he’s known to push the envelope in that respect. He’s not just driven, he’s not content to be driven, no, he insists on being in the driving seat and he’s learnt how to drive, ride and fly pretty much any and every vehicle in existence. Nothing stops Tim, he’s a force of nature. 

But this?

This is a whole other ball game and somehow, Jonny knows that it is wrong. This is ambition taken to a dangerous level. This is stopping at nothing to stay in the number one spot.

“What are you augmenting with?” Jonny asks the actor who has seemingly done it all and taken cinema to places it couldn’t have gone without him.

“The future!” Tim says this and grabs Jonny’s shoulder, squeezing it as he smiles that amazing smile of his.

Jonny knows what will happen next, it’s as though he’s read the script and he’s on the set of Tim’s latest film. He watches as Tim exits the room and walks into the lab itself.

Jonny turns to the doc, “you’re not going in there?”

The doc shakes his head, “I’m not required.”

Jonny looks askance, but the doc says nothing further. Tim had said the doc would furnish him with the detail, but Jonny knows that the doc has another take on that. He returns his attention to where the story is. Tim is the story. Tim and the bizarre and unexpected adventure that he is about to embark upon.

Jonny watches as two lab assistants get him ready and place him in what would look for all the world like a dentist’s chair if it weren’t for the ankle and wrist restraints. Big, metal restraints that make it look both unreal and dangerously and painfully medieval.

“Are they necessary?” Jonny asks the doc without taking his eyes off Tim.

“It would be unwise for the patient to move excessively during the procedure,” the doc tells him.

Jonny glances at the doc. There’s something not right about the man. Something cold and machine like. He’s standing in an impossibly motionless and emotionless way that unnerves Jonny.

“How many people have had this procedure?” asks Jonny.

“I cannot make available that information,” the doc says.

Jonny stares at the now silent doc while he’s backfilling possible answers. One alternative is that Tim is the first and if so, he’s effectively a guinea pig. Or maybe there have been others, but the procedure has gone horribly wrong. Worst of all, Jonny doesn’t want to think about there being people who have been augmented already. That final eventuality makes him shudder as though a black cat had walked over his grave and whispered dread words to him across the void between the living and the dead.

The future, that was what Tim had said, that could only mean one thing. Jonny is no expert, but it has to be the very latest technology. Tim is going to allow some circuitry or machine parts to be added to his body. Jonny doesn’t think it could be something noticeable. Tim wouldn’t risk his film star looks. His face is his brand. His face and that smile of his.

Tim thinks he needs this though. He needs to stay ahead of the curve. He’s thinking that if you can’t beat them, then you join them. 

He’s joining with them.

The lab assistants are leaving Tim alone in the lab now. This is it. He’s really going ahead with it. Jonny wants to pinch himself, but he is entirely mesmerised as Tim nods and sticks his thumbs up. He’s ready and it’s all about to happen.

Apparatus lower from the ceiling, metallic alien tentacles reaching out for the prone mega star. Jonny imagines Tim being snatched up and taken away. He’d have to write that story.

Tim Cruz Abducted By Aliens!

He’d write it even though it isn’t his thing. There are other papers that cover that nonsense. Thing is, this is real and this super star is really going through with this. This insanity. Jonny can’t quite believe it. This is surreal. A set up. A film that he doesn’t think Tim would sign up for. 

Centre stage is an oversized helmet that’s being lowered over Tim’s head. It looks like a knight’s helmet but it now totally obscures Tim’s face and manages to render him small, pathetic and helpless.

“What’s…?” Jonny asks the doc.

But the doc is enraptured by the proceedings and Jonny knows he’ll get no sense from the man. The doc reminds him of an intense religious zealot he interviewed once, only the doc is even more dialled in right now. That intensity is inhuman and it makes Jonny’s skin crawl. He wraps his arms around himself as he continues to watch what is happening to Tim.

Now two needles are piercing the film star’s forearms. Big needles. Unnecessarily large needles. 

Then it happens. 

The lights dim for a moment and when they come back Jonny sees Tim struggling under the helmet. His arms are bulging as something enters them, bulging as though two creatures are entering those arms of his and making their way upwards and into him. Jonny guesses that that’s pretty much what is happening and he experiences a disorienting revulsion as he sees the film star invaded by alien substances and possessed by an unnatural force.

“That doesn’t look good,” Jonny says, but the doc isn’t moving. Not one bit.

Then Tim convulses, his back arching unnaturally as though he were on the death row electric chair.

Then nothing.

The most famous actor in the world lays silent and motionless and all Jonny can do is stand there dumbly and stare. What else could he do?

The needles withdraw and the metallic tentacles retract. As the helmet lifts away, revealing Tim’s head, what Jonny sees is not right. Tim’s face is moving. The skin of his face is in terrible motion and it bulges as though it were about to explode. Then it falls slack, but as it does, black sludge oozes out of his right nostril.

Jonny cranes his head to look at Tim’s ears. Were they also bleeding that dark and thick liquid? He can’t see, but he suspects so.

Then Tim’s eyes shoot open. His eyes are flecked with gold and when he smiles, it isn’t quite right. It’s artificial somehow.

The restraints fall open automatically and Tim jumps up from the chair with an energy and enthusiasm Jonny has witnessed once before. The door to the lab opens and Tim bounds over to Jonny and bounces around him. The Easter Bunny on a sugar rush.

“Woo! Yeah! I feel so good!” he enthuses, “Woo! Haha!”

“Your voice?” Jonny says, his own voice querulous and enfeebled.

“What?” says Tim, frowning in a way that just doesn’t work, “Oh!” He pauses and wriggles as he shimmies from foot to foot, “How about this?” he asks in a too slow bass. “No?” he smacks his head with his palm, hard, far too hard, “this?” he squeaks in such a high pitch it hurts Jonny’s ears.

“Are you alright?” Jonny asks, concern etched on his face as more black sludge oozes out of Tim’s right nostril. 

Now, this close, he can see rivulets of the same dark liquid flowing from Tim’s ears. Tim opens his mouth to grin, but more of the black goop pushes out from between his teeth and coats his chin.

“What’s happening?” Tim screeches in a panicked voice that is almost his own, but not quite, “what’s… it’s all going wrong. It’s hurting! Oh! It hurts.”

Jonny watches in horrified fascination as Tim shakes his head from side to side so rapidly that his eyes blur. He feels liquid hit his face and wipes it off feverishly. That black stuff looks all wrong and it frightens him. He needs it off him right now.

“Help!” Tim cries and there is something almost comical about the sound of it, as there is about what happens next. Tim runs at the wall at an appalling speed, lowering his head before impact. There is a sickening crack and something wet behind it. Tim slides down the wall unconscious, or dead.

The assistants go to him, but instead of checking to see whether he is alive and in need of their help, they grab an ankle each and drag him away through a side door. Jonny watches them go. He’s still staring as the door closes and the whole bizarre and shocking episode ends abruptly and sickeningly.

“Wait here one moment,” the doc says.

Jonny jumps at the sound of the doc’s voice. In all the confused excitement, he’d almost forgotten about the doc. The doc walks off, through the lab itself and through a door on the other side.

Six excruciatingly long minutes later the doc returns and he has with him a surprising visitor.

“Hello!”

Jonny was not expecting this.

He knows his eyes are wide and for an insane moment, he forgets what it is he is supposed to do with the hand that is extended out towards him. Then his cognitive functions kick back in and he shakes the hand of possibly the most famous man on the planet.

Jonny knows that you’ve gotta move with the times, but if this is the future, they can keep it. He looks askance at the doc and that’s when he notices the black gloop hanging from the strange man’s right nostril, and the skin of his face moving. Bulges form and travel upwards. Burrowing beetles heading towards a bastardised brain.

That’s when he knows. 

Things will never be the same again.

He will never be the same again.