Jessica Lemoy. The name was used to make children do their homework and was the subject of campfire stories around the world. She was a cold presence, tall and slender with traces of cybernetics under her skin. Her eyes looked like something out of an old horror movie, cold and dead they too had been replaced years prior. The frigid glare as she walked by gave me chills. Everything about this woman was utilitarian. She wore nothing but a matte black skin-tight bodysuit, her idea of dressing up for the meeting was a sheer white gown she wore over the bodysuit. It was as if everything you could imagine in a nightmare just walked into the room. You could even see the spinal augmentation running down her back on full display in a cut out of her bodysuit.

Dr. James led her to his office and to our disbelief he welcomed her in. We all sat around his work table as she began to give her presentation. She spoke long and hard about how she could better distribute his prosthetics around the world and he could help so many more with her support. Then she said the one taboo word in Dr. James labs, Immortality. She believes with his technology that people of their stature and importance to the world could live on and continue to bestow their blessings upon this undeserving world. She then made it a point to remind him of her military contracts and how she could make him a very very wealthy man. Making all of his dreams come true. He would be able to save millions in the same amount of time he saves a few hundred now. Dr. James sat there listening patiently and allowed her to finish. He then told her that while he appreciated her offer and the generous offer of Lemoy Corporation that he would not be interested in working with them at this time. He then had security escort her and her men of the property. As they walked to their transport Dr. James leaned over and said something that hit me like a lead weight. “ This isn’t the last we will hear from her “

Unfortunately, he was right. The following day we were working hard on finalizing some code for the operating basic AI for the prosthetic body. We had wanted to complete it a couple of days before the wedding to allow us time to rest before the big day. Selah was there with us late into the night helping us with some of the more advanced mathematics. I believe it was about 21:00 a little late for us to even be there. I started hearing a rumbling outside and as I turned to go check about a dozen heavily armed men came crashing through the windows. They moved in ways I had never seen a person move. You could tell they were more machine than man. Every one of them had the Lemoy logo proudly displayed on their chest and back. The woman was so arrogant she wanted us to know it was her. I can still hear the screaming of the lab techs as the bullets ripped through their bodies, the thuds as they hit the floor one by one. A hailstorm of glass and bullets in every direction. All I could think of was finding Selah but she was nowhere to be seen. Soon the dust started to settle and those of us still alive were moved into a small room. We had to stand there and watch as they stripped the lab, all of the computers and prototypes, even the doctor’s prized creation, we watched as they moved the body out onto their transports. Then as quickly as they arrived they were gone.

As they left I could hear Dr. James screams from the private lab. I went running to find him on the floor holding Selah in his arms. Her body was broken and torn to pieces, The bullets broke her bones and left huge craters in her body. There was the woman I was supposed to marry in a few days dying in her father’s arms on the lab floor. They had gotten what they wanted and in the process, they had taken everything that mattered to us at the same time.

Dr. James moved quickly yelling at the techs to contact the authorities but they were already arriving. The alarms let them know there was a fire. We got Selah and the others who were still alive moved to a nearby medical center. We sat there for days as they worked on Selah and the others. We watched as one by one the others woke up and went home. The whole time watching Selah go into surgery after surgery. Finally one day the lead doctor came out and informed us that there was nothing else they could do. She was stable and alive, but she would never be able to wake up. If she were to be woken up in this condition the shock would surely kill her.

I was a mess, I didn’t know how to handle this. I didn’t know what to do. Dr. James came over and put his hand on my shoulder, and with a calm stern voice said “ Stay with her and talk to her, I will be back and when I return you will get her back”. I had never seen a look of rage in a man’s eyes like that. He quickly walked away and told his guards to stay at her door at all times. Then called his driver to have him taken to his private lab as quickly as possible. We got to his lab within the hour and started working. Steven said it was like watching a possessed man working. He barely ate or slept and worked for weeks without stopping. The other techs helping him would fade in and out taking naps or just burning out and going home. But he and Steven never stopped. They never stopped until it was done.

One morning almost two months later I was sitting asleep in the chair beside Selah. I felt a hand on my arm and Steven woke me up. The biggest smile on his face I had ever seen and the look of death on his face like he hadn’t slept in the last two months. I asked him where Dr. James was and he told me he was waiting in the operating room. Steven walked me out of the room and a medical crew came rushing in. They were prepping her to move to surgery. They started moving her down the hall the whole time Steven was arguing with the doctors doing the operation. We get to the room and Dr. James is waiting there. He tells me to stand in the corner mask up and sanitize myself and stay out of the way. I had never seen Dr. James like this, his hair was a mess; he had even grown a beard. The man looked more like he belonged in a mental ward, not in a hospital performing a major operation. As they were prepping Selah I realized there was a second bed with a body on it. I fell back against the wall with a gasp. Had he gone that far? Did he rebuild in two months what took so many years before? He looked over at me and smiled as if to say “ Oh yea. we did it”. He walked over and pulled the cover and there laying on that table was Selah, like nothing had ever happened. Flawless in every way shape and form. The doctors told him there was no hope and just like when the world needed him and everyone else gave up, he pushed on. He found a way to believe. He called me over and instructed me to start prepping the body and to get it connected to the computer system behind it. As I was setting things up I realized this body was even more amazing than the one lemoy stole. You could feel the muscles and tissue and it felt like a real body. Later he would explain that it was more Bio than Mechanical, In his passion and frantic desire to save his daughter he created something no one thought was possible. The body had organically grown components and tissues. A full nervous system and could even be set to age if so desired. In other words, Selah and I could still grow old together.

The operation started and they moved her mind to the new body. It took almost 8 hours to complete. The entire time the doctors were in denial that it would even work. But at this point what would it hurt. It was either this or she would die soon. Once the brain was moved and the medical doctors’ work was done Dr. James and Steven started to work, They worked closely with a biomechanical engineer to connect the spinal cord into the new spine and nervous system. No one wanted to leave the room, everyone was holding their breath waiting. As they worked you could see the medical staff falling asleep sitting in the corners of the room. Some of the doctors even dozed off. I couldn’t close my eyes. I just stayed there watching and jumping whenever asked to do something.

When the operation was over He just stopped and said that now we just have to wait. The body was coded to work for her only. He used her DNA to make sure the body was a perfect match. He even used her body scans from the lab’s security system to make sure every part of the body was exactly the way she was before the attack on the lab. So now it was time to wait. We had done all we could and just needed to give her mind time to realize it wasn’t in a broken body anymore. So we waited, we prayed, we watched and not one of us slept. Even the doctors refused to leave. It was like the whole world stood still for Selah. Late that night I was talking to Steven, remember our times on the farm. I even told her about the shared dream thing. We laughed about the stories my Grandpa used to tell and I told him how we actually met in the diner that felt like a lifetime ago. I was telling him about how she ran right into me and her Bacon and eggs went flying. Then I heard something that shook me to the soul. Selah out of nowhere said “Sausage, It was sausage and eggs”.