Hell is nothing.

I knew that, because this was hell and I was in it.

And nothing was the extent of my senses. No sight, no sound, no feeling from my body…

And no memory of how this had come to pass.

No memory of anything, for that matter.

No memory of me.

I panicked then, but it didn’t help. Nothing changed, and I had no voice. Just my thoughts.

So I got ahold of them, and tried to breathe- nope, nothing there, either.

I hated it, but I figured one of two things was going on, here. Either I was dead, or I wasn’t.

If I was dead, there was nothing I could do about it.

If I wasn’t, then there was the possibility that this state wouldn’t last forever. In which case, I’d simply have to watch (eyeless) and wait for my chance to act (bodiless,) and see if I could improve my situation.

As plans went, it had some significant flaws. But heck, so did I.

Huh.

That was a weird thing to think. Was it… yes. Yes, it was something like a memory. A face below mine, arms around me as she looked up. She was smiling and I was telling her that I was far from perfect. And she was denying it, playfully. Later on we’d make love…

…the memory cut out. And it hurt all the more for its absence.

I went searching for more memories. I found nothing.

And then, light. Green light, from green letters.

Initializing Transfer… 36%

Transfer? I’d take it! Anywhere but here was good.

The number crawled upward, and I stared at it. I had eyes now? Apparently. No need to blink, though.

It reached ninety-nine, hung tantalizingly for a second… then everything shifted.

It turned from solid black to grainy gray, and I despaired. Was this all? Was this it?

There’s nothing crueler than hope shot out of the sky, and mine was plummeting at somewhere around mach five. There’d probably be an impact crater, and collateral damage.

But I despaired too soon.

One minute it was empty and gray, and the next second it was empty and gray, save for a small golden ball made out of eyes, hovering around my perspective. It shifted, jumbling itself, like the eyes were loose, and stared around in every direction.

“Ah. Good,” it finally said, as a few of its orbs swiveled toward my perspective, and the rest followed. “Greetings Wynne.”

Wynne.

Yes. Yes, that was me. I was Wynne.

And who the hell was this eye-ball?

“I am Argus. That is an acronym.”

An acronym for what?

“Autonomous Remote Guidance Universal System.” The eyes rippled at me, blinking in a sequence.

Argus was reading my thoughts, I belatedly realized.

“To be fair, at this point, that’s all you’ve got. You’re nothing but thoughts.”

At this point? That seemed to indicate that there was something I could do about it.

“There is. But, ah… don’t panic. Are you ready?”

Ready for what? No, scratch that, it didn’t matter. If it meant my thoughts would become private again, I’d do it. I didn’t like that Argus could read my mind.

“That’s not exactly… oh, it’s easier to show you. May I have your permission to deploy some of your resources?”

What happened if I said no? Well, thought no, anyway.

“Well, I could show you how to do things yourself instead, but then the intruders would definitely make it inside.”

Intruders?

“May I have your permission to deploy minimal resources to show you the situation? I promise I will not use anything in a manner that would hinder you later.”

Well, when he put it that way… all right. I could live with that.

I had resources. Huh. I didn’t see anything like that around here-

-and with a flicker, I was somewhere else.

A room, lit by a green glow, broken by glaring, flashing red. Emergency lights around the walls flashed and danced… not all of them, I noticed. A scratchy, recorded siren wailed, and stopped. Wailed, and stopped.

In the center of the barren concrete walls, there was a sphere. Silvery, flawless, hovering between two open cylinders as it revolved. Green light flowed and danced around it.

And somehow I knew.

This was me.

This was my body, now.

It didn’t seem to be attached to my perspective. I glanced around, and the Sphere kept moving, kept turning unhindered.

I glanced a bit further… and saw the door.

Sturdy, metal, it was covered in dust over faded yellow paint. It was open perhaps a foot, someone was pushing through the gap. I got a glimpse of wide, white, desperate eyes in a dirty face, short hair that looked like it had been through a weedwhacker, and bloody hands in torn rags that might have been gloves. The form looked slender, as it went, and their head and arms were through the door, with the torso following. They were a bit stuck, by the looks of it, squirming, trying to get through the narrow space.

“Now you can speak, if you like,” Argus told me, as he popped up in a corner. “I can only speak to you, the intruders can’t hear me. If you think, I’ll hear you. If you try to speak, the intruders will hear you.”

So my thoughts weren’t private after all. He’d lied?

“No! There are commands that will do that, but… Please, I’m trying to help resolve this situation. We are vulnerable right now. And there are three intruders to be dealt with.”

Dealt with. Did he mean killing them? Not that I saw any way to do that.

“It would be the easiest way. It would also get you more feedstock to work with. And yes, you have a way to get one of them, at least. Right now you are the room. All you have to do is will that door to shut, and that should kill the first intruder, and give us time to figure out how to deal with the other two. Or you could try talking with them, but I don’t know if that’s going to work out too well.”

Words first. Words were cheap, and temporary. Death was more permanent.

“Hey, you,” I said, and a speaker hissed to life. I winced to hear my words through the garbled electronics. That wasn’t my voice at all. I pursued the memory, found nothing, but I knew that wasn’t my voice. “You’re disturbing my beauty sleep.”

The figure pushing through the door- my door- froze. Then it looked up at me, and babbled something that might have been words in no language I recognized. I saw its mouth open in wonder, and the figure babbled a bit more, pausing in their scramble.

That sounded like a fairly high-pitched voice. Either a kid, or… I adjusted my perspective.

Yep, the part of the torso I could see from my angle confirmed it. That was a girl. Or a scrawny woman, I couldn’t tell.

“Okay, I didn’t expect that. I can help you find a way around that,” Argus said. “I’ll need more resources-“

Someone shouted from behind the door. Incomprehensible, loud. Angry.

The girl’s eyes went wide, and she scrambled faster. She was fearful now, and not of me, I was certain.

“The door! It’s now or never!” Argus said.

If I’d had a lip, I would have chewed it. But I didn’t, so I weighed my options.

Then I remembered the look of wonder on her face.

“Core Wynne, I do not recommend this course of action-“

I opened the door.

It wasn’t easy. There was resistance. It was sluggish, like pushing your hand through soggy drywall.

But I only needed to move it about an inch. She slipped, fell inside, and scrambled forward on all fours rather than stand.

Just in time, too, as a beefy hand reached through the door and snatched at her, missing by inches.

She scrambled to a safe distance, stood and turned, and screamed something that probably wasn’t a polite greeting.

Another figure peered through the gap. Broader, bald, probably male, and as filthy as the girl. He wasn’t alone, there was another behind him, though I couldn’t make out details. He squirmed, tried to follow her through the door-

-and I shut it with a thought.

At least, I tried.

It didn’t work. There was a horrible grinding sensation, and a puff of smoke rose up from the doorframe.

“Oh no,” Argus whispered.

The man froze as the smoke rose up, and twisted around, glaring…

…and his eyes fell on me.

No look of wonder, this time.

This was fury, raw and primal.

And as the girl screamed, he started working his way through…