Tetherworld: H+

Most people play the lottery for money. They stand hopefully in the 7-11's and grocery stores praying that the scratch-off ticket says winner. I played a different kind of lottery. The Orthofutura Corporation ran a raffle at my school. The only cost of entry was a permission slip signed by the student's parents. I was 18 at the time, a late senior, so I was exempt. All I had needed was a pen and my own signature on the line.

It was a big school. Eleven thousand students strong, one of the last standing public schools in Chicago. I was one of the three thousand that were "entered". The corporation said the procedure would hurt. That it was a test platform for the future. Judging by my grades, I was going to need something more than just my part-time agriculture gig to be of any use past graduation. In my mind, I was buying insurance, not for "the" future... for MY future.

They told me it was going to hurt, when my name was picked. Another disclaimer saying I wouldn't hold the company accountable for anything that would happen during the testing. A rushed signature as I was hastily pulled from the ranks of my peers. The departure from that life was quicker than I had imagined it would be. It was as if the paper I'd signed had given them access to more than just my body. For the next two years I was told when to eat, sleep, drink, piss, or shit. I didn't know why. Frankly, I didn't care. What it meant was that I wasn't useless anymore. I had a purpose again. The years of my father's beatings and lectures drove home that need.

The day they walked into my room, my cell if you will, was the day my whole life changed. "He's ready." they kept saying. "His growth has stopped, his body fully matured. There hasn't been a spurt on the graph since last month." said one. The 'doctors' kept referring to me as "he", "his", "him". I'd have almost forgotten that my name was Tyler, if it weren't for the chart near the door that bore it. Little did they know, but my name was going to become the most important one of them all. For the last year I had heard the screams trailing off to nothingness in the rooms down the hall. The beeps and buzzes of lives floating away, lost in the surgery. According to the doctors, the gaggle of young faces that looked more like interns than well-trained surgeons, traveled in hordes around one. Dr. Theodore P. was the leader of the project, the man with the ideas and innovation to make it happen.

I don't know if they thought the walls were thicker than they were, or they weren't expecting the screams to be as loud as they were, but either way they made it seem as if the procedure was routine. I was kept conscious as my limbs were slowly and carefully amputated at the joints, the tissues around the area numbed by a powerful anesthetic. It was a disconcerting feeling, laying on a table as a disconnected torso. I laid on the table, wincing as some of the nerves that had been missed by the painkillers were severed by the scalpel. I laid awake wondering to myself why there were so many screams in the other procedures. They didn't really tell me what was going to happen. I almost didn't want to know.

It started from the outside. The replacement. The theory was that if they started there, the body would be more willing to accept the transplants. They slowly connected my veins and vessels into their respective slots, and began fitting in my nerves, reconnecting them one by one. They slowly took hold as the anesthetic wore off. Now I understood the pain. A friendly female face leaned over me. "This will only hurt a little bit." she said. It was only a few moments before the screaming began. With the nerves connected, the anesthetic was a fond memory at this point as my new legs and arms became a part of my body's nervous system. The ten minutes I was awake after that felt like an eternity of pain. I could feel the tears running down my face faster than water during a shower. Finally my body could tolerate no more, my brain releasing me from consciousness.

What I didn't know was that I would be the first to wake up. The first person to truly become Transhuman. H+.