Free Migration by Daniel David

Hadya.
    “Right, I’ll go,” said Hadya. “Well done Sarah. I’ll see you later. Congratulations!” And with that, she disappeared.
    Sarah gulped down the syrup. It was sweet and minty at first, but left a bitter residue that clung to her teeth and made her tongue rub backwards and forwards on the roof of her mouth. She sat in the chair, rotating her shoulders to get comfortable and resting her head snuggly in the headrest. The assistant began to stick white disks around her head and neck, leaning her forward a little to get to the top of her spine. She took two blue discs that went onto Sarah’s palms and lastly one larger red one that she placed on Sarah’s chest, once she had unzipped her top a little.
    “OK, nice and relaxed for me please. Looking straight at the screen.”
    Sarah’s image appeared opposite her, sitting in a chair just like hers, staring straight at her. It was like looking into a mirror, only the Sarah on-screen made a steady series of twitches and ticks, smiles and frowns as she calibrated once more. Sarah stared at her silently, mesmerised by her image.
    “Could you say your name please,” asked the assistant.
    “Sarah,” replied Sarah, and the Sarah on-screen said it at exactly the same time.
    “How old are you Sarah?” asked the assistant.
    “32,” replied both Sarahs.
    The assistant asked questions like this for ten minutes, just as she’d promised, and every time both Sarah’s answered in perfect unison. Where were you born? What do you do? What is your daughter’s name? Favourite food? First memory? Worst nightmare? Best sex? The Sarah on-screen took it all in, whilst the monitors on Sarah’s body captured every response to every question, and fed it to Sarah on-screen.
    “OK,” said Melanie, handing Sarah a plastic cup, “another drink I’m afraid, then we’ll check the data, and you’re done.” Melanie smiled at her, “This might make you a little woozy, but it helps with the Migration and taking the plant out.”
    Sarah gulped it down, it was worse than the last one, the thick syrup making her gag as it coated her throat with immovable layers of greasy chemicals.
    “Nice and relaxed,” said Melanie again.
    Sarah felt the liquid rush through her brain and shut her eyes to control the dizziness that took hold of her.
    “Good girl.”
    She felt her muscles give in to the syrup and her shoulders dropped an inch in the chair. Her eyes felt heavy and the sound of Melanie moving around the room resounded in her buzzing skull. She felt as if her limbs had drifted away from her, that gravity had somehow left the room and electrical pulses shot up her spine in ecstatic rushes that made her hairs stand on end.
    Far away, on the other side of the Metropolis and still further away again, a new Sarah was complete and activated. After one thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven days of syncing and trillions of data packets, after thousands of configuring questions and learning scenarios, after final streamlining and optimisation, a new Sarah was initiated deep inside AarBee. In a rush of awareness and information, Sarah felt her entire being swarm around and within her all at once, a move from a dark world into a perfectly lit place, a place where she and Abe and every person and every moment she had ever known rose up and exalted at her creation in one great surge of herself. Immediately, she understood the foolishness of the desires of her former self. Immediately she indulged in them all, as she would forever more, with no beginning and no end.
    “Sarah. Sarah. You’re done.”
    Sarah opened her eyes, feeling her pupils reel as she re-engaged her vision.
    “Can you move onto this bed for me?” asked Melanie.
    Sarah looked at the trolley that had appeared in the room. There was a young man standing next to her, but she hadn’t heard anyone come in. He smiled at her.
    “Benjamin?” she asked, trying to focus as she moved clumsily on to the trolley. She banged her shin