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The Body Remembers

By P.A. Cornell

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It takes a moment before it hits me that the screaming’s coming from my own mouth. Funny how the mind works. I catch myself debating whether to continue or just shut up. My leg—where it used to be anyway—is nothing but mangled shreds that remind me of pulled pork and I opt for silence. I grit my teeth against the pain and watch the leg reform from those shreds of bloody meat for a moment before I have to look away from the unnatural sight of it. There’s no escaping the metallic scent of blood though. The only thing that can compete with it is the acrid tang of my own sweat. Most people don’t notice sweat smells different when it comes from fear. Stronger. More acidic. Trust me, I’ve been at this long enough to know.

Too damn long, actually, but my tour’s coming to an end. Two more weeks. That’s all I’ve gotta last and I can go home, back to normal life—or to whatever semblance of normal those of us who’ve walked through hell can get.

I force myself to look down at my leg again and see it’s slowly coming back, which is more than I can say for the fabric of my pants that’s missing from the knee down. Nothing to do about that. Around me, gunfire and explosions continue. In the brief gaps between them, the others yell across the battlefield.

“Go, go, GO!”

“Orlovschi’s down!” I hear, before Noble runs past me with an apologetic look on his face. I don’t blame him for not stopping. Not much he can do for me and the cover here isn’t much to speak of. Nothing more than the remains of a low brick wall, no more than two feet high—lower where chunks have been blasted away.

“On your six!” someone yells, followed by an explosion.

A body falls to my left—too damaged for the treatment to regenerate before the Reaper got its icy claws on it. I instinctively try to move away, but I don’t get far with just the one leg, and the other one burns like it’s on fire.

“Come on!” I tell it. Waiting for the leg to finish regrowth. I glance at the body. They’re face-down, so I can’t see who it is, but by the shape I guess it’s Paradas. Build looks about right. And I catch a glimpse of what could be a dark brown ponytail sticking out from under her helmet. I look away. Fuck. I liked Paradas.

I keep my head low, trying to see past the dust and debris to where the enemy is. We’re still holding ground but they’re pushing back. I’m not safe here. Some injuries you don’t heal from. Or so they tell us. I look at Paradas, still unmoving. No one knows what happens when one of us dies. They take the bodies. Not the enemy—our side. They recover them all no matter how bad the war zone. The official line is they don’t want them falling into enemy hands, on account of the treatment, but most of us think it’s us they’re hiding the dead from.

There’s talk the treatment can regenerate us even after death. If that’s true, what would it do to a person to come back from that? It’s that fear alone that’s kept me from sampling the taste of gun metal before squeezing the trigger. There damn well can be a fate worse than death—worse even than this endless cycle of horrific injury and regeneration. That’s why I have to last through the next two weeks. It’s too late for Paradas, but the rest of us still have a shot.

There’s movement to my right and my body reacts before I consciously register that the face belongs to a stranger—that the uniform bears the colors of the other side. Only later, in my nightmares, will I recall the way he brought his weapon up to target me. Right now, it all happens too fast. He’s still taking aim when I raise my own gun and blow his head to pink vapor. It looks like spray from an airbrush. I see it all in slow motion and know my mind will replay it for me in luxurious detail later. I have a permanent front row seat to that show. Part of the price I paid for the good health I enjoy.

The blast of air hits me before I see the hover overhead. It doesn’t come all the way down. They lower a claw and grab Paradas by the midsection, lifting her into the air like one of those antique coin-op machines you used to win toys from. I watch her body disappear into the hover’s belly and then it’s out of there as quick as it came. They don’t do a damn thing to help me. I know the drill. I’m on my own out here.

The foot’s finally done forming. It looks pink and damp, but I know that won’t last. I wiggle the toes, then slowly get to my feet, still keeping as low behind my cover as possible. The leg holds my weight but still feels like it’s burning—which it shouldn’t, but I don’t have time to worry about that. It can wait for my report, so the powers-that-be can read it over before ignoring it. “It’s all in your head,” they like to say.

Funny how the mind works. Yeah…just fuckin’ hilarious.

My right boot’s gone, which means I’ll be negotiating the battlefield on nothing but a bare sole. But knicks and scrapes should heal before I notice them. Just gotta hope I don’t get more pieces of me shot off before I make it to decent cover. The phantom pain makes me unsteady on my new leg, so I hobble a little but fight through that, telling myself it’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not fucking real. But god damn does it ever burn all the same. After a while, adrenaline gets me running full tilt, diving over one of our barricades where Wiebe and Davis are laying down cover fire.

“Thanks,” I say, as I come in for a landing, then turn to fire back toward the enemy while Davis reloads. She’s fast. Quicker than me on my best day, and she’s back firing on the enemy before I’ve managed to do much.

“How’s the leg?” Wiebe asks, seeing my pant-leg and boot are gone, and putting two and two together.

“It works,” I tell him. He shrugs. He knows what it’s like. Lost a good chunk of his shoulder last battle. A hand the one before that. Looks good as new now though. That’s the problem. We all look intact on the outside—wish I could say the same for the inside.

They don’t tell you what it’s like when you sign up. They sell you on the good stuff, leave the rest as a surprise for you to discover on your own later. Some people win the DNA lottery, but most of us get stuck with genetic flaws that have been doing the rounds in our families for as far as we can trace back. Me, I scored asthma, an irregular heartbeat, flat feet, and anxiety, to name a few. Add to that the stuff that comes at you after you’re born. Everything from seasonal allergies to getting hit by a car. Some of us get lucky—others not so much. I was one of the latter.

It’s all good though. You can buy replacement parts for just about anything these days. There’re enough labs growing body parts in vats that you can take your pick. Spin the nearest globe, stab a finger down, and see which lab you got. They’re all good. New lungs, new heart, new feet, and they’ll throw in a bonus treatment to regulate that brain chemistry too.

So long as you can afford it.

That’s the catch. This shit don’t come cheap.

Sure, some employers cover the cost on condition you work off what you owe. But the interest keeps building, and you never seem to put a dent in it. So, when your buddy who’s a soldier tells you over drinks one night the Army has a better offer, you listen. You nod as he tells you about regeneration. How it can fix any shit you’re born with and heal anything that goes wrong after. And all of it free of charge—all you gotta do is serve our country.

Just show me where to sign.

We look up to see air support—about damn time. Thousands of our drones. They target the enemy with pinpoint precision and make short work of their front line. The survivors have no choice but to fall back. We live to fight another day.

Hovers come to carry us back to base. Strapped into my seat I can still hear the cacophony of battlefield noise. It stays with me even as the distance grows, like when you get a song stuck in your head. The worst possible earworm. I flex my new ankle, watch it move the way it should, but still feeling like it did when it got blown off. With the adrenaline no longer pumping like it was, the pain intensifies so I reach into my kit for meds, taking the pill dry and crushing it between my teeth in hopes it’ll get absorbed faster. But it does nothing, and by the time we’re back at base it’s all I can do to keep from screaming.

Technically, the treatment’s still in its trial stage, so when any of us get wounded like I did today, we have to report to Doc Flemming so he can evaluate us for his ongoing study. As the treatment’s developer, his collaboration with the Army means he gets an office on base. This works out for the Army because if anything goes wrong, he’s there to deal with it so they don’t have to. I’m just hoping he can give me some relief from this pain.

When I arrive, his secretary tells me he’s busy, points me to a chair where I’m to wait. I try to distract myself by watching a wall monitor replay one of the ads for the treatment.

Bio-replacements and repairs can be costly, and even out of reach for some. Join the Army and let us take care of your physical health with our patented regeneration treatment. Enjoy the body you were meant to have—free of ailments and impervious to injury. Speak to one of our recruiters today.

Nowhere in the ad is there mention of the nightmares, the flashbacks, or the phantom pain I’m currently experiencing. Nowhere does it say that the physical injuries heal, but the body remembers all the same.

The office door opens, and a man dressed in a civilian’s business suit and carrying a briefcase leaves. The secretary gives me a nod and I go in.

“I’m told you’re experiencing some discomfort, Corporal…” he says, in lieu of greeting.

“Orlovschi, Sir. Stan Orlovschi.”

He doesn’t look up from his work or ask me to take a seat, so I’m staring at the top of his bald head, wondering why this asshole hasn’t taken his own treatment to regenerate his scalp. Should’ve asked that question before I signed anything.

“I’m a civilian, Corporal. No need to address me as ‘sir’. Please describe the discomfort you’re feeling.”

“It’s more like excruciating, mind-numbing, pain that’s slowly driving me out of my mind,” I tell him.

Now he looks up, but his expression’s one of annoyance, rather than sympathy.

“And you’ve had your latest booster? You’re getting all the calories required to aid in your regeneration?”

“Yes, to both.”

“Well then, let’s see what the scanner says. Which limb is it?”

I point to my right leg, and he gets up and grabs a portable health monitor from his desk, then uses it to scan my leg from the knee down. He stares at the device and frowns.

“These scans look normal. Your leg is completely healed.”

“That might be, but it still feels like it did when it was hamburger on that battlefield,” I say.

“It’s psychosomatic,” he tells me. “I’ll give you something to help you sleep. I’m sure you’ll feel better after a good night’s rest.”

In my mind I’m calling bullshit, but right now I’m desperate enough to take any drugs he’s willing to give me.

“Thanks,” I say, like a good little lab rat.

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The drug Flemming prescribed does knock me out, but it’s not relief I feel when the nightmares come. My subconscious mind’s a sadistic sonofabitch. It runs a play-by-play of today’s battle, featuring highlights from previous ones. I get to watch my friends die again in the most creative and colorful ways. I watch pieces of my own body get blown off, and once more feel the pain like it was live. The dreams come nightly but they’re especially dark and detailed after missions. Mercifully, Wiebe shakes me awake after a while, freeing me from this monster that lives inside my mind.

“You were screaming,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“No sweat.”

The irony is I’m drenched in sweat, and I recognize the scent of fear in it again. I sit up and watch the others go back to sleep. No one resents me for disrupting their rest, they all get it. The nightmares come to them too. Waking life’s no vacation either because that’s when the memories attack, worse than any enemy we’ve faced. They come again and again no matter how much you try to think of something else. Like the pain in my leg, they’re relentless.

I rub at my calf and think about the first time my leg got blown off. The time before this one. I wonder if the pain I feel comes from that first time or the latest. Not that it matters. It’s part of me now. Real to my mind even if it doesn’t show up on scans.

Doctors throw the word “psychosomatic” around like it erases what you’re feeling. They ignore the fact that if it’s real for the mind, it’s real. Our bodies heal from almost anything. But the memories, the suffering, the fear—the treatment can’t fix that.

So we find other ways to cope.

I get up and quietly search my kit for what I need, so as not to disturb the others, then head for the showers. I sit on the floor of my favorite stall—the one with the good drain—and pull my pantleg up to confirm the leg’s still there. My eyes see perfect, new skin over intact flesh, but my mind screams at me of pain. So, I take the tool I brought with me, the knife I was issued, and cut a long line along my left arm, wrist to elbow, letting the blood drip into the drain.

The cut burns as I glide the blade across my skin, but I don’t stop. “This pain is real,” I say aloud. The cut has healed by the time I get to the end, but my leg still hurts. I go again, this time a quick slash across the forearm.

“This pain is real!”

I do this again and again until morning comes. By then I’m exhausted. Numb. I feel nothing and I hope it’ll last for at least a while.

We all have our ways of coping with what we’ve been through. We don’t talk about it. We endure. At least I won’t have to endure much longer.

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It’s not long before they throw us back into the meat grinder of war. The Army and Doc Flemming each have something to prove. The treatment benefits them both. Flemming’s gunning for the Nobel—his little miracle will no doubt change many lives for the better. Just not ours. The Army gets soldiers they don’t need to send home after major injuries. Soldiers they can keep reusing—a virtually inexhaustible resource. The more times we come back from battle, the closer they get to approval for the treatment to become standard.

This time at least we didn’t lose anyone. Still, once we’re back in the mess, we eat in silence. I read the others like my grandad used to read his morning paper. Wiebe seems jumpy, Davis more withdrawn than usual, Noble’s eating like the food’s his enemy. The rest of the company just seems tired. We’re all tired. Tired of the flashbacks, tired of the pain—both real and imagined, tired of the tense muscles, panic attacks, the urge to run with nowhere to run to.

Noble stands suddenly, lifts his tray, and slams it down onto the table sending rehydrated eggs flying in all directions. Then he leaves. No one says a word. He was one of the last ones to sign up and has at least a year to go. We’ve all had such moments of frustration and rage. We all will again.

As for me, I rub my leg under the table, trying to massage the pain that’s returned since the battle. I consider my usual way of coping, but head back to Doc Flemming’s instead as soon as I get a chance. If this is something they might use on civilians one day, he needs to understand the treatment has no effect on emotional and psychological trauma. I need to get him to stop ignoring that.

“The pain’s back,” I tell him.

“I’ll give you another sleeping pill.”

“That won’t help,” I say.

“It helped last time.”

“Not exactly,” I tell him, though I don’t elaborate on my methods for coping. “There has to be something you can do. The battles, the injuries, they stay with you. Our bodies heal no matter how many times you throw us out there, but they don’t forget—and we don’t get to choose what the body remembers. I only have a short time left to go, but I have to think of the others you’ll keep sending out there after I’m gone. Not to mention the fact that this pain in my leg may be something that stays with me.”

Flemming gives me a curious look. “A short time left to go?”

“Until the end of my tour,” I clarify.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” he says. “The contract you signed gives us the right to renew your tour as many times as is necessary for this study.”

I must not be hearing right.

“What?”

“We’re collecting data from every injury one of you sustains. Speed of healing. Other effects. It could be several more years, even decades before we know enough to determine whether the regeneration treatment is something we should continue with.”

“But that…can’t be right.”

He sighs, and reaches for his tablet, opening a file that he then turns for me to see. I recognize it as the contract my buddy showed me in that bar. Only I don’t recall him mentioning this wasn’t a regular tour of duty. I do remember the words, “standard contract.” Maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe they made him a sweet offer, so he didn’t volunteer that information. It doesn’t matter anyway because it was on me to read the fine print. I have no one to blame but myself.

I feel sick to my stomach—an alien sensation since the treatment makes it so we no longer get sick.

“You’re not gonna let us go,” I say. “Not ever.”

“Let’s not be so bleak, Corporal,” Flemming says. “Every study comes to an end, eventually.”

I think of Paradas, and how the study came to an end for her. I think about the rumor that even death can’t stop regeneration and wonder if it really did. I break into a sweat, but my limbs go cold, all except the one that burns with pain. I picture the years to come, being torn to shreds again and again, my body healing as my mind falls apart. And that’s if I’m lucky. That’s if I don’t end up like Paradas.

It takes a moment before it hits me that the screaming’s coming from my own mouth.