text: Me has prepared a chair for me, covered in writhing wires. I raise my eyebrows, just a hair. ‘Sit,’ me says. I sit. The wires snake up my legs, and across my chest, wrapping my arms tight to my sides, sliding up over my face. They force my mouth wide open and flood down my throat. An electric shock sings from the tips of my toes to my brain and I zap in and out of consciousness then fall to the floor. The wires recede rapidly and slither behind the computer screens. ‘All done,’ me says, ‘right, I’m just gonna take control for a bit.’ He pulls on what looks like a wetsuit covered in more writhing wires. He throws his head back and opens his mouth and lets them wriggle their way inside of him. He jerks and they recede. ‘What?’ I say. ‘This is the fun part,’ me says. He waves his hand and my hand waves in unison. He jumps, I jump. His mouth doesn’t move but I hear: ‘Hello, hello, testing,’ inside of my head. My eyes bulge and he grins. ‘Time to get you cleared out, mate, this sorta shit is very draining on the through line,’ ‘The, through, line?’ I say, forcing my mouth open, every muscle resisting my control. ‘Let go,’ me says, firmly, and does a quick jig. ‘OK, so now I am, in fact, wearing your body, but look, no lag,’ he says, demonstrating, and we shadow box side by side perfectly in sync. ‘The through line, all of us,’ he says, ‘one of us is infected, all of us are infected, see?’ Me strips my body naked and replaces the clothes with a suit similar to his own. ‘So, as usual, I will be sorting out, literally everything.’ He grunts and slumps to the floor. I try to walk towards him but I’m not in control. ‘Still here, mate,’ me says in my head. ‘Sit back and enjoy.’ ‘Sgnjgtkot,’ I thinksay, I haven’t got the hang of internal diamonologue. ‘Calm down, now I’m in here I can see. Minor leak in the dark-half, mate, you are fucking confused, hey. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad. Your core is pissing everywhere, no wonder they can smell ya,’ me says. ‘Gnrjrrr,’ I reply. ‘What is it this time? Ugh. Dull, dull, dull, parallesites, zero imagination,’ me says. ‘Right, let’s go.’ I watch from behind my eyes as I run across the heath with unnatural speed and agility. ‘Where?’ I manage to utter, silently. ‘We’re going to visit your grey mates’ me says. We lope across the heath and into the depths of the forest. The stars above are endless, the air is fresh, the moon is high. The trees rush by in a blur. We skid to a halt in a clearing. ‘This’ll do,’ me says and presses a point on the elbow of the suit I’m wearing. Liquid metal washes over its surface, covering it completely, rippling and extending sending out small silver tendrils to taste the air. ‘There you are,’ the greys say, melting out of the trees at the far side of the clearing. ‘Finally,’ me says, with my mouth. He stays perfectly still and I watch as the couple slowly fade across the field, shimmering above the grass, and coming to rest in front of me. ‘You’re ready, dear?’ the grey lady says. ‘Go ahead,’ me says. ‘Son, this is for the best, one takes us to the next, and through and through,’ the grey man says. He melts back and merges with his female companion, until they are perfectly overlaid, fazing in and out of focus, shifting and blurring from one face to the other. They place two palms against my chest, as one, and I feel the cold begin to seep from their fingers. ‘Gotcha,’ me says and taps my elbow. The liquid metal sheen of the suit explodes and a great net of writhing silver tendrils engulf the blurred grey figure before me. Slithers of metal twist and tweeze the pair apart, tearing them in opposite directions. ‘Oh dear,’ the grey lady says, coming back into focus just as strands of metal begin to worm their way into her ears and eyes. ‘Ah,’ the grey man says, as he reappears, then belches up a torrent of silver and collapses. Me presses the point on my elbow again and the metal cracks and goes rigid, then glows deep orange, then red, then white.