Game, Set, and Kill.

  By Gaurav Mathur

  The ball approached, and I swung the racquet in what should have been a graceful arc, but was in fact clumsy and amateur.

  That was expected, of course. This body- this woman - had never played tennis. I was using her muscles that weren't yet fit, and it would take at least twenty or thirty stroke to see results.

  But by the third swing, I recognized the power in the forearm. I brushed her hair back, then smoothed the tennis skirt. I was enjoying this woman's body, a woman I knew nothing about.

  The machine changed direction and sent shots to my backhand. Her backhand. I had to shift her grip on the racquet, consciously move the right foot forward, and positioned her body to attack the ball.

  She had a strange tattoo on her left arm: M6W GR5. And a mole on the right wrist.

  The racquet made awkward contact, and the ball sailed too far. Not bad, actually, for the first backhand shot. I worked on the stroke for some minutes, training another set of muscles to learn their new actions. I felt the burn and aching for oxygen in the tissues. She would be sore the next day.

  I was good at tennis, enough to get noticed in college, but I resigned himself years ago to never being a superstar. I'd started coaching, and the pay was okay.

  Then, two years ago, the Agency had approached me with an offer I couldn't turn down. The woman had explained it, and I'd listened patiently as she used terms like "neuromuscular augmentation", "vertiginous dampening", and "cerebro-cerebellar link". But truthfully my mind was on the money.

  Halfheartedly I'd asked her: Which Agency? Who was I working for? Her answer was cagey: "We're a contractor for the US government. From time to time, we handle projects that need to stay... under the radar."

  I looked doubtful. She continued, "Don't worry, Rafael. We're the good guys. And I'm gonna be upfront with you. The Inhabitation procedure was outlawed last year, so our government can't officially use this technology. But it's incredibly useful for covert activities, like military intelligence."

  Spying. That's what they were testing this for.

  "So I'd be like... your guinea pig?"

  "Actually the person whose brain you'll control is the guinea pig. You'll be completely safe."

  I'll never forget my first time, almost two years ago, when I Inhabited. I laid down in a chamber the size of a bathtub, my body sinking into a gelatinous sponge. There were two men and a woman. They didn't give names, so in my head I called them Billie, Bobbie, and Charlie. Billie closed the chamber cover, so that my whole body was enclosed by the sponge, except my face.

  "How are you doing this, again?" he said.

  "Don't worry, mate," said Charlie. "It's just magnetic."

  "Yeah, I remember they said that. But that means that you're like... shooting electromagnetic waves into my spinal cord?"

  They turned the chamber so I was vertical. But it wasn't like standing up. I was suspended.

  "Well, that's true, mate," he said. "But these aren't like James Bond magnets, you know? It's more like an MRI, but in reverse."

  "I see," I said, although I didn't.

  "Not an MRI," Billie said.

  "It's like an MRI in reverse," said Charlie.

  "No, you're mixing up analogies." She turned to me and strapped a headset onto my face. The display flickered for a moment, and then resolved into a familiar image: I was looking at a tennis court.

  Charlie continued: "Ok, this is how it works. We're showering your spinal cord with super high frequency electromagnetic waves, not as high frequency as gamma waves, but pretty up there. So this part of the gel is gonna cool down your spinal cord down as it heats up."

  "Heat up? Wait, is that like... safe?"

  "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Like I said, it's not as bad as gamma waves. You might feel some heat in your spine, and over a few minutes, it'll go all the way up into your brain.

  "My brain? I thought this was just spinal cord!"

  "Don't worry, it's just to the cerebellum."

  "Which is... in my brain?"

  And yet, it had all gone well so far. Every few weeks, I'd have a new client, usually an old man, who wanted to learn tennis. It was always a queasy sensation entering a rickety old body, and a relief to return to my own.

  But now I was in her body. It was invigorating. I enjoyed feeling her nipples against the sports bra. And it was pleasant to have nothing between my legs to slow me down. She had a graceful elegance. I wanted to feel more of her, but that was strictly disallowed. At least ten cameras were watching me/her from every angle. Years ago, there had been an incident involving a man inhabiting a woman's body. No one would tell me what had happened, but I could make some pretty good guesses. After that, all Inhabitants were monitored and recorded.

  That's what I was: an Inhabitant. For about ninety minutes I would teach her body everything I could about playing tennis. I preferred playing against an actual partner, but they couldn't trust anyone else to see this. The procedure was safe, but illegal. Hence the ball machine.

  She was lithe and agile. For brief moments, in between shots, I gazed down at her figure. I wanted to touch the breasts, so remarkable, but it was forbidden.

  Next, I practiced serves. Usually my clients were older, and I had to be careful not to overexert the back. Shoulders also required special attention -you didn't want to tear a 0 year old rotator cuff. But this body was young and fit.

  This woman wouldn't remember this session, no recollection of actually playing tennis. But when she next stepped out onto the court, her body would know what to do, without even thinking about it. As I Inhabited her body, I was creating layer upon layer of neuromuscular connections. From the hippocampus to the upper and lower motor neurons, her hips, shoulders, nerves, bones, muscles, all of it: enhanced. I was packing months of training into the session.

  It wasn't just tennis, of course. Provided you had the money, and were willing to allow a stranger complete control of your body, you could "learn" anything requiring manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. In fact, it was musicians who were most in demand. Piano, guitar, violin, saxophone. Someone even wanted to learn the french horn. The results were astounding. People who could barely get their fingers on the guitar struts would find, to their amazement, that they could play chords and complex arrangements. They didn't know the names of the chords, and their conscious mind knew nothing about music, but they acquired amazing dexterity.

  This woman had money for sure. Indoor courts were expensive, and she had rented out all eight courts, the entire facility. There was no one else in here; just me and the ball machine. I wondered why she was doing this at all. She wasn't a seventy year old; she was strong and fit. She could achieve this level of skill with just a few weeks of regular training.

  Her shoulder was tiring. I was tossing the ball up for a serve, when something registered in her mind.

  The click of a door latch. The door that was supposed to be locked.

  She twisted away, just before the gunshot. The sound was deafening, echoing off the walls, but she paid it no mind. She threw the tennis racquet and it collided with the man's skull, knocking him backward. The gun fell from his hand. She dashed toward him, and as he raised his arms to block her, she smashed the heel of her palm into his chin. He staggered backwards and fell.

  I was paralyzed. In less than three seconds, I had gone from serving a tennis ball to dodging a bullet. And now I watched helplessly as the woman I Inhabited struck the man directly on his larynx and killed him.

  I screamed, but no sound came. My body was encased in neuro-electric sponge. I'd lost control of hers. She was moving quickly through the locker room now. And suddenly, I could sense her thoughts.

  My keys are missing.

  My phone too.

  I can't remember anything.

  The thoughts were coming at light speed. I couldn't interrupt them. Adrenaline surged through me - through her, but she didn't feel panic, only urgency. She was searching in every direction, registering a myriad details. A clock; the time was 4:48. The shadows and the sun's location. The exits from the locker room, and the ones that were most likely unlocked.

  Location: tennis club.

  Assassin had a radio. How many are there?

  Head down, eyes ahead. Cameras.

  Hallway, door, hallway, left, left. Security station.

  Shadow behind security desk, but no guard posted. A second assassin on the team, waiting.

  Turn away.

  Now she was in the parking garage. There were at least twenty vehicles here. She was registering makes, colors, and models faster than I could keep up with.

  Parking garage.

  Parking garage.

  Parking garage...

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She looked at her right shoulder, than the left, but the ink was smeared with sweat. I felt the sudden urgency: the mind trying to remember something that was lost.

  It wasn't a tattoo.

  M6W GR5

  She saw the van.

  Another click: someone else was in the garage.

  She sprinted for the van. I watched helplessly as she jumped in and started the ignition. There were gunshots. She slammed on the gas and lurched forward. Now more gunshots from the other direction, even louder this time. She sped out of the building.

  My head and body were spinning. I watched as she weaved between the cars at high speed. How fast was she going? She wasn't even looking at the speedometer, and I was too frightened to do anything.

  She jerked the wheel to the right and the van lurched again. I suddenly felt nauseous and realized with a shock that I was in the van, my body encased in the neuroelectric chamber. I was seeing what she saw, but this clashed with my own spatial senses. I wanted to take off the headset, but couldn't get my arms to move. My head was spinning so fast that I blacked out before I could vomit.

  I woke up; my head pounding but my senses in order. I pushed open the chamber. The woman was gone.

  I was in another parking garage: a metro station. She must have taken the subway.

  I struggled out of the van. I felt suddenly less agile.

  Someone had tried to kill him. No... her. And not just one man, but a team of assassins. They had known she'd be at the tennis court. They'd been waiting for her.

  Why?

  I'd not even seen her face. If only there had been a mirror! I recalled the softness of her skin, the feel of her body, the way the skirt draped over her legs. Those legs - powerful but supple. Despite almost being murdered a few minutes ago, I felt an erotic thrill. I wanted to meet the woman, whoever she was.

  If she wasn't dead already.

  My head still hurting, I made my way home. On the train, I monitored the other passengers, watchful for any danger. I took a side facing seat, of course, and stretched gently as I sat down, covertly glimpsing the people around me. An old lady knitting a scarf, a few teenagers laughing inappropriately, a middle aged man looking at his phone, a younger man with a bicycle, also looking at his phone. Another man with a baseball cap and a backpack.

  The old lady seemed out of place. But was she a threat?

  I mapped out a route to the nearest doors. Depending on which side they opened, I might have to go past the man with the bike, or past the old lady. I could also walk further down the train car, but if a rush of people got on, I'd be stuck.

  It wasn't safe.

  I'd go past the bike. It would be simple to slip past-

  I had a sudden queasy realization that my mind didn't match his body. I wasn't the lithe figure on the tennis court anymore, I was this gangly fool.

  HEY, I thought. But then realized I'd said it out loud. The old lady looked up.

  The words had been my own, but the emotion - disgust - was a new thought.

  The man with the bike was getting off. I had to decide: stay or go?

  There weren't enough people on the train to be tailing me. So if I'd lost them already, now was the best opportunity to stay lost.

  I got off the train, walked quickly up the stairs to ground level, and went directly to the turnstile. But I stopped at the last moment, interrupting a line of irritated people, and watched them to see if anyone else stayed behind. Satisfied, I finally exited

  What had prompted me to do that? Why was I wasting time? I just wanted to get home and get into bed. But a deeper instinct was telling me not to. I took another train, watchful for anyone following, then transferred to a bus. It was packed. I normally disliked crowds but now I felt comfort in the busy vehicle. It was mostly elderly people but a young mother was yelling at too many children, and a bald man with sunglasses was immersed in his phone. It was unlikely that anyone would attack me here.

  After twenty minutes, I got off and walked. No one followed.

  But when I arrived at my front door, my senses were even more heightened. I inspected the doorknob, the seam between the doorframe and the door, and then got down on my knees to look under the frame. Nothing seemed amiss. I was expecting an assault as soon as I opened the door, but the apartment was quiet.

  Feeling more secure, I laid down in bed, and was asleep in seconds

  The man in the baseball cap stepped off the train, but jumped back on an adjacent railcar. Why hadn't she realized that earlier?

  Then, after her exit through the turnstile, the man watched her double back into the station, and followed her again on the next train. Her obvious maneuver didn't fool anyone.

  The accomplice - the bald man - watched her on the bus. They knew exactly where she was.

  She was blown. They'd find her and kill her.

  I woke up with a start. I started to panic, my breaths shallow. The dream had been so real, so vivid. My dreams were never like that.

  And the terrifying fear: any moment, they could break through the door and capture me.

  No. They need me alive.

  That thought! It was absolute, it was confident.

  It was also logical. If they were already onto me from the metro station, they would have just killed me in the van, while I was unconscious.

  They wanted something, and they needed me alive.

  I inventoried every room, scanning every piece of furniture, every visible item. Some objects were more significant, like a pair of scissors near the bookshelf, a heavy vase of flowers, a pen on the desk. If I was in danger, I could use these as weapons.

  I was struck by a realization.

  I'm seeing... everything.

  It wasn't just here in the apartment. I remembered the name of every street I'd passed on the way. I remembered with astonishing detail every person I'd seen on the metro. A poster on the bus, just slightly misaligned with the metal ridging behind it. A young mother with an infant crying, its bottle empty, the mother staring out the window, exhausted.

  I got up and splashed water on my face. I stared at my reflection, trying to fit the pieces into the puzzle. The girl was as dangerous as the men chasing her. There had been zero thought when she'd sensed the danger; her instincts had taken over. She had hurled the racquet with the force of a sledgehammer, and then effortlessly killed the man with her bare hands. I shuddered from the memory of my hands (her hands) smashing the man's airway, leaving him to die. But what else could she do? The man was a killer. She was running on instinct, preserving her life

  A frightening thought, buried so far, surfaced. What would have happened if they'd killed her on the tennis court? Would I have died as well? Would my mind return to my body or would I be just a comatose shell, as good as dead? Had she saved my life?

  And how had it happened? An Inhabitant was supposed to have full control over the Host. The Host remained unconscious. But somehow, the threat of danger had triggered her instincts.

  She was a professional; of this I was certain. The heightened awareness of her senses in the presence of danger, the immediate response with deadly force, and her subsequent escape- it was all instinctive. Her training had broken through my barriers in the face of mortal threat.

  What did that mean, though? Was she a spy? An assassin? And if so, whose side was she working for? The FBI? The CIA? The KGB? If so, then the assassins were likely a rival intelligence agency. They had picked the perfect moment to attack her, when she wasn't in control of her body. It was just bad luck that their attempt failed.

  No. It wasn't luck. The girl was skilled. I recalled the exact sequence of events, replaying from the moment I tossed the ball into the air, the click of the door latch, and the instant response. Her training had taken over instinctively, like a machine. She'd killed the assassin without a second thought. In fact, there hadn't even been a first thought.

  And now I imagined my body pressed against hers. I knew how well she would fit into me, could imagine us intertwined. It was achingly beautiful. I wanted to see her face, her eyes, her nose, her lips. Somehow I was certain she was attractive. I wanted her, but I would never be able to find her.

  I paused as a siren went by. My senses were heightened again, and I walked quickly to the front door, grabbing the vase on the way.

  It was an ambulance, not a police car.

  How had I known that? I'd never paid attention to sirens before, other than to get out of their way.

  And what had possessed me to stand guard here, holding the vase?

  And how did I remember every face on the bus? Why had I taken a careful inventory of my own apartment? Even now, as I scanned the room, I was instinctively checking that nothing had been moved, that no intruder had entered during his sleep.

  Instincts. I wasn't doing this consciously.

  I closed my eyes, trying to hold off the realization.

  These were her instincts.

  But that was impossible. In my training, they'd been emphatic that learning was only one way. There was no reciprocal learning. The Host was unconscious, and remained in their body. The Inhabitant was awake and in the Host's brain. The Host learned from the Inhabitant, never the other way around

  I spent the next hour searching through my apartment, getting ready.

  Getting ready for what? I wasn't sure, until I found myself stuffing clothes, cash, and my passport into a backpack. It was a getaway bag.

  The doorbell rang. My heart jumped a notch, and then-

  Quiet. Check the windows. Move closer to the door, get the vase.

  Then there was a knock, faint at first, but then three more times, each only slightly louder.

  It's her!

  Before I could stop himself, I was opening the door. A woman stood there and faced me, biting her lip.

  "Hi, I'm looking for-"

  My heart leaped through my chest, my lungs were bursting, and I felt like I was going to explode.

  "Queen" I whispered.

  Her eyes lit up.

  "Boo? Is it really you?" she said. But before she could even finish the sentence I had her in my arms. I wasn't even conscious of the desire; it just happened. I hugged her so tightly that part of my mind worried that I would hurt her, but my mind was not my own. I had my hands in her hair, caressing her neck, her shoulders, just the way she liked it, my fingers running down her back gently in spirals.

  "Oh God," she moaned. "I needed you so much. You don't even know."

  "I know, honey," I said softly.

  Then she kissed me, and I had my lips against hers. We were kissing for ages. It was magical. I knew this was the girl from the tennis court, but I wanted to be sure, and when I looked at her hand, I saw the mole. Something in my movements reminded her that I wasn't who she thought I was. Suddenly, she pushed me away

  "Get your hands off me, you creep!" she said.

  "Wait, what?"

  "I said-"

  She hesitated. Her lips quivered; she wasn't sure what to do. But somehow, I was.

  "Darling, it's ok," I said. "Come in. Sit down. I'll make you some tea."

  She likes Earl Grey with a teaspoon of honey, and I had neither, so I put water in the kettle, knowing even a cup of hot water would be soothing for her. How did I know this? How did I know so much about her? But these questions, seemingly urgent, were buried. Right now I had one job only: to take care of her. She was in danger; whoever was trying to kill her wouldn't stop. Strangely I wasn't worried about myself at all; there wasn't room in my mind.

  "I'm so glad you found me," I said. I didn't want to ask her how, because that would make her nervous, and anyway I knew she would tell me. Since my transformation, I'd been hyperalert to my surroundings. Every car horn, every vibration, every footstep in the hallway. But now she was here, and my universe was different. I watched her closely. In fact that's an understatement. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was Asian, about five foot three, and had a petite frame. But her small appearance was deceiving; I'd felt the power in her tennis strokes. Actually I'd felt the power of her bare hands when she smashed a man's throat.

  "It wasn't easy," she said. "One moment, I was standing on that tennis court, and the next thing I knew I was driving a van, going like a hundred miles an hour. I don't know who was chasing me."

  I nodded. She had lost consciousness when I entered her body, and must have regained it when I blacked out. Thank God, her body had known to wake up.

  "I parked at the metro and got on the train. I just boarded the first one and got out at the last stop.

  "Which stop?"

  "I... I don't remember. I was so shaken up."

  This was bad. How could she not remember something so basic? But I didn't register my dismay.

  "I went to a library and searched for local tennis coaches. It didn't take long. I found your picture."

  Of course. I had never seen her face until now. But she'd seen me in the van, unconscious. For a moment I wondered how presentable I'd been. Was I drooling? How bad had I looked? But my instincts - her instincts - pushed those thoughts aside as inconsequential.

  "Did you go home?"

  "No."

  Good girl.

  "How did you get here?" I asked. I was trying not to alarm her but something in my expression must have alerted her that I was worried.

  "I took the train," she said. "To Smith Street". Again, her lip quivered. She was so uncertain, so scared.

  I wanted to hold her tightly and never let go. But I was doing rapid calculations. They couldn't track her by her phone, which was still presumably at the tennis club. But they could scan surveillance footage from the subway. With facial recognition, they would not be far behind. We had minutes, if that.

  "We have to go," I said.

  She didn't even question me. She was too scared. At least now I didn't have to apologize for not having the tea. Instead, just before we walked out of my apartment, I asked her, "what's your name?"

  She hesitated, then "Maryann"

  I knew this wasn't true, but I played along. "Ok, I'm Rafael. You can call me Rafi"

  Nobody calls me Rafi. Why did I say that?

  Because I knew she would like it.

  We left immediately, and she was holding my hand before I'd even reached out to her. She needed me. And I her. I had to be there for her, to protect her. That was my purpose.