{Mission Complete.}

{Flesh Vessel Allocated, Spirit Return scheduled.}

I am in transition. A sensation not unlike freefall without the promise of a dead stop. Around me emerald-yellow colours streak through the void like splashes of gloss paint hanging in a rainbow-like suspension instead of adhering to a canvass. My eighteenth time in the void and the colour of my transition is always the same, therefore mine.

There is conjecture, are you the colour, or to be more exacting, is your insubstantial Spirit the colour? Are you glimpsing yourself inside out or is the colour just window dressing? After all, to view yourself is impossible - maybe your imagination tries to account for the situation, but without any explanation? Yet the state between occupying a body and not occupying a body registers. Further each of us are conscious of the transition, which isn’t instant regardless of the assurances from the GPA boffins. You get enough time to consider the situation but not enough time to complete an analysis and reach a conclusion. The memory of the entire transition a blink and alas no more.

I thankfully leave behind the flesh bag of my previous mission, one which only the native population could like, let alone love. I am anticipating my long-awaited return to an enhanced human body grown to match my specific predilections. The selection of which, absolute fun and based upon the immersive virtual reality of the twenty-first century, yet in reverse. Instead of a body lying in a pod and creating a virtual avatar, my spirit will connect to a pod and select from the available options. I look forward to reimagining myself with dark brown hair and subtle muscle with roguish good looks, my current preferences. Then when my flesh bag is grown to my specifications effortlessly slip my spirit into residence. I plan to spend my leave-life chasing the current time period females of the human species, although as usual once the flesh bag I occupy turns forty I will accept another mission. You know, there is life and there is living and no point trying to be twenty years old in a fifty-year-old body I say.

{Leave-Life override, Galactic Planet Agent 01-007A to be offered redirect mission. Top Secret. Bonus Offered: Triple Mission Credit if successful. Do you accept? Y/N}

Triple mission credit, the offer too good to be true and the hackles on my non-existent body automatically go up. The Triple credit significant to me because I would then be Final Ride qualified. I could hang up on this “job” and live the eternal quiet life, twenty-one Spirit Returns to Flesh Bag designs of my choice. Too good to be true and therefore too good to refuse. I am certain beyond doubt, a refusal will lead to a failure of some sort in my Spirit Return, in essence “poof”, me gone as in cease to exist. So, I will Y, ensuring as genuine as possible feelings of excitement and enthusiasm lace my thought response. I don’t doubt the entire process is subject to monitoring and therefore need to play my predictable eager part. The brains behind this would have plotted out every stage as if everything proceeds as they have planned, therefore until I learn more, I will ensure they continue to believe in their infallibility.

In essence I need to stall for time, and I can’t do that if I no longer exist. Once a tool, always a tool regardless of any optimism to the contrary. This includes an Agent with my mission success rate, hence the bloody A in my designation you cretins and how can we forget compliance with any of the other key performance measures the Galactic Planet Agency decides to dream up from life to life, to thwart me obtaining Final Ride mustering out. I know them all and have met or exceeded them being from the first graduating class, hence the zero one in my designation. All manner of swearing comes to mind, ultimately futile and a waste of energy, worse, a distraction. My swearing is reserved for an oath, I swear upon my continued life to maintain a laser beam sharp focus to escape this doom and nothing less.

The emerald-yellow of my spirit gathers into a descending spiral and like water down a drain, my consciousness follows. The true depth of my predicament flashes before me, the Mission Parameters offering a brief interruption as they, whoever they are rush me to my new life assignment.

{Mission Parameters:  Planet Name: Restricted. Race Name: Hobgoblin Body Name: Kulg the Tenderer

Synopsis: Goblin races are the primary sentient race on the planet. They are transitioning from Earth equivalent cultures of Primitive hunter/gatherer to Nomadic and/or Barbarian cultures.

Mission: You must guide the Goblin race to the Earth equivalent culture of Civilised avoiding technology, promoting religion and magic use.}

I expect a clean spirit to flesh insert, the pristine flesh bag fresh from the growing vat with an optimised alignment tweak tailored to suit my spirit. Not unlike the human experience when slipping on an expensive tailored suit, a high wool thread count with a blend of cashmere for that oh so velvety smooth touch. Instead, my imaginary hands ball up into fists as my spirit hurtles from side to side within the confining bumpers of a harsh skin layer. I silent scream, my mind suffering scraps, receiving gouges from pinpricks as the insert process forces my spirit … in! My mind detects and samples artefacts, fragments of memory, personal and racial … this flesh bag isn’t new and clean … What travesty is this? My symbolic head tosses from one side to the other … I need to resist, yet like a child on a greasy slide I slip inexorably further into the injection process, and the end isn’t a soft gentle landing on safe ground. Instead, I am hurtling off the end of the slide and into a gut-wrenching free fall until there is nothing but darkness. Then a sudden awareness of an uncomfortable completion like an ancient television set trying to tune a poor signal, picture distortions – my Spirit to Flesh-bag fit is the equivalent of wearing a cheap, ill-fitting and miserable suit.

This isn’t possible I scream. Why me? Why dirty my pristine spirit like this? Did this flesh bag belong to another Agent first and I am Plan B? How can an “A” designated Agent be assigned to a Plan B? There is something worse I realise; with each designer flesh bag, the engineering effort to ensure a perfect match with your spirit also includes your GPA identity markers! You aren’t just another example of the native population; you are a specific Agent and any in the Galactic Planet Agency will be able to discern that fact. My ill-fitting hand me down designer flesh bag contains micro code which identifies me as the original Agent, my real designation and therefore identity gone. How bad could this get …? I swear. I curse. I waste countless moments indulging in useless self-pity … why me?

My emerald-yellow Spirit sloshes about like heavy syrup in the stale flesh bag, trying to grow familiar, accustom and attempting to shrug off the discomfort. Yet this flesh bag’s mind is primitive, not enough synapses … the excess from my Spirit forms a feedback loop, a waiting queue with finite patience before “permanent loss” – no I silent scream! I need all of me, knowledge, skills, long term memory, and especially short-term memory … Bad is now horrific as I recall something else; primitive mind, this flesh bag isn’t engineered? The designer flesh bag isn’t just another example of the native population, the tailoring technology ensures a superior example of the species is grown with flesh enhancements, seamless embedding of tech and the Agent usually awakens within close reach of the best examples of the culture’s available technology and equipment. What I occupy is none of this I realise … so what is my Spirit bound to?

Survival first, answers later. Motor functions where are they? Moments like years squeeze by … stop, calm, be methodical. Assume human like and work outwards from there. I must initiate physical movement, I have a hunch … left hand side of the body, an imperceptible rock left. My sense of smell returns.

Caustic smoke.

I gather my will for another effort. Right hand side, an imperceptible rock right. The flesh bag’s brain jolts, lightning, thunder, impaling, strangling and then a piercing sound. Did I scream? Am I screaming? I am certain now, the body jostle is the trigger, as my sense of touch returns.

Searing heat.

No heartbeat. Then a triple razor-sharp stabbing, not heart, rib cage, three ribs reform. Pressure off my lungs and I take my first breath drawing in acrid smoke through my nostrils, the molten heatwave cauterizes my airways. Can I scream? I refuse to scream, an eighteen-mission veteran doesn’t panic when facing the unknown or the different, they get on with surviving and then the mission! Foolish bravado, is that all I have now? How close am I to flesh death after spirit insertion? I need to assess, search for ways to live and not wait for one of the many ways to fail. First step; as revolting as I imagine I cease my resistance and in a heartbeat my spirit finalises ownership of this disgusting flesh bag, there isn’t another option in any case. My spirit feels forever dirty. Gritting my teeth, erm fangs the chemical and nanorobot cocktail release completes not long after my acceptance repairing this flesh bag’s heart muscle. Opening my eyes, a darkness blocks my view, yet I lay prone on a flat surface, arms by my sides as my hearing returns.

Crackling and snapping.

The heat intensifies. On command my fingers curl. My toes curl. Good enough motor-muscular response. I refuse to take the deep breath this body demands as the heart begins pumping. Instead, I roll to one side and immediately roll back, the radiating heat an impenetrable wall. I crunch my abdominal muscles and sit upright, my eyes thankfully clear, folds of a covering cloth now rest upon my otherwise naked lap.

Several sharp screeches, a long scream, and the thump of falling bodies mix with the roar of the greedy fire devouring the logs underneath me. Through the smoke I spy several of the natives, hands on mouths or arms waving, others prone, several running, in short bedlam. Radiating heat prickles my skin. I pick out the first vacant spot beyond the flames and climb to my feet wrapping the length of white cloth around my shoulders. Taking one stumbling step back, I fling my arms out to recover, then tense and release my thigh muscles to test my chances. Blistering heat reaches through the thinning platform teasing my feet and with three rapid paces I leap off the end a combination of long jump and high jump. The flames roar and flick towards my fleeing body as the wooden planks of the platform fall inwards kicking up bright embers. Mid jump my hands claw back to me for any modicum of extra distance while my legs kick outwards in support, attempting ungainly flight to clear the inferno surrounding me. Upon landing arms and legs tangle as my bodily control is imperfect, yet behind me the flames engulf my former wooden bed, the conflagration rising high in protest venting displeasure due to my escape. I half stumble to my feet, cursing my mission’s primitive flesh bag as I do.

Sucking in a shallow breath, I drop to my haunches to take some time for myself, the flames enough to separate me from the inquisitive, I hope. I eye the remains of the bonfire, cut lengths of wood stacked to support a platform on high, the white cloth now a toga about my body, previously draped over the length of my future body. I blink and spit at the flames … funeral pyre, white cloth a shroud and therefore, my flesh bag once a corpse. Pouring a Spirit into a corpse … I cough, unable to drag in enough air, falling forward, placing my palms upon the ground to steady myself … a corpse, not even a designer hand me down from another Agent. My mind freezes, the possibility beyond my comprehension, yet that is the singular impossible truth, an explanation for the memory artefacts and the spirit-body ill-fit. I am a corpse come back to life, this funeral pyre audience bearing witness.

I swallow, the painful action unimportant for now as I try to reconsider and accept the truth. Fact – this flesh bag wasn’t engineered for me or even another Agent therefore the sole remaining possibility is a native inhabitant’s corpse. There is no spin, pretence or alternative explanation, my spirit now inhabits once dead flesh … how is this possible? Did the GPA transport the corpse off world, complete modifications and then return? When did Spirit insertion occur? Does that matter? If an Agent’s spirit inserts sufficiently then one of the first things to try, would be to move. Failure to exhibit such a basic sign of life and in this case the flesh bag would be disposed of in the pyre and all evidence destroyed, none the wiser and therefore the situation ready for another try when another suitable corpse becomes available. The burning of the dead must be cultural for the GPA to depend upon the ritual. My mind turns over the questions, to test my analysis … the application of the chemical and nanorobot cocktail at sign of life needed to lock in as much enhancement as possible into the primitive flesh bag. Conclusion? My mission isn’t official, there is no sanction, no committee oversight – worse than a grey op. No clean flesh bag the real clue as all mission grown flesh containers must be registered. I am alone and singularly dependent upon my mystery agent provocateur and hopefully benefactor if promises made are kept as I doubt in my present circumstance, I can lift my worth enough from this pitiful start. Why me?

Turning my eyes away from the roaring flames and climbing to my feet I realise no one approaches me, a total lack of concern. No offer of basic aid; food, water, or clothing. A strong breeze feeds oxygen to the flames causing my blazing bed to rise and radiate heat over me and on instinct I retreat a couple of steps. The pyre collapses shortly after, a final gasp.

A hand slams down upon my shoulder and somehow, I don’t collapse, the strike a test I suspect. Instead, I draw in a deep breath of fresh air, the breeze turning the trailing smoke away in my favour. Oxygen floods my bloodstream, and my mind focuses. I decide in that moment to grow a spine, I will find those responsible and wipe their Spirits. My Spirit animates a corpse, a flesh bag previously alive, this insult cannot go unpunished.

A grunt. “Alive then, back to three Hobs. Good … good.”

He continues marching away from me leaning upon the support of a walking stick, not even breaking his stride. A Hob? Masculine voice, bald, dark green skin, large ears which end flat and wide at the top, with heavy set barrel body type. He marches away from me and I don’t need a mirror to know I must look similar. I don’t call out; he would be talking to me if I am of any interest to him. I scan about instead, rustic cottages, slapdash stone, and wooden walls with tree bark tiles upon the peaked rooves. Only the best of rudimentary living then. Standing to one side of the pyre three thin light green skinned humanoids, these, I regret to identify, belong to the base humanoid race of this planet, goblin. All ugly females by any measure, angular faces with large, long noses, the tips of which curl down to almost touch their top lips a notable feature of my cursory assessment.

I sigh, as certain as the sun rises on any habitable planet, the occupant of a designer flesh bag is programmed to be attracted to the native population given time and association, otherwise making romantic or long-lasting attachments to non-human species would be problematic. My only question is, will this happen sooner than otherwise, given my flesh bag is an actual native … I will never know of course unless no attraction develops for this very reason. I swallow, a possible deeper problem awaits, going native. According to the boffins a rare chance that any Agent will be so enamoured by the local way of life, in particular falling in love with an inhabitant they choose to live out their flesh bag’s natural life planet bound and in effect muster out. The more missions completed by an agent the more susceptible and this is apparently incurable. Going native is a result of some spark of the primordial need for natural physical attraction is the best explanation the GPA scientists can arrive at and swear they can’t correct this condition and yet somehow, I believe this impossible problem is personal, they don’t want to find a fix or worse they know everything and manipulate the native attraction level in a designer flesh bag to deliberately influence or force an Agent to go native.

One of my graduating class, double zero five for example who skipped every third leave life taking another mission instead; one such agent who went native. I thought our time spent as a married couple throughout one leave life something special … and yet inexplicably she found true love with another during a mission thereby mustering out and conveniently saving the Agency the liability of her future life pensions.

I know we were true to each other as relationships are built on quality time spent together. Agents being able to live their lives in designer flesh bags aren’t bound by the impost of physical attraction when developing mutual relationships considering we can design our own bodies. The long-haul attractions such as personality, emotional maturity, and intellectual development carry the joy and burden of the relationship and I thought double zero five and I had that deeper connection.

A sharp urine scent assaults my nostrils and smashes away my idle thoughts and any reminiscing. My eyes are drawn to the damp ground around their bare green splayed feet. Two of them shiver under my gaze while the third is frozen, her head down. Hobs are near five feet tall, Gobs according to the Planet profile, in the main are four feet tall. These are shorter, which puts the rest of the Gob crowd into perspective, they are a similar height. Conclusion, the goblin race is degenerating. Crud.

Wrapping my shroud around the naked lower half of my body I flick my hand at them and shout, “Home.”

The frozen one urinates. The other two scamper away. Growling as I approach, the head of the frozen one now darts about, a sudden body jolt and then she is away sprinting after the first two. My body took a blow to the chest, the force required to break three ribs didn’t come from any of these three although the shock of me returning from the dead to terrorise their lives once again too much, instantly emptying their bladders. Hobs in general or my former flesh bag self, aren’t kind to or perhaps caring of our lessors. Whatever the rules of this primitive society their future is tied to me as they didn’t run away at my death or rebirth and no other goblins took them in.

There is also the quandary of where I live and who I am. The first resolving before my eyes as I jog after my goblin property. I doubt they have been treated as persons their entire lives. Three Hobs in this cesspit of a village and we are the undisputed masters of every creature weaker than us, specifically goblins. Given the low number of Hobs, where do we occasionally come from? Questions without answers aren’t helpful, I need to find some answers and quick.

My feet splash through river water flowing over a ford and then I discover a touch of civilisation. The trail beneath our running feet is narrow, yet the base is timber providing a firm surface and as I chase my three goblins over a rise I pause to take in the view. Twenty? More? Like lightning the muddle of skinny green bodies dart into action sneaking an occasional glance in my direction. Perhaps they didn’t think I would return either.

I jog to the middle of them. “Where are the rest?” An assumption of course but when the boss is away and all that.

Skinny arms point in a few directions, although the majority favour at least three. A light forest. A field with tall grass. The third, somewhere over there which isn’t the low grass field in that direction but perhaps beyond it.

“Fetch them. Now.” I command.

They look at each other, so I step forward and pick out volunteers with a slap behind their heads, three in each direction. Another mystery, my female property pauses down the trail taking an interest or taking in several breaths.

The light forest, the closer hiding place, disgorges at least ten naked goblins, equal number male and female, sprinting for their lives. I slap each across the face as they arrive with enough force to put them on their bony arses. When they try to stand, I growl. Twenty or more emerge, with clothes on, from the field and I treat them to the same reception. The naked goblins utilise the disturbance of new arrivals to clothe themselves.

A large goblin leads the last to return, his clothes at least cut and sewn, not a piece of cloth front and back, hole for the head and another two opposite for the arms like his brethren. His escort, all females and I note in the distance his jaw drops and his swagger vanishes as he now hurries. The rumours of my demise … now proven false with his own eyes.

He drops to a grovel. “Great Hob we work hard always for you.”

The creature at my feet, would reach four feet in height when standing. Of sixty plus goblins one is the racial height, the rest, male, and females are runts.

I reach down and grab him by his throat, dragging him to his feet. He gasps for breath as I intend.

“When will my road by finished?”

Gasping and spluttering half words issue forth. A slight release of my hold.

“Ten days Great One …” he gasps.

I close off his throat and raise what I hope is an eyebrow. His eyes bulge as he tries to speak again, and I release my hold until he can form words.

“Eight days Great One … yes Eight, mighty will we work for you.”

I shake my head and begin to squeeze.

“Five,” he yells, with a rasping breath.

I nod and release him. “Today is day one.”

I stride off under a mid-morning sun, my gaze fixing on my three goblin ladies who blink and scamper away. I hear his promises and ignore them. There is much to do and the previous me probably relied upon the Goblin Overseer too much. I can’t afford to make the same mistake. I don’t wish to remain here a single day longer than is necessary, so every creature under my command or yet to be will toil and sweat to within an inch of their lives or beyond without exception.

My three goblin darlings, I realise upon reaching the top of the hill, stand at the end of the wooden trail, beyond a mush of drying mud, the sort where you take a step and upon lifting your foot mud clings underneath. I try the long mile grass each side of the trail, a mistake as lacerations from the long grass cover my legs. Nasty.

Late afternoon, almost dusk and each step forward now brings my holdings clearer into view. Several buildings, all log construction, walls and rooves. Maybe I undervalued the former me. The farm his, the Overseer restricted to the work crews. This lack of awareness makes learning about the former me more imperative, fortunately I have three handy witnesses. Although their loud panting and abundant sweating indicates I may have pushed them beyond their limits to reach our home before nightfall.

Ignoring their condition my thoughts wander off considering several different methods of extracting the truth … then a sharp pain skewers my heart which I grab at. My body warms. Something is wrong … chemical and nanorobot release … spirit injection … body or should I say corpse rejection? I will myself to walk. One step, I force another. Beads of sweat springs from my skin. My three tired ladies line up as best they can, forming an honour guard of sorts on one side of the open cabin door. The billowing shadow within beckons me. I try to cover up my critical condition by leaning against the door jam, pretending a slight pause solely to assess the interior.

I slide in and grab for the door slamming it shut. A staggering shuffle across I then slide to the floor, my body a backstop to the only entrance to the cabin. Well, the one I know about. As I lose consciousness, I notice beads of black tar popping through the pores of my dark green skin.