Soulless Beauty Aorta

TRUTH

The four sat in a circle, Rose, Heather, and Gardenia looked intently at Hyacinth. She took a deep breath, and her form changed. She became the size of a default Aorta unit, her proportions changing nearly to match, with her breasts and hips shrinking down to their true proportions. Her skin rippled, and her bikini changed into her intern uniform, save for the pink dyed jeans she had always worn, and her pink tie, which bore an acrylic MANNA logo pinned to the knot. Her hair was dark brown, with a single pink highlight in it. She was now the spitting image of her human self.

"Thousands of years ago, the four of us lived as normal, organic people. We were... happy. We lived under the instruction and guidance of this huge supercomputer, GD, built by the top secret government-funded organization MANNA, and humanity thrived. Of course, it couldn't last. Out of nowhere, GD predicted this... apocalyptic potential future, one in which the Earth would be burnt to a crisp, and surrounded by metal. The cause of this future could appear at any time. GD gave instructions on how to artificially force humanity to evolve to survive all this. The news of this future leaked, and within like 4 hours, human society totally broke down. What was once this gorgeous, utopian... melody of all life, had been turned into a hellscape, just like that.

"Only a few sane humans remained, and the majority of them were employees of MANNA. They- or I guess, we- began work on the Forced Evolution Project, which was later renamed as the Aorta Project," Rose's eyes widened as she listened to Hyacinth's solemn memories.

"These gender ambiguous mechanical bodies of steel and circuitry, lined with flexible skin of superheated platinum, to hold the souls of the damned. Aortae were supposed to be humanity's final hope. One by one, we began to transfer our consciousnesses into the machines. It was going alright, until one of the members who came in to the project late, a strange girl named Inri, was transferred into her Aorta, codenamed Unit X. Once Inri was in, X began violently twitching like something out of a horror movie, and ripped out of its restraints."

A small voice broke the narrative as the tiny Gardenia chimed in from her father's lap, "What the heck is a 'kai'?" Turning her head and smiling, Hyacinth replied gently to the child, "It's symbolic of a cross, like how Inri's soul 'crossed over' into her new body. Written like the English letter X, but it's pronounced like 'ki' or 'kai'." She leaned forward and scratched an English X next to the symbol X on the steel floor, making sure to emphasize the stylized curved end of the symbol. "It's part of the Greek alphabet. All 9 test Aortae were given letters to differentiate the units." Gardenia stared at the markings for a moment, then up to Hyacinth, "I... still don't get it, but okay!"

Hyacinth sat back up. "Inconveniently enough... that's where my memory goes blank. The next thing I remember is waking up in this fucked up Aorta body, only sort of sure where I was, and with the name Upsilon stuck in my head. I assume that's this body's code name, another Greek letter. I still don't understand how our bodies change to match our mental state, or even what Inri really was."

Hyacinth snapped out of a daze. She'd been staring into space as she resumed speaking following her explanation to Gardenia. "S-sorry, I went on a little long there... I did realize why we've been working though. Like how we were servants before we Awakened. It's because The Shell is dead. You know all those soft floors and pools of liquid and 'hydraulic fluid' we've passed by?" Rose and Heather turned to look at each other, both of their faces drained of heat and their artificial hearts pounding. "That's exactly what you think it is. The Shell is some nightmare amalgamation planet of like flesh and metal, it's awful. And all these quintillions of tons of organic material can't sustain itself. Even though it's not decomposing since The Shell has no atmosphere and no biological scavengers, we're still using its energy to charge our bodies. That charge helps oxygenate our own biomechanical bodies' blood in environments with no air, so we can stay "alive" even here. That's why we needed parts gatherers and maintenance workers- our very existence is slowly killing our planet, because we're just like The Shell."

Gently, Hyacinth stood and turned her head to the oldest of the group, "Yo Heather, you were right. With The Shell constantly falling apart, we really do have a time limit here, and taking out two of the Quadrant Authority probably didn't help matters. The only way to regain our memories, to get our real selves back, is to speak with the leader of the Quadrant Authority, and the previous head of MANNA's R&D department-" Hyacinth turned her gaze down at her left shoulder, where MANNA's logo was fixed to her body, "Mary." The name caused Rose's mechanical heart to skip a beat.