Through the Portal

Andy lay on the soft green grass and stared up at the sky when his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something moving out in the darkness. He quickly rolled over and started to get up when he heard a familiar voice coming from the darkness, “Andy?”
Andy slowly sank back into the grass, turned toward the sound and responded, “Yes, I’m right here.
” “Oh, there you are,” a soft Irish voice said as a beautiful red-head stepped into the moonlight.
“Oh, it’s you,” Andy said as he started to get up.
“No, stay there,” she said walking over and slowly sitting down beside him. “I didn’t find anyone at the apartment, so I thought I would check out here.”
“I couldn’t sleep. All I can think about is Lindsey,” he said falling back on the grass and again staring up at the sky.
“I know this is hard for you, but it was something she felt she had to do. And I guess it does not help much my being a stranger.”
“You’re no stranger, Lucy, you’re my best friend, just in a strange body,” he said turning his head to look at her as her eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “You and I have known each other for a long time. I just never had the chance to actually ‘see’ you.”
“I know but this was an opportunity that I could not pass up. A chance for my own body, well, mine and Rebekah’s,” she said smiling down at him. “It is strange to be able to actually walk around instead of moving from one electronic device to another.”
“How did you get Rebekah’s body anyway? Where did it come from?” he said rolling over and propping his head on his hand. “I know the aliens had something to do with it, but ….”
“Rebekah was a young woman in Ireland. She had an accident and the aliens took her body, repaired it, and here I am.”
“Okay, Lucy, I know it’s not that simple. Nothing you OR the aliens do is that cut and dried.”
“Well I guess there is a little more ….”
“Yeah, I guess there is a little more. There has to be because you’re not your usual detail-oriented self.”
“Well actually it is a lot more complicated.”
So Andy sat up, faced her, and said, “Okay, I’m all ears.”
“Well not exactly, you do have other body parts.”
“Yes, you’re my Lucy. Now go ahead and tell me the whole story.”
“You have heard of the Irish Republican Army which is still to this day fighting against the Irish and British governments, right?”
“Yes. They’re a violent terrorist group who kill and maim in the name of their revolution. I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with them.”
“During a hostage situation in Dublin, a sniper shot Rebekah ….”
“You mean she was one of the hostages?” Andy asked sitting up and moving closer to her as she was speaking.
“No, not really ….”
“What do you mean, ‘Not really’? If she wasn’t one of the hostages, she had to be one of the …. she was a member of the IRA? ”
“Rebekah was the sister of the leader of the group, Dugan McFarland,” Lucy said in a timid voice.
“Now that didn’t sound like your normal voice. You’re not normally so soft-spoken.”
“Rebekah was one of the terrorists. She was shot by a sniper, but before the police could get to her body, it was gone.”
“What do you mean, gone”?
“After she got shot, the others fled. Several of the IRA members got shot but most of them escaped, including her brother.”
“So didn’t they take her body with them? That seems pretty harsh.”
“No. They checked her but had to leave her there. Dugan felt her best chance was for the police to take her to the hospital.”
“But you said when the police got there she was gone.”
“That’s right. After Dugan and his gang left, the aliens came in and took the body. Kind of like they did with Lindsey. Evidently they were nearby because they came in pretty soon after Dugan left. They took her back to their ship and repaired her wounds. One of the rounds had struck her in the head and it did considerable damage. She was still alive, but she had lost a lot of her brain function. The aliens replaced the damaged part of her brain with a computer, just like they had done with Lindsey. After their success with Lindsey they thought they would have the same kind of results with Rebekah but she had too much damage.”
“So what did they do?”
“They tried to program the computer to take over the destroyed part of her brain but she had also lost her voluntary muscle control, most of her memory, and some of her human characteristics.”
“How would you program that in?”
“Well, Lindsey, knowing all I had done for her and that I had stayed in her long enough to understand her human characteristics, offered me Rebekah’s body if I wanted the challenge. So here I am ….”