For the Glory of the Great People's Republic of China (Patreon)

"Comms check," came the calm voice of the operator in my earpiece, Dr. Li Wei, our lead specialist in chrono-transfer. "Captain Lin Zhengwei, can you hear me? Are you ready for launch?"

I stood in the center of the experimental chamber inside the underground complex beneath Shenzhen, at the heart of the world's first experimental consciousness exchange capsule. In other words, a version of a time machine that humanity, and our great People's Republic of China, had created in 2055. And I, Lin Zhengwei, was now preparing to become, as a true Chinese patriot and officer of the People's Liberation Army, the first person to step beyond the boundaries of time and space. I was filled with pride for my country and for the fact that I had been entrusted with this mission.

"Ready!" I answered firmly, immediately straightening even further into attention.

A brief click sounded in my earpiece, and Dr. Li Wei's voice became slightly more tense.

"Excellent, Captain. Final parameter check. Pulse stable, neural interface synchronized. Remember the protocol: your consciousness will transfer to the selected temporal anchor in the year 2008, into the body of a local resident. No deviations. You are the first. Glory to the People's Liberation Army!"

"Glory!" I barked back, feeling a chill of pride run down my spine.

"Five... four..." Li Wei began the countdown, and I felt a cold sensation travel along my backbone. Yes, I understood the risks perfectly well, and that this might be a one-way journey, but even if the experiment succeeded, there was no guarantee that my consciousness wouldn't transfer into an animal or even an insect! But even if that happened, so be it! Let it be so! I would be the first, and a monument would be erected in my honor in the center of Beijing as a symbol of the triumph of Chinese science over time and space.

"Three... two..."

The capsule began to hum, and everything around me seemed to flicker. Brief flashes of completely different scenes appeared before my eyes. They were too fast, too fleeting for me to remember, but in that moment I understood that everything was fine. The process was working exactly as intended, and very soon, any second now, I would...

"One..."

Li Wei's voice stretched out, then immediately became muffled, as if someone had ripped it from his throat and thrown it into icy water, and at that exact moment I felt something wrap tightly around me from behind, squeezing my shoulders and pressing me against something that was both soft and firm at the same time.

I took a deep breath, and with it something on my ribcage swayed heavily, pressing softly yet weightily against my ribs, while something cold and downward-pulling hung from my earlobes, reacting even to that simple breath.

"Yeah, fuck, bro, that's not how things are done!" a rough male voice suddenly sounded from somewhere slightly above me and far too close at the same time, and immediately whatever was holding my shoulders pressed me even harder, nearly knocking the breath out of me, while the weight on my chest swayed softly and heavily, settling against my ribs with dense, warm heaviness.

I lowered my gaze, prepared to see the inevitable and the most logical explanation, but the instant I saw those two monsters that almost completely blocked my view and hung there heavily, swaying softly with every breath I took, all my training, all my discipline, everything that made me Captain Lin Zhengwei, simply shut off for a second.

"Oh God!" I squeaked, actually squeaked, completely losing my composure and giving in to the panic that flooded my mind.

"What're you squealing about?" the same rough, irritated voice immediately growled from above. "Fuck, my girl's yelling about something again! I'm telling you, get your ass over here or there's gonna be trouble, got it?!"

I looked up and immediately found myself staring at the broad, unshaven face of a man who was holding me against him while talking on a cell phone, wearing the kind of expression that said the whole world owed him something.

A thought instantly surfaced in my head.

"Marko?"

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye but didn't answer, continuing his conversation while only tightening his grip on me, and I somehow understood that it would be better for me to stay quiet right now, because when he was this angry, things usually ended with bruises on my thighs and mascara smeared across my cheeks.

Damn! How do I know that? Is this... is this because of the consciousness transfer? Right?

"Yeah, fuck, I'm already at the entrance," Marko growled into the phone, his fingers digging into my bare shoulder so hard that the skin beneath them burned. "With the guys from Pančevo. Aah!" he snarled loudly enough to make me flinch. "That's it! I've had enough!"

He ended the call, and his hand left my shoulder and slipped into the pocket of his jacket, apparently searching for a lighter or a pack of cigarettes, while I desperately tried to regain my bearings after this unexpected "jump," and realized I couldn't. I really couldn't. I felt panic mixed with a sense of complete incomprehension, and that was despite my military training and the thousands of hours I had spent with psychologists before the jump.

"Why are you twitching?" Marko muttered, pulling a pack of Winston cigarettes from his pocket and flicking his lighter. "Just stand still, Eliza."

Eliza? I'm Eliza. Eliza Marković, twenty-five years old, born in some rundown Serbian town outside Novi Sad, where my alcoholic father, a former soldier from the nineties, regularly smashed his fists into my mother's face and ours until he finally disappeared for good, while my mother, trying to make ends meet, sold things at the market and brought random "uncles" home, men who filled the house with the smell of cheap sweat and cigarettes. And looking at these breasts, I remember how happy I was when they started growing, growing so fast that I couldn't replace bras quickly enough, first embarrassed by the stares at vocational school, then eventually learning to catch them, straightening my back and showing off my greatest asset, even though, truth be told, they made my back ache terribly and forced me to learn how to sleep exclusively on my side, with a pillow tucked underneath so that this cursed weight wouldn't press against my ribs all night, and yet they were still my only real capital in this world...

And at that moment it felt as if something tore me apart from the inside.

"That's not me..." I whispered more quietly, but my voice still broke into that high, soft, helpless tone that sounded like an excuse all by itself, like a plea, like something nobody would ever take seriously.

"Huh?" Marko blew smoke straight into my face without even looking at me. "You nervous or something? Have you completely lost it?"

He chuckled at his own joke and wrapped his arm around me again, pulling me tighter against his side so that my enormous breasts pressed heavily into his leather jacket.

Damn it, why is he always so rough when other people are around...?

"Marko..." escaped me in Eliza's high, trembling voice, but I immediately bit my lip, trying to pull myself together. Pull myself together... I needed to get in contact with the base, follow the protocol... Protocol? I was supposed to activate communications immediately after transfer and turn on the beacon... The beacon?

But all knowledge of the procedure, the capsule, the codes and passwords, the sequence of actions, seemed to dissolve into thin air inside this body. Nothing. My brain stubbornly produced only vague fragments of instructions, as if I were trying to read someone else's diary in a language I didn't understand. Instead, my thoughts kept jumping from 'I need to check what I look like' to pulling my skirt lower because, damn it, too much thigh was showing, to an automatic fear that Marko would notice if I started acting strangely, to an almost compulsive urge to suck in my stomach and push out my breasts at the same time so I'd look "normal."

"Come here..." he said quietly, but with that commanding rasp in his voice that made everything inside me tighten into a knot, and before I could even process what was happening, his rough fingers, smelling of tobacco and something metallic, were already under my chin, sharply lifting my face upward before his lips crashed against mine in a hard, possessive kiss that stole my breath and made my eyes fly open as if they were about to pop from their sockets.

I kissed him back.

I don't know why, but I did, pressing closer and feeling my breasts flatten against his body. I knew how to move my tongue in ways he liked. No, in ways all men liked. I knew how to make the right sounds during a kiss, how to move my lips, and suddenly I realized that I wanted a cigarette.

I really, really wanted a cigarette.

"There. Better?" Marko muttered as he pulled away from the kiss, taking out another cigarette and flicking his lighter.

"Yeah, better..." I breathed automatically, answering honestly before immediately feeling a wave of outrage at that realization.

Damn it. I want a cigarette so badly. Why can't he offer me one? I'm his girlfriend after all, and he knows I smoke, and...

Again? Why do those thoughts feel like they're mine? I can't forget who I am! Even if I can't contact the base right now, I...

"Here, take it."

His voice and the heavy hand holding out a cigarette interrupted my thoughts, and a smile immediately appeared on my face. I took the cigarette, my fingers trembling from a strange, almost disorienting excitement, caused not only by the fact that he'd guessed what I wanted, but by the brief touch of my fingers against his.

I took a drag while watching him return to his phone conversation and pull me closer again, as if I really were his girl and he really was some tough bastard everyone was afraid of.

The smoke burned my throat, and I pressed myself tighter against him, feeling my breasts flatten against his body.

Oh. Being his girlfriend is so amazing...

The thought flashed through my mind, unexpectedly clear and horrifyingly honest.

My heart was pounding, and there was that strange knot in my chest, equal parts fear and excitement. I looked at Marko, at his rough face, at the dark eyes filled with authority and complete indifference toward my feelings, and I realized:

I... I love this. I love that he's bad. I love that he's rough, dangerous, and almost impossible to escape when he's in control. And then I froze, raising the cigarette for another drag.

Love... I love him...?! Me?! WHAT?!