“I know how that feels.” Zax nodded sombrely.

The downcast girl didn’t react. She didn’t believe him.

“I did bad things too. Horrible things.” His voice was grave enough to startle her. Aran turned to him too. It was his turn to be downcast. “I try to handle it on my own, with tricks and lessons I learnt in therapy before. It’s slow and not done yet, but it works. The nightmares come a lot less strongly now. I even work with the results of my actions.” He added with a smile. A smile devoid of any mirth. “That way I can say it wasn’t for nothing. Even if I can’t say if it was worth it.”

He wanted to stop there; it should be enough to show he genuinely understood. Both of his friends’ eyes convinced him otherwise, even as he knew they wouldn’t ask for more:

“I already said too much, didn’t I?” He sighed, bracing himself for a difficult explanation. “When I was in the Core, I acted as executioner for the one accomplice we caught.”

Aran was surprised at the news, but SG was shocked. Even she knew how unreachable the Core was, and the news she had read about the still recent happenings inside had been a source of fascination and curiosity. They respected anonymity however, and she would have never guessed Zax had been involved. They both kept silent, unwilling to disturb him.

“I didn’t have explicit instructions or anything. I was just put in a room with mechanical controls. The big commands in the middle poured different amounts of 3G in the room next door, where the convict was. The walls were covered with other commands. Add different substances to the poured mix. Change size and temperature of the other room. Brightness and humidity. Make the ground vibrate. Many things like it.”

“The sentence was a lot of 3G?” Aran queried.

“To consume immediately. Doesn’t make sense, right? I thought the same.” Zax nodded. “But it was the only thing to do. I had no way of communicating, even with the guy, and I couldn’t leave until the Core made a door. So I did it.”

He had held up remarkably well so far, but he visibly sagged at that point. His friends couldn’t miss it and didn’t dare say a word.

“I started normally, but after a while of nothing happening, it was tedious. So I mixed things up. Give a lot of 3G at once, then a little. Add a bit of acid. A lot of acid. Make him anticipate the next batch, and pour pure acid. Make him dread the next batch of pure 3G, then make him jump at it head first when he realised it was safe. Then I started to experiment. To try and force specific mutations. Make the room darker so he would develop low light vision. Then very bright to force a mutation not using eyes that much. Make it cold so he would develop thick fur, then hot so he would overheat and hyperventilate, and once mutated for that make it cold again. But going back and forth made him adapt to both extremes. You know, eventually. So I got creative. I tried to orient his wishes beyond “make it stop”. Noises. Vibration. Water, gases, flashes. I used everything I had and everything I knew. Sometimes I failed, but there was always next time. Sometimes I combined things just to see what would happen. I kept going even after he stopped reacting to anything.”

His trembling had intensified to a full body shiver when he stopped talking. As he didn’t add anything for a few minutes, Aran thought he was done:

“Well, if you had to carry the sentence anyway, there’s nothing bad with studying it, right? You love to study mutations, why wouldn’t you try and experiment?”

“Because I… I… I enjoyed it!”

His voice broke into sobs, but he kept going. Stopping was impossible at that point. Unthinkable. He didn’t even feel his whole body shaking or how loud he was.

“I can’t pretend I did everything for science! Even when the punishment part revealed itself, I found it fascinating! He melted! He melted in front of my very eyes! I made a man’s living body flow and fall in a puddle around him and I was curious! I stared at his eyes begging for help and I was annoyed that I couldn’t see the rest! I watched a pool of liquefied flesh that was once a person coalesce in a big uniform ball and I wondered ‘what is it made of?’! And I- and I-”

His voice was silenced by wracking weeps, but he didn’t need it anymore.

Aran and SG were shocked speechless. They would have never dreamt of something nearing that development. It seemed straight out of a movie! They were both out of their depth. Should they comfort him or give him space? Pretend nothing had happened? Act like it was no big deal?

No. They knew him enough to tell he would resent denial more than anything.

In the end, they stayed on the couch, unmoving. It took a moment for him to calm down enough to talk.

“Thank you. You’re both nice. So, you see, I am a worse monster than you’ll ever be. I can’t be afraid of you.”

I don’t deserve it.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You’re not a monster!” Aran’s snap startled the other pair. “Something impossible was happening right in front of you! It’s normal to ask questions. But you were not just curious, were you? I bet you were also afraid, terrified, and horrified.”

Zax could only nod wordlessly. He had been. He had only realised the horror of his own thoughts and behaviour afterwards, when he had calmed enough to actually consider it.

She didn’t stop. She grabbed his head in her hands and put their foreheads together. Her eyes grabbed his and she claimed with a voice that didn’t allow any defiance:

“You are literally the strongest bestest nicest person I ever met. You’re skilled enough your regular pay would let you work, like, one day a week, and you still work every day plus manage a common shop at the highest capacity you are legally allowed to. And why are you doing that?”

“Because I-”

“Because you want to contribute more! Not for more credits. Not for fame or clout, most people you meet don’t even know about it. Not for sex, I’m not even sure you have a sex drive.”

“I do, I just-”

“You contribute more to the dot than five grown men, because you can, and because it’s just the right thing to do.”

“That’s not-”

“Even your hobby helps others. I saw your mutation reports in the forums, after I talked with Eety. I was looking for mine, and I found others. You can claim you just analysed their mutations for fun, it doesn’t change the fact you’ve helped every person you spent time with to be more in touch with themselves. To develop their jobs, their hobbies, their habits, their lives in a better direction. Or a healthier one. Or a happier one. Even if the process hurt them sometimes. And where does it usually lead? Unexpected activations with bigger effects than they should. Mutations they could now understand, accept and develop instead of ignoring them like most people. Mutations that slightly changed direction, just enough to fit them a bit more. Did you know Eety activated since the last time we saw her? It happened the first time she sang for her friend after getting out. It made her think about what you said, and for the first time since her teenage years, it focused on her throat and lungs again. Her voice is notably better now. Notably, you hear? She even landed a regular gig. Doing something she loves, thanks to her mutation, that she will keep on doing.”

He understood what she was getting at. It was exceptional for a dotter’s mutation to have a significant improvement in one activation. Only the first one brought a notable effect. The others merely build up on it in small increments.

It was his turn to be speechless. SG was too, looking at them with eyes so wide they seemed about to fall. The tailed girl let go of his face and leaned back. After a deep breath, she continued in a calmer, more comforting, but not less firm tone:

“Zax. It’s not a coincidence if so many of your acquaintances became Residents. You push them forward in life. And I am sure they are all grateful. I know I am. And I didn’t even activate.” She added with a chuckle. “You do a lot of good around you, just being yourself. You are a good person.”

“No.” He resisted. “I don’t do any of that out of altruism. I keep working because I’m bored. And I do unscrupulous things just to get interesting scans. Like with you. I saw you try and weasel your way in my friend’s life, so I manipulated you for a scan. I gave you an illusion of choice, but it was between something I knew you didn’t want and something I made you too upset to think straight about. I knew you had troubles, but your graft was the only reason I didn’t make you leave the very next day.”

“Excuse. My mutation is nothing special, and you could’ve kept tabs on me even if I had left.” Was the matter-of-fact answer. Bringing that day’s breakup wouldn’t help, so she didn’t.

“Not legally, and not enough for a scan. And your mutation is very special. Mixed hybridation is a rarity even in the Circles. Mutations generally mix one other lifeform with your baseline. Some lucky ones have two lifeforms, but even then, they don’t mix. They affect different parts of the body. Some even think they actively hinder each other’s development. Your tail is a mix of fox and cat. Two lifeforms in a single limb. Colour, size, body language, all have features of both. It should be impossible, some of those are opposing even if others overlap. But it is there, as healthy and functional as any mutation. The partial scan confirmed it to be true at a structural level too.”

The object of his revelation was at a loss. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came. Her tail hung lifelessly in her lap. He wasn’t done yet:

“My theory does not account for that, but it would say you are two things at once. Trying to at least. Two things that are not incompatible, but don’t have much in common beyond the baseline. Maybe a conflict between your want and your need, that you handle in a special way. Maybe you are using two unrelated skillsets for the same goal. Or one skillset for several unrelated goals. Maybe all of the above. Maybe none of the above. Getting to know you since, I can sort of see some of that conflict, but not really. I don’t know what you want in life, and you’ve changed a lot already. In any case, you are a rarity. Enough to make me want to keep you around. It was all for me, and it took an execution before I noticed.”

The following lull in the conversation was interrupted by an unexpected source:

“Did you really enjoy it?”

As one, Zax and Aran turned to SG, nonplussed. She had her legs to her face and hugged them with her wings, but she elaborated her thoughts:

“You were trapped in a bad situation where all you could do was experiment. You coped with the stress by leaning on your scientific curiosity. So when something impossible happened, curiosity was at the forefront. But did you enjoy his pain? His despair? His begging for help?”

“I… don’t know? I despised him, hated him more than anything…”

“When it was done, did you regret having to stop? Did you wish it had lasted longer? Did you want to do it again?”

That might be the longest they ever heard her talk. And the most assertive. Zax answered without conscious thought:

“N- No?”

I just wanted it to be over.

“Did you laugh? Or smile?”

“No.” His answer wasn’t hesitant anymore.

Maybe vindicative pleasure, but no smile.

“You’re not a monster. I’ve met monsters. I became one. You don’t fit the bill. At all.”

Another silence filled the room until she unfolded her body. She turned to them, her eyes crestfallen but determined… or maybe resigned?

“I’m ready to talk now.”