The week of making calls and correcting the monstrous acts that Morgaine had perpetrated went by quickly. When they had finished, the two of them went to the local diner a short distance from the warehouse. They were now known as regulars at the establishment.

The two were sitting and enjoying a meal together. She enjoyed a bacon and bleu cheese burger. Him: a mushroom bacon burger with pepperjack cheese. On Morgaine’s plate was also coleslaw and slices of orange. Upon Robert’s there were a pile of steak fries along with ketchup, mustard, and ranch. Morgaine repeatedly stole a fry from the others’ plates and dipped it in one of the condiments beside them.

“Why didn’t you order fries yourself?”

“Because Myna said my nutrition was off from, and I quote, ‘all the crap you keep eating.” She said while chewing.

“Well, I suppose that is sound advice and all, but simply decorating your plate with coleslaw and oranges isn’t exactly what she meant.”

“I’ll get to them.”

“Sure,” he said as she grabbed three fries off his plate and swirled them in ketchup then in the ranch with a cat’s grin.

They sat in silence for a few moments until the fries would no longer tempt an interruption to their discourse. Robert moved the cleared plate to the side, so the server can take it away on her next pass. He put his empty glass there too, in hopes of a refill.

“Have you thought about what Myna has offered?” Robert asked of his companion.

“I have.”

“Have you made a decision?”

“I have.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“I am going to have her remove the negative aspects.”

“I can see that being a tempting offer.”

“You disagree?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure. My instinct is to say that this is a good thing. With Myna, the spoil can be removed surgically without the risk of losing anything else. It would likely also be disposed of properly, so that those spoils cannot take root in another life and return to haunt you.”

“Great points. So, what is your issue with the practice? What gives you pause?”

“Myna had read my IFA. I was once part of Keung.”

“You were? Well, what happened?”

“Apparently I was the spoil to him at some point. He likely doesn’t even know why I was removed and cast away.”

“I see. So you are having trouble thinking that what I cast off might be valuable, or at least valuable enough that it gives you pause.”

“Just pause. I understand. You have a lot of pain in your soul. Both pain you caused and that has been inflicted upon you. But, is it right to discard that pain? Has it not helped you grow into what you are now?”

“It has. Though, what I have learned from that pain is less positive and more negative. I have learned that if you want the truth, you must threaten the thing that a person loves the most. I have learned that if you must kill to make a point, you should do so in as scarring a manner as possible. You can just make an example of the subject to deter other threats from taking root. I have learned that humanity is nearer to animals than to sentient creatures and that these animals do more harm to this planet and all of it’s other creatures combined than any other creature here can think of doing.”

“I see.”

“My time in this world has been bitter. My abuse through several lifetimes, both given and received has been monumental. It rests in my mind waiting, a toxic balloon filled to near bursting capacity. It leaks it’s spoil into my thoughts while it swells to burst. It threatens to flood my consciousness with it’s venom. I can feel it growing. A rude gesture, the wrong phrase said at the right time and the dam readys to burst. The flow through the growing cracks becoming more steady.”

“But is that enough reason to cut it away?”

“Would you allow a cancer to go unchecked in your body?”

“Of course not.”

“In my time here I have read much in the way of the spiritual beliefs of these humans. Of those, I found the greatest truths in a book called the Tao Te Ching, a work by the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu. I am reminded of a quote from that work, ‘When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Meaning casting away what you were will help you become something greater?”

“Robert. For the last couple years, I was a huntress obsessed with her pain, directed only by vengeance for a wrong that I cannot even remember. My mind was chaotic. I could not focus on my life before being human without it diffusing into broken thoughts and catastrophic anxiety or even psychic panic. That woman that I was, she ran more on instinct than on the conscious mind of a sentient being that is now nearing a second millennia of transitory existence.”

“What are you saying?”

“What Myna has done for me, repairing the work that Keung had performed two decades ago to my soul, that action has brought peace to my mind for the first time since it happened to me. I can now remember some of my life as Ye’randid, her years are now part of me again and not just a familiar name.”

“Well that is good. But, if this feeling of completion is so new, why would you wish to cast away any of that?”

“Simple. Because the wretch that I was before, the creature with the ribbon shredded soul that was broken with only hate as a purpose, was not who I should have been. That person, that person that saw murder as a tool, that saw torture as a means, that saw humanity in its worst light is not who I should have been. It was a life that was a mistake. It did not help me grow, it only helped a being that was filled with rage.”

“And you cannot live with that on your soul.”

“We have spent a week correcting the wrongs of that woman, as many as we could. Funds transferred to banks as reparations for people I took from families, minds cleared of the pain of memories of them being puppeted and bent to my will for horrific purposes. Men and women used as playthings. Robert. Such a black mark on one’s soul only grows, it has no benefit.”

Robert thought about what she was saying. There was something seductive about the idea. Essentially making something fundamentally to not have taken place. Removing the pain of an action and removing it from yourself. To not have the pain of living with the memories of choices you regret. It was seductive. At the core, Robert felt this was wrong. There was something about it that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t put his finger on what. Why is such a thing so terrible?

He smiled and nodded as response to her explanation. They paid the check and got into Robert’s Jeep to return to the warehouse.

***

Throughout the week, Keung worked in his dreamscape hideaway. Within this place time was flexible. As observant as Keung was, he simply could not understand that. He had been watching the clock in his room and, so far as he could tell, only a dozen hours or so have gone by.

He had reached a number of theoretical avenues on what maybe keeping him locked in this Limbo, but none of them felt right. Until a few hours ago.

A few hours ago he reached out with his thoughts and felt the minds of those around him. He could feel Robert sleeping. He reached out and entered the other man's dream, just on the edge. On that edge he was ethereal, intangible, just a shadow of a thought, something abstract.

He watched in Robert’s dream as he repeated the memory of the strange ship, a huge emerald tear floating on its side. Then the hologram of the slender reptilian humanoid woman in a toga. Robert’s mind associated the woman to Athena, the Greek Goddess of wisdom and warfare. She was a tactical mind with the wisdom of ages to Robert. She had a tail that moved, catlike, under her toga. Keung could see that tail slowly swishing back and forth.

She was over a head taller than Robert, though she looked as if she would weigh about the same if her body were flesh. He saw himself through Robert’s eyes. The image was not flattering. The other man seems to see nothing but evil when he looks upon him. Keung could see the alien metal restraining him. He drifted in closer and looked the restraints over in more detail. They were tear shaped, like the mother ship. They also seem to be miniatures of the original vessel. These had sprouted small tentacles that had entered his flesh and were likely feeding something into his system. He was likely being chemically restrained more than physically.

The small devices looked to be made of a metal that he was unfamiliar with, something that would give off an emerald green sheen was without a doubt unknown to him. They were robotic of course and clearly alien in design. This gave him an idea.

Keung concentrated and shifted the room slightly. He focused on an object in his warehouse, a small device. He then poured everything he could risk into Robert’s dream to draw attention to that item.

Within moments Robert began walking the warehouse, something in the air, like a familiar scent was drawing him toward that item. A small device, about the size of a baseball and rather similar in shape. He looked it over and found a button on the device that glowed in his mind’s eye. It was just a faint glow but it drew him toward it with an undeniable force. It was whispering to Robert, “Press me. I’m important.”

Keung planted the seed. Now he had to wait until it grew.

He reached out in his dreamscape, the Ethereal Realm, perhaps the Astral Realm. Keung had attempted to label this area ever since he realized he could enter it, but any kind of label he could think of, always seemed wanting. The experience is so peaceful, so complete, like being in Nirvana.

He moved through that realm, reaching out for the minds within the warehouse, or even the town. Manipulation through the dream realm was tricky. Anything you suggest has to be subtle or the subject will reject it entirely, especially humans. Though their bodies might support the ability to use telepathic talent, their souls are simply not mature enough to do so. At least very few of them were mature enough to understand their abilities. Those abilities that can resist conscious intrusion to their minds were limited, but their stubborn nature makes dream suggestion a delicate task.

There were small things he needed, a computer, a cell phone, a car, and perhaps a gun. The universe was at risk. This reality was at the very least. He listened to Robert’s reply to the discussion on what to do with him, and so far it seems they are going to cut away pieces of his soul. They think that he is damaged. They simply do not understand what is at risk.

He is the key to keeping this reality intact. He had needed to graft those memories to his soul. He needed those experiences to get where he is going. He could justify the harm to himself. He simply didn’t believe he could get them to understand the why of it all. They were too limited. They were fools. They couldn’t see the big picture. He needed to escape and get to one of his other labs.

He needed to get off of this rock, now.