“So… Lilly, do you remember any of what we were talking about before you experienced you’re critical error?” I asked her, trying to puzzle out something and bring myself away from the topic that gave me discomfort.
If the monotone voice was anything to work on, she was limited somehow. Her… Programing, if that was the right word for it, didn’t want me to risk my life.
Well, it didn’t want to risk my life for anything deemed less than an absolute shitload of money, which while I didn’t know how to feel about it, it at least reassured me that Lilly literally thought about me as if not quite priceless, at least worth ¢1200000. And that was creepy base programming, Lilly, not Lilly, Lilly.
It still didn’t feel right to think about her like a thing and not a person though. Golems were people, and Lilly was, I wouldn’t draw the line at base programming. Everyone had some if you got creative, people were raised to hate others, like Clankers. Golems were just honest about functioning a certain way because they were programmed to act in specific ways.
And honestly, in Lilly’s case, she had less autonomy to change it than the rest of us too.
“I’m hazy, at best,” she admitted, “based on operational times I’ve lost most of it. Though I know you were about to do something that is bound to hurt you… again! Honestly can you just not do something borderline suicidal stupid for a few hours?”
I kept the answer I felt back, time was on the line, and I couldn’t afford a multi-minute argument over my borderline suicidal stupidity, or the luck that saved me.
“I can honestly say I wasn’t doing something that dumb, just something dumb. So… I would rather not create the same situation, would you like to think through a hypothetical situation with me for a moment instead?” I asked, hedging my bets on the idea that she rode the line on technicality a whole lot.
“Well… I do like hypotheticals and mayhaps and all that junk. So shoot. Just as long as it stays hypothetical with very little detail on the circumstances,” she said, pointedly aiming that comment at me.
I nodded as if she could see that and started off with, “Got it, got it. So those dog things, they could cross through space or something, right?”
“Yes, evidently.” She agreed.
So far, so good, I thought. “And you mentioned seeing a forest… Right?”
“Yesss… I remember that,” she confirmed.
“Ok…” I said, dragging it out a second as I thought through my next words. I decided on, “Do you think that was a talent? The bio-resonant things, you know, because they had nothing with them, no artifact stuff, they were just dogs, or dog monsters, or demons or whatever.”
She huffed, “Demons don’t exist, they’re just aliens… And I suppose that’s the most likely answer, some kind of advanced talent of some kind… Who knows how that came about… Sorry, I’m getting off track here. Yes, I believe that’s likely.”
“OK! OK. So, do you think they could go through a hole or whatever to the place with trees? They were seemingly safe after coming through the corners of the facility.”
“Yeh, they were safe, and I suppose if a hole led to the space with the forest, they could get there.” She agreed.
And now, it got to the hard part.
“Total separate hypothetical, super different, how likely do you think it was that the talent thing I got was the same talent they have? I can feel the holes or whatever, what’s your thoughts on that, and only that?”
I was truly terrible at this, but while she sighed, she didn’t start losing her mind.
“I suppose…” she said, very tired sounding, “That is possible… Generally, I would be able to tell for certain, but your new talent is alien, I can’t figure it out with my understanding of biology. I can say that they follow patterns, and if it gives you the ability to see the holes or whatever, it probably does the same thing, but I can’t confirm anything without testing it.” she said hesitantly.
“Ok… So, would you say? Hypothetically. That someone with a similar talent, in a similar situation, would be able to hop over to the forest the same way the dogs would?”
“Hypothetically, they could try, but the dogs were also significantly harder to hurt, and if an alien was made to go through them, they’re bound to be resilient to any detrimental side effects of doing it,” she told me.
I was losing the thread, so I reached out with a question.
“It can’t be that tight in there, there was all that goo that came out with them, remember? Fluid isn’t compressible.”
“That’s not all that I’m talking about, and it could still damage you regardless because the pressure increases, and you are compressible. There are plenty more, though, not the least of which is insanity. There are some crazy things out there, and your shard isn’t active to back you up and stop that,” she reminded me.
A tiny wire in my head crossed at her words. One plus on equalled two, or more to the point twelve plus sixty-eight, plus at least four more dogs at eight a pop in the elevator was more than one hundred.
“I should have enough points now… Right? Enough points to activate one of my shards? That would stop me from going crazy.”
She started to say something and then stopped.
“That… That would work well enough so long as you stayed in your current form, yes. I mean, hypothetically, someone like you could do it… Insanity is a killer, its one of the reasons there are safeguards around special stuff when it’s meant to break the rules,” she said.
“Do I want to know?” I asked her.
“No. Not right now. It’s the bad kind of freaky. If you want me to give an example later, ask about the first and last physicist who witnessed an unshielded singularity… As for your plan. It would probably work if you’re sure you want that. I think it’s good to stop talking in theory, my programming has stopped pinging me whenever I stop thinking about it as someone else,” she said, almost exhausted sounding.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Well, I’m glad that worked out. And now we know more. Whenever it’s sensitive, we can move to hypotheticals if it helps.” I told her before focusing on the point at hand.
“So! How do we do this?” I asked her.
“Are you sure? This is un-reversible, 100 contribution points will be deducted from your currently held funds,” she told me, a little more mechanically than normal, “You will-”
I gave me a shiver, but I just said, “Yes, buy it.”
“Activation code purchased. Activating in five… four… three. Two… On-”
I begin to fall.
Slowly at first, but it started the moment Lilly said one and never finished it.
I fell backwards towards the sand, and I didn’t stop.
The world started to pull in on me, the sky and all I could see moving, pulling in on me. The world stretching into a tunnel. The world started moving, wriggling in a way that made my skin itch. I could feel my body shuddering, a sudden heat in my head as I fell and fell.
It was like falling into the mouth of some great beast.
I was being eaten alive, falling into a writing, alien mouth so hot it was like a furnace.
I could hear a whining noise as my skull started to vibrate, my brain trying to get out, jump out of my head and escape.
I flailed wildly, reaching for guns that weren’t there. I felt suddenly naked and defenceless. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way out of the monster.
The tunnel narrowed until I could feel the writing flesh of the maw around me until I could feel it bleed and squirm. Wearing me away, burrowing into my skin, reaching into me through holes it dug into me. It dug in and laid eggs in me, left behind parts of itself, and it started to grow and multiply.
Now I was wiggling too, now I was bleeding flesh, and it crawled throughout me while I tried to suck in air so hot I could feel it burn me from the inside out. Huffing and puffing and feeling the need to scream while it curled through me, burrowing.
Moving through me and then moving me, turning me silent as I stopped being able to move. I tried to cry, but I had no mouth to speak, no lungs to push air from, my tongue silent when probed into my head and tried to move it.
Infesting my bones, they grew out through my meat and skin, through my pores and out of my breast, splaying me open so the outside could get inside. My legs, fusing together bone melting together then to the wall like I was a tongue. My arms stretched out, fingers splitting apart to bony meat tendrils, my forearm hinging open while the tentacles wrapped around my neck, through and out.
My body curled backwards, smoothing like an organ, squick and fleshy and undesired.
My beating heart encroached upon me while my body was rendered insensate, and all of my sensation was slowly checked out of me.
The flesh melded into my heart, burrowing into the core of me while my body contorted into the dark, like a mouth, me its tongue, my heart came free and-
I jerked out of my daze and fell to the ground, rolling, screaming, crying, Lilly shouting in my head to calm down.
I tried to get a grip, tried to think through the visceral feeling of wanting to hurl, past the feeling of sudden, inexplicable terror at the series of nightmare-like images that had rolled through me. The feeling of my body was so real that my own body suddenly felt right, despite my thoughts on the matter.
I was on my front, dry heaving, staring at my hands, my normal hands, which were choking me into silence, my legs free. My heart was thundering in my chest, my lungs sucking in air while I hyperventilated.
“Calm down, Jacalyn, just breathe. Breathe, and stop screaming.”
I sucked in the air, a feeling of stress echoing through my body. A memory of a fight for my life that never happened.
Deep stuttering inhales.
My arms shook like leaves on a tree, and I gripped my hands, dragging my fingers through the sand and balling them into fists as I forced my body upright so I could stare into the sky, sitting on my knees.
I wanted to ask her why she didn’t tell me I was about to go through a fever dream so bad I was feeling the sensation even now of my heart lignifying as it was sucked from my body and down the maw of the monster.
I wanted to shout, full of anxious energy in need of riding.
Instead, I put the parts together.
“I cut you off before you could warn me… didn’t I?”
“Yup,” she told me.
I took my grit and tried to get ahold of my legs.
“Well, on the pus- er, plus side. I don’t think the holes will drive me crazy anymore,” I told her, letting out a few manic, heartless laughs.
“Atta girl,” Lilly said, “try to not let the mania get to you, just try and get up. We need to get you to your hole before you have a second slip, and I have to make a joke at your expense… Or sit you down with a therapist.”
I didn’t understand exactly what she meant there, but I tried to get to my feet.
I folded back over to steady myself and levered one shaking leg under me. I pushed up, almost slipped, and steadied myself, hands outstretched, my breath deepening.
I could feel the fat on my legs wiggle back and forth, and it revolted me, I could feel my chest heaving from my breathing and the wobble as I got my footing.
I stood, took a step, and almost face-planted as my legs jerked, seizing like they were tapped out after running.
I forced myself to move, moving my body one part at a time and putting a foot down, then another, then another.
My legs became surer, the strength returning to my body as I caught my breath.
When my voice calmed all the way enough I didn’t sound like I was hyperventilating from the renewed effort, I asked Lilly seriously, “How long did I waste?”
I was expecting an amount of time that would give me anxiety at this point, but she just said, “Two minutes? God, don’t be so melodramatic. Now, are you going to start moving? Because if you want to shatter your own mind fucking with space and pulling yourself through impossible holes for whatever reason you were aiming for, we need to get going.”
“That. Is harder than you might expect right now. Though thank you for the enthusiasm, even though is fake,” I told her.
But I did start, I checked out and focused on the second by second, automatically replying when asked stuff, getting my shit in order of priority, the lowest of which was anything other than getting off this cursed fucking rock. I managed to get my feet down properly, like a baby animal. A bipedal baby diplomat. Or was it peacekeeper?
I couldn’t remember at the moment; I had gone through too many little things today, and my brain was about ready to strike.
Then I was present after a short time walking forward, and I started to try and run, and then I was running and running right, and I checked back in.
“I think I have the hang of running again,” I told her with some cheer I didn’t feel.
“Well, good, because there are trees a bit further. Over there,” she told me, pinging the direction to my right and up.
I looked up.
And up because it was way too high off the ground.
My head was about to think through something when I said, “How high in the air can you get me?” before I even finished thinking about the idea.
“How high do we need?”
It was-
“Twenty-five feet? Or thereabouts,” I told her again without finishing the thought.
What the hell is with my mouth? I’m supposed to have to think when I speak; otherwise, I’ll say something stupid.
But I didn’t say that because Lilly was talking, and talking over people was rude.
“I can get you that high, just line it up and prepare to stick the landing because I don’t want you breaking your ankle if you flub it,”
“I can do that,” I answered intentionally, lining up the jump, eyeballing distances, imagining where I would need to jump to get there if I could jump that high.
“Wait… Wait… NOW!” I said automatically while I dropped down into a deep step and kicked off the ground.
The zing of power flowing through my skin kicked off the motion, flowing into the shoes, drinking up all the kinetic energy before I sprung forward, all of it and more kicking off into the ground.
I hurtled through the air like a diver, only up, instead of down, until I got close, my height bringing my level. And then I began to drop while I hurtled forward.
My hands snatched out for the spot, my fingers grasping as I fell lower and lower.
My arms slammed out to the patch of thin air, and I held on tight as I got a grip on something that didn’t exist.