I had been returned to hell, returned to the dark, unfamiliar cockpit. My monstrous and autonomous form, spurred by the music and the melody, resonated through my everything, but I couldn’t care less.
Because even though my mouth and muscles were not mine, I was still here.
And I remembered.
It was an intoxication finer than any vice. I felt drunk on it, on the simple state of remembering a tiny, infinitesimal, and somewhat unimportant fragment of myself in this empty ship that floated through a void so unlike the void I knew. The dark was so empty that I could distinguish it from the rest of the darkened room by just how little there was.
I ran through the dream, revelling in every moment, every sense and detail giving me a rush that made my body quiver in the seat as it screamed, not in a baseless animal action but in laughter and stimulation of anything that was not the melody that rang through my body like a tuning fork.
For a moment, I felt like I might just cum. I had no memory of it, but I knew it and knew it was better than any animal pleasure. Fortunately, the horrific form I now possessed was seemingly incapable of it.
I could feel the pleasure of it, sweet and freeing, a stretch of your muscles after a long day, a good meal and a drink. The finer things in life stood no chance against this feeling.
It made the meat in my head quiver as the parts began to rearrange themselves. My brain formed and informed the memory, fighting against the tone like a sandcastle at high tide.
And then, as soon as it came, it passed, like the feeling of Sol’s light on my face, dusk came. There was one minute before the clouds rolled on by, and my body returned from revelry and revelation to rage and rash action.
Because it was too little, the high was over, and I wanted more. More memories, more experiences, more time away from the song of this empty plane that god had given me as punishment, more time away from the cockpit with unfamiliar controls and an unfamiliar rattle of engines.
No, not want, but need.
I needed more, another fix, and I had an idea of how to get it now.
All of me, including my body, wanted it too, and working all on its own to bludgeon me, myself and I into unconscious mincemeat on the console like a rabid animal, scrambling my grey matter so it could piece itself back together right.
I needed to know more, and I needed time away from whatever afterlife this was. I had never gotten huge into religion, but I must have done something truly horrific to be locked in a place like this.
I did not think I had a mouth, but I could tell it was dry, and my throat was sore from how it moved. But it didn’t matter; I had fractured my skull already. I was close… So… So close.
Why was I still here?
I was…
I… Where was I?
I was on a cool stone table that chilled the skin of my back, but where was-
The memory of The Collector, standing tall over me as he took my sword and didn’t even have the decency to kick me into the acid on his own, clicked as I felt myself suck in a breath.
Wait, if I fell in acid… How was I alive? And why was I naked? And where was my stuff? And how was I on a stone table?
“What the heck is going on?” I asked the stone ceiling.
“Finally awake? Good, you were seriously wounded; I was starting to think you wouldn’t wake up.” A woman told me, her voice calm and collected.
“Who the fu-” I panicked, quickly lifting off the stone table, first into a sitting position, then in a fumbling forward hop onto my feet. They wobbled and threatened to cave in underneath me before I slapped my hands down on the rim behind me, and, like a newborn, I held just barely long enough to get some measure of balance as my ears settled.
I started to take the room in immediately, trying to find any possible aggressor, trying to find the voice, my mind seeking anything that could attack me, the ambush running through my mind, tainting the calm of the voice with the fear of another attack.
“Please calm down; your vital signs have not recovered from both your prior injuries and the final stage of transformation setting; if you require aid, I could give you some Re—Re—Recommend you some exercises to lower your heart rate.” She told me, momentarily falling into a very abnormal stutter.
It was, for a moment, more like a Golem speaking or someone talking through a speaker than someone talking. It sounded like it was coming from inside of my ear, and it was freaking me out.
“Who, where and what are you, and what do you mean by my transformation?” I shouted, trying to look at every familiar stone wall, looking for a door that no longer existed, looking for the threat that was in the room. “Show yourself! WHY AM I NAKED!”
“I’m sorry to tell you that I am innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn- incapable of complying with your request. I am currently utilizing too much processing power to create a visual aid of myself. If you would like it, I could end a process to attempt to visualize myself. My current processes have placed me at 300% of my standard operation level.”
She spoke without pause for breath and was not breathless. She continued to list off each thing she was doing, but I could only understand a few things. Protein was like muscles, right? And that was about it. The only two things I could understand beyond that were the talk on physical form and something about my memory, though what she meant by ‘finishing’ but an additional stake of fear in me.
The last one was “Zero Point,” and I asked, “Well, if there’s no point, turn it off.”
She stopped, quickly chiming, “Queeeerey, you want me to halt the finalization of the Zero Point Power Plant? Waaaa—Warning: Terminating this process will release a captive micro black hole and result in the destruction of your physical Foormmmmmm.”
That… That did not sound good, I didn’t know what the hell a black hole was, but the idea of a hole inside of me that could cause the destruction of my physical form was seriously not something I wanted to fuck with.
I was, unfortunately, biased because I liked having a physical form and didn’t want to give it up.
“Um, no, please don’t do that,” I told her hastily. “What about the memory thing? Can you turn off the memory thingy? I don’t want to have my head tampered with!”
“Correction, you gave the express permission to seal memory. REEEEEplaying authorization…” she told me, before, in an exact copy of my voice, distorted screaming in agony, crying to take away my pain.
My voice set my already fraying nerves to fucking twitching because the only thing off about it was the pain. What kind of fucking horror was that?
“Do I even want to know the context for that?” I asked myself out loud, only for my new personal ghost to answer, “You were undergoing initiation. Despite the breach of proo- protocol, I was forced to offer you an unregistered initiation to save you from the primer bath, which was rejecting you. Because of my intervention, you accepted the primer and are currently clas-si-si-si-fied as recovering.”
As far as I knew, my body was fine. I was weak, but my body felt fine other than the weakness.
“What do you mean… Define rejecting me,” I told her.
“Induction Primer violently infects unprotected host bodies but functions only in an acidic environment.”
Acidic…
“I was melting?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said clearly.
I couldn’t even remember it, and I didn’t know that I wanted to remember that.
A part of me didn’t believe it, but the other was dead set that that was my voice. It was too good for a Golem to copy so accurately if that was what this stuttering psychotic breakdown in the making was. After verifying if I was okay with it, Doc had made an impression on me but admitted that it was... Lacking. And he couldn’t copy something he had never heard before.
In a moment of vulnerability, I lost my balance, and my mind spun. I part slid, and the part fell, curling my legs up in front of me and my arms wrapped around them. As they did so, they pressed into my chest, and I began to breathe, trying to center myself.
It didn’t settle in for a moment, my focus on my breath, my eyes unfocused as my focus turned within, until I saw something on my skin, a dark shape, creeping over my knee. My eyes snapped to the movement as my breath stopped, my body going from claiming to primed for fighting, only for the shape to continue creeping over my knee. It was not some kind of creepy crawly, not a threat. It was my skin, slowly changing colour.
I could see my pasty milk-white skin darken, a light tingle running with it, gaining colour, turning lightly pinkish like a flush before deepening in tone. It yellowed slightly, blending to a warm sandy colour before deepening, the flush growing darker until it bloomed out like cream in coffee, honey and warm sandy blending like liquid pigment in my skin.
I watched, both horrified… and mesmerized. Then it settled, and the blend mixed to completion. It was odd and a little familiar, reminding me of the staff on the lighthouse a little; though mine was different, it was similar. But it wasn’t me.
After seeing my skin changing, I looked down and noticed my body’s changes. Where my body was lean muscle and lithe, this body was… flabby. I was still thin, but I was just flabbier. Arms, trunk, legs, rear, and on my chest.
“Where’s my stuff?” I asked out loud.
“In the recee- receptacle you’re leaning against,” she told me.
Stumbling up to my feet, I turned and scrabbled against the cool stone, fingers finding a recessed lip before I pried the stone lid off. Inside was my stuff, dry as Gabriel's sand, and I reached for the chest plate.
Taking it in hand, I pulled it close and looked at my face.
Where my eyes had been black, now, they were brown. My face had shifted to the same tone as my skin, but my hair had also changed, taking on a brown like my eyes, but inside, toward my neck, my messy hair was creamy amber orange, undecidedly shifting in the light of the curved metal.
My neck gorget, the sub-dermal bone, had receded into normal collar bones.
I dropped the metal, numbly taking a half step back.
“What the fuck is going on… What the fuck am I?” I hissed, the sound of my voice noticeably different now that I knew there had been a change.
“You’re Human or more sp- specifically, you’re the newest member of the silver legion,” she said, trying to be cheery.
“I’m a fucking mistake,” I told her.
I was no longer myself. She had tampered with my memory and changed my body. How much had changed? Were my ears fucked up? My bones? My everything? Was I still me, or was I human? How much was me?
“W…” I tried to get out. “Why? What… What is this?” I asked, my voice unsettling me.
“You are CUrrrrrrrrrr- Currently having your peacekeeper form finalized. The first transformation is slow, but you can transform from it once it finishes as you Wi-Wish. Memory sealing finished... That is muu- Much better. I should note quickly that transforming into other forms that you don’t have a shard for brings psychological risk.”
I could feel a tear in the corner of my new eye, and I wanted to bat it away. I wasn’t a waterworks person; it set the wrong tone.
But then again, I wasn’t me right now anyway, and I was far away from anyone that I cared who thought about me.
I dropped the now too-small chest plate back into the coffin. And Curled up on the floor, back against the cool stone, hugging myself while I lost my fucking shit like a bitch baby. I did not cry, no quite; I sat there, tearing up while holding myself, every inch of me feeling wrong every time I noticed any minute difference.
“Please don’t cry, Jacalyn,” the voice in my head told me, sounding saddened.
“I’m losing my fucking mind,” I murmured to myself.
“No, you're not; you’re perfectly fine. Being overwhelmed by your circumstances is not the same,” she said kindly in an attempt to reassure me.
“What even is all of this? What even are you,” I whispered.
“I am a part of you with a little extra, a copy with its own voice,” she told me.
I wasn’t sure if that made it worse or not.
“So what? Do you know all my darkest secrets? Are you Jacalyn, too?”
“I’m not your memories; I’m a copy of your personality. I'm separate but a part of you. I’m not Jacalyn,” she told me.
Lucky her, she held none of my regrets.
“What's your name then, voice in my head?”
“I’m not in your head; I’m making your auditory nerve activate as if I were talking out loud,” she explained, “And I have no name. The closest thing I have is my serial number, XA001373487692.”
That was fucked up, and I told her so, a little indignant that my own internal monologue had no name I could call her while she was trying to cheer me up.
“How about Lilly,” I told her, “I figure it fits.”
“However, so?” She asked, a bit confused, “I have no attributes corresponding to a flower.”
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“…”
“Why are you so quiet? I can’t read your face, you know,” she told me.
“It's not… Well, I guess it’s a flower. I mostly meant it as a nickname. You know, Lilly, like Lilac,”
“That’s just another flower, Jacalyn. Perhaps you are right, you might have brain damage…”
“The colour Lilac, you were in the thingy, and you came out as a light purple mist,” I told her, clarifying.
She paused for a moment at my explanation.
“Is that how people name one another now? I thought it was a bad thing to judge others by their colour.”
I stopped for a second, and despite the fact I knew she was fucking with me on a deep level, all I could say was, “That’s not... Do you not like it? Do you have a name you want?”
“It's too late now. It’s already saved to my profile, and I can’t change it now,” she told me.
“You could,” I told her, only for me to catch myself. I felt off and shook my head, shaking myself out of it. “What is wrong with me? You're up to something, I can tell.”
“I told you not to cry, and now you're not in the mood. I Cllllll—Claim victory,” she told me.
“Wh- Wha- You know what, ok then, victorious Lilly the Oracle. I have a question for you and your devious mind. I'm still on the throne… probably. How long have I been out for? The collector talked about the lighthouse closing this place back off in a while,” I asked, slowly getting my gusto back. I would be able to change back, and that alone was good enough for now. Hope at the end of the tunnel. Something I could anchor myself to and pull myself away from my feelings, far away to that cool lizard place where I could work.
A poor coping mechanism maybe, but it worked. If I had a drop of hope I could make it.
“I am glad to tell you that you have only been out for four hours and will only need an additional half an hour to recover. But may I ask a question?”
“Hmm, you just did, but sure, ask away; you don’t need to wait on me; just ask.”
“Acknowledged, what do you mean by the throne? And what is the lighthouse, and what is its role in closing this facility? Information on this is not held within my memory.”
Oh.
Oh boy.
“Lilly… How long have you been down here?”
“I am sorry to tell you, I have no idea. I have always been down here, and I have never been given a way to keep time.”
“Oh boy, ok, well, the throne is what we call this planet most of the time, Terra, the sealed planet, the sundered throne. It's sealed by the lighthouse in a dome of light. I’m… Probably going to need to run you through a whole lot of things, aren’t I?”
“I see. I believe you will have to explain further, but I will not take up more of your time if you are on a schedule. This is satisfactory for now, thank you,” she politely told me.
“Gosh, you’re polite; I suppose all I want to ask is why? Why all of this? Why am I alive?”
“Right place, right time,” she told me, “You set me from my container… I’m just sorry you got me.”
“Oh, come on, you’re not bad; everything else sucks, but at least you can get a gag out of me.”
“That was not me beee- being dramatic. I’m sorry to say that you have been placed at a disadvantage compared to others if they were standing where you were, freshly initiated. For one, I am a faulty prototype and was obviously left down here because the purpose I was built for was no longer worth it, and then there is the lack of gear or training that will be provided, as well as my specialty causing i- iiii Issues.”
“Being trapped like that must have been rough, but I don’t think people can be faulty, even if you were stuck down here for god knows how long. People, prototype or not, are not faulty. As for training and gear, I have my own.”
“While I can’t agree that I’m a person, as my human counterpart, I will yield the floor on personhood to you,”
I winced but decided that I did not want to accidentally peeve her off by telling her I was not a human. Why she thought that was beyond me.
“You know I have a thing for prototypes,” I told her, “Most of my stuff is a bit ad-hoc. I have no problem with you being a prototype,” I told her, an uncharacteristic bit of reassurance.
“I’m aware you have encoded talents that suggest improvised precision metalwork. A few extra ones, too. Fascinating,” she said, seemingly missing the point.
That caught my attention, but before I got to talk forever, I needed to get myself on my way out. I let go of my legs, taking a breath, before I stood up, and reached for my clothes, only for a spark to jump from my finger, zapping me as Lilly said, “Holes duuu- done.”
“I… I, um. What was that?”
“Your zero-point power plant,” Lilly told me, “The one you almost recommended I cancel.”
“The one that would destroy my physical form?” I asked stupidly as if she had mentioned any other zero-point thing to me.
“The very same,”
“Its… It’s a powerplant… That could also shred my physical form. Using some kind of hole?” I asked her, “Like without exploding and filling me with shrapnel?”
The only kind of powerplant I knew of was the ones that dotted the landscape, wafting vapour into the air as water boiled, or the one in the Junker that kept the lights on using the high energy fuel I used for the orbital engines.
“It is indeed able to shred you… All though, it would be more like you decorporating as it hollowed you out from the inside.”
That was not all that much better than my mental image… or perhaps even worse.
“I would love to hear all about it,” I told her, “But can I ask if we can walk and talk? We have a deadline.”
“No problem, I can talk while you walk. I can even guide you once were out of my containment cell,” She agreed.
I got my shit on. My clothes did not fit right, everything rubbed the wrong way, and the plate on my chest was uncomfortable. The only thing that seemed to fit was my shoes, my coat and my hat, though they sat poorly on my head, and my smooth hair was not keeping it on right.
But that was what buckles were for, I guess. I wear belt buckles to let my pants out a little at the waist and harness buckles to not crush my flabby chest. By the end, it still didn’t fit right, but it was good enough for now.
I might need to get it out if I ever wanted to use this form again, but otherwise, I could just leave it be.
I felt weaker as I got up, checking my handguns before reaching for a sword that wasn’t there; the reminder, like losing a limb, a phantom echo of it remained in the scabbard like a poorly healed stump.
I checked the carbine and made it ready before checking corners on my way out. My eyes turned to the ground for traps that could have been left for me, but he, fortunately, didn’t read comics where the villain fails to succeed at killing the protagonist, so he left it as is. Lucky me.
As I made it out of the stone room, it turned back to metal, the world seeming to shift in a dizzying way, a kind of corona of light in the corner of my eye like a weird tic that made my eyes twitch. I stopped once we were out of the metal and into the sterile hallways.
“Is this good enough for you to help me out?” I asked her.
“Yes, I can sense around us now. I can also feel the se- Servers. Assuming I can log onto them…”
She stuttered again, but she was stuttering less as she seemed to finish doing tasks, a hopeful sign that there was less stress on her.
“Cool, no idea what you mean, but as long as you can get me out of here as fast as you can, and you keep me out of the line of fire of any more turrets,”
“That can be arranged… They have been temporarily deactivated; please take the…”
And like that, we were off.
The passages were far easier to navigate, with her whispering her guidance in my ear; characteristically, she seemed to be able to do many things all at once. One of them was to pick up an explanation of the powerplant she talked about.
“Now… The powerplant. Part of being a legionnaire is being self-reliant. To facilitate that, you are equipped with two primary devices inside your body: the Soulgem and the zero-point powerplant. What would you like me to tell you about the powerplant?” she asked as my legs got a better handle on gravity.
“Well… Can I get the 6 W? Or the applicable ones?” I asked her.
“Good idea, Jacalyn,” she said before stuttering a few times and ruining my thoughts on stress. She picked back up a moment later and began with, “What it is, is a mark one zero-point plant and energy cell combo. It’s rather standard, not top-of-the-line, but you can get permission to upgrade it later. It's located in your core and contained in an artificial gland that lets it distribute energy across your body. I won't bore you with how much, but it's more than enough for now. It exists to supply power for both transformations, abilities, and technology. You could, for instance, power a standard-issue weapon similar to your current one, though I should point out that your current weapon is not a standard issue... It's… crude,” She explained.
“Dang, you got my hopes up there. I was just thinking I might need to invest in electronics instead of good old kinetics,” I told her.
“You could probably find a conversion, if not fabricate one. It was created to face the second climate crisis and replaced earth-side renewable and nuclear fusion, which created pollutants. Now, as for how?
> The Zero-Point power plant relies on several things. The universe is made of energy, but only about 20% of it is ‘normal.’ Originally, the other 80% was called dark matter due to its non-interactive properties. Still, it was later split into light and dark matter, with dark matter making up 10% of the energy and roughly 70% being light.
>
> The energy was found to be ‘dark’ because it was in non-three-dimensional space. Light-matter emitted small amounts of energy into our three dimensions while it was at its zero point in its higher energy extra special dimension. It was further found that these different dimensions were similar to the energy states of matter, where 'higher,' dimensions were higher energy, and given they're moniker, like how higher energy states released different wavelengths of light.
>
> Initially, prototype generators were made to harvest the energy released from those high-energy zero-point particles, but the issue arose that they were incredibly hard to work with. The use of unstable quantum tunnels were used to instead deliver quark-sized portions of matter so it could be used as a direct fuel source, harvesting the energy release as its energy state dropped. Still, the quarks were found to be strange matter, which made it infeasible without a way to convert it into extractable, useable, known energy.
>
> An unstable micro blackhole was tested, then developed, and shaped using resonance technology to emit Hawking radiation, which would interact properly with normal matter. An energy cell was also added to store the energy released.
>
> After testing, it was eventually miniaturized as resonance technology was improved and now rests in an organosilicon gland that acts as an interface between the inorganic resonant crystal and the organic composition of your body…”
She talked in one solid tone, explaining in obtuse and confusing levels of detail that only muddied the explanation. She spoke not like a person but more like a textbook, one with a long title that could be used as a lethal weapon. Word for word, it confused me more and more as she went on into a confusing level of detail only to quickly stop her explanation partway through a sentence with a, “The elevator is on the right,” and continue on.
I blearily got over to the area near the staircase, only to find an open door on my right. Opening it revealed a small rectangular room with a personal elevator. I pressed the button and waited three centuries as she finished up the explanation with, “Does that answer your question?”
A part of me wanted to say ‘yes,’ just to be polite, but my moral code told me to tell the truth, so I said, “You lost me after you started talking about matter and energy and stuff.”
“Ooooh… I’m sorry.”
A part of me couldn’t stand it. She was glad to explain stuff, so thinking quickly, I gave her a branch.
“Well, that’s no problem. It’s just a bit over my head, is all. You could talk about that but dumb it down, or you can talk about that other thing or explain the whole legionnaire thing; I don’t know anything about that.” I told her.
“But… The Soulgem is more complicated; it’s the closest thing Humanity ever found to a soul,” She stuttered sadly.
“That’s fine, I understood the first bit, just not the how, try me!” I told her confidently.
The elevator ticked down towards us as she sadly stuttered out her explanation.
“I suppose it's important background for being a legionnaire; it’s the greatest piece of equipment you have. The Soulgem creates an artificial soul, incorporating the totality of what makes you a person. You are, in this moment, your soul gem. You are no longer truly bound to the flesh of your mind but the master of it.
The Soulgem is an extra mass similar to the powerplant located in the skull. It is unique to only members of the Silver Legion.
Based on the Artificial intelligence Resonance Core and Housing of the PACD-AI, that run the Administration of Non-human intelligence for Generation, Exploration, and Labour, and to a lesser extent, the Ground Operating, Limited Emotion Machine intelligences they produce.
It's used for many reasons, but the first one was to give members of the legion extra stability in the form of a companion, and eventually evolved into the far more complex one you have today. The current standard issue Gem gives you the ability to integrate your subconscious, resist the manipulation of your mind and body and maintain stability even in prolonged isolation.”
She explained it in a way that was more understandable, though she used phrases that still sounded more like they were lifted from some kind of text or ledger. The last bit was above my head, but it was much better than before. More of a lecture than a textbook. She even mentioned something that gave me new information on something I knew.
“Those AI things you're talking about… They’re the archangels, right? And the Golems, their children. That’s what you're talking about, the big guys, Sol and Luna and whatnot?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said with more confidence, “Sol, Luna, Terra, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Sariel, Raguel, Remiel, and Lucifer… Though Lucifer is a bit of a special case considering he has multiple sub-cores, which are less soul gem and more like the shards.”
“Right, okay, I think I’m following so far,” I told her as the lift let out a little ding and slid open. I walked in and found the first-floor button, the only easy button to find, with the rest being a number pad of simple buttons. “Give me the rest; you're on a roll,” I told her.
Cheerfully, she continued.
> “It's composed of shards that make up fundamental primary archetypes of your subconscious mind, each of which forms the cohesive you. The standard gem comes with six: The Self, The Persona, The Shadow, The Anima, and the Animus, with one dedicated to memory. The first three correspond to and regulate both their namesake archetype and your beginner transformations, namely, your standard, Peacekeeper, and Warforms, with the other two regulating the part of you that is feminine and masculine.
>
> Each is a shard because it is used to make a cohesive whole, but they can be split. Unspecialized legionaries are all connected by default, but for specialized troops, the high energy, organosilicon crystal lattice used to connect them is instead formed into an additional shard with its own minor archetype. More can be grown, but it requires the use of credits, namely contribution points, which you would get during training.
>
> Each shard is not you, with the exception of the self, which contains the core of your personality, and the memory shard, which contains a copy of every memory that was resonantly scrapeable from your mind. Because of this, The Self regulates you while you are in those transformations, keeping you centred… Each archetype is a narrow part of you, part of the collective unconscious that is shared by every Human, and the ones beyond the standard are often more specific.
>
> The Anima and Animus are both non-physical, but one is dictated by you and the other by the oracle, me, to ensure a balanced legionnaire. I am the Anima, and you are the Animus. I represent your repressed femininity. The persona represents your sociable mask and includes empathy but also other aspects associated with society. The Shadow represents the you that exists in the dark, the animal that can be traced back to the primordial soup, which understands the cold, brutal logic of life in the same way a reptile does and is associated with urges, desires as well as your ego. They also represent your mind and your body and your connection to them.
>
> Each of them encodes for multiple talents, along with the extra DNA that was added to you during the primer bath to affect your epigenetic landscape, resulting in the transformations, general improvements on your body, and knowledge, similar to how you understand machining, grant extraordinary ability’s and give you greater control over yourself all via different forms of meta-causal resonance, or bio-resonance slash resonance...”
I sighed.
She had done it again, giving me things too complex to understand. I could understand bits. She had used a few big words, but mostly, I was just missing context. A bunch of it was just gobbly gook. Further confusing me was the contents of some of the stuff I could understand. I wasn’t masculine… Or rather, I wasn’t a man. Why was all of that necessary for maintaining stability? What was collective about that unconscious, and how did I have it if I wasn’t actually human, and what or where the fuck were Dee NA, epigenetic landscapes, or Meta-causal resonances?
They sounded like egghead words. Like the jargon of a scholar, the kind that would unironically say big words because they thought it made them smart.
“You keep using words in a context that I can’t understand for the how,” I told her as the lift carried me up through what had to be miles of dark rock.
“Oooo- Oh. I’m sorry,” she told me, her confidence dying immediately.
That stung me, the sound of her voice. Maybe it was because I had some kind of soft spot for something about her. Maybe I just knew how it felt to have a passion for something that people didn’t care about or understand enough. Maybe it was just my everything, leaving me vulnerable to it while I was desperately trying to pay attention to the supposed end of the tunnel and the hope of returning to normalcy.
Worse… I didn’t know what to say.
We stood in the silence of the lift as it dragged us up, growing more terrible as time went on. I wanted to speak, wanted to open my mouth and apologize over how it had come off. My mouth gabbed multiple times.
“I… I didn’t mean that to be a bad thing Lilly. It's not on you that I don’t understand something… Maybe you can dumb it down? Explain it in a way I understand? You seem to have context I don’t, can you explain it with normal words?”
“Those were nor- normal words,” She stuttered.
“Not for me; I’m a tiny goblin who thinks more about guns than she does groceries. I’m not a scholar… I have some education, but I don’t have a ton.”
“That is rather discouraging. While many of them were also rather unstable, violent, or just didn’t fit in, they were also highly educated… Perhaps I will need to dumb them down, even if it goes against standard practice... That should be fine.”
“Well, good, I’m glad that you would be willing to, and for the future… don’t get stressed over it,” I told her.
The lift let out a light ding and slid open, and I quickly left, finding myself on the first floor and made my way around to the stairs that would lead me out of the strange human tomb.
“I’m not stressed, Jaclyn, I can assure you, I don’t have feelings. You don’t have to worry about me.”
That made no sense, even for someone who was more machine… Or at least someone who was more like a golem, I supposed. Doc had emotions; he was just less emotional.
“I’ll tell you what a buddy of mine told me; he’s one of those Golems, the limited emotion guys you talked about. He told me that if you can understand emotion, then… Those absolute fuckers,”
“That’s a very strange turn of phrase; I’m sorry to say I don’t understand it,” Lilly replied.
“Not that!” I told her while scuttling over to a pile of blasted metal in the mouth of the enterence, “My fucking bike!”