Jaid stared at the gaping maw of the icy cave looming in front of her. Was it really just one of Mallea’s nostrils? It looked more like the entrance to hell. To a being of her size, maybe it was, and she had to steel herself from the arduous journey ahead.
“The nose is the shortest route to the brain,” Farian elaborated why they’d made the choice. “Especially the part of the brain we need. It’s a fairly straight forward trip. You’ll just be making your way into the olfactory system, follow the tract to the limbic system, and then carve your way to the hippocampus.”
None of that sounded simple at all. “Uhh, could you repeat that?” Jaid requested, mostly just happy that she recognized his words at all. One of her biggest fears of making a clone of this size was worrying about reduced mental capacity. Back when she was dealing with the lock, her clones could only process basic commands.
But perhaps it had to do with the scaling of her current clone—perfectly matching her original body. Or maybe it was because the original Jaid had her senses blocked, to help her focus. Or it could be another additional boost of her ascension. Though the clone at the diner had been much more childlike, so perhaps it had to do with the intent or personality that clone was meant to convey.
“I’ll try to keep the terms simple,” the doctor apologized. “We’ll take it slow and step by step. For now, enter the nose until you’re about halfway through. Be careful not to go too far, or you’ll fall into the throat. But that’s all the way at the other end, so you should be fine.”
The knight did as instructed, warily entering into the frigid depths. Even on the inside, everything was frozen. Mallea’s well trimmed nose-hair had formed into giant icicles, closer to stalactites and mites at their relative size. Jaid was happy that her suit was well insulated, and she couldn’t actually feel the cold around her, but just the thought of the fleshy tundra made her shiver.
“Okay, I think I’m about halfway,” the little spelunker reported after a few minutes. It had taken that long to not even move an inch. The suit being bulky certainly didn’t help, but she was also being rather wary. Since everything was frozen, everything was slick and slippery, and the boots she was wearing didn’t exactly have spikes to keep her in place.
“Look up and towards the back,” Farian instructed. “Do you see the cribriform plate? It should sort of look like an oval with dotted holes. And coming out of it would be nerves. I guess they’d sort of look like spider webbing fused to the skin.”
“Uhh, not really,” Jaid looked up. “It’s too far and too dark.” She had lights on the helmet of her suit, shining wherever she looked, but at that distance, it was only a dim spotlight—too vague to make out anything definitively.
“Alright, that’s fine,” the doctor reassured her. “For now, work your way towards the roof of her nose. Unfortunately, we can’t just flip her over for you because that would disturb her too much and make the next part that much more difficult.”
“I’ll figure it out,” the knight looked around, exploring her options. On one side of the nose were the frozen hairs. She could use them as handhelds to clamber her way up. But it was also on the domed part of her nose, so it wouldn’t be an easy climb at all.
On the other side was the septum, which Jaid at least knew the name of due to her time in military training, having damaged a few noses during her tenure. It was essentially a sheer cliff, and with the added frozen residual mucus, it’d be impossible to climb without specialized gear.
Since neither route was anything desirable, it was time to resort to her own tactics. A few clones of equal size spawned around Jaid, and they huddled into a filled circle. Then another round of clones appeared, climbing on top of the first layer. Stack upon stack of clones manifested, taking their place in the ever-building tower.
And when it was finally completed, the first clone, or rather the foreman of the operation, vanished and reappeared at the very top. “Okay, I think I see what you’re talking about. It’s like a uhhh… porous walnut.”
“Well that’s one way to describe it I suppose,” that made the doctor laugh. “In all my years at medical institutions, no one was as creative as that.”
“Don’t think I’ll be able to squeeze through any of these holes, though,” Jaid had her doubts. “Oh I see the nerves you meant. If I turned even smaller, do you think I could crawl through one of them?”
“Well yes, but we won’t be doing that,” Farian dissuaded her. “While you could possibly fit, the chip upgrade certainly wouldn’t, and we can’t risk you resizing it. So the only way inside is a bit more direct. You’ll have to slice your way through the plate and into the olfactory bulb. There is a cutter attached to your waist.”
Jaid fumbled around her suit until she finally found the handle of the cutter. She picked it up, but fumbled it at first because of the bulky padded gloves. This caused the cutter to drop. Fortunately, however, it was tethered to her, and only dangled down to her feet. Her clones would have been able to retrieve it for her, but she may not be in such a convenient situation later on.
The knight pressed the button, and a small glowing blade appeared, like some sort of laser scalpel. There was also a slider to extend the length, up to what would be the length of a decently long sword. “Where am I cutting exactly?”
“I would go for the dead-middle if you can,” the doctor suggested. “That way you’ll be certain to penetrate directly into the bulb. By your standards, it should be fairly deep too, about the length of your arm.”
The Jaid-tower had to shift, bringing her closer to the middle of the plate. There was a bit of concerned wobbling as the whole structure adjusted, but it was stable again soon enough. Once the knight found a good spot to cut, using one of the already existing holes as leverage, she raised the blade, but her hand still hesitated.
“Are you sure this is okay?” The Paladin had to check one more time to be sure. “I have no surgical experience, and this seems a bit extreme to leave up to a layman.”
“It should be perfectly fine,” Farian did his best to sound nonchalant about the idea. “You won’t be able to kill her with anything you do there. At worst, her sense of smell might be slightly affected. But with what you’re doing, the injury should heal naturally. Or if it’s too bad, we’ll have Ahvra use her Curse once you’re firmly inside.”
“When we get to the brain, however, that’s when we’ll need to be a bit more precise. I’ll be doing my best to guide you with precise incisions there, but it may require a bit of tuning with what these sensors are relaying. Fortunately, if Mallea does die, we can bring her back a few times, so a few mistakes are okay. And I believe in your skills to learn from them. But for now, focus on the task directly in front of you.”
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“Right,” Jaid found her nerve and dug the blade into Mallea’s flesh. It took a few cuts, but she was able to carve out an opening through the plate and into the so-called bulb. While it still wasn’t wide enough to climb through, the knight didn’t want to risk injuring the butler any further.
Instead, she made a clone on the other side of the opening, purposefully leaving out the chip upgrade on her back during creation. Jaid then pulled the upgrade off her own back and pushed the coin through the gaping wound. The new clone on the other side received it and refitted it to her suit. The tower of clones and all those who comprised it then vanished, leaving the solitary clone alone to continue her journey.
“Well done, Jaid,” Farian offered a bit of praise. “From here, it should be a straight shot for a while. Head towards the back of the bulb and keep going until I tell you to stop. It’ll get tighter, and it might feel like you’re not making progress, but you just need to keep moving forward.”
“Alright,” the knight looked around but then had to look around. “Which way’s the back again?” During all that transitioning, she’d lost her bearings, and it was hard to make out anything in the enclosed cavern of nerve tissue.
“Turn to your left a bit,” the doctor guided her. “A bit more, bit more, there, stop. Now go forward.”
Jaid did as instructed, crawling ahead. At first, she had enough room to move on her hands and knees, but things quickly got tighter.
“You’ve entered the tract now. This will lead you to the limbic system which is exactly where we need to go. It’s a straight shot as long as you don’t turn around. This will be the longest and most grueling part of the journey. I expect it to be uncomfortably tight, but we believe in you.”
‘Uncomfortably tight’ was phrasing it gently. It wasn’t long before Jaid felt like her body was being crushed. There was barely any room to wiggle at all, let alone slide forward. Claustrophobia started to flare, but she fortunately felt herself calm down again a few seconds later.
“Okay, I’m going to try a few different sizes,” The Paladin relayed. She detached the chip upgrade and shrunk herself to about half of her starting size. That helped things a lot, but that made a new problem. She was now too small for the piece of tech, and there was no way she could drag it along with her.
So eventually, the knight settled on a middle-ground. It was still much bigger than she would have liked, but the chip upgrade attached to her snuggly, now about the size of her entire back and up to the top of her helmet. After doing all she could to get comfortable, she pressed forward.
An excruciating amount of time passed, but she at least felt she’d made some progress. Millimeter by millimeter, she pulled herself forward, constantly checking to make sure that the chip upgrade hadn’t come detached at some point. Because it would crush her spirit if she had to go back for it.
“Well done, Jaid,” Farian chimed in after who-knows-how-long. “You’re about ten percent of the way there!”
“That’s it?!” the woman almost screamed but managed to hold back. It still caused her heart to sink, though, and she let her body go limp for a moment catching her breath. “Alright, that’s fine, that’s fine, I can do this. Can my main body get some water? I think that would help. Maybe we could get some music going too? Something to hype me up?”
They were probably sudden requests in the middle of such a serious mission, but her requests were still met. The cave-crawler continued down the tunnel, one shifted elbow at a time. She’d done similar exercises during her time in the army, but this was on a different level. The labor would break so many people, but she couldn’t let it break her.
Time and time again, she thought of asking about her progress, but opted not to in case it was lower than her expectations. And she actually ended up telling Farian to not inform her of it at all, no matter how much she asked or begged. The doctor complied, always telling her to just keep going. So she did.
“You’ve finally made it, Jaid!” the doctor allowed her a moment to revel in her victory. She didn’t know how many hours had passed, and was probably better off not knowing. “But now this is where things get serious. You’re deep in the brain. We’ll be heading to the fornix now, the bridge between the hippocampi, and you’ll need to follow my instructions to the letter. So let’s begin.”
What followed was a series of very precise cuts. Farian would tell Jaid exactly where to slice with her blade and then have her crawl through. It went well for a while, until… “Jaid, stop what you’re doing immediately. We have a problem.”
“Zjik, did I kill her?!” Jaid started to panic a bit, inspecting the area of Mallea’s brain she’d just sliced through. It didn’t really look any different than any other cut she’d made, so how exactly had she screwed up.
“No, it’s not that,” Farian clarified. “The fault’s actually with a previous cut. It hasn’t killed her, but if we don’t treat it now, it could lead to irreparable brain damage. We need you to stand still for a moment, away from any cuts and damaged tissue. Let us know when you’re ready, and Ahvra will de-age Mallea by a few minutes.”
Jaid hunkered down, tucking in all her limbs, making sure nothing was protruding in any direction. “Okay, I’m ready.” The sliced tissue on either side of the knight sealed up rapidly, good as new, as if they’d never been touched. Ahvra’s Curse was well known for how overpowered it was, but it was still insane to see it up close and work to that degree.
“Alright, the crisis is averted,” Farian’s voice had a clear intonation of relief. “Let’s get back to it. We’re almost there.”
And the journey really didn’t take that much longer in the grand scheme of things. After boring a few more tunnels, Jaid came face to face with the chip that was the root of this whole ordeal. At her size, the piece of tech was as tall as a building. “So where do I install this thing?” Jaid took the upgrade off of her back and stared up at the flat tower.
“Uhh, that’s out of my depth,” the doctor was just as confused. “I’ll let Nathym take back over.”
There was a bit of a shuffling noise since Farian hadn’t turned off the microphone and then The Engineer’s voice chimed in. “Amazing, Jaid,” he started with a bit of praise. “You’ve actually done it. This part is easy. You just need to place the dotted side of the upgrade against any blank spot on the chip. Essentially anywhere it will fit and lay flesh with the surface. The tech will take care of the rest.”
The knight picked out a good spot and made a few more clones as a step ladder. Together, they hoisted the upgrade up and placed it against the chip. And that was it. The piece latched immediately. There was a brief whirring sound, and the upgrade blinked once. That was all there was—rather simple after such a long and arduous journey to get there.
“Great! Thank you very much again, Jaid!” Nathym almost sounded on the brink of tears. “Seriously, we couldn’t have done this without you. I can’t express how much it means to all of us, me especially.”
“Once you’re out, we’ll have Ahvra repair those last few cuts and then begin the thawing process. As Mallea’s brain starts to function again, the upgrade should process all of that data pretty quickly, before she wakes up. We want to let her do so naturally, or else she’d feel unparalleled grogginess, especially with a head full of new memories.”
That was good to hear and all, but Jaid turned back to the opening she’d come through, dreading the idea of making the journey back. And after a few seconds, which she blamed on exhaustion, the knight realized she was being stupid. The microclones let their existence fade away, feeling a sense of fulfilled purpose that most people would never achieve in their lifetimes.
Her main body snapped back to attention since her focus was no longer split. Jaid removed the headphones and blindfold they’d had adorned her with and found herself sitting in a lounge chair that had been brought into the chilly room. She got up, and exchanged a few words about the trip with the science team.
Nathym then gave her a hug. Farian; a firm handshake. Even Ahvra gave her an affirming pat on the thigh. It felt good, and Jaid was swept up in the sense of joy and relief, but she was too tired to appreciate it. So the knight went back out to the lounge in the secret lab, crashing on the couch once more. Sleep finally started to take her, but it wasn’t long before her peace was disturbed yet again.