Suxen and her assistants stop the helix-shaped construct's rotation to start tinkering with the formulas, replacing symbols with a set of numbers enclosed in brackets with colons separating them. Aisha, on the other hand, has closed her eyes inside the observation room.
“Don't touch that!” Suxen shouts at the second assistant.
He freezes, hand extended out to the point where the helix' three branches meld together, he looks guilty enough that it's evident he knew he overstepped. Suxen stomps over to the core, shoving him aside.
“You're twenty years too early to contemplate four-dimensional constructs, Turpin.” Suxen berates as she places her hand inside the construct.
“You said you'd teach us.” He complains.
“Master the basics and I will.” She replies offhandedly. “Be glad I even give you the opportunity to earn this, no one else exists that can teach you half as much as I can.” She says the words with casual certainty, without a trace of arrogance. “Now, get in position, we need to get started on the data extraction early so we can attempt a few other scans before I have to hand these results to the Shade.”
“What can she do? This building is impregnable. We can get rid of her and call it an accident, it'll allow us to delay for weeks with the King's blessing considering what we've just achieved.” Turpin scoffs. Suxen's expression grows cold.
“You underestimate the Emperor's agents.” Francis hurriedly speaks up. “There is a reason why it's been centuries since a Ruler rebelled. The four frontier Kingdoms are entirely dependent on the Emperor for their safety but Caeviel and Mirus could march on Kruzser, yet they don't. What keeps them in line isn't the force of arms, it is fear of the Shade's machinations and Templar assault squads.”
“Have you isolated the precise frequency, Francis?” Suxen asks, walking up to me.
“Yes, Director, and I believe that we will be able to use the two data points to extrapolate the range of the reptiles' access frequency as well. The construct you created is truly a marvel.” Francis responds.
“The Lisilese are but a secondary concern, begin initialization protocol.” Suxen orders as she leans in over me and reaches out to my mask.
“Touch it and die.” I threaten.
Her disquieting smile doesn't waver. She places her palm flat on the silver tree and pressed down, compressing the back of my head against the stretcher's hard frame. I fight back, glaring at her, challenging her.
“You have not the eyes of desperation of those who call me a monster before killing themselves in spite, Specimen.” Suxen declares before sliding my mask off and studying my face. “I will find you if the Shades take you away, Specimen.” I remain silent as there isn't anything I can do yet apart from making good on my promise later. “I will cut you up, study you, and put you back together. You will be a being that stands at the apex of the Animal Kingdom. I will forge the future with you as a base.” Her tone is frantic, deranged.
I shiver at this crazed maniac's threats presented as incentives to stay alive. Seething and afraid, I hold onto my oath and bide my time while renewing my resolve to kill this madwoman or die trying if it comes down to it.
The Director places the mask back on my face. Aisha's eyes are closed so she didn't see any of it but, even if she had been looking, Suxen maneuvered so that her back would have blocked the Shade's sight.
Suxen moves back to her spot and the three of them reactivate the helix construct complementing the runic array. I check my timer and estimate fifteen minutes left before my other constructs activate.
“I will control the extraction.” Suxen declares. “Keep the construct stable.”
The air-blades I sent into the leyline should activate slightly before my lightning construct does, and considering the time they've spent setting this up, it'll happen while they're still in the middle of the process which is optimal because there's no way this obsessed Director will stop once she's gotten within reach of it.
I prepare four air-blade shells, setting them just beneath the bracers securing my limb to the stretcher. I start gathering blood with the constructs, small amounts but enough that my wrists and ankles well a little and press against the metal bracers.
Suxen activates the construct without warning, I feel no pain but my symbiont's sense blanks out once more and so does my sight, added to that is a burnt smell along with a low volume continuous ring in my ears.
An odd, disturbing, sensation presses down on my skin, like the air surrounding me turned to water. I strongly inhale and it feels like my rib-cage is pushing against syrup.
I start panicking from that and being blind and deaf but manage to control it thanks to my symbiont which starts diffusing its cool substance and the fact that, despite it all, the air remains breathable. My head grows hotter, I can tell because a few drops of sweat form on my forehead and on the sides of my head.
An eternity seems to pass as I am stuck in my mind, combating an increasingly difficult to repress terror. I turn to Leomi and Celyz' images, to war and peace. Ironically, their actions fit not what they make me feel.
I check my timers, finding out that only a single minute passed. That's not possible. A horizontal wave of flow descends on me, coursing through my body, it pulls and pushes at my flesh, causing a severe itch.
The static hindering my sight and my symbiont's sense grows more diffuse, the burnt smell dissipates, and the ringing gradually fades away. Yet, the odd sensation that air is a lot heavier, or that I am, remains.
“... iiiiiinnnnng thhhhhha sssssssssseeeeeknnnd...”
I seem to be regaining my senses but all I can hear is an unintelligible garbling. I soon sense that it's coming from Suxen's slow-moving lips and reaching me with an almost imperceptible delay. Is she pronouncing some kind of incantation?
People used such things to control flow in the old ages, before the Emperor made the practice vanish by ordering that the population be taught to use their minds instead of their mouths when manipulating constructs, which is more efficient since it eliminates the unnecessary step of translating thought to speech and less confusing considering words can have several meanings.
I focus on the sounds but fail to make any sense of them, even as I try to read her lips as they take long pauses between every sound and then move too slowly to grasp the entirety of the motions they made.
I check my suicidal constructs' timer again, finding that it's barely moved since they activated the construct. What is happening? Is time slowing down? Is that even possible? I reach out to their construct inside my body, trying to link to it to understand.
A shock goes through my head and provokes intense pain, making me lose the threat I just barely found. My body convulses, seizes, my elbows and heels slam against the stretcher and I bite my tongue from the surprise.
Tasting blood, I grit my teeth so it won't happen but, unfortunately, my jaw is trembling and clacking so that doesn't help. The agony tearing at my brain lessens but doesn't fade away, it seems to stretch out.
Suxen takes almost an entire minute to react and all she does is bring her fingers together to snap them in slow-motion. The sound of it resounds in my ears for a good ten seconds and, at the end of it, the pain vanishes as abruptly as it came.
You can't do that, that's just not possible unless time is slower for me than it is for them... no, that's not it either. I'm having trouble breathing and, if I pay attention, I can tell that my eyes aren't as quick as they usually are.
It just feels like time's slower but it isn't really, it only seems that way to me. I realize how ludicrous of an advantage it would be to be able to do this during a fight as a warrior's biggest hurdle is to build-up the reflexes that allow to react to a battle's ever-changing circumstances.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Suxen caused the pain, to prevent me from interfering, but in doing so, she helped me figure out what's happening. I try to laugh but it feels like my tongue is encased in thick honey.
This isn't the time to bluster, I need to seize the moment. I call on my flow, focusing it on my brain since it's more than likely where the effect originates. I don't try to link to Suxen's construct as she might increase the pain, make it last longer, or both, which would not only be difficult to bear but counter-productive to what I'm trying to do.
I instead use the fact that I have absolute control over the energy inside my body to observe what they're doing to me. I find that Suxen's array is sending pulses of energy inside my brain but there is enough delay between each wave that I discard it as being the cause since, if it was, the experience would be brief and not constant.
I focus on the more subtle field of energy coming from the helix construct which is present throughout my body but more concentrated on my brain. It forms a complicated lattice of segments, one that is constantly activated.
After another stretch of eternity trying to get a sense of the pattern, I encounter an unusual stumbling block. The euphoria coming from the cool substance made it difficult to keep my mind on track for this long stretch of time.
I soothe my symbiont, telling it to stop spreading it. It doesn't respond, which makes me think that this effect is preventing us from communicating, but the cool substance starts dissipating. It feels like it's confused and lost.
I don't get to ponder on its state as the static returns for both my sight and my other sense, along with the burnt smell, and the ringing in my ears. Shit. I hurriedly tell my symbiont to cancel my last order and it does so with obvious relief.
While it spreads out, I check my timer. Two more minutes passed, three total since the start. This gives me a lot and very little room to experiment. I focus back on the pattern and go around the fact that it's hard to focus long enough to grasp it by directing my unstructured energy with the firm intent to replicate the field's effect as I inspect it.
I lose track of time as I work through this because of how much concentration it requires and the fact that I have to consciously eliminate the occasional distraction from Suxen who is correcting her helix construct on the fly.
Yet, after all my efforts and consuming three whole portions, it doesn't seem like I'm achieving anything. In frustration, angry to have wasted so much energy on this, in what I realize is likely to be a moment of insanity, I decide to just give up trying to control my unstructured flow.
I stop guiding it to match the field's pattern, and simply fixate my mind on the feeling of progressing inside this time-flow. Once I have a solid understanding of what I want, I rely on my faith towards the Lake and simply intend my flow to shape itself to match my need.
The energy spreads out throughout my body, superposing itself with Suxen's construct. As I am not controlling this, it allows me to notice when it diverges just slightly from it.
It immediately causes my sight to black out, my sense of smell to be smothered into oblivion, my hearing to wink out, my symbiont's presence to vanish, and finally an intense dizziness accompanied by a feeling of disassociation similar to the one I experienced when my symbiont was implanted but distinctively different as this one is mental instead of physical.
I forge onward, clinging to myself long enough inscribe exactly what it is doing in my mind and replicate it by using another two portions, which is more than enough energy. On the verge of losing consciousness, I still manage to dismantle the field created by my unstructured flow.
I fiercely inhale, grasping to the air as much as I want to hold them in my arms once more. I am alive. I think with surprise, very conscious of the fact that the consequences of this experiment of mine could have gone from bad to disastrous.
The tendril connected to the base of my skull wriggles and tightens its grip around my spine, a movement accompanied by a burst of something that feels like anxiety but more intense with a tinge of something that I interpret as homesickness.
My lips, very slowly, form a gentle smile. I focus on my limb and try to communicate how I feel about it in turn. Don't worry, we'll remain tied together forever whether we share one body or not. It responds by loosening its hold on my spine, back to what it was, and by caressing one of my ribs with another tendril.
That went better than I thought it would, I've been trying to indirectly signal to it that we might split as a way to prepare it but never directly like so. Hopefully, my symbiont understands the specifics of what I'm projecting to it.
I notice that only a mere minute passed, which means that I felt time pass even slower than before when I lost my senses. To recapitulate, Suxen's construct caused my perception of time to slow down, I don't know if she intended it to affect me but she likely intended the effect itself to gather more precise data.
It seems like that would be the reason she would do this. I guess I'll know whether she's aware of what her construct does to its target or not when I fight the Numbers because there's no way she wouldn't give them this ability.
Although, she might be able to but doesn't because it seems likely that the only reason I can even see and hear right now is my symbiont's cool substance and I doubt she's been able to reproduce that if she even knows about it.
Perhaps it can alleviate the effects of slowing down my perception of time because it the substance already does something similar for me to increase my fighting capability.
Then it would be foolish to give it up. Silence, tiny voice in my mind. I can achieve power through my own means. You're speaking out of turn. I reflexively giggle at this insane dialogue but the sounds that come out of my throat is foreign to my own ears, not to mention the delay.
I focus on my surroundings, finding that Suxen is scrutinizing a single point on a floating construct. Francis and Turpin are still where they were, hands extended out towards the helix-like construct.
“Nnooot thhe caaaauuuuuse, ...uuuuuusssssssssst aaa blllllllliiip.” Suxen says with a dismissive, excruciatingly slow, wave of her hand. “Baaaaaaaaarreellllyy rrreeeeeeeegiiisssssteeeerrrrrrsss.”
I close my eyes and check my timers again, finding that two minutes have passed since I last checked. The rate at which I perceive the passing of time is fluctuating, likely corresponding to the speed at which the construct spins because I didn't notice the helix slowing down or accelerating which means it is in sync with me and my symbiont.
“We're missing something.” Suxen says calmly.
I perk up as I am suddenly hearing words without any kind of distortion. Francis and Turpin throw her confused looks, lowering their hands. I quickly shape the blood I gathered into blades since I this might mean that I need to act.
The movement causes pangs of pain in my ankles and right wrist. I look down and to my right, peeking at the small space between my clothes and the bracers, and find that I have bruises where I gathered the blood. I try to move as little as possible so as to not expose them. Luckily, they're barely paying attention to me.
“What do you mean, Director?” Turpin asks. “We have most of the raw data.”
“I'm missing an entire set of coordinates.” Suxen declares, mostly to herself. “I don't even... what is this?”
“That's not possible.” Francis comments, confused. “You've repeatedly proven that your theory on dimensions is sound and works with flow.”
“I'm not talking about that.” Suxen shakes her head. “There is an incoherent response, the same one I got when I analyzed our access but I treated it like noise and removed it from consideration.” She explains, eyes still locked on her floating construct. “This is too similar for it to be mere interference, it has to be something and all I can think of is that we're missing an entire spacial dimension, at least.”
“But you've established only three, Director.” Francis notes.
Suxen doesn't reply, she swipes her hand at her construct and the content it shows changes. She remains silent for a long moment, the only movement she makes is to push her glasses back on her nose when they start slipping off.
The flow infused in the array and in the helix-like construct has grown sparser by about half, it's not a very reliable estimate but it's all I've got. Luckily for me, it doesn't seem like they're done so they might burn through the rest.
I focus on the observation room, finding that Aisha's eyes are still closed but something must have happened because the two Numbers are each holding one of her shoulders.
It takes several minutes for Suxen to stop analyzing the data and reactivate her helix construct, bringing the remaining time to a few minutes. I don't try to make a precise estimate because I didn't exactly sync the countdowns together so it could lead to me being unprepared if my air-blades activate earlier or later than predicted.
The construct burns through a quarter of its energy before they stop it again and I use the extended amount of time at my disposal to assemble low-powered nourishing, healing, and strengthening constructs, I apply them to my entire body but more specifically to my heart.
“Data extracted.” Suxen declares with satisfaction, a rare show of emotion. “Isolate predetermined data sets to confirm, Turpin.”
“Preliminary results on my end suggest success, Director.” Turpin replies speaks up.
“Good.” Suxen nods. “There is some energy left, congratulations to the both of you.” She adds.
“Thank you, Director.” They reply together.
“Adjust the construct, I want additional information on the discrepancy and to check whether the blip was a one-time occurrence or caused by an error in the core equation.” She tells them. “A scan focused on the second portion of the protocol should provide us with some answers before we purge and reset.”
I was right, she won't stop once she's begun. She even seems to be planning to use more than the ludicrous amount of flow they gathered. The constructs she's using are so large and complicated that I can't begin to imagine how much of the energy is wasted.
I assume that the blip she's talking about occurred when I was messing with my own perception of time, it would make sense that it showed up on her results. At the very least, I can conclude that I didn't merely cripple my senses.