Tule paused before going through the door, Jonah stopped himself from running into the back of him.

“Problem?” His goggles clicked and whirled.

“No… yes, something is off in this room.”

Jonah looked around. The room seemed much like any other. Lit in green and blue phosphorescent it reflected in purple, blue, pink, green, and even a deep black. The mushrooms were much like the other rooms. Completely random looking and covering every surface. The floor a springy mess of smaller caps, walls consistent of scatter phosphorescent caps and oversized mushrooms of all colors. On the ceiling were the remnants of the phosphorescent alongside long, spindly stems that hung low.

The air was filled with moisture but Jonah wasn’t concerned. The soporific count was surprisingly low and it was relatively fresh. If you avoided the plumes of spores that were occasionally released.

“Tule, what happened earlier? With your arms.” He clarified.

Tule looked down. The ‘new flesh’ was thinner and much lighter than the black, hard skin he had possessed before. He hadn’t been paying attention but it seemed like the flesh was thickening.

Tule was still staring at his arms, “Ch! I am not completely sure. I think I’m…”

“Well whatever it is, this place seems safe to sit down and take a break?”

Tule looked at Jonah, he was already buried in his portable again. He was taking samples of nearby mushrooms.

A smile broke out, it seemed like both him and Jack had the same attention span for things that didn’t interest them.

He wiped the smile and looked around. Skeptically, “I am not sure…”

He stopped himself as Jonah swept lashes of over a few of the more perilous looking shroom caps before sitting down in a soft plume. Tule watched him dig into his portable for a while and eventually settled into a squat. He didn’t mention the mental pressure he was under.

“Have you found anything useful?”

Jonah paused fractionally then continued working.

“Actually yes, all these mushrooms you see are genetically related but are completely different species. The-”

Tule’s stomach twisted into a knot that he barely kept off his face, he loudly cleared his throat, “I did say ‘useful’.”

Jonah glared for a moment then continued, “As I was saying, its essentially impossible to determine which are safe and which are not, unless that individual mushroom has been tested. Other-”

“Are any edible?” Detaching the solid layer of his forearms introduced a monstrous appetite.

Jonah was scowling again.

“What?”

Jonah couldn’t hold it in any longer, “Who are you? Jack?! What’s with all the interruption?”

Tule paused, he was too hungry to laugh at Jonah making the same comparison he just made, “Apologies. I need food, badly.”

He supposed that Jack did interrupt quite a bit.

Jonah turned to a few of the surrounding caps, flashing an alternating blue/red oscillating light over several of them.

“Accepted.” Jonah continued scanning, “No, no, maybe? Oh dear no,” that last one he flashed with his aquamarine finger.

“Here, this one should be fine.”

He plucked and handed it to Tule.

It was a yellow-brown cap, nearly golden. Still. It felt cold and somewhat slimy in his hand.

Tule had a full Yumata eyebrow raised.

“Should be?”

Jonah grabbed the stem and fired a red laser over and onto it. It steamed and charred tantalizingly. Tule didn’t hesitating as he grabbed it but he did pause for a second before the smell. It triggered something, a memory.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

He felt the sun on his face for a moment, a fraction as it flitted by. He ripped off a chunk with his teeth.

He ate another, bigger bite, then garbled out, “Itsh gowd.”

He looked at the floor and Jonah, in a moment of uncharacteristic empathy, swept a lash of aqua across a spot next to him.

Tule swept the gray, lifeless mass to the side and sat.

“So, what is that finger energy of yours?”

“I haven’t been able to decode it. It’s an incredible complex type of energy. I presume the Lady reprogrammed one of my fingers at some point. I would have deconstructed it but the capabilities of it appear… uniquely suited to this environment. It doesn’t have a frequency that I can sense but visibly, obviously, it does. Because it is a form of energy. It’s distinct to-”

He noticed a flash of regret pass slip in and watched it float through and out of his mind. It was that he shouldn’t have apologized for interrupting. Jonah needed to be interrupted from time to time.

Regardless, he knew that he did not truly regret it either way. He had his his honor, his code, and his discipline. Still, the sooner they found Jack, the better.

“Once I understand how this energy, this force, works. The potential life extension applica-”

Tule tuned him back out. His stomach groaned and twisted. The sound droning into his skull picked up in intensity. He had thought they were words before, before he could hear them clearly. Now that he could finally make out the words, he knew, they weren’t words.

He looked askance at Jonah, a stream of near-incomprehensible words streamed from his mouth.

Tule fought down the urge writhing in his gut. Profane thoughts struggled to push in and latch to his mind. Discipline forged daily in the grand cycle of life and survival were pushed to the edge.

He showed no outward signs from that brief, intense struggle, except for a small frown tugging at the side of his mouth. It was getting harder.

Jonah was scanning more and more mushrooms, shaking his head at each one.

Dammit. He needed to eat. NOW.

He plucked one and felt the damp, spongey material crushed between his fingers.

He looked again to Jonah. Of course, now Tule had his full attention.

“Did that one have an effect on contact? Why did you crush it? Some sort of defense mechanism?”

“Ah?” Tule’s eyes were glass., his field of vision was expanding and distorting slowly, mechanically. His mind grew cold and yet colder still.

Suddenly a steaming hot mushroom filled his fish-eyed vision.

He snatched it with both hands before plunging it into his mouth.

Tule blinked and his vision was back to normal.

“Thank you.”

“No… problem.”

Tule knew that Jonah had noticed something.

Tule felt strange and took the moment of lucidity to scan his body. “That one increased the movement speed of my blood.” He was more thankful of his new darker skin as he felt the uncontrollable blush spread across his face.

“Hmmm, as expected. Try this one.”

He handed another to Tule, this one was an extraordinarily light-blue with streaks of white. Tule’s blood cool. He told Jonah as much.

“Yes! I think I understand it now. I wonder…”

They continued at this for a while.

Tule broke it up, “Jonah, what’s your Memory?”

When he said ‘Memory’, he was referring to the singular, and rarely more than that, memory that the vast majority of people had when waking up out of Cryo.

Jonah paused mid-movement, “I, uhh, it’s quite hazy, something in a forest.”

The hard creases near Jonah’s eyes told Tule that Jonah was lying. He left it at an upturned eyebrow and continued eating the mushrooms and reporting their effects, if anything.

Jonah handed him the next one. It was cold. Tule tried a bite but the eager, writhing hunger inside him disgusted him.f

“Jonah, cook it.”

“Just eat it, you’ll be fine.”

“Cook it.” This time Tule’s eyes were hard.

Jonah snatched it back and started mumbling something like ‘incredibly toxic if cooked’ and a few other choice words.

Tule’s stomach twisted again so he started plucking his own shrooms. The one he grabbed was wide and flat with purple skin and orange dots. Jonah scanned it then gave him the go ahead.

As he finished he heard a small whisper and turned. There was another mushroom. This one, yellow with ridges running along the tip. He handed it to Jonah to scan. Jonah did, then lifted up his goggles, “How did you know?”

As Jonah heated up the cap a small grin poked through the noise in Tule’s head, it would drive Jonah crazy, “I am a man of few, but preciously guarded secrets.”

Jonah frowned then looked around for more mushrooms.

----------------------------------------

She came to slowly, a swaying motion rocking her back and forth to awareness. The swaying felt nearly relaxing before she managed to catch the bolt of alarm that reflexively rocketed through her. The swaying stopped.

“Awake?” The voice sounded faint. It was followed by another voice, this one higher pitched and… odd sounding.

She churned her mind to full wakefulness as she repeated to herself ‘Keep still. STILL. STILL. STILL.’

She heard the creature make another noise and then the swaying resumed. She kept her eyes shut for now, that would be the last Sense to take in information. Who knows if someone was looking for just that. Someone, or even the mushrooms.

She stretched her awareness over herself and her immediate surroundings. They were going down a hall and the pressure she felt in her stomach should mean that the creature was carrying her on its shoulder, probably. Or whatever mushroom hybrid passed for a shoulder. Her inner ear settled the brief puzzle, she was upside down. Definitely slung over its shoulder.

They turned and she felt a brief flicker of air wash over on the left side of her face. Carried on the right side and likely backwards as well considering the direction she felt the airflow.

Now wounds. She had activated her pain limiter earlier, when her toes had first been bitten off and it was still running well within normal tolerance.

They turned again.

Shit. She couldn’t believe she had been so careless to get captured. The fact that she may not have the opportunity to regret her mistake for long brought her a grim, macabre, satisfaction.

At least she wouldn’t have to regret it for long.