Tule turned his head, “Did you hear that?”
Jonah looked up, “I picked up something but the acoustics are terrible for my instrumentation.”
Tule looked sidelong at Jonah then stood, “Picnic over.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
At least she wouldn’t have to regret it for long. Enough feeling sorry for yourself Leanne. OPEN YOUR EYES.
She cracked, then opened them fully. She was softly swaying, her eyes landed on flesh. Of what kind, she was not…
Wait. Not flesh. Specifically, skin.
The two belts seemed familiar. She risked turning her head. That fucking battery pack. Now she was 100%.
They made an unexpected turn and her head slammed into the metal of the doorframe.
“Motherfu… Jack! You idiot-”
She was interrupted as she was unceremoniously, and headfirst, shrugged to the floor.
She cursed involuntarily as her vision swam, did she hit the only piece of bare floor in this place?
Her vision split, waved, and twisted. She saw three forms above her, looking down. Did Tule and Jonah find him? Maybe they had saved her from whatever had attacked her.
She blinked to clear her vision.
No. It was just Jack and while his smile itself didn’t seem malicious, but it did seem overly friendly for their type of relationship. Another poor sign were that his eyes were so far open they seemed close to popping out of his skull. His pupils were large, nearly taking up the entire socket.
“You’re awake!”
“Yeah… Ah, were you the one… did you attack me?”
Jack nearly placed a crooked finger under his chin but moved it to press at the side of his temple.
“Well, yes. But! But! I knew you were going to fight... You have a serious ailment!” Jack’s stare was unsettling but it looked like he was waiting for the suddenly revealed truth to sink in.
Leanne started to scan her body, besides the foot, her leg, and her skull she felt alright and the pain limiter was handling it well enough. Well, her construct had been handling it well but it had been running for a long time now. She would have to turn it off soon and she wasn’t looking forward to that.
“What do you mean I have a ‘serious ailment’?”
“Hmm, it’s difficult to explain, it’s much easier to experience!”
Jack looked towards her and she raised a hand towards him, facing outward.
“Wait. I want an explanation first.”
Jack paused, hands still outstretched. He sighed and rocked back to standing. He pressed into his temple harder this time. It looked like it hurt.
“Look around you,” he waved his hands open, “all this life, everything, is one. It is all connected. It is Life Manifest! And you-” he pointed at Leanne, “are an aberration, you should not be… as you are. You are disconnected. You are not One.”
Whatever remaining sense of relief Leanne had felt at realizing it was Jack... was gone, she was fully on guard now. She saw her dagger slipped into his belt and a bulge in his pocket that she could only hope was her pistol.
“Right, ok I get that I’m not one-”
“One” Jack corrected her.
“Right, so I’m not ‘One’, how do I become One?”
Jack smiled widely, “That’s the best part, I’ll take care of it!”
Leanne stood up and flinched as some pain started to bleed through the limiter. A hand shoved her backwards. Her uninjured foot was grabbed and she started sliding across the floor on her back.
She kicked out at the hand grabbing her other leg and it was stopped by a springing mushroom cap that intercepted her kick. She tried again and Jack swung his arm to the side, slamming her into the metal of the bulkhead. Her arm hurt where she protected herself and her head rang.
Am I hitting every inch of uncovered metal?
She looked at the wall and saw the bare, clean metal and the mycelial net reform over it, the metal now completely covered.
That's not the data I was looking for. Creepy.
Her head refused to clear as they went down the hallway. She knew she needed a solution but her head was still ringing. Shit, probably a concussion. Or a second one, she wasn’t sure at this point.
She hacked and coughed as spores plumed around her. Jack turned back, “Don’t worry, those little ones won’t hurt you.”
He continued dragging her down the hall.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Leanne brought up her still damp cloth over her mouth. She racked her mind. Where was he taking her? She had no way to answer that. What was wrong with him? She studied him and he turned back to meet her gaze.
Could he tell? Perhaps. How could he tell? She didn't think he had any Psy.
She needed more information. She hated not having information. She took in her surroundings to gather what she could. Crawling alongside her head for a few moments was a small crustaceous creature with a mushroom cap on its back.
That’s it. He ate that thing.
Her memory, a key factor to her ability to process and organize information, finally started to pierce through the foggy cloud of her concussed mind.
So, Jack was poisoned when he ate… or maybe even when he was bit by that small creature.
She swatted away another small crab then was forced to watch in disgust as Jack bent down and reached out his hand. He talked to it, “Don’t worry little one, she rejects the privilege of being One. But she will be One. Soon." The creature walked up his hand and he popped it into his mouth and chewed. Jack turned his unblinking stare towards her and smiled anew. “Soon.”
She tried to smile back but it came across as barely a grimace. He turned and pressed a finger into his temple. Finally he blinked. She didn’t see what happened after he turned away but his grip firmed on her ankle then turned and continued their journey down the hall.
Where… what was I last thinking?
She strained her mind and it came through.
Right, Jack’s poisoned. Don’t eat the strange mushrooms or the minicrab-like things.
Her eyes fell on the battery resting on the small of his back.
He uses electricity. Has he been using any electricity?
She hadn’t seen him use any so far but unfortunately she didn't know too much about his skill set. She did know, however, that he healed himself with electricity.
If he is poisoned, then electricity should fix it.
She looked at his battery pack. Not a guarantee, but it definitely was a plan, a chance at least. She wouldn’t waste it though. She would move when she saw an opening. Until then she’d save her strength.
“You know, I can just walk and follow you. You don’t need to drag me Jack.”
Jack turned towards halfway towards her, wide eyes leading. Sweet hell, she hated his stare.
His face twisted as he let go then pushed against his temple and dropped to a knee.
She moved.
_______________________
Jack’s head itched. Not his head, his brain. A pressure would build up and then disperse. He felt the fatigue building in his body as the brain itch turned to a stabbing pain. He tried to blink but was unable. His eyes itched too. He pressed his temple and finally, relief arrived as a fresh wave of color and illumination sparkled and flowed in front of his vision. He breathed out in relief as the pain washed away.
Thank you little shroom.
He felt at peace now. One with everything around him. It was intoxicating. The sense of never being alone. His thoughts accepted, processed, balanced, and reciprocated by the surrounding life.
He pulled forward again. The relief was momentary as he felt his brain warping and twisting. Independent pieces of his scattered mind struggled furiously against the intrusion. Memories were dredged, killing, torture. Worse. Moments of clarity brought pain. He flinched back into the easy acceptance of ‘Oneness’.
“You know, I can just walk and follow you. You don’t need to drag me Jack.”
This one. She was not One. He didn’t blame her, it wasn’t her fault. But still, he couldn’t trust her.
Something… someo… his mind! It had had enough.
He clutched his head and dropped to a knee.
----------------------------------------
She didn’t try to stand, she couldn’t risk losing her balance. She scrambled forward and yanked both plugs from the battery and stabbed them into Jack’s back.
Jack roared and swatted blindly with his Gauntlet. The GreatShield flared out with the current now traveling through him and smashed into her. She spun and flew into the wall, this time the mushroom blanket didn’t move out of the way. She was grateful.
She looked at Jack, the electricity poured out of the prods wounds. The current arced and bounced off his skin, searching for somewhere to go. Some went into the 'in' prod of the battery. This electricity was easily cycled out as she watched a torrent of sparks find their way inside him, the only way they could, through his eyes and mouth.
Jack repeated in a hoarse yell, “ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE” over and over again.
Leanne had pulled herself upright along the wall as she watched. She saw her pistol drop from his pocket to the ground. If she had an opportunity to grab her weapons, she would. She had already ran the numbers for this potentiality.
She grabbed her pistol then rolled away. She flinched and stumbled as she slammed down on her missing toes and a spike of pain cut through her limiter. Dammit, it was starting to fail.
She looked at Jack, mouth and eyes wide open, harsh ozone-colored electric light pouring from his eyes and mouth.
The scream that ripped from his throat sounded like voices layered over each other. It didn’t sound like a dozen and the effect of the scream chilled her for just a moment.
She turned and started at a half-speed jog, there wasn’t anything else she could do.
“Shit!” A mushroom cap sprouted from the ground and tripped her. The environment was moving against her now.
She didn’t know what else to do, if that didn’t ‘fix’ Jack, then… well she didn’t know. Leanne didn’t have the time or the energy to dislike 'not knowing'.
She felt a flush of gratitude for her decision to spread out her stats evenly. That scream had a strange effect that would have kept her pinned far longer than 'a moment' had her Grit been lower.
She turned the corner and another one after that, dodging sprouting caps and small soporific creatures she shot with her pistol. She didn't bother studying them. Target, shoot shoot, next target shoot shoot.
She scanned her surroundings with every sense available to her.
A sound echoed down to her, “Onnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” The sound slithered down the hall towards her. Every mushroom around her was sporting white porcelain teeth, arranged in a wide grin.
When had that happened?
The mushroom mouths from back down the hall echoed the sound until rolled by the closer mushrooms and finally became audible, “One” “One” “One” over and over.
She turned to face the way she had came. They were leading Jack to her.
He was stronger, clearly insane, and, worst of all, he had the home-field advantage.
There! Something different.
It was a patch of bare metal, arranged in a small, perfect semi-circle in front of a door, clean and unblemished.
There it was. For the first time in a long, long time, she smiled.
----------------------------------------
“Tule, I’m picking up something ahead, on the vibrational scanner. Something… big.”
“ChCh!”
Tule did not like seeing the haunting, different sized smiles on the mushroom caps. He also didn’t like the fact that he never managed to actually catch the teeth forming on them.
It all reminded him that he had a belly full of these exact mushrooms. He was at least glad he didn’t eat the uncooked one.
There was a bigger door ahead of them, different than the others. What was primarily different was the size and the relative loose covering of the mycelial net.
He squinted at the top of the door. A plaque was above it. It was severely aged, he couldn’t make it out. It was large and the script even more aged than the sign itself.
“Jonah, can you make this out?”
Jonah tried and then reached up. It was well beyond his reach.
Tule’s hands were already crossed, “I will lift you, put a foot here.”
Jonah scanned the faded sign above the door with a finger that spread red, blue, and green light over it.
He hopped down and plugged his finger into the side of his portable.
“It’s scanning and compiling it. Shouldn’t take more than a mome…”