Inside the glass cell sat a thing that had once been a man.

The only part of him unaltered was his head. It was entirely intact, even looked healthy. Like at any moment he might open his eyes and awaken.

But his body was like nothing Brooks had ever seen.

The platform he rested upon was much broader than a patient would normally need, and over nearly all of its surface, spreading like weeds, was Michal Denso.

His body had opened like a flower, if the petals had then become tendrils of flesh that grew outward. His ribs rose like stamen, and in the open cavity of his chest his organs could be seen.

His lungs still expanded. His heart still beat.

On the mass of flesh that covered the table, though, new shapes had appeared. Organs that Brooks could recognize existed on there, but so did other, shapeless masses.

And eyes.

So many eyes that Brooks could not count them all immediately, there had to be nearly a score.

He had seen many cases of alteration, but he had never seen any like this.

Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but he felt a strange calmness settle in, as it always did. Detached, he could analyze the situation better, come to better decisions.

He continued to study the man, wanting to take in everything, not miss a detail no matter how unpleasant.

Thin tubes were tucked into his mouth and nose, with numerous IV feeds into his body, some of them directly into his organs. Some kind of small monitor was held up over his chest cavity, and upon closer inspection Brooks saw tubes coming from it that were carrying blood into his body, suggesting that his kidneys or liver were not functioning properly.

A myriad assortment of machinery was under the floor, which was also clear, and down there Brooks saw techs in their heavy protective suits.

Verena spoke. "Step away."

Brooks was unsure if she meant him, but then he saw the techs below leave, disappearing out of sight.

"May I approach?" he asked the doctor.

She nodded, and Brooks moved forward, stopping in front of the chamber. The man's eyes did not open, and Brooks glanced to Verena, who was looking at a readout screen.

"Is he awake?" Brooks asked.

"No," the doctor said, not moving her eyes from the screen. "I believe he is asleep - he does this only rarely, but he had an incident earlier today, not long after you arrived. It exhausted him, but most of the time he is simply . . ."

"Distracted," Kell supplied.

The voice came from behind him, and Brooks turned.

The Shoggoth had not approached. He was only halfway from the door, and seemed, for the first time, to be at a loss.

His face was still - blank, almost. Like a human simulation that was not receiving input. His chin was even tipped slightly downward.

"Ambassador?" the Captain asked.

"I am observing," Kell replied. His mouth moved. But he still did not look up.

Brooks turned back towards Verena, who was watching Kell.

"My god, Verena - how is he still alive?"

"Many of his body's functions have shut down or are working improperly," she said. "We are supporting all that we can. In most circumstances, we can simply replace damaged or defective organs or use implants to perform the task - but his body alters even replacement organs in a very short time, and rejects implants."

She gestured to the glass containment. "For obvious reasons, the room is a clean space. So far we have had no issue with infections - I believe that microbes might find his body an unsuitable place for habitation, but I will not take chances."

Brooks shook his head. "Why is he still alive? Has he communicated a desire to keep living like this?"

"No," Verena replied. "I have . . . wondered this, myself. But I have orders from above, Captain - orders to keep him alive, at all costs."

Brooks could not know why anyone would want to keep a man alive like this, and it twisted his stomach even thinking about. But now was not the time to question those orders; right now he needed to understand the situation itself.

"What is his name?" Brooks asked her, nodding slightly towards the man.

Verena regarded him as if he'd asked an odd question.

"Michal Denso," she told him. "He was an assistant Navigational Officer on the frigate Sunspot. It was in Battlefleet A at Terris."

Brooks took the words in soberly. Battlefleet A had been the point of the spearhead of battle. They had, by far, taken the worst effect of the Leviathan's reality breaking effects.

Brooks's ship had not been in that group. He had still seen combat at Terris - a brutal experience. But it had been nothing like the group Denso had been in.

Out of fifteen thousand ships in that battlefleet, less than a thousand made it out. Among them were the most dead, the most insane.

And the most altered.

The sound of footsteps caught Brooks's attention. Kell was approaching.

He was not the only one to notice. As Kell came near, Michal Denso opened his eyes.

Those on his growths were swollen, grotesque. They rotated all the same, each of them affixing upon Kell.

Kell had a grim look upon his face, almost angry.

"This is not meant to be," he said.

Verena was watching the Ambassador closely. "Any information might be useful," she said.

Kell opened his mouth to speak - but then paused. He struggled a moment, then closed his mouth.

"I see, but I do not understand," he said softly. "Not yet."

He stepped closer to the chamber and lifted a hand, pressing it gently against the glass.

Alarms began to go off, and Verena looked to the screen on the side. "There is a surge of brain activity," she said.

Michal Denso lifted his head - and hand. Brooks had not seen it before, it had grown so smoothly among the other tendrils of flesh that it had seemed to be merely one of those.

It was not like a human arm anymore. There was no skin left on it, just raw flesh, and twice as long as any human arm.

It moved stiffly, mechanically, and more alarms went off. He leaned forward, flesh on the table peeling off, and pressed his hand to the glass, opposite Kell's hand. The tubes and devices moved with him, and Brooks could not imagine how he could have moved in this state at all.

The alarms went silent suddenly, as Verena deactivated them, but the silence was worse than the noise.

Brooks felt sweat trickle down his temple, wondering why Verena did nothing to put a stop to this, but he could not make himself move as he saw Kell . . . commune . . . with the man within the chamber.

And then Kell spasmed. A sound of pain, of fear, came from him - not just his voice, but suddenly a cacophony of them, all making the same kind of cry-

Kell collapsed onto the floor.

"Ambassador!" Brooks cried, dropping to a knee.

His eyes were open, and he was staring sightlessly upwards.

Brooks opened a channel. "Cenz, get to the high-security medical wing, the Ambassador is injured!"

Verena was summoning help as well. "We have no information on Shoggoth anatomy here," she noted.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"We don't know much more," Brooks admitted. "But if anyone has learned something, it will have been Commander Cenz."

Brooks wanted to pull the Ambassador away, but he could not budge the being. He could not even move a limb.

It would be minutes before Cenz could get here.

A long, piercing shriek brought his attention back to Denso.

He realized that the man was attempting to stand, struggling to pull his own flesh free from the table.

He was staring at Kell, and on his face was rage.

Alarms were building again, and the man was breathing harder and harder, staring at Kell.

He pounded the fist of his horrible, elongated arm against the glass, letting out a voiceless cry of anger.

A moment after he'd struck it, cracks appeared on the case. It was as if something massive had crashed into it, something moving with but just behind his limbs.

"I want to go home!" the man screamed. His voice carried through the chamber walls with unnatural power, echoing in the empty room.

More cracks appeared on the chamber walls. Denso hadn't even moved.

"We need help in here now," Brooks said.

"The Shoggoth cannot be moved," Verena said, with unnatural calm. "And Denso is unresponsive to sedatives. Bringing others in will only endanger them, we must simply wait, and watch." Without another word, she turned and walked towards the door - but did not leave, only standing near it and observing.

Denso pounded the glass again. A sound like a mighty crash came, and the glass of the floor cracked, nearly but not quite buckling.

Brooks said nothing and looked back to Kell. "Ambassador, if any part of you is awake, we need you to move!"

Perhaps some part of the being was still aware, because the eyes suddenly looked to him. Kell sat up, moving not like a man lifting himself with muscles, but like he was suspended from invisible strings.

He rose and stared at Denso.

Denso was still furious. He had made no other move, but he was panting hard, his face red with exertion.

Verena watched.

Kell took a single step forward, and Denso was shoved back. He fell heavily back onto the table, his body straining, but not moving. All of his eyes were still fixed upon Kell.

He went still, sagging onto the surface.

A single word escaped his lips. "Home."

Kell said nothing, unmoving, staring at the man behind the glass for a long moment.

Then he opened his mouth, and a flood of thick black liquid poured past his lips. He said nothing as it splashed down his front, onto the floor.

Brooks could not understand it for a moment, before realizing that it was blood.

But before he could say a word, could even ask if Kell was all right, the Ambassador turned on his heel and walked towards the door.

"Ambassador!" Brooks said, chasing after him. He did not try to stop him, but simply came up alongside him.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. "You need medical care."

But Kell would say nothing.

Even when Verena opened the airlock, the being was silent.

All the way back to the ship.

*******

Brooks kept silent as he and Verena returned to her office.

He no longer felt dizzy; instead, he felt furious.

Holding his tongue until they were in private, he rounded on the doctor once the door closed.

"What the hell was that? You didn't warn us that it would be dangerous," he snapped.

Verena did not look at him, but there was no sense of shame on her as she walked to her desk. Calmly, she sat down and folded her hands.

"That was unexpected," she said. "I had no way to know that Denso would react as he did, Captain. And I remind you that I am a superior officer and you will respect that."

Brooks fought down his anger.

"Tell me everything about this case," he said.

She merely watched him.

"A member of my crew has been injured - an ambassador. He is under my care, and as such I am entitled to understand just what danger he has been subjected to," Brooks said.

"You feel you are arguing from a position of strength, Captain, but you are not. I have full discretion in the matter of who knows what," Verena replied. "However, I do still wish your counsel if you can calm yourself. This matter is beyond individual lives."

"Just how severe is this issue? I've never seen anything like it in someone altered. Not even at Terris."

"I shall wait to continue on this topic, Captain. I have summoned from your ship Dr. Y - I would like his opinion as well as your own."

It was a reasonable step, and Brooks nodded. Y had been a long-time researcher in this field, even worked personally with altered patients when he had been posted to The Chain.

Brooks took several deep breaths before coming towards her desk. Pulling out the chair, he sat down.

The door to the office opened and Dr. Y entered.

"Dr. Urle, Captain," he said by way of greeting and stood near the desk.

"I have shared with Dr. Y the video of what occurred in the isolation bay," Verena told Brooks. "We may now continue on this topic. You asked how severe the issue is - potentially quite severe. But I do not know just how much yet. As you have witnessed, there are things occurring that we cannot account for."

"Such as how a man could crack that glass," Brooks commented.

"Well, yes," Y said. "I cannot possibly explain it. I am reminded of an ancient human phrase; spooky action at a distance. But I do not believe that this is a classical quantum effect."

Brooks stared at Verena. "When did Denso develop these eyes?" he asked.

"The first of the nascent eyes appeared six months ago," Verena replied. "At that time, they seemed to be a common form of tumor on altered patients; a sort of representation of normal human anatomy, but entirely non-functional. Within two months we had eight eyes growing, and more fully formed with neural connections. By month four, they were following moving objects, and tests suggested they were sending actual information to his brain.

"Around that same time, his body began to split open into the form you see today. The skin on ninety percent of his body has been reabsorbed, and most of his organs then began to fail."

She tapped her pad, and a thin screen arose from her desk. "And on that topic, it is not simply the eyes or other growths that have been unusual. Here is a scan of Denso's brain from when he was first admitted to MS-29."

A three-dimensional scan appeared, slowly rotating to show all sides. Brooks was no expert on the human brain, but it looked very normal to him. He looked to Dr. Y, who was intently studying it.

"I recall these images. His mind at the time showed minor structural changes," the AI commented. "And certainly signs of the trauma to which Denso had been exposed. But that is not unexpected after what occurred - it is a human brain under extreme duress."

Verena nodded and changed the image. "This is his brain from seven months ago."

"Alterations have accelerated, but are still minor," Y noted.

"And what do the scans show now?" Brooks asked.

Verena changed the view again.

And even Brooks could tell that something was wrong.

The image was still rotating, but it was not moving in a way that made sense. As it rotated, the brain - almost unrecognizable as such - changed shapes in impossible ways. It was not a simple three-dimensional object any longer, he realized. This was simply a crude attempt at displaying-

"A higher-dimensional structure," Y said. His voice was very soft. "Michal Denso only . . . appears to be like us."

"It is as good a description as any," Verena replied. "And I would like to know what he is. It is why I wished for your Cerebral Reader to join us. After her incident, I hoped perhaps Ambassador Kell could tell us more. But it seems that it is unwilling to tell us."

"I'll try to speak to Kell again," Brooks said. "But anything we can learn about Denso might be useful - I heard him ask to go home when he got upset - has he said anything else? Anything that might be useful?"

"Very little," Verena replied. "But the speech about home is the most common. It is not unusual for those who are in severe distress to wish for such a thing."

"Do we know what he means precisely?" Dr. Y asked. "Home, yes - but what does he consider home? Clearly not this station, so does he mean his birth place in the Neo Solaria system? Or perhaps the ship he served upon the longest, the Sunspot?"

Brooks found that the doctor's question tickled something in his mind. "That's a good question."

"Taking Michal Denso anywhere is not on the table," Verena interjected. "He is not fit to be moved."

"Which raises another question," Dr. Y said. "Beyond the obvious changes, what is his physical condition? From the various equipment you have informed me of, it seems that very little of Michal Denso's body is functioning."

"He is entirely dependent upon the equipment," Verena said. "Most of his organs are non-functional. His heart continues to pump, though his blood has become thicker - and from our filters we can tell that he has more of it than a man his size should."

"I imagine that's because of his brain extending into . . . some sort of higher space?" Brooks asked.

"Yes," Verena said, still looking at Dr. Y.

"These are dramatic changes. Has his mass increased?" Y asked.

Verena nodded. "Substantially. In a standard gravity, he now weighs nearly a metric ton."

"Wait - what?" Brooks asked, leaning forward. "His mass has increased?"

"In the last six days - yes. And the rate has increased since his incident with the Ambassador. We do not know where this mass is coming from."

The three fell silent.

"Dr. Urle," Y finally ventured. "Have you considered - ending life support? In a situation this severe, I cannot see a hopeful outcome for the patient. We choose life whenever we can, but in this case I simply have nothing of value to suggest. But I wonder if Michal Denso would even thank us for prolonging his current state."

Verena said nothing for a moment, and Brooks watched her carefully. In the years he'd known her, when he was Executive Commander of the Kilimanjaro and she was Chief Medical Officer, she'd often laughed - she had been a person who he usually expected to have a smile. Even in the face of medical tragedies, she had kept her positive outlook on life.

But her face was only impassive now. It was like part of her was gone.

"We are under orders to keep Michal Denso alive," she said. "Ending his life is not an option."

"Who has given these orders?" Dr. Y asked. "I have never heard such orders from the medical bureau. In a case such as this, keeping him alive is tantamount to torture."

"I cannot say more on this matter," Verena said steepling her fingers. "I am seeking other solutions here."

"I am afraid I have none currently," Dr. Y replied.

"Nor do I," Brooks said. "We need to know more. Verena, will you send me the files you have on this case?"

She considered his request. "I will send you some more information," she said cryptically. "Now, both of you - dismissed."