“So, um, this is my house,” said Kess. “As you can see, it’s, um, a house.”

“It’s… nice,” said Elias. “Nice cat.”

“That’s Giant. He’s mostly Priya’s.”

They’d just climbed out of Elias’s car, which he had parked on the street. Giant had leaped onto the car the moment it had stopped and was now lolling on the metal roof.

“Is there a reason we’re not going in?” asked Elias.

“Before Mom and Dad left they told Priya she wasn’t allowed to have boys over while they were gone.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Nothing. They didn’t think it would be a problem with me.”

“So I can come in, then.”

“I guess it’s kinda silly to be worrying about their approval at this point anyway.” She frowned. “I call them every other day at least. I lie to them every time. They’ll be home week after next.”

There was a package on the doorstep, but Kess ignored it when she saw it was addressed to Priya. Inside, Kess wasn’t sure what to do. Boy-over. Boy-over. She had a boy over. Granted, they were there for non-romantic reasons.

“You were the first Blue,” said Elias. “We’re positive about that, right?”

“As positive as I can be. And Priya was the first Red I’m pretty sure. Me and Priya were infected, but no one else in the whole town of Woodburn was as far as I know. So whatever got to us, there’s a good chance it came from this house.”

“Do you or your sister have friends in this town?”

“Priya does, but her best friends are all away for the summer, and the rest of them she hasn’t hung out with since school got out, mostly because of Danny. None of Priya’s friends are acting unusual as far as I can tell from online.”

Elias nodded. “Are we sure it spreads on contact?”

“For the Blues I’m pretty sure. Priya’s boyfriend Danny and his friend Lorraine got it first after me, and they know me, and from there it went to Danny’s coworker, and then to that guy’s cousin. Always to people who know each other and have contact with each other.”

“It’s funny,” said Elias without laughing or smiling. “Becoming a Blue or Red sort of compels you to hang out with each other, right? So once the first people are infected they spend less time around other people and the rate of infection slows.”

“I don’t know whether Redness spreads the same way. They seem to get new members differently. We wake up in the night and go out to meet new people where the signal tells us to, but apparently they just randomly bump into each other and then stick.”

“Water,” said Elias. “You and your sister could have gotten it from the water. Or… Did you get any mysterious packages or envelopes full of powder or anything before you started to turn?”

“No. Maybe Priya did.” Kess looked back at the front door. “Priya just got a package. Should we get it and see what’s inside?”

“I don’t see what a package now would have to do with anything.”

“Or maybe it was in our food.” She moved into the kitchen. Opened cupboards. Peered inside a cereal box. What was she expecting to find in there? “Oh, chocolate!” She pulled a thick, oversized chocolate bar from the snack cupboard. “Do you want some?”

“Sure.”

She broke a piece of chocolate off for Elias and then leaned against a counter, nibbling at her own. “This was dumb, wasn’t it?” she said. “There’s no way we’re going to figure out where the machines came from just by looking around here.”

“It was worth a shot. And there’s not much else we can do to investigate since the Grays won’t let us look further into Holifeld Company.”

Elias, she noticed, had set down his chocolate with one bite taken out of it.

“Are you not a chocolate person? I’ve heard tell of such strange folk.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. It tastes—it doesn’t taste different. It… feels different. In my brain.”

“You feel chocolate in your brain?”

“Well, yeah. So do you.”

“And how does it feel different? In your brain?”

He wrinkled his eyes, as if trying to find words. “Normally you eat chocolate and it doesn’t just taste good, it feels good. It… excites you. Now it doesn’t. Now I taste it, I chew it, I swallow it. It’s nothing.”

And something about the way he said it made Kess feel, weirdly, scared. “So it has to do with…” She tapped her finger on her forehead.

“Yeah, I assume. I noticed it before, a couple days ago. I thought maybe I was just tired. I guess not.”

“And is there anything else you’ve noticed?”

He shrugged. He seemed to be shrugging a lot, lately. “Maybe. Hard to say. I haven’t laughed out loud in three days. I think it’s getting harder to surprise me. I think that’s why nothing makes me laugh.”

Kess fidgeted. “Aren’t you bothered? You don’t sound bothered.”

“It’s happening. Being bothered won’t stop it. And… it’s not necessarily all terrible.”

“What does that mean? What’s not terrible?”

“I feel smarter.”

“Are you actually smarter or do you just feel smarter?”

“I don’t know. But my memory’s getting better. Do you want to hear me recite two hundred digits of pi? I memorized it yesterday, as a test. It was easy. It didn’t even take that long. And I think it’s getting harder to annoy me. I’ve always been easy to annoy. You waste a lot of energy, being annoyed with stuff. If they could have done all that without the other parts, the losing important things apart, it would have been wonderful technology. Good for the world. I wonder why they didn’t? Or couldn’t? Or maybe this was all a mistake.”

“Elias…” Kess drummed her fingers on the counter. She opened her mouth, couldn’t think of something to say, closed it again. She must have looked stupid. “Elias… am I never going to hear you laugh again? I barely got to hear it at all.”

And then the front door opened. Kess walked out of the kitchen just in time to see Priya come in.

#

Priya’s package had arrived. It was sitting on the doorstep.

“What’s that?” asked Connor.

She almost told him. “Nothing,” she said, instead. “Just something I ordered.”

He squinted at the label. “Noquestionsasked.us?”

“Yep. Well, technically n-zero-questionsasked.”

“Well, I guess I’m not allowed to ask any more questions then.” He smiled and didn’t seem to be offended that she wouldn’t tell him what was in the package. It was getting easier and easier to be around Connor. The only other time she’d brought him to the house he’d made everything awkward, but she didn’t think he’d do that again. And if he did still like her… The idea didn’t seem as awkwardly terrible anymore. She could work with it, now. She pushed open the front door.

Kess was there.

Kess was there, and there was a boy with her. He wasn’t a Blue, though Priya wasn’t sure how she could be so certain of that just by looking at him. He was thin and dark-haired and not especially tall, with sunken eyes and eyebrows like fat Sharpie marks. Kess had always been hesitant and embarrassed about describing the kind of guy she liked, even to her sister, but Priya thought this boy might just be Kess’s type.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Priya and Kess stared at each other for what seemed like a long, long time. Then Kess spun on her heel and quick-walked into the living room. She dropped into an armchair and put her head down, clasped her hands behind her neck. She obviously didn’t know what to say, or she didn’t even want to look at Priya, or both.

The dark-haired boy watched Kess. After a second he turned back to the two Reds and said, “I’m Elias. I’m Kess’s friend. You must be Priya.”

“Um, yes. And this is Connor.”

He shook Priya’s hand, then Connor’s, like they were adults. “Are you a Red too?” he asked Connor.

“You know about Reds and Blues?” asked Priya.

“Yeah. And Grays.”

“What are Grays?” asked Connor.

“Kess, do they not know about Grays?”

Kess lifted her head from her hands. “That guy who attacked you on the road was a Gray, Priya.”

Elias possibly expected Kess to explain more, but she didn’t. So he went on instead. “They’re like Reds and Blues but different. They’re involved somehow in how you guys got powers. Me and Kess have been trying to figure it out. That’s why we’re here, actually.”

“This is still your house, Kess,” said Priya. “You don’t need a reason to come here.”

Kess shook her head—not in a negative way. More confused. “What are we going to do when Mom and Dad get back?”

Priya didn’t know the answer, so she didn’t say anything. Giant, coming up from behind her, slid around her ankles and went straight for Kess. The cat had always liked Kess, which made it even more annoying that she was so cold to him, really what was wrong with her, she—

“Elias,” said Kess, staring down at the cat rubbing against her legs. “Elias, Giant has metal in him.”

“The cat?”

“There’s not much but it’s definitely in him, in his head mostly.”

“Metal?” asked Connor. “How can you tell?”

“X-ray vision,” said Elias.

Priya shook her head. She realized she was doing the same confused gesture Kess had done a moment before, and a moment later realized that they’d both picked that mannerism up from Dad, and a moment later pushed those realizations away to make room for more important thoughts. “Wait. What?”

“It was Giant,” said Kess, her eyes widening with dawning understanding. “Giant started all of this. He infected me and Priya.”

“Giant can’t be the start,” said Priya. “Where did he get it?”

The cat, recognizing that Kess wasn’t going to start petting him or maybe sensing that the humans were getting anxious, headed down the hall towards the back of the house.

“Come on,” said Elias. He said it to Kess, clearly, and grabbed her hand, but Priya and Connor followed the two of them as they followed Giant.

Giant slipped out the cat door into the backyard. Priya and Kess were supposed to be taking turns mowing the grass while Mom and Dad were gone, but neither of them had been bothering to. The grass was long and ragged-wild and Giant moved through it like a tiger. They could just barely track his progress by the tips of his ears as he slid across the yard and sauntered into the trees on the other side.

“Where’s it going?” Elias asked.

“He spends a lot of time back there,” said Priya. “It’s not deep woods. You can walk across to another neighborhood in twenty minutes.”

Kess started after Giant before the others moved. Elias was about to go after her, but Priya put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“One second,” she said. “I just want to know—are you my sister’s boyfriend?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “I am, yeah.”

She nodded. She had always wanted that for Kess, and now she was almost happy for her. As happy as she could be for a Blue.

“He’s getting away,” Kess shouted back at them. Elias trotted to join her, and Priya and Connor followed.

Connor leaned in close to Priya and spoke in a low voice. “What are we doing?”

“Giant has metal in him just like we do, so they’re trying to figure out how he got it because that’s where our powers come from.”

“Yeah, I get that, but what do they expect to find by following this cat? It’s just gonna eat a squirrel or something.”

“Maybe not. If they actually discover something, don’t you want to be here with them?”

“Your sister makes me nervous.”

“That’s just the magic talking. Ignore it. Concentrate on the boyfriend if it bothers you too much.”

“What’s up with him anyway? He’s our age and everyone our age turns into either a Red or a Blue.”

“Apparently not.”

And they almost ran into Kess and Elias, who had stopped and were staring at something heaped on the ground.

“What is it?” asked Priya, moving so that Elias was between her and Kess. “Did Giant—Oh.”

Connor stepped up beside her. “Skeletons. Those are skeletons. Are those monkey skeletons?”

“Chimpanzees,” said Elias. “At least I think so. That makes them technically apes. Probably both female. Males are bigger, I’m pretty sure.”

Two monkeys (technically apes) lay in the grass and old leaves. Or rather, two bodies. The flesh and fur were gone, rotted away or eaten by animals, leaving nothing but bone. And metal. And plastic. Giant sat to the side twitching his tail and looking pleased with himself, as if he knew he had brought them to what they wanted.

Kess knelt down and tugged at one of the skeletons.

Priya winced. “What are you doing? That’s disgusting.”

Her sister looked up at her through a hunk of blonde curls. “Don’t you want to see what we look like inside?”

“I—I—”

“Elias, help me.”

The dark-haired boy leaned down and helped Kess to clear leaves off the monkey bodies and straighten them out to lay side by side on the ground.

“A Red and a Blue,” murmured Connor, as if to himself.

He was right. It was obvious which was which.

The Red monkey still had muscle clinging to its bones. The muscles were dark gray streaked with black and with threads of something silver-shiny.

“Some kind of polymer?” said Kess. “With carbon fiber. And whatever this metallic stuff is.”

“There’s not enough muscle here,” said Elias. “This stuff must have been combined with regular muscle, but now that’s gone.” He squatted down next to Kess and prodded at the dark artificial muscles, which made Priya queasy—it might be made of weird stuff, but that was still a dead body. “Flexible,” he said.

The bones visible through and around the strange muscles were covered in thin lines of dark metal in a grid pattern. In some spots the metal circled the bone in a band. There was also some sort of semi-transparent rubbery stuff at the joints. Kess picked up one of the monkey’s paws. Each of its finger bones was ringed with dark metal just above the knuckles. Thin fibers grew from the palm, looking a bit like hairs, but when the monkey still had meat and skin those fibers must have made little dots across its paw, just like the ones on Priya’s hands.

“What’s this?” asked Kess, pulling away the gray muscles to show the bone of the monkey’s left forearm. This bone was covered in a sheath of metal and hard-looking black stuff. It didn’t match the other arm.

“The bone was broken,” said Elias. “You can see a little bit of a crack here.”

Connor touched his own arm, which had been broken and repaired.

“I want to see inside its head,” said Kess. “Can you shine a light?”

Elias didn’t act like the request was at all strange or gross—maybe these two were meant for each other. He flicked on his phone’s flashlight function and directed the beam into the eye sockets of the monkey’s skull.

“There’s definitely metal in there,” said Kess. “A sort of liquidy metal soup pooled in the bottom. And that back there looks a little like regular circuitry. Some of us ate gold; maybe that’s what it was for. What’s that amber-colored stuff?”

“Some kind of artificial tissue?” guessed Elias. “It looks soft. Should we break the skull open to get a better look?”

“No,” said Connor and Priya together.

Elias glanced up at them. “It’s just bones.”

“We know,” said Priya. “Please don’t break them.”

Elias shrugged and turned back to Kess.

“Okay,” she said. “Now the Blue.” She sounded excited.

The Blue monkey didn’t have fake muscles. But there was a grid pattern on its bones similar to the other one’s, and thicker dark wires that ran up and down the arm and leg bones. Kess scratched at one with her thumb nail and shiny copper showed through. On the monkey’s hands, the wires connected up to metal caps on its finger tips and a tiny metal disc dangling from its center.

“A star,” said Elias.

Kess nodded and touched one finger to the palm of her other hand.

To Priya, the most disturbing part of the Blue body was the lumpy, soft-looking nodules distributed throughout, clinging to chestplate and pelvis and ribs. They were organic-looking and deeply gross. Kess poked her finger into one. “Batteries. There’s still a little charge.”

“I bet those batteries are amazing,” said Elias. “Considering how much charge you can hold, Kess, and how quickly you recharge. I wonder why they didn’t just sell that technology? Why stick it inside of people?”

“Why do any of this?” asked Priya.

“Point. Turn the head for me, will you Kess?”

She did, grabbing the skull and positioning it so he could shine his light inside. “It looks mostly the same as the other one,” he said, “but there’s something coating the inside of the skull.”

Kess nodded. “To protect against blows to the head. I knew there had to be something like that. And this cable here reinforces the neck and spine. Except… Hmm…” She trailed off, looking uncomfortable for the first time since she started poking around in these monkey skeletons.

“What does this all mean?” asked Connor.

Kess didn’t look at him, but she did answer. “We’re cyborgs. This is amazing. It’s like you grow up thinking it’s 1920 and then you find out it’s been 1980 all along and there are computers. It’s the future.”

Priya was dizzy with the shock of new knowledge. “But where did they come from?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Elias. “They’re lab animals. And they escaped.”

“And how did they die?” asked Connor.

Kess and her boyfriend were silent for a moment. Then Elias said, “Well, the Blue’s neck is snapped. See? The Red must have done it. There’s no mark on the Red—the Blue must have shocked it to death.”

#

The four of them walked back to the house in silence, Elias acting as a buffer between Kess and the Reds. Standing outside by Priya’s car, Kess drew up the strength to say something directly to her sister.

“See you when Mom and Dad get home.”

“Yeah…” Priya started to open the car door, but hesitated. “How long do you think it’ll take them to figure out something’s wrong?”

Kess sighed. “A day. If we’re lucky.”

###

TRUEWORLDORDER.NET, FORUM POST BY USER GENJITSU:

The French poet Charles Baudelaire said, “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” The same principle holds for the various shadow governments and devilish entities orchestrating events in actual fact, but with a twist. It is certainly true that the greatest protection of conspiracies is the stubborn, unscientific insistence by all the best sort of people that conspiracies cannot and do not exist. However, I believe that this insistence is not in fact a clever “trick” carried out by the powers which are benefited by it.

We have all experienced the frustration of carefully reasoned arguments and flawlessly marshalled evidence dismissed with the tired canard, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” or other similar sentiments which foolishly assume that malice is in short supply in this world. However, I think a version of this aphorism is accurate.

Call it Genjitsu’s Law: “No conspiracy is required to convince mainstream culture to dismiss conspiracies out of hand. Natural primate social dynamics will more than do the trick.”

Evolution has gifted each of us with a veil, a powerful shroud which we can use to separate our conscious mind from the simple, obvious truth of things. If we use our veil well, we may never need to acknowledge any of the truths our friends and girlfriends and parents and bosses similarly hide with their similar veils. In this way, we all go along and get along. What else could a primate possibly ask?