Chapter 30
Technonic Dreaming
(Misha Tulley)
Phew.
Misha let out a sigh of relief as her mind felt like it was reaching its peak. It had been a while since she pushed herself to such an extent.
The idea she had was a sound one, if a little unconventional by Psycher standards. Her goal had been to transfer her consciousness twice, once from her own mind through the phone infrastructure of this world, then to find one initial access point and transmit her consciousness to an otherwise stationary victim, where she could force a hallucinogenic dream.
In her trials of the new method, Misha realized three things. The first was that this world was so infantile that it let every segment of the world be connected to every other segment of the world. Not just once but multiple redundancies of connections were present, in case one particular neural world network segment got taken down or compromised.
The second thing Misha realized was that transferring her mental consciousness from an organic structure (herself), to a mechanical structure (the phone network), back to an organic structure (Amoni) was possible, if not a bit taxing. Clearly there were ways Misha could try to work on and improve her technique, possibly ways to use the energy of the phone systems themselves to amplify and charge her powers, but for a simple test run, this was good enough.
The third thing that Misha realized was that Amoni for her part was seemingly not involved with what happened to her grandmother, which was good as retribution would need to be absolute.
Now the only problem came with finding out exactly who was involved in the acts, though Misha had her guess, she wanted to be confident in her conviction. Just because she was here on a planet that had not yet conformed to the official code of conduct of all Intergalactic Space Faring races yet, didn’t mean that she herself hadn’t signed those very accords thousand of years ago.
As a matter of honor, she needed to be resolute in her convictions before delivering punishments. To herself and others, she needed to ensure the following, before delivering punishments.
Intergalactic Rules of Engagement:
* For any action, one should expect an equal and proportional reaction.
* In the case of a crime committed outside the typical senses of an executing officer, proof of the crime must be made available in an unaltered form via a brain scan upon first contact with an Intergalactic Governing body.
* A Psycher is considered to be an executing officer and intergalactic peace keeper until otherwise stripped of their position or title.
Those commandments were what drove Misha to her conclusion. Normally, in the case of prejudicial ties to a crime a Psycher would renounce their role as executioner and give the action to another Psycher or governing body. Unfortunately, there were no other governing bodies than Misha, meaning she had to dole out a punishment that was proportional, while also having irrefutable proof of a crime having been committed.
Now that she had proven that her ability to conduct an interrogation by inducing Lucid Dreaming could be done at a distance to people, Misha began to formulate a plan for revenge.
***
(Rodger Lee)
Sweat.
Ever since that night, Rodger had felt both alive and trapped. He felt alive in the fact that his mind, his body, and even his soul had all been infused. He was blooded, apparently changing his hands into claws and providing a quick scratch to the seriously disabled lady was enough.
With that act he had proven himself to be a killer to not only himself, but to the pack spirits as well.
Honestly, it had all sounded like some made up mumbo-jumbo to him when he first heard about it. The only reason he even tried to entertain the idea was due to Alishia, and that was really only because she was easy. Well easy to those who were pack members, for everyone else they had no chance at the veritable goddess.
In fact, it had been Alishia that had been the one to both push him out of the van in the first place, and the first one to welcome him back with an amazing kiss after the action had been completed.
Trembling.
In a moment his mind was back to the moment just after.
The woman had been unconscious, and likely would have died from the injuries she had already sustained. What he had done was a mercy killing, putting the old hag down before she had time to fully suffer. It wasn’t like she was young and had her whole life before her, instead she was old, with wrinkled skin and liver spots.
Stolen story; please report.
Swipe.
As he walked back to the van, he felt a warm sticky substance on his fingers that he invariably tried to shake off, to no avail.
He got back in, not wanting to touch anywhere, lest he spread the blood around Jerome’s van. Well it was Jerome’s cousin’s van, there was some weird family dynamics that he couldn’t quite understand, but suffice to say, he mentally understood the need to stop spreading blood everywhere. Having watched enough crime investigation shows he knew at least this much.
Though right now, he could smell the blood, which was making him both nauseous, while also awakening a primal side to himself.
“Let me see,” Alishia said excitedly, grabbing Rodger by the wrist and all but looking at the blood still pouring down his hand.
Glowing eyes.
Her eyes glowed yellow for a moment. In that instant he knew her for the predator she was and always had been.
A primal part of Rodger told him to pull his hand away. While another, more feral part of his mind told him to wait and see.
He was glad he listened to that feral part of his mind, for what happened next was amazing.
The van had already begun to drive away, but all Rodger could feel at the moment was his heart beating as Alishia began sucking the blood off of each of his fingers. An act that simultaneously disgusted and aroused him in equal measures.
Then, once the blood had been cleaned off of his fingers, she licked his palm, then the back his hands. After a moment they locked eyes, one of her hands gripped his wrist so he couldn’t move, the other went about licking her own fingers seductively before him, as she too was now licking away the blood that had somehow gotten onto her fingers. Likely transfer stains from Rodger’s hand, while she was maneuvering his hand about to clean it thoroughly.
After that, she just stared at him, her eyes glowing a possessive shade of blue. Then before he knew what was happening she reached down to his waistline. For a moment he half expected the best, only to be immediately disappointed when her hands stopped and gripped at the hem of his shirt. However that disappointment was short lived, as she quickly pulled up his shirt, freeing his left arm, and head, and letting the shirt drape over his right hand.
There she stopped.
Here he was, in the van of the coolest kids of the school, being teased by the schools most beautiful woman, and he was there with his shirt off, skin exposed to the howling wind that crept through the broken windows, but none of that mattered. In fact, this moment was the first time he truly felt alive.
At the time Rodger didn’t know what he wanted to happen. He half expected the shirt to be fully taken off, but was somewhat confused when Alishia wrapped his shirt around his hand.
Looking down, Rodger was confused, as he saw Alishia work her hands quickly to wrap up his hand, before tying the end to a knot.
“There, now you must keep your hand wrapped, until we get to the bonfire.”
“Bonfire?” Rodger asked.
“Yes, the bonfire, where we will burn away all your clothes and ties to this night.” Alishia stated.
Rodger didn’t know exactly what this all meant, and a part of his mind told him that this was dangerous, he had just committed murder. Though again he tried to rationalize it to himself, that the person he killed was done as a mercy killing. Just like hitting a deer with your car, it would be heartless to leave the deer out on the road to slowly die from its wounds. What he had done was no different, a mercy killing, at least that was what he tried to tell himself.
However, all semblance for self-doubt was quickly lost as he found Alishia suddenly caressing and straddling him there in the back of Jerome’s van.
“This will be a good night.” Alishia hissed in his ear, before biting down on that same ear.
And it had been a good night, the best night, actually.
All he remembered was the pack driving the broken van to an empty field, where they torched it, not wanting to leave any signs of a crime.
Rodger looked on with shock at what he was seeing, then was especially shocked when he saw Alishia and the other girls throwing their clothes into the broken windows of the van that were burning brightly.
“What is happening?” Rodger found himself asking, his mind only now waking from a semi-haze that had seemed to cloud his better judgement for most of the night.
“We are burning our clothes. We were out skinny dipping, when someone stole our van, sideswiped and killed an old lady, then burned the vehicle to hide any evidence of a crime.” Jerome said calmly as he too began taking off his pants and throwing them into the fire. Now only a set of white boxer shorts remained of Jerome’s clothes, but those too were quickly discarded.
“What are we doing?” Rodger asked.
“This is a formal indoctrination.” Alishia began, then coming up to Rodger she looked him square in the eyes and asked. “Do you want this?”
Seeing her there in all her glory, Rodger couldn’t help but be excited, “yes.”
He managed to say, then before he knew it, Alishia’s form began to change and morph before his eyes. Again, part of his primal mind told him to run, to be frightened, but just as he managed to try to move, a massive clawed hand grabbed him around the bicep.
Rodger was about to scream to cry out, but before he could, he felt massive jaws bite down on his neck and jugular.
The next thing he remembered was waking up naked in a field that was far removed from the burn site. He woke up cuddled next to Alishia, who had taken the form of big spoon.
As he awoke, his senses were heightened, he could smell the remnants of sex and smoke and violence that permeated both himself and Alishia.
A quick scan showed that he was not alone, as others were also in the field.
When he finally sat up to regain his composure, he wondered if everything had been a dream.
Then with a shock, he looked down at his hand that seemed to still radiate with blood energy, but was visibly clean. Only now did he stop to ask himself, “what have I done?”
Stagger.
Rodger rocketed awake in an instant. One second, he was passed out, somehow able to relive the vivid details of that night clearly in a dream. The next second, he realized he was awake in class.
Snigger.
As he finally regained his bearings, he looked around the room to find that he was in class.
Phew.
Rodger’s heart was racing, even now as he tried to slowly calm himself down. “It had looked and felt so real,” Rodger thought to himself.
Only after a few minutes did he look around the classroom to find that the school’s new red head was there, what was her name again? Michelle? Something. Anyways, while he was able to mostly avoid the gazes of others, he felt his newly enhanced senses warning him to be careful with the new girl.
However, given his recent actions, he felt that this just meant she was a challenge that should also be conquered, just like Alishia.
Bzzz.
The school bell rang, signaling the end of class.
Rodger watched as the red head gathered her things, and purposefully seemed to avoid making any eye contact with him. With that, his primal instincts took over, seeing her as a weak lamb trying to escape, which was why he felt emboldened to make his move.
“Hello there pretty lady, I don’t think we have been properly introduced.” Rodger said, going in for as much charm and charisma as possible.
When she stopped and turned, Rodger locked gazes with the girl and for a second, he felt his heart stop as he locked eyes with the green-eyed goddess.
Badump, badump, badump.
Rodger’s heart raced with excitement or fear, or both, Rodger couldn’t be certain, all he could tell for sure was that he needed to know this girl, to have this girl.
And so he waited as she just stared at him, then finally she spoke.
“No, we haven’t,” she said, and like that, adrenaline and hormone infused pheromones flooded Rodger’s body as he went in for the kill.
“Well, then I am Rodger Lee, a pleasure to meet you.”
With that the red head nodded, before turning.
“Wait, and you are?”
“Late for class,” the red head spat out as she turned and made her way down the hall.
As she turned herself again, a feral smile crested Rodger’s lips as he now felt a certain thrill with the hunt. Within a second Rodger was following the girl down the wrong hallway, stalking his prey.
And like that, the hunt was on.
Little did he realize that he was the one who was soon to be hunted.