Khelen stirred from his sleep and noticed several sharp pains in his back. Groaning he sat up and did a quick self-check. He confirmed the presence of some unidentified drug, a sleep agent of sorts, different in composition to the fluid Ardent Riese splashed on him. The room quaked softly as he sat there, looking around the chamber he found himself in, shifting uncomfortably as something dug into his thighs.
“You're awake.” a voice to his left said. He looked over and saw a man sitting in the opposite corner. He floated a circle over the man's face. He appeared to be just on the verge of his mid-sixties as indicated by the spots of gray marking his shoulder-length hair. His entire body was covered with small bruises, perhaps caused by the gnarled surface of the chamber's interior.
“Where...am I?” Khelen asked.
“Jail.” the man said, “Prison on wheels. My name's Simian, by the way. Got arrested because I was in the wrong time, wrong place. You?”
“...Khelen.” Khelen said as his cypher saved Simian's face. “It is...complicated.”
“I bet it is.” Simian chuckled but then groaned at his injuries, “That idiot who is driving this carriage said you were some sort of lore-user.”
“He is the one who was yelling in the village earlier?”
“Earlier?” Simian said, “That was yesterday, kid. But is it right, what Leoman said about you?”
Instead of answering, Khelen got up and began to explore the chamber, relaxing his legs so he would not lose his balance. There was a grate near the top of the chamber, letting in some light. Khelen almost dosed himself with Calm so he could brave the strange light, but he was getting low on his formulas. So instead, he forced himself to look. He could not see anything, just a little bit of the sky. It was wrong...it was blue. He lowered himself back to the floor and analyzed his situation. Any hope of finding help in Inshod had passed. He had been turned over for some sort of judgment.
“My...belongings?”
“I heard them loading something in the back last night.” Simian said, “That creep out there was fawning over whatever it was. Would your stuff be made out of metal?”
“It...could look like that.” Khelen said, “Some of it is.”
“Then it was probably your stuff out back. Not that it will do you any good.” Simian said, “I'm a dead man, you...well I hate to say this but with the way Leoman was talking, you would be better off dead.”
“Interrogation?” Khelen asked. Simian nodded. Interrogation, torture perhaps. Though he did not react to this emotionally, it was unacceptable. He did not completely comprehend why Ardent Riese thought he was some sort of criminal. She and the elders were lucky it had not been awoken by their threats. He did not know this world, but nobody laid claim to cyatic technology or “lore” as she called it. These ‘Nikral’ were deluded and he was not about to allow himself to be punished for such an asinine idea. The feed was silent, he was alone, but he was not helpless. As soon as he heard Simian's answer, Khelen knew what he had to do. And as soon as he made a decision, something familiar began to stir within him, something that had been dormant for several years.
“Simian...” Khelen said, ignoring the stirrings of the thing within him, “I...do not know this...area. If I break us both free, will you...help me? Be a 'guide' of sorts? I need to...get my bearings. I need a place to stay. I will...” he thought for a moment..., “I have no...currency...but you will benefit from my 'talents'.”
“Help you?” Simian repeated, “If we break free? Even if we did, Leoman is relentless. He will chase us to the corners of Iris. But yeah, sure. If you break us both free and we escape from him for good, fine. I'll be your 'guide', I will even take you home to meet the family.” Then the man shook his head and laughed bitterly, “Come to reality kid, we are both dead.”
“Unlikely.”
“I suppose denial is easier.” Simian sighed, “But...if you perform a miracle, then I will be in your debt. I will do whatever. We can both go back to my place and have my wife make us all dinner. Of course, we would both be fugitives.”
Khelen nodded and assessed his situation. They had removed his abdolex, replaced his clothes with primitive garments, and they had removed his Scavenger-Mate. When he retrieved them, he would have to make some modifications to make sure that did not happen again. That left him with nothing except his cypher and a few more injectables in his formula injector. Still, he had survived these situations before.
“This vehicle is pulled by animals?” Khelen said, “Can you control them?”
“Wargs?” Simian smiled and shook his head, as if entertaining a fantasy of Khelen's “Sure. If you get rid of Leoman, I'll take the wargs and we can go wherever you like. Do you drink? I heard-”
Khelen whirled around as the grating opened and was surprised when a large wide face appeared. His cypher quickly scanned the eyes and nostrils and attempted to construct an approximation of the rest of the unseen countenance. The result was a fuzzy outline of what should have been cheeks and a mouth.
“Ah, you're awake! I thought I heard talking.” Leoman said, “I was just sitting here admiring your garment!” He held Khelen's abdolex to the grating. “Absolutely wonderful, how is it made? I am a connoisseur of alloys!”
Khelen briefly thought about snatching the garment, but he did not know if he could pull it through the small aperture. He was also distracted by the creature's appearance. “I don't know.” he said, “I didn't make it. Machines fabricated it. Ordered to my specifications.”
He could not see the creature's mouth, but Khelen thought he sensed a frown. “Machines..,made this?” Leoman asked.
“What...are you?” Khelen asked.
“Hmm? Never seen a Lyosh before, have you?” Leoman asked, “Boy you mountain-folks need to get out and see the world more often. But...then again you look like you've never even seen the sky before. In fact....” he paused, “that Ardent said you sobbed when you saw the sun!” Khelen raised a brow. Sobbed? Not accurate. “Where do I keep getting these strange characters?” the creature continued, “Speaking of which, you haven't gone beating up on my heretic have you? I heard you were a violent little Kel.”
He must be referring to Simian. “Simian is...fine.”
“That was his name?” Leoman asked, feigning surprise, “I got so used to calling him 'heretic', I forgot he had a name. I don't think heretics deserve names, do you? Hmm...this will be awkward, what will I end up calling you? I very well can't go calling you both 'heretic'. I suppose 'paleface' is too easy...hmm...oh, I am being juvenile! What was your name, kid?”
“Khelen.” Khelen said “Are...the 'Nikral', a separate species as you are?”
At this, Leoman burst into laughter and latched the grating shut. But Khelen could still hear him speaking quite clearly. “You truly are ignorant!” he said, “I thought the ardent was perhaps using some sort of hyperbole when she spoke of your utter cluelessness. Yes, the Nikral lords are separate from my people and Kels. What else would they be?”
“Faction of...'Kels', perhaps.” That appeared to be Sacrin's term for Nomoa, Khelen's species.
Leoman shrieked with laughter so hard he shook the cart. “Kels? Lords? Do you jest with me Khelen Paleface?” he asked, “Oh!! Oh!!! Kels...as lords! I should take you out and beat you for putting such a stupid image in my head! But...instead I will thank you for the laugh! Maybe I'll give you a little Kel treat later! Soft Kels, soft, soft Kels, ruling from thrones! Oh I need to tell my brother about this! He will break his ribs! Oh dear...oh de-hehehehehe...”
“Soft?” Khelen repeated curiously, “I do not see you. Do you have an exoskeleton?”
“Soft!” Leoman insisted as soon as he got a hold of himself. “As in you are all so squeamish! Oh you all are great hunters, fantastic architects, such a talented people. But if somebody disagrees with you, somebody threatens you, your guts fall out! You cower in fear and submit so easily. That is why you are at the bottom of everything! Cowardice and hesitation is written into your blood! You cannot even hit a man without sobbing about it afterwards!”
Khelen saved that tidbit in his cypher. It was a revelation to him, it explained the actions of the townspeople, it explained why the guardians had been so horrible at fighting. This was something he could use. But immediately as he thought of that, the thing within him seemed to lift up its head. An “itch” began to caress his chest, a smoldering hunger. Instead of engaging Leoman in more conversation, he walked over to where Simian was sitting, then sat down, shifting until he got somewhat comfortable
“Oh, are you done chit-chatting?” Leoman said, “Well, we can talk later about this wondrous material!”
“Is that thing telling the truth?” Khelen asked.
“About what?” Simian asked
“Kel being 'soft'.” Khelen absent-mindedly ran a hand through his hair. He vaguely remembered having it grafted before he came to Sacrin.
“You really are a strange one.” Simian said, “I don't think it is that mysterious, but we all have it. Nothing to be ashamed of. Must have been protected, haven't you? Your parents did not tell you about it?”
“...”
Simian considered him for a moment as if not sure what to make of Khelen. “In simple terms,” he began, “we cringe from intentionally hurting people, even when we are furious, or even when our lives are threatened. To a Lyosh like Leoman, that makes us 'soft'. I detest that 'creature'...but I cannot fight him even if I could. We lack...whatever it is Lyosh and Nikral have.”
Khelen sat back and began to plan. Perhaps Kel were a different, yet similar looking species to Nomoa, or perhaps...well, he could not focus on the merits of his various hypotheses now, but if he could be transported from one world to the other, then who is to say such a thing had not happened in the past? Perhaps years of evolution had somehow favored the flighty. If the colossi Riese spoke of were real, this would be a desirable trait to have. However, it meant that their entire race was both crippled and neutered, which was very unfortunate for them. However, it was very fortunate for Khelen. The seething hunger inside of him demanded that he use this information against Leoman and the enigmatic Nikral. The seething...it wanted to be fed, it wanted Khelen to let loose. But he fought it down...he could not afford to satisfy this growing itch, not yet.
First, he needed to know where exactly his tools were. More specifically, the Scavenger-Mate they took off his wrist. He closed his eyes, reached out and sent a signal to them. They responded to his call by pinging their location relative to his person. He opened his eyes and turned toward the back of the cart, drawn by the arrows in his peripheral. There, tagged through the wall by floating symbols were his tools. At his command, all the symbols except that which belonged to his Scavenger-Mate dimmed. Odd, he did not see it. Why wasn't it with all of his belongings? But then he noticed an arrow near the bottom of his peripheral. As he followed it, the arrow orbited around his vision until it popped over to his right, pointing toward the front of the carriage. So Leoman had his Scavenger-Mate and his abdolex. Fine, the next step was to get a full analysis of the creature's movements. But for that work, the cypher had to “see” the subject, record a full range of the creature's motions. All that it could see through the grating if Leoman chose to look through it, would be the creature's eyes. There was nothing Khelen could do except wait.
Waiting for the cart to stop was unpleasant, but he had endured far worse. Yet every vibration of the carriage seemed to jostle his anger, entice the scraping, the clawing at his chest. The seething churned inside of him like an affectionate poison. He knew this animal, this monster, this malfunction that yearned for release and hungered for carnage. For now, he could keep it at by dosing himself with Calm and Somnolence. But it was powerful, persistent. He knew assigning bestial attributes to a sickness was irrational, yet that is how it behaved. It fed, then it slept, then when it got hungry, it woke up and begged at him for sustenance. It caressed him, teased him, stoked his most virulent emotions like the flirtations of a clingy lover.
After a few hours, the carriage came to a stop for a break. Khelen was relieved, as he had begun to pace back and forth in an effort to expend his pent up storm.
“Heretic,” Leoman called from the left side of the cart, “You know the routine. Have our pale-faced friend stand in the opposite corner.”
“Stand with your back to the corner, like he says.” Simian said, “Wrists behind you. Won't matter if you don't, he'll toss one of those gas bombs through and knock us both out.”
Khelen did as he was instructed and held his wrists behind his back. To his amazement, his cypher detected numerous cyatic bands diving toward the wall behind the man. When they touched it, the metal retracted to reveal bones, which in turn slid out of the way to reveal a hole big enough for the man's wrists. Four armored arms affixed them with chained cuffs. The owner of the arms gave them a good tug, then the hole in the wall widened enough for Simian to step through. Immediately the aperture closed. But a moment later, Khelen felt another open behind him, then he felt a set of cuffs clasp around his wrists, then he felt something tug him out.
He knew this was coming, knew he would have to face it, but stepping out into the sunlight felt unnatural, like jumping into a fire and expecting not to receive any burns. The sky seemed to be limned in a gradient of blue, growing brighter at the horizons. It was...wrong...beautiful, but wrong, as if it had been defaced by celestial graffiti. Everything felt so big that he had a moment of vertigo and stumbled across the strange grass on the ground. Strange because it had such volume and resilience. But he calibrated quickly. The verdance of this place seemed to thwart the growing tempest within him, beat it back, but it had not completely silenced it.
Khelen had to concentrate. If he was going to get a read on Leoman, now was the time. He got his first good look at his captor and the cypher went to work, documenting the multiple limbs on the creature's upper torso, analyzing the creature's gait, studied how many breaths it took as it walked. It got a read on Leoman's face but could not accurately guess the creature's emotions. The Lyosh's mouth was so wide it seemed to be stuck in a perpetual grin, which 'confused' the cypher. Khelen took the algorithm for reading people, duplicated it, erased all history from the duplicate so that it started from scratch. At the same time, he told the original program to ignore faces like Leoman's and told the duplicate to ignore all Kels. The result was that each program was dedicated to reading its own species without mixing the results. He suspected he would have to create another copy and dedicate it to Nikral readings when and if he finally met one of the creatures.
Leoman attached him to a long length of chain and tethered the other end of the chain to the carriage. “Well...find a spot and go.” he said. “Just do not aim your stream at my carriage.”
Khelen walked around back as far as the chain would let him and relieved himself. The length between cuffs just barely allowed him to do that. When he returned, the creature had left a bowl of water in the grass for him along with some bread. As he tore chunks from it, he watched Leoman tackle a large piece of seared meat. His cypher read traces of sodium in it, perhaps salt used for preservation. The Lyosh held the bone with the meat in one hand while two more cut a loaf of bread into slices. The last one held a large canteen. The cypher lapped up the data as if it were sustenance for its memory banks. Leoman looked down, noticed Khelen staring at him and seemed to frown slightly.
“Why are you grinning at me?” he demanded.
“You have four limbs.” Khelen said, “Six, if you count your legs. Do all members of your...race have these or do you grow them?”
“Grow them?!” Leoman exclaimed through a mouthful of food, “Grow limbs?! What kind of creepy imagery goes through your brain Khelen Paleface?!”
Even Simian seemed to be giving him a strange look. Biological alterations were commonplace on Scrul, even if only the rich could afford them. But if a society had never seen such a thing... “Never saw one of you before.” Khelen said, injecting a small amount of Fear, hoping to give himself the inflection of submission, something he was not good at. The formula slowed the growing storm inside and fueled the deceit. He needed to make himself look small, make himself look like a soft Kel. “Sorry...”
Leoman shrugged and continued eating. Occasionally he would spit out pieces of bone and let out the occasional belch. One of the torso limbs reached up to wipe his mouth while the other brushed pieces of stray crumbs from his chest. The cypher recorded the motions while making thousands of comparisons to all the known animals it had in its records. Using that data and cross-referencing the anatomies from various species, it was slowly able to deduce the probable locations of Leoman's stomach, heart, lungs, intestines, etc.
“The arms...on your torso...” Khelen asked softly, “Are they...equal in strength to your others?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Curious anatomy.”
“Heretic,” Leoman said, pointing to Khelen with a piece of bone, “I think he is far too childlike for where he is going. Why can't you be more like him? Why must you always brood and glare at me like that? You need to recover your child-like wonder!” Then he turned to Khelen, “These...” he raised his torso arms, “Are for shaping. These,” he gestured with his shoulder arms “are for pounding. Now that you know about me, I want to ask you more about that fascinating garment. What material is it made from?”
“Abdolex” Khelen said, “That is what the company calls it. They have a...they own the formula, keep it a secret. It contains several alloys...and synthetic metals and carbon composites, as well as an alloy called trelloxid. Beyond that...I don't know.”
“Synthetic...metals?” Leoman emitted a curious noise, “well...I know you must be lying. An entire company of heretics...it would be as laughable as Kel lords if it weren't such a tragic image. Such ingratitude...such ignorance...even some of my own people have been infected with this epidemic of stupidity. Either way, Lord U'shal has means of extracting the truth. And I do...mean that in a very literal sense.” he snickered, “Oh...he will be very interested in the...'grafts' you have in your form. He will want to know how it works, who did it to you, how they are doing it. If I were you, I would not lie. I would tell him everything, then beg for a quick end.”
The beast inside crooned at this threat and Khelen dosed his last amount of Calm. Leoman did not know what he was doing, he had no clue he was stoking the itch. The Lyosh was painting a target on its quill-covered face without even knowing it. The cypher traced the Scavenger-Mate to Leoman's figure and he saw it clasped around the creature's wrist. Unfortunately, the creature saw him looking at it and raised it up. “Oh, I do hope you forgive me,” he said, “I had to try it on. Kind of dull, really. It almost seems like you broke it off something else and decided to pass it off as jewelry.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jewelry? What? Did nobody tell the creature what the Scavenger-Mate had done? Impossible! He had held Riese at knife-point with it! He had used it to subdue the guardians! Surely she should have told Leoman about such a thing? But perhaps...perhaps she did not know what she saw. Perhaps she thought he himself had summoned the blade he used to hold her. Was that why she used the archaic term “lore” to refer to technology? When Monu whispered his “gleaning”, as he called it, Khelen detected a cyatic band bend toward the leaf before it caught fire. He was amazed to see such a thing done without some sort of interface. Perhaps they did not have devices that used cyatic technology, perhaps that was why she never suspected the Scavenger-Mate. They used some other method of interacting with cyatics.
Either way, he needed to have the Scavenger-Mate and he was about to prepare an elaborate lie in an attempt to trick Leoman into handing it over. But using what he had learned about Kel, what Leoman thought of Kel, he made a swift decision not to lie, a decision the beast inside him crooned at. If he created a fiction and Leoman saw through it, the creature would grow suspicious. However, there was a good chance that the truth would be even more outrageous to Khelen's captor than whatever fiction he spun. He was going to antagonize Leoman first, then he was going to tell the creature the truth.
“Do you really think I am...'soft'?” Khelen asked, tilting his head.
“To be 'Kel', is to be weak.” Leoman said, as if quoting some doctrine, “I'll admit, you are a special little thing, to be able to take down several guardians and interrogate an Ardent. That is some story!”
“You do not believe it?”
“Oh, I believe you had an extended moment of violence.” Leoman interrupted, leaning his massive face on his hands in amusement, “Even children have tantrums! But then you probably sobbed for the entire night, correct? That is what the guards said. 'Boohoo, why did I hurt those poor old peoples? Why did I hurt Lady Ardent?' I love it when Kel act tough. What kind of herbs have you been chewing anyway when you decided to go crazy?”
“Inaccurate. I was stunned. But I adapt quickly.” Khelen’s tone changed. He no longer was pretending to be soft, “Skrul does not have a sun. I was...surprised. But now, my only concern..., my goal, is escape.”
“Escape?” Leoman cocked a brow, “Now that is a rather bold statement to make in front of a jailor, wouldn't you say? Ambitious, really. Normally, I would give naughty Kel and the occasional pincushion like myself, a few beatings for remarks like that. But, because I am in a good mood today and because you are fascinating, I will let it slide. Just consider this a fair warning before you decide to run your mouth too much. Allowing myself to be exposed to too much blithering idiocy cannot be good for my health!” he shook his head and repeated the word “escape”.
“Kid...stop.” Simian whispered, shaking his head.
“Do not spoil the entertainment, Heretic!” Leoman picked up a pebble and threw it at the man, who raised an arm just in time, “Did your mother ever teach you any manners? You do not speak when an entertainer is performing for you unless you are part of the act! Bad! Bad Heretic!”
“Pincushion?” Khelen repeated.
“The quills on my people, boy!” Leoman said, exasperated at his ignorance, “Were you locked in a cellar your whole life? Is that why you are so pale and so daftly ignorant? Speaking of which, do you know why Lyosh make good wall guards? Well?....it is because we will stick wherever they put us! Hehehehehe...”
Khelen allowed a smile to cross his face, it was a grin worn by the thing clawing at his chest. “If I escape, I am going to kill you.”
Leoman stared at him in utter shock and dropped the remnants of the drumstick he had been stripping.
“The device on your wrist...it's not jewelry.” Khelen continued, “It's a weapon...that only I can use.”
“A weapon?” Leoman said disbelievingly, “This?”
“Yes.” Khelen said, the beast in him grumbling with excitement, “It is my Scavenger-Mate, a multi-tool designed...for salvage operations, repairs, and limited cyatic storage. But...I made some....'illicit' modifications to it, so I can use it as a weapon.” He felt it rising like a wild beast, his illness speaking in his words, “If I were you...I would kill me while you have the chance. You...do not know...what I am. If you do not...” Khelen ached with the beast's hunger and spoke low in a husky voice that thirsted for blood, “I will get my hands on it. I will take it back. When I do...I will cut through these chains...then I will kill you.”
Leoman continued to stare at him for a few moments before shrieking with laughter. He slapped the ground with his shoulder arms while holding his chest with his torso limbs. “Oh!!! Ohh!!!” he howled, “Oh you are fun! Oh dear!!! Ohh!!! So much fun!!! I honestly would love to see this! You think you are such a monster because you beat up a couple of old wrinkly bags? My brother is going to love you! Please tell me you are secretly a lord's fool who crawled up from whatever quagmire kingdom he rules!”
Khelen could not hold the beast back anymore. When he spoke, he spoke with its voice, “I will cook you.” it said through his mouth, its hunger licking his lips, stoking his rage, “I will...cut off your arms and legs. Then I will disembowel you. Then...we will leave your corpse for everybody to find. Nobody...would suspect us. Nobody would believe...'soft Kels' did such a thing.”
Leoman was crying from laughing so hard, his quills bobbing. “Okay, okay...stop! This hurts! Stop! Please, this is too funny! You...you are killing me already! Ow!!! I think one of my ribs just...just punctured my LUNG!!!” The creature took several moments to control himself, but then he must have seen something in Khelen's eyes. “Oh that is such a vicious look!” he spat, “What a conceited little Kel you are. I have never seen such a contagious outbreak of disrespect among you people! It must be something in the air, or something...something you people are eating! Have you been indulging in the fabled Essence of Idiocy or the Root of Insanity? Tell you what, you deluded fool, I want to see this newfound bravery of yours in action! This should be a real laugh.”
Khelen could not believe the creature's idiocy as Leoman removed the Scavenger-Mate from his wrist and began to walk toward him, tossing it from arm to arm. There was no way he would do it, no way he could possibly think Khelen to be so harmless. The tempest began to seethe in Khelen's chest, pulsing like a beating heart, scraping at the back of his throat, going crazier with each step Leoman took, lusting for the moment the Scavenger-Mate reunited with its owner. Khelen held up his wrist in disbelief, trembling slightly. There was no way, no way the creature would unwittingly hand its own life over. It could not be that confident in the neutered incompetence of Kel. But he did it! He actually did it! Leoman placed the Scavenger-mate in Khelen's open palm and he in turn, clasped it to his wrist. Then...he activated the Scavenger-mate's flash-arc function.
---
Five years ago, section 25: The Narrows, Edis Holeran.
“It must be raining.” Somebody floated as Khelen waited in the lobby, looking out the window at the “catacombs”. He wasn't sure why businesses here even bothered to install windows when all you could see was a wall covered in conduits, busways, and plumbing. Occasionally a skuttler or two would scurry by, clinking loudly against the pipes. They seemed to be all over the place in The Narrows. Not surprising considering how decrepit the place was, with something always needing to be repaired. Streams of water were pouring over the sides of the pipes, carrying with them bits of trash from the floors and streets above. Khelen's conjecture drew several simultaneous floating responses from the other patients in the lobby:
“Raining piss.”
“Probably broken plumbing.
“Broken plumbing.”
“Waterline broke.”
“Broken pipe.”
A man with blue hair laughed aloud at all the messages and then floated “Do you think a waterline broke?”
“Probably.”
“Probably.”
“Probably.”
“Probably...probably.”
“...probably.”
There was a silence for a few moments until a passerby outside stopped for a bit, read all the floating messages through the window, looked at the streams of water, then continued on walking. When he disappeared from visible sight, a floating “probably...” appeared bobbing in his direction through the wall of the clinic.
One of the patients, a hybrid around Khelen's age, invited him to a game of Scourge to kill the time. He accepted and a grid bloomed to life on his lap. He took two seconds to increase the transparency of the display, decreased the size of the grid, then tucked it into the upper left-hand corner of his vision. That way he could still play while keeping an eye out for his summons. Soon, he and “Lekar” were busy trying to trap each other in a game of pitfalls and deadly walls. Outside, several dozen scuttlers raced past to repair the broken waterlines that threatened to flood the catacombs.
It was an intense battle, Lekar was very good and Khelen regretted having to end the game early. But a glowing orange line appeared on the floor in front of him. He called the game off, saved the session and added Lekar's cypher so they could resume it later in the feed. He got up and followed the line to the door in the back of the room, which slid out of his way at his presence. The line led him down a brief corridor and took a right through another door. Along the wall scrolled several floating service announcements warning about the latest outbreak of the 'moddles'. His cypher floated a small excerpt from the announcement inside a small window at the corner of his vision. But he brushed it away with a gesture.
The doctor, a hybrid with trelloxic grafting throughout his face, was still wiping down the surfaces when Khelen entered. He had been warned that this man was one of those, exchanging his flesh for tech, choosing to replace his eyes, nose, and even his ears with swappable implants. Though his mind was still that of a person, he resembled an automaton. Without looking up, the doctor sent a request through Lightcaster. When Khelen accepted it, the hybrid sent him the typical documents which he had to sign. He did so swiftly, wanting to get this over with. Then the doctor illuminated the padded table in the middle of the room. Across the table floated “I will need you to take your top off and lay here.” then a transparent ghost of a person lay facedown so that their face rested within the cushioned ring at the end of the table. It wasn't necessary, Khelen knew the routine. He removed his shirt, hang it on one of the wall pegs, then he laid down on the cold table, shivering slightly.
“Is that waterpipe outside broken again? (Yes/No)” words rose from the floor below Khelen's face. Khelen selected “yes” without even thinking about it.
“Unbelievable. Third time it broke this week. Let me put on my 'eyes' and take a look at your cypher. I know what you came in for, but it's routine to make sure nothing is wrong with your synth. (Go ahead/ Please wait)”
Khelen selected “Go ahead.”
“I have my eyes on, now I will link my hologram to your Lightcaster. You can float any questions while I work. Or you can browse the feed, watch the latest games, whatever. I'll try to get this over with so that you don't get too bored.”
Khelen felt a slight pressure near the base of his spine and immediately a holographic diagram of his cypher appeared in front of him. The “hologram” did not actually exist. It was a controlled hallucination, just like the floating messages. It depicted his cypher in glowing orange, the submerged parts a slightly dimmer shade of orange, the doctor’s hands green, and tools, like the cable which had been plugged into one of Khelen's ports, as blue.
“I have been having trouble with 21, 16, and 19.” Khelen floated using Lightcaster. His words appeared automatically in the top left corner of the display.
“Trouble?” the doctor floated. The hologram showed the hybrid's arm move toward 21 and Khelen felt him touch his back. “Yes, I see some buildup. I'll scrape those out. When is the last time you've had them cleaned?”
“I have a bug.” Khelen floated as he watched the doctor's arms reach for a long blue tool with a hose attached. “I use it every day. But it keeps skipping those three.” At a whim, he floated a small, sped up video of the cypher bug skipping those ports.
“Model?” The doctor asked as he began to scrape away at the ports and suck the debris out. Khelen pulled up the model and imprinted it in the dialogue box. “Yeah,” the doctor floated, “Get a new one. I've had several patients complain about that model.” A few recommendations appeared above the hologram. “I recommend these if you are considering an upgrade. I also recommend capping your ports when they aren't in use. That's the easiest way to keep crud from building up. Just looked at the progress on the diagnostic, so far so good. Any other problems aside from the one who came in here today for? Any irritation, cypher rash?”
“No.” Khelen injected a small amount of Calm.
“I'm going to ask you a few questions about your symptoms.” the doctor floated, “You said you had frequent bouts of intense, but 'unusual' emotions. Could you tell me a bit more about those and what makes them unusual?”
Khelen injected some more Calm. “Rage. I get angry. Angry enough to hurt people.” Khelen floated, “I want to tear their limbs apart. And the other one is happiness. Euphoric. High.”
“When did you start experiencing these?” the doctor asked.
Khelen hesitated, he did not know how the doctor would react. Did the confidentiality agreements prevent him from snitching? But the fits were interrupting his life, affecting Khelen's ability to find work. Instead of answering outright, he dug through the formula injector logs, pulled up two formulas, then floated them in the dialogue box and waited for the doctor's response.
“You took these?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“An employer suggested them to me.” Khelen floated, “He's the one who sent me to you.”
“I know who you're talking about. My advice is to drop him when you think it's safe to do so. These formulas are banned for very good reasons. Okay, your diagnostic is complete. Now I will have to access one of your sub-dermal ports but to do that, I have to lift up your skin and insert a prop to hold it in place. I'll spray some numbing agent on the area, it will be a little cold.”
Khelen flinched a little at the hiss of aerosol. It was an archaic method of pain reduction, but it worked. A moment later, he felt something tug at the base of his neck and watched the hologram as the doctor plugged a cord into his neck. A bundle of lines bloomed from the tip of the cypher and branched into his brain.
“Here you see a representation of the link between your biological mind and your synthetic mind.” the doctor’s words rained across Khelen’s vision, “The cypher is synthetic, however, it interacts as if it were a biological organ. When it comes to emotions, the relationship is somewhat symbiotic. Natural emotions, like those felt without the aid of a formula injector, create pathways in your biological mind, your brain. The more you feel a certain emotion, the more your brain remembers it. It creates pathways based upon these feelings and it will tend to use those pathways. This is part of what contributed to joyful personalities as well as depressive ones, before the invention of the formula injector. You can think of these pathways as muscles: the more they are used, the more they grow.” the doctor illuminated different sections of Khelen's brain, “Now, that is how natural feelings work. The formulas your injector uses, artificial emotions, work a bit differently. They are not emotions, they are drugs specifically formulated for the injector to emulate a certain state of mind. When you take them, you can feel 'joy' or 'sorrow', but your cypher 'regulates' the paths your brain can create, it regulates the tolerance. If it did not do this, then the formulas would cause severe damage over the long term. That brings me to the two substances you consumed.”
The doctor brought up the formula for “Euphoria”, “I will start with this one. Besides the occasional bouts of intense joy, intense highs, have you felt any 'cravings' for this?”
“Yes.” Khelen admitted.
“The good news is that studies have shown that the effects of this formula will wear off over time. However, you will most likely experience a craving for it if you are around somebody who is using it, or if you are in an area where it is being used. This is a classic drug addiction. These cravings can be treated by abstaining from those situations and by using a formula called Bifin. It can be delivered by your injector or taken orally. The injector version is more expensive, but it works faster. It is serious, but it is not hopeless.”
“The second formula,” he brought up the formula for “Bloodlust” “belongs to a class of drugs called 'hysterics'. Hysterics are banned because the intense emotions they trigger cause permanent alterations in the brain. They emulate natural emotions in that they bypass the cypher's ability to regulate changes in your neural pathways. But the drug you consumed, known by its colloquial 'bloodlust', works by energizing the areas in your brain responsible for producing intense anger, triggering your flight or fight response, (without the flight,) and it triggers feelings of satisfaction.”
“Can it be treated?” Khelen floated as he injected more Calm.
“Until we do a thorough diagnostic of your brain, I don't want to get your hopes up.” the doctor floated, “Those areas are too closely integrated with the cypher to safely operate on. If I were to guess, you will always struggle with these bouts of intense rage. I don't want to scare you, but this is a reality you have to face. This is why you see all those service announcements playing across the feed. This will impact the way you live. I will refer you to a specialist and send you some software which may help mitigate the intensity of these episodes. But so far, the best thing you can do is avoid putting yourself in any situation similar to the situation you were in when you consumed this. This formula emulates natural emotions, which are linked to memory. I cannot stress this enough: This formula removes inhibitions, can and will, trigger episodes of extreme violence. It is extremely dangerous because if the conditions are met, it will turn you into an animal.”
---
The blood of the beast coursed through Khelen's veins as he flashed his Scavenger-Mate. Leoman cried out at the blinding light and stumbled backward, covering his eyes. The flash-arc hissed softly as it pulsed through the air. Khelen dragged it across the chains on his cuff and cut through both of them in two brief flashes. As soon as he was free, he plunged his cuffs, which had several searing hot chain links dangling from them, into a bowl of water. He injected Numb as the steam burned his wrists. Then he dosed Drive and leapt out of the way just as Leoman lunged for him.
“Dodgy little Kel aren't you?” the Lyosh growled, “Think I won't catch you? Why I'll put a cutting on your pretty little flesh when I get hold of you!” he withdrew two blades from his belt and two more from his back. “This is going to be so...” he swung, Khelen ducked, “much...” Khelen rolled, “fun!” Khelen leapt back.
The more the Lyosh attacked, the more the cypher read his movements, memorized them, projected phantom blades in front of the real ones. Khelen did not need to toy with him, he could have killed Leoman right there, but the beast demanded blood, it demanded screams. If he killed the creature, then the beast would turn its fury toward Simian. Leoman cackled as he continued to harry his prey, blades cutting through the air. He was far more competent than the guardians but he was still predictable and becoming more so by the second. He was feeding the cypher his strengths, his blind spots, his weaknesses. It drank his movements like nectar, immortalizing Leoman's last fight within the depths of Khelen's synthetic mind.
“Do you....remember what I said?!” Khelen growled.
“You've said lots of stupid things you slippery little cretin!” Leoman spat, panting. “I wish I could forget them all! I'm sure your idiocy has given me brain damage!”
“The thing in Khelen was unleashed. Charging forward, he flared his Scavenger-Mate, becoming a blinding streak in the daylight. Phantom white blades raised above Leoman's head before the real ones caught up, then they swung down toward Khelen. He dived into a roll as the blades cut the air above him, came up on Leoman's front. I will cook you. He dragged the flash arc up the creature's left leg, painting its armor with a streak of bubbling metal, then rolled to the side. Leoman slapped at his leg where Khelen had been, saw the streak and began to panic.
“What?!” he exclaimed then he tried to slap the glowing line out of his armor, as if it were some sort of fire, but he ended up burning himself. Then, Leoman seemed to realize what was happening. “No..nono, nonono!” he said through hissing teeth, his trembling fingers desperately trying to unclasp the buckles. He loosened the first one but was screaming before he could get to the second. By then, Khelen had already painted another line of heat across the plate on the creature’s back. And another down his arm.
“STOP!!” Leoman screeched as he dropped his blades, threw himself to the ground and thrashed. But his armor was not a flame he could snuff out, it was his own inferno. Khelen slashed wildly, painting the Lyosh until the creature's entire outfit glowed with shades of orange and yellow until it began to cook him alive. Soon the air filled with the sounds of shrieking and the smell of burning fat. Jets of steam shot from every aperture in the armor as it baked its trapped owner alive and a corona of burnt grass began to spread from the thrashing form.
Khelen had warned what would happen if he escaped. He gave Leoman three promises. It was time to move to the second one. I will cut off your arms and legs...
---
Simian cowered beneath the carriage and clamped his hands to his ears. He wanted somebody, anybody to hear his whimpering and wake him up. Why didn't his wife jostle him, tell him these past few trels were all just a bad nightmare? They had to be! Only in nightmares could his head refuse to turn away, could his eyes refuse to close. Only in nightmares did he hear screams like this, screams like that of a child. Leoman was crying, crying and screaming like an infant as the jets of steam in his armor transformed into yellow tongues of shooting flame.
Tears blurred the edges of the old man's vision and began roll down the sides of his face as he watched Khelen bring the blinding light down to Leoman's arms. Stop...please don't. Khelen didn't hear him, Leoman's renewed shrieks overpowered Simian's silent plea. Please, I'm begging you...stop. He couldn't look away, he couldn't turn his head, it was locked in place as if it had been put in a vise. Only the distortion of the tears spared him the sight of Leoman's brutal, yet methodical dismemberment. He saw only saw a vague shape tumble loose from the Lyosh's body.
Then he sobbed, breaking the spell of his paralysis. He hid behind the wheel of the carriage, closed his eyes, and wept. Never in his life had he been witness to such brutality. He hated Leoman, he despised the creature's jibes, the idiocy, the flagrant disrespect but...even he didn't deserve this. What Kel could do this to another speaking creature? What man could do such a thing? He wanted to escape from the wailing and the sizzling, but the screams followed him to his hiding spot, screams that seemed to echo. But Leoman's agonized wails began to lose their energy, they began to grow softer, quieter. He was dying...
Simian heard Khelen roar, then flinched at the wet sound of flesh being impaled. Leoman groaned, there was a struggle followed by a fluid-filled fit of gagging and coughing. I will disembowel you...
Simian was not sure how long he had been clenching his face, trembling. All he knew was that by the time Khelen came over, his cheeks were raw from weeping and his fingernails had broken the scalp. He looked away as the man's feet came into view, pants charred and stained with Leoman's blood. Khelen tossed something to him, something that bounced off his leg and glinted in the light. Leoman's key.
“Now...you be my ‘guide’.” Khelen rasped. Then he left Simian to cower and retch.