“Man, this place is weird.” Looking around the little camp made me think I was in way over my head. It seemed the right idea at first, join a strange cult that was using an alien fungus to create a new society. “Hmmm, that sounds crazy when you phrase it like that.”
“It is a little crazy. This place could simply be the first stages in planetary domination for an alien species. Although that is not what Myc thinks, is that what you think Niki?” I turned to see John, the ‘boss’ of the little cult. He was strange, that was for sure, the guy was taller than Rein some days and other days he didn’t even hit six feet.
They say it was this ‘Myc’, a fungus that allowed them to do all the weird things to their bodies. Creating scales, changing size, even connecting their minds to allow the exchange of information and memories. That seemed a little impossible, I mean how does the information get transferred?
“Well, is that what ‘Myc’ is doing here?” They seemed pretty open about the alien thing, although apparently it couldn’t really talk directly. Only using the host's body, so if I wanted to talk to the little toadstool, I needed to be infected by him. I was reluctant till I was sure that this wasn’t some long elaborate scheme for who knows what.
“Maybe, but we need to decipher the capsules Cat told you about before we know why Myc is here.” They were hiding something, that was for sure. Although I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, perhaps they knew its reasoning for being here. Or worse case, it was using these people as puppets, it just needed permission to pass the disease along.
That was what I was worried about, I didn’t really know Cat before initially being kidnapped and taken prisoner by her brother, the one with the scales. So I couldn’t really tell if she was the same as before she was infected, the creature may be able to read memories and act like them.
“Well deciphering those things could take decades or more, there are hundreds of discovered universal constants, and possibly thousands of undiscovered ones.” The capsules were strange and puzzling. There seemed to be some common symbols used in the three capsules they had, however it didn’t seem to be written by a human hand.
“Who knows how advanced a civilization they had, when they sent it out, or even when. This thing could have been drifting in space for millennials before it happened to land on Earth randomly. Or they could have launched it when they did for no reason, hell this whole thing could just be a little game they play. Messing with underdeveloped species to see what will happen.”
“Maybe, the symbols could be nothing but random doodles or nonsense if that is true. Although we would like to take the more optimistic approach and believe that those capsules were sent here for a reason.”
“Well you would need hundreds of people looking through that, or maybe an advanced enough AI could crack it.”
“Well we will have enough people to work on it in the future, for now it is just a puzzle that we would like to solve.”
John’s eyes glowed and shimmered thinking about the capsules, then he turned and walked away. Heading over to grab his ax and proceeding into the woods. “Man, that guy is weird.”
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“He is cute though.” Scarlette walked over, she was carrying an apple and a small bucket of mulch. She watched John walk away, he was cute. The longer hair, rugged beard, and shirtless look usually just meant that they smelled like crap and B.O. John on the other hand smelled like the forest, a mix of wood from the trees and flowers from the garden. Granted they all smelled like that, I questioned if it was Myc or just from living out here.
The guy was always broad, even if his height did change. He always carried the ax that was hooked onto an old leather belt. He had muscles that looked like coiled ropes across his back and arms, while his skin was smooth. The only real blemishes were the small teal spots that covered his sides, back, and face. I questioned why he never wore more than pants and a belt, I mean it seemed Cat had more clothes here than I did back at home, even if they were relatively simple. They were always bright and colorful and clean.
“Hey Niki, wake up.” I looked over to Scarlette. She was waving a hand in front of my face, the apple she was eating was eaten and thrown into a small mulch bucket she was carrying. “Damn, girl I didn’t think you were into the whole mountain man thing.”
“I’m not. Just questioning if this place is even real.” I got lost in thought a lot. It was why Scarlette was one of my few friends, most people thought it was rude. Scarlette was a quiet girl, she was shy when it came to most new people. So she didn’t mind when I stopped talking, she would just sit and wait until I was done, at least most of the time.
“Well it is real, you know probably. Anyway I gotta go, this thing is getting heavy.” She walked over to a mulch pile in the distance, dumping her bucket. She switched the bucket from her right hand to her left, then went back over to continue her chores.
“Alright, let’s finish this.” I looked away from Scarlette’s retreating form and down at the little map I was working on. It was a rough outline of what the camp was, it wasn’t bad, although it was simple. There were big pathways for foot traffic in the main sections, while smaller ones branched off to fill in the space between cabins.
The cabins were a little close to the main building, while the storage places were a little far from the farm. It would increase traffic flow during planting and harvesting which would clog up the paths to the main building.
While most of the cabins were in the middle, some would need to be spread out or else walking to your chores would take longer and cause even more traffic. This would also mean moving the production sections closer to the storage and therefore the farms. So wider paths would be needed in that section.
There were also lots of large garden plots that were ‘needed’, they had to be big enough and near walking plots. I think it was some weird thing with the moss creature, I understood that plants in cities were not only possible it also greatly helped. Everything from general increase in mood, air quality, and temperature control.
A lot of the more progressive cities were already doing it. “Uhh, I don’t even know why this section in the middle is crossed out, what needs nearly 100 feet of mandatory unusable space.”
“A giant tree, if Myc is ever capable of bonding with the trees around here.” Cat walked into the little hut in the middle of the camp, it was small and crudely built compared to the cabins. It did have clay walls and a thatched roof, but it was probably one of the first structures made around here.
“Why would it need a single giant tree?” The idea was a little ridiculous, planning a city was difficult. Everything needed to have its own place, be close to its necessities while also not blocking anything else that needed to be near. Paths needed more space, houses needed room, places for gardens, it was a lot.
“This is difficult enough, and this fucking toadstool wants to put a massive tree smack in the center for what reason?”
“We aren’t sure, Myc just seems to have a connection with trees due to his species. It even dreams of a giant mother tree in other colonies.”
“So some weird base instinct, that it may not even be capable of doing, means that a huge section of unused space has to be put into the plans.”
“Yes. You will understand once you are infected.”
“You mean if.”
“You can deny it all you want. I was just like that when I first came here, scared of what it meant. But sometimes you can catch a glimpse of Myc’s thoughts when you look into John’s eyes. With Myc’s help we could change the world for the better.” This definitely seemed like a cult. John seemed to be the least affected and yet most connected to Myc.
His voice seemed like it was made of several other voices, the teal of his eyes never seemed to stop moving, plus the way he barely ate and seemed to hardly breathe. It all made it seem that this Myc was turning them into something more, and while I was cautious about the whole thing.
It would be kind of cool to be something more, not have to deal with allergies, no need to worry about getting cancer like mom. Diseases would become nearly non-existent, while humans could progress, and cities could be turned into huge nature preserves.
“I suppose it would be cool to become something more.”