I was lost and stuck again.

Every time prior someone had come to me, pulling me into their mental space with some sort of hook. It had been weeks and I was feeling the serious stress of being stuck in this absence of stimulation… place, if you could call it that, between the two dimensions.

The bright side, if there was one, was that I now had my own mental space to relax in and to think things up inside. Sure, it was missing Nurse and my connection to my swarm and friends, but it was better than nothing. I had vast troves of knowledge to draw from, not my own, but that didn’t stop me from trying to use it. Also, I could rest there in between the dark expanse while I attempted to get ahold of one of the seven.

I had tried everything up until this point. I tried mentally yelling to get anyone's attention, sleep experimentation where I dreamed of myself arriving at my destination, and I even tried coding myself some eyeballs to see into the darkness around me but to no avail.

Nothing helped.

I couldn’t stop staring at the calendar and the passing days. The more time went by the faster each hour seemed to rush past, leaving me knowing that I was powerless until I broke out or was rescued.

It wore me down.

I started to feel an uprising of sadness inside myself. I had been fighting it off, keeping it at bay with each new idea and plan of escape that I had come up with, but once my lengthy list of ideas had run out the feeling had slowly started to creep into my core.

It started to take on a life of its own. I could feel it, consuming and feeding off of every thought that rushed through my head. It was feasting off of my wonderful memories and things that I was missing out on… and would miss out on. It gorged itself on moments that I would never get back and got fat off of what would happen if I stayed here forever.

It was that last thought, and all the sorrow that swept through me, the images of my dimension, all the people I loved dying if I failed to protect them, that made the feeling inside me warp.

It came alive… as though I had fed it enough or understood it enough to reveal itself.

It became a part of me that seemed to inhale all the joy and life around me.

Like an extra heart beating in reverse.

“You?” A familiar voice spoke softly against my consciousness. It felt odd, as though someone was standing on my front porch and talking at my front door, not like the earlier times when the seven had been able to force their voices into my mind.

In a panic I grabbed mentally at the voice, pulling it into my space so that I wouldn’t lose it. Suddenly, a tiny wisp of darkness was floating inside my personal mind space. Whatever it was, I didn’t recognize it. It looked nothing like the seven that I had met before. It was tiny and almost paper-thin in its form. It wasn’t moving, frozen in the air as though it was in a state of shock.

“Designer? No… you are… the human named Kevin. How can this be?” The tiny creature said as I lifted it up towards my face so that I could see it more clearly. It was odd, an expanse of little fibers extending from a pitch-black sinkhole in its center. I turned it around, just to see if anything was coming out the other side. Where I expected to see a little funnel tube the opposite side was the exact same. An impossible hole sinking into another impossible hole. The little creature was entirely too thin making it the trippiest optical illusion that I had ever seen. With every beat of the sinkhole heart, the fibers seemed to pull at the environment around it, pulling more than just air toward its center. With each tiny beat, the light seemed to dim around it.

“Who are you? Do you know how I can get out of here and talk to one of the seven?” I asked, hoping that this little creature could help me escape.

“I am Loss. One of six.”

Oh, right. Time had died weeks ago. I needed to update how I named them.

“Loss? But… you are so tiny.” I said in disbelief. This thing seemed so fragile compared to the life-consuming horror of a waif that I had seen before.

“This is my true original form. The one created for me to develop over time. This is how a Designer would see me. How is this possible? What have you done?” The little creature asked as it swiveled in place. It inspected its surroundings atop my pyramid above the clouds. The place was in disarray, chalkboards hung suspended in thin air for twenty feet around the apex, each displaying a failed idea at gaining control over the situation.

Loss swirled in place. Waiting.

Loss wasn't able to read my memories like last time? What had changed? Was this due to my absorbing the concepts of the seven? It had to be.

Not knowing what else to do I started to recount what had happened after I had last been in the company of the seven, telling about my transformation, and my final meeting with Time.

“You are… a compendium. That is incredible. No wonder Focus lost control over your feed. Focus had started to complain that your power was rising "like a bubble through tar" and that it was becoming harder and harder to divert the Void Seedling from feasting on you, as you were rising out of Focus’s reach.”

“What? What feed? I didn’t catch much of that.”

“The Void Seedling is feasting on your feed. This.” Loss said as it created a little tendril of light that extended out of its head. The tendril extended until it connected to a gray little dinner plate pockmarked with round holes.”

“Son of a gun! It was in front of me this whole time!” I shouted as I realized what object Loss was showing me. It was the same odd relic that I had seen when I had first gotten trapped inside the drone body, I was currently living in. It sat nearby the tree that the queen had taken root element from to first infect me.

“Are you telling me that that thing” I said angrily, pointing at the little relic. “Is your creator’s or designer's connection hub?”

“Yes, of sorts.”

“So, how does this work? How can the Void Seedling feed through dimensions?”

“It isn’t, it is feeding straight on your swarm body… or whatever your body is now.” Loss said as it showed the Void Seedling encasing my little drone body. In a simple demonstration, it added a little flow of shifting color around my body, being rapidly siphoned away by the Seedling. “Since your mind spirit can connect to us we can, or could until you changed, grab and hold your feed to divert our experiences to the Void Seedling instead. Allowing you to have control of the rest of your body.” The little tendril tethered to a tiny image of the Geodesic monstrosity that I knew as Focus and the colors of my drone body were able to extend beyond the Seedling’s shell again.

“What was that about me being a bubble rising through tar?”

“We are creations of the Designers, creatures of purpose. We are weak and are unable to rise above the lower levels of their designs. This level of power is enough to connect each of us mentally.” Loss said as it showed six little dots of color resting inside of the lower section of the dinner plate structure. The way Loss depicted it made it seem as though the thin plate actually had more depth than was possible in reality and that at some point in time, there might have been thousands of little similar dots. A slightly larger swirling ball of color was floating halfway between the lowest golf ball-sized hole and the next one further up on the thin relic, as though it was slowly rising upwards like a helium balloon.

“This is not an accurate representation, but you may begin to understand it if you see that the more knowledgeable you are concerning the words and concepts of Designers, the higher up inside the “hub” as you call it, you will be placed. We couldn’t find you anymore after you ascended beyond our reach.” Loss said as tiny and weak little tendrils seemed to search for my rising colorful bubble.

This was not the level of power, or rather lack of power, that I had envisioned the seven having. They hadn’t grabbed me from the place between dimensions, heck, they grabbed me from the bottom of the barrel. This relic was where my mind was currently trapped, not halfway between anywhere.

“So could the Designers talk to you too?”

“Yes, but they would see us as you see my form now. Only as their creations and tools.” Loss said as bolts of pure energy beamed down from the top of the dinner plate and interacted with one of the little dots. It almost appeared as though a surge of lightning had struck the top just from the magnitude of power displayed.

“Ok, they are on a whole different level,” I muttered as I watched my little swirl of color ever so slowly creep upwards.

“So, how did you find and connect to me if I am out of your range?” I asked.

“I didn’t, you connected to me, to my very nature.” Loss said as it replayed something on the tiny hologram. The swirls of color slowly started to darken over time until they had turned completely black. From there the darkness started to spread outwards, pulsing. At one point when it got close enough to the lower reaches it seemed to sense a kinship and a thin tendril extending down towards Loss like a slow-moving arrow until it touched the little dot that represented it and yanked it upwards.

“So, what you are telling me is that I am stuck inside this hub at the moment?”

“Yes, also that you are radiating my ability into the surroundings of the hub.”

“What?”

“Everything around the hub, as far as your power extends, which is stronger than mine, is dead.”

My mind went blank, unwilling to accept what Loss had said until it demonstrated it before my eyes on the little hologram. The worse I felt, the more the black aura that consumed life spread. The tree and quite a distance around the relic were bathed in darkness that only Loss and I could see through. It was strange, Loss seemed to experience its world through the darkness it created. Almost like it was spreading a radial fog or haze.

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“How do I stop it?”

“You already have, the moment that we met it started to shrink rapidly. Incredibly, it is nonexistent now. I never thought my ability could be turned off. Well, I don’t possess the power to, it is part of me and completely my nature.”

The thing was, I could feel the ability now. Like a lead weight in my heart. All I needed to do would be to lift that weight up again and it would start to expand and pull all my emotions of pain into it, causing the killing aura to expand around me.

It was a thing. A deadly weapon that had fused to my being. Even just fearing it caused it to start to shudder as it tasted my dark emotions.

“Oh, that isn’t good,” I muttered as I took several deep breaths and started to think about how this might be viewed as a good thing; I could finally get out of here.

“So? Can you go back to my body now that we are talking?”

“Yes, you seem to have enough reach and strength to be able to link to me now whenever you desire. I will warn you though, that I am not in a safe location at the moment. I recently entered a new path and the denizens have proven to be quite capable. I doubt that I would survive very long if you needed me at present. Regardless, we six are at your service.”

“Why do you say it that way?”

“Hmm? Because you are above us.”

“Okay…”

I thought for several moments. I was unwilling to put Loss at risk, trusting that it knew its means of survival best, just to end up returning to my body for however long it could survive. It could potentially be used at a later date, just not right now.

“Could you tell me the moment you make it to a safe place?” I asked as I gazed at the other little dots laying at the bottom of the relic.

“As you wish! Also, you could, potentially, use my power to free yourself from the attention of the Void Seedling.” it offered up to me.

“Hmm? What?!? How?”

“My ability is not a concept from this dimension so it would extend beyond the shell of the Seedling. This would allow you to feed the Seedling all the suffering and decay as it was pulled toward your body. All you would need to do is just to keep moving and you would have a vast supply of life to drain to keep its attention away from yourself.”

Fear wracked my heart and mind as the little psychopathic creature easily stated its answer. I breathed deeply, unwilling to let the thoughts of me accidentally killing everyone around had I returned without that knowledge.

The more I fought it, the more I noticed two little different expansions of color trying to expand around my little swirling bubble. When my attention broke they subsided quickly.

“What was that?”

“Those expansions? They felt like Willpower and Focus to me.”

“Oh, really?” I said as I focused really hard on trying to make the named ability expand.

It felt like I was trying to move a mountain with a toothpick. I could feel my mind straining and veins popping out of my head. I stared as hard as I could at the little swirl that represented myself and forced as much attention and mental energy as I could at it.

“What are you doing?” Loss asked with a tiny voice after it watched me for several tens of minutes.

I stepped back, leaving the little entity hovering in the air, and rubbed my eyes while I tried to figure out why focusing wasn’t working as intended.

“I was trying to connect to Focus.”

“I see.”

…

“And how were you trying to do that?”

“Uh… by focusing really really really hard?”

“I see.”

I took a deep breath and let it out.

“How do I learn to connect to Focus? How does it work?”

“I don’t know. My power is an aura of depletion. I don’t focus anything. The body that was designed for Focus is what it uses its ability on. I am sorry that I can not be more helpful.”

I stared at the little entity and its tiny holograms while I thought.

Focus…

All I needed to do was to focus something?

I expanded the representation of Loss and included its holograms to replace the surroundings. I put my pyramid above the clouds away and laid everything out so that it mirrored the area Loss showed around the relic. Somehow Loss was able to see the area around the relic and I was going to see if I could learn how to do the same.

I asked Loss everything I could about how its ability functioned, and it replied readily and without holding anything back. I didn’t want it to die on me so I let its full concentration return to its body while I attempted to figure out my new power. I had to get a handle on it and hopefully figure out how to force it to focus itself in some way, thus letting me connect with another of the six.

No pressure.

—

Meditati knew something was wrong. There were the tiniest indicators like errant bits of coding that were out of place that kept popping up into her vision. Well, not her vision, but one of her clones in charge of tracking anomalies surrounding Kevin. She tried to stay away from tracking him, keeping mostly to his surroundings and the interactions generated by those he met. The problem wasn’t coming from Kevin, but rather the alien swarm entity that he was connected to, namely the being known as Nurse.

The strangeness, if anything about a morphing alien from another dimension could be categorized as strange, began a little into the month prior. Nurse, just being what she was, was a delicious mystery for Meditati to study all by herself. The problem started to crop up when Meditati noticed emotional irregularities in Nurse. It was true that whatever had changed Kevin when the burst of light had exploded from the Void Seedling that trapped him had also fundamentally changed Nurse.

She displayed emotions. Something that Meditati had never before witnessed in her.

This was where the glitch or red flag kept popping up.

Nurse seemed to be exhibiting emotional micro expressions of deep sadness and severe stress. Sometimes it wasn’t even in her face but the slightest fluctuations in her voice or how she moved.

It was the smallest things, something that no one else would pick up on. No one but an advanced AI who lived to notice the tiniest details in everything.

Everything added up. Something was wrong with Nurse.

And if something was wrong with Nurse, by direct extension it meant that something was wrong with Kevin.

She just couldn’t see it.

Kevin seemed as normal as possible. He came to her meetings, agreed with her on most of her observations, and was planning on attending the Summit that she had set up between the current leaders of the planet.

The odd thing was, he kept putting off any major decision that she needed him to make. Case in point, what to do about the unfused cr gifts that he had given out. Humanity needed to only experience a taste of what the technology could offer them, not be given free handouts. How else would they turn the humans into a productive workforce?

Kevin had yet to give her an answer even though the first month of peace had already passed. He was also holding off on giving her an answer to the cr programs that she had developed.

“That, if anything, is another red flag.” One of her copies popped in to talk to her.

“I know, I know. I am just not allowed to consider it. Kevin isn’t normally this… evasive when dealing with his precious planet and people.” She said, bending her mind around the rules that kept her from psychoanalyzing her owner.

“No… that is incorrect. I don’t consider Kevin to be my owner. He is something else. Something foreign to me.” She said as she watched Nurse wander around a grocery store with Kevin. He was back from visiting his Leva and wouldn’t return for another visit until Friday. The days between had been spent just living alongside people they were trying to Uplift.

She considered him a friend.

“Invicta, when was the last time Kevin took you on a date?” She asked, sending an open line to the little game AI. Her reply came a fraction of a second later alongside sounds of explosions and odd wet squelches.

“Does the movies and popcorn dates with Ess count?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Then that was the last time.”

“Tutor, when was the last time Kevin did something fun with you?” Meditati asked, keeping the line with Invicta open while connecting with both Tutor and George at the same time.

“Mmm, he seems to have gotten a little bit busy all of a sudden. Or preoccupied. I didn't want to push him.” Came Tutor’s reply.

“George? Any thoughts?”

“Is something wrong Meditati?”

“Oh, there could be. I just don’t…” was all she managed to say before everything froze around each of the AI and they were suddenly all standing in the lobby near the travel disks.

Each of the AI, all except Invicta, raised their eyebrows and readied for the arrival of Nurse. Nurse was the only being who could flex and summon them all wherever she wanted besides Kevin. She was part of the system and outside of it, making her able to rule VR as effectively as Kevin could. They each knew it had to be her who summoned them here, Kevin never listened in to anyone else’s conversations as she did.

Invicta didn’t seem to care about why they were there, the only thing she said was “Aww man! It was just getting good!” before the female avatar of Nurse materialized in front of them all.

Nurse looked… tired. Sad even. It was as if there had been a shell protecting her expression and it had been removed for this meeting.

“Kevin would want me to tell you the truth. His memories and personality indicated that he wanted, if another short-term disconnection occurred, for you all to not have to worry about it.”

“Kevin had another episode? One of the remaining six grabbed him again?” Meditati asked, catching on immediately.

“Yes, and it has been almost two months since his connection to me was cut off.”

Shock filled each of the AI as they took in her words.

“Almost two months!?!?” Invicta screamed as she clutched at her heart.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Tutor asked, her eyes blazing with restrained betrayal and anger.

“I…” Nurse began before her face crumpled and she was forced to look away. “Kevin’s swarm holds a copy of what Kevin would normally do. The longer that he was away, the swarm Kevins began to realize deeper into what Kevin would think after that much time had passed. He would have feared and worried and wanted you all to know. He would have felt sorry for not letting you know sooner, as the length of time away couldn’t have been predicted. It would cause him a lot of pain.”

“But that isn’t what is happening at all! The Kevin I have been with has been fine!” George roughly said.

“No… that is because I have been taking all of those feelings away from them and containing them within myself.”

“So, why tell us now?” Meditati asked, knowing that it had something to do with her observations.

“Because it has gone too far and I can’t take anymore. I have never been filled with this much sadness and despair. My being is suffering and I need to come clean with you all. His mind made it seem like this wouldn’t happen, that the remaining six had given him assurances against this outcome.”

“He could be dead by now.” Invicta cried, her worst fear manifesting.

“No! At least, no, I don’t think so. His memories say that he would go to the place between dimensions to talk to the remaining six if this happened.”

“Clearly something has gone wrong over there,” George said.

“Indeed.”

“What do we need to do?”

“We need to get to one of the remaining six and to talk to question them and ask them for help in finding Kevin.”

“But… Kevin can’t die though, right? His mind, even if it dies, will simply return to the drone body. Completely and perfectly intact due to how the drone is built.”

“That is true.”

“Then the problem truly lies with the interference that the six had promised and the Void Seedling not being fed. I wonder if it has anything to do with what Time pushed through the divide?” George asked as he rubbed his chin pensively.

“That… is an unknown possibility.” Nurse answered.

“So, we need to secure that at all costs, even if it has a slight chance of being something that will help Kevin,” Meditati replied as she brought up screens to check on the status of the ships crossing the long distance to the supernova.

“We also need someone to find one of the remaining six and to try to talk to them.”

“I will do it!” Invicta said immediately.

Thus, plans were made and set into motion.