The screen flashes with a light so intense that nothing beyond a singular blanket of white can be seen for some seconds. Then, there comes a scream.
It is as short-lived as it is soul-destroyingly final—the kind of scream that makes a person sit up, if only to hope its source is from no one you might know. Or might ever have known, even in passing. And silently you pray that wherever that scream might have come from, it is far too late for you to do anything about it. That whatever might have caused it is now long gone, flitted back into the night like all such invisible and wishfully imagined horrors.
Eventually, the lens adjusts to the point where faint details can just be made out. What can be seen should not be possible… yet is. It is a vision of twisted semi-corporeal roots, fire, lightning, flesh flowing like water, eyes, stray bits of hair, and all thrashing about in patterns that speak of dimensions higher than our own, dimensions greater than the natural three.
And then it is over. Roots recede back whence they came. Fires die. Brightness fades.
Flesh… settles.
Well.
< a click of a tongue followed by a heartfelt sigh >
There’s no way that’s getting past the censors.
*
Naomi rushed to her lover’s side as quickly as her ravaged ankle would allow, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Mike? Are you alright?”
She regretted the question immediately. It was obvious at a glance that the man wasn’t ‘alright.’ His poor skin was only hanging on by threads in some places, though a cursory examination showed that, barring a few dents and dings, his armor was mostly intact. And while that was a relief, it was also not a thing to instill anything resembling joy. That armor was supposed to be subdermal, not exodermal!
Beyond the obvious physical damage, he had exhausted himself just having to repeatedly yank his limbs free of all the glue that hateful marmot had covered him with, giving him the twitching, feral aura of an animal in chains.
Mike took a moment from his ragged panting to glance up at her. “What… doth mine eyes… behold? Doth fair maiden… perchance entertain sympathy… for her warden?”
Multiple layers of eyelids flickered with confusion. “Huh?”
“Fret not, prize. The end of your confinement… is at hand,” he continued, for some reason artificially lowering his voice into a gravelly rumble. “The beast is slain… but so art thine saviors—a fitting end indeed that thou must choke… upon thine first sip of air… thus unfettered.”
He started laughing then. Though it was more akin to a wheezing cough.
“Mike, what in the hell are you on about?” she asked, drawing a pair of hands up to her hips, while folding the others beneath her breasts—a unique-to-her combination of feminine exasperation. She made a mental note to show off the maneuver to her mother if she ever got the chance. The woman would be beside herself with jealousy. “Are you seriously quoting Shakespeare at me? Now?”
Whatever he was doing, it was kind of sexy despite the complete lack of sense he was making. Had the guy not been a walking meat-puppet right then, she might have allowed herself the chance to dabble in some Elizabethan roleplay.
Mike swayed dramatically before focusing on her once more, briefly sending her heart into her throat. But then he let out a huff in an obvious imitation of a horse. “Fie upon thee, wench. Claimest thou the… the crowning words of noble beast for ignoble bard? Fie! Fie and damnatio—”
His attempt at theatrical improv was cut brutally short by the collision of his face with the floor. She didn’t even have time to react. He just dropped.
“Shit! Mike?!”
He did not reply. He was done and dusted, completely checked out.
Hurriedly, she attempted to roll him onto his back, only to find it next to impossible with all the glue. She could have yanked him loose, given time and tremendous effort, but with how wounded he was, she feared injuring him worse than he already was. He was bleeding enough already.
“Damned ninja squirrels. What kind of idiot covers someone with glue and then riddles them with holes? Were they trying to capture us or not?” she muttered, allowing the surge of righteous anger to subsume her almost overwhelming levels of worry. “What even is this crap?”
The Nexus was quick to reply.
Unknown chemical compound
Consume to begin analysis
Miffed at its unfeeling bluntness, she hastily scrubbed away her tears. “Oh, so you’re giving me options now? Usually, you just hit me with cravings until I shove whatever it is down my throat.”
If it had detected the less-than-veiled sarcasm, it did not deign to comment on it. Or at all. But then, it was just a computer. What did she expect? A hug? It would do what it had been programmed to do, whatever her mental state. Now that they were able to communicate, it had probably calculated that typing out a few letters was more energy efficient than directly manipulating her.
Well, it could shove it!
“Okay. In that case, I’d prefer not to scrape a wad of dirty whatever-that-is from off the… f-from off the…” She swallowed back the saliva that had suddenly rushed over her tongue. “N-no… don’t. It’s a wad of…”
Taffy. It looked just like delicious taffy. She loved taffy! And most of it wasn’t touching the floor, so she could easily get around the five-second rule.
Her hand began to unconsciously extend forward…
Consume to begin analysis
She froze. Then grimaced as the shattered remnants of her mini-rebellion crumbled around her. She would eat it… or be made to eat it.
What a joke. She might just cry from laughing.
Paradoxically, the experience did illuminate a certain genius behind the device’s methods—sinister as they were. When its commands had been limited to a bunch of inexplicable urges, it had taken her quite some time to work out that they weren’t just stemming from her own subconscious desires. And who could blame her? They were urges! Being inexplicable was kind of their whole thing.
You don’t just assume you’re been possessed by demons whenever you’re seized by the impulse to snarf down a bag of Cheetos. That’s crazy talk. Instead, you search for justifications. Was the urge at least semi-logical in the moment? If so, was it really that bad? And if you could not see the logic, you could at least fall back on the hefty doses of positive reinforcement you were getting.
Kill this. Why? Because it’s dangerous.
Eat this. Why? Because you’re hungry, and it tastes good.
Change. Why? Because… special abilities? But doesn’t it feel amazing?
Honestly, had it not been for that last part, she might never have worked out she was being influenced at all.
Now, having experienced a command in the normal, non-emotionally-hijacked way directly juxtaposed against its counterpart, she felt as if a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over her head. The extra step of having to filter it through her conscious mind first had shattered whatever illusions might have remained that she was imagining any of this. She was instead dealing with an oppressive and all-too-critically outside force.
So then, why the sudden change? Did the Nexus not know how its asking would make her react: that it would naturally drive her toward rebellion? It seemed unlikely, given that it could just manipulate her at will. So, what purpose could it have for putting its cards on the table like this? It could not be a simple calculation of unfeeling efficiency.
She took a slow, calming breath.
No… no, this was something else. It was playing a new game here, toying with her, scratching away at her love for conspiracy—maybe even intentionally. And wouldn’t that be something?
She sniffed. Okay, then. The first step in any conspiracy was to follow the money. What did it want?
To turn them into monsters? Conquest? That much was obvious. And to be honest, she was not all that upset over the idea. There was a certain romance to living out the role of a living weapon, after all—especially if she could get ahold of a catsuit in her size. But that presumed a certain level of autonomy and willingness on her part. Who would want to fight on the behalf of a people you had never met for stakes you had no comprehension of?
But setting aside her willingness to step into the role, this little soirée had more than shown that they were nowhere near ready. Yes, they had won, if barely, but that was only against two of the damned things—with the advantage of a prepared ambush and a ship willing to defend them. Perhaps things would not have been so bad had she not been preoccupied through most of the assault, but what were they supposed to do if they got ganged up on? What if the next wave of aliens showed up with tanks?!
The size discrepancy had been surprising, though. Mike could have been on to something with his Godzilla thing. It was something to think about… but then, weren’t there herds of monsters right outside? If all the aliens were looking for was a bit of destructive mayhem, a couple of Tyrannotaurs should have been more than adequate… but just because they had come ill-prepared for one encounter, it would be silly to assume she had seen the limits of their capabilities. It went without saying that these spike-weasels would have weapons enough to deal with a few dinosaurs. Even humans wouldn’t have had a problem. A single Jeep mounted with a 50 caliber could have cleaned out the entire herd topside, never mind her and Mike.
She shook her head. The only reasonable conclusion was that the aliens had not been planning to gather them up just yet—that would have been premature. Until she and Mike had a destructive potential at least on par with the other apex predators on this planet, none of this would have been worth their effort. Instead, they must have come to relocate the two of them back to the surface, where they could be more easily corralled and regain access to land-based genetic information. Factor in the derelict from a separate-at-a-glance alien faction, and you wound up with the hastily planned and poorly executed capture attempt they had just witnessed. She could only imagine the kinds of political ramifications just their being in here entailed.
There was one thing bothering her about all that, though. Why had the aliens come in guns blazing? Why the glue? Didn’t they have a button or something they could press to knock them both unconscious? She had little doubt the Nexus could have done so had it wished, and for the aliens not to have radio control over the device they were using to weaponise them seemed an oversight too egregious to contemplate. And yet, contrary to all expectations, the Nexus had helped them resist!
No, something wasn’t adding up. And the whole ‘monster’ thing was on shaky ground, too.
Their computer had been awfully free when it came to letting them choose their own forms. Positively lax, even. Most of her choices had been guided more by aesthetics than lethality. And while it was certainly preferable to be a beautiful monster than a grotesque one—maybe even enough to use against her as yet another manipulative tool—she could not see any long-term benefits to such a strategy. And besides, if pure rampaging potential was all it wanted, couldn’t it just manipulate her into loving lethality itself?
She didn’t see why not, given what else it was capable of. It wouldn’t even have to try all that hard. She was indifferent to the gore and bloodshed she had just perpetuated, and the only qualm she held in reserve was in the act’s potential for retaliation. Killing your own zookeepers was a surefire method for getting yourself euthanized.
And now that she was thinking about it…
Keeping the pair hostage would have been a far better move. The threat of eating them alive should have been quite the bargaining chip to somebody out there. But that was life for you. You never knew what you had until it was too late.
So what else was there?
For a moment, she allowed herself to entertain the passing fancy that the Nexus might have played some role in forcing her together with Mike… but that was ridiculous. They were together by definition. There was no other state of being. True, there had been a time prior to her awareness of that fact, but just because you didn’t know the Earth was spinning, that didn’t mean it wasn’t. Besides, what would its motive be?
Thinking back, she distantly recalled a conversation involving hordes of offspring—repugnant an idea as that had been—but she and Mike were a monolithic unit. Their species had no need for such things, so she quite honestly could not fathom why the subject had even come up.
Although… the Nexus had put in quite a lot of effort into making them more physically attractive to one another, one of the few aspects about their situation she actually appreciated. Not that she needed Mike to be a walking embodiment of Adonis to know her feelings. Those would not change, no matter how he might look on the outside. Still, aesthetics were appreciable for their own sake, and something with ready access to their minds would know the value of such a thing to a couple of insecure college students.
But to what end? Simple bribery? A little good to help the bad go down? Coating the stick of monstrification with the honey of beauty?
Perhaps… and not such a terrible strategy, if so. It would be more than enough to introduce a niggling doubt, to wonder whether what was happening was really so horrid. Once her guard was down, the Nexus could have then used Mike and her near-pathological need to be with him to carve away at her until it got what it wanted.
None of which was to say she was unhappy with the result. She would have been incensed beyond reason at the merest suggestion of going back to that… thing she had been. And that the aliens had dared to so egregiously mar her Mike’s perfect skin in their sloppy attempt at capture was a huge part of why she was now so upset.
But that was all to do with the Nexus’ methods, not its motives. Nor did it relate to its recent change in tactics.
She sighed. It couldn’t be something as straightforward as just keeping them alive… could it?
Doubtful. Though that would explain why an unfeeling computer might have helped them realize their destiny together. It was a move borne from pure survival potential.
Why? Because two were better than one. Simple as that. They could pick each other up. Hold one another when they were down. Provide comfort and companionship. The simple knowledge that Mike existed was more than enough for her to scratch and claw for every scrap of life she could. For both their sakes.
Moreover, from a pure survivalist point-of-view, the Nexus popping its bubble of mystique could be seen as an act of building, if not trust, then a kind of mutual respect. It still had power over them, and it would not hesitate to use it when necessary; while that situation remained, no actual trust was possible. But now that the curtain had been pulled back on the mastermind behind the scenes, it had likely calculated that it had no other choice. It needed them to understand the shape of the blade at their necks, its scope and, if not the entirety of the why, at least some of the when it might be wielded, so they could in turn learn to avoid it. In short, it was a move designed to let them know that, whatever else happened, they were stuck with one another.
Her only consolation was that the Nexus did at least seem to favor the two of them remaining alive over the alternative. It wasn’t enough to make them allies, but she could at least trust that it would not kill them out of hand. And whatever else you might say about it, it had never stooped to pain as a means of coercion. It wasn’t the best foot to start a relationship on, but it could be worse.
So what did that make them? Frenemies?
She huffed with exasperation. Whatever. She had more important things to deal with. And now that she’d had a moment to calm down, she realized her little rebellion had done nothing but prolong her own beloved’s suffering. It was like getting mad at your mother for being made to eat your vegetables.
She cast a skeptical glance toward the foamy chemical adhesive.
Okay, maybe it was a lot like being made to eat your vegetables.
Besides, Mike needed whatever help he could get, and she honestly doubted the Nexus would have suggested this unless the benefits outweighed the risks. She would have been willing to brave far more than a bit of danger-taffy if it meant keeping her love alive.
“Fine,” she grumbled finally.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she used a claw to pick away a stretchy fleck of the stuff from beneath his shoulder and gingerly placed it on her tongue. It tasted like raspberries mixed with gasoline.
“Ugh… You couldn’t at least disguise the flavor?” she complained, before dutifully swallowing it down.
Once again, the Nexus refrained from comment.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
But something else did.
“That was inorganic matter,” the ship pulsed at her. “You should avoid consuming such things, especially when unsterilized. Would you like to resume the education program now? I have an excellent selection on microorganisms and their role in causing food-borne illnesses.”
“Great…” she muttered aloud. “Now there’s two of them.”
“I’m sorry, I did not catch that,” it informed her. “I am unable to communicate verbally.”
She glanced toward where the strange eye had been watching her just beneath the floor. She had a cursory understanding of the technology behind it now, but that was a bit like saying she had a cursory understanding of quantum mechanics. Or even a hairdryer. Sure, Mike could go on about magnets and hydroelectric dams behind the scenes, but she didn’t really care about any of that. All she needed to know was that if you plugged the thing in and flipped a switch, you got hot air.
She still felt the vague urge to pounce on it, though. And had it not been behind its protective barrier, she probably would have tried. Likely, the Nexus wanted to add its intelligence to its own, the greedy little bastard.
“Why not?” she pulsed back. It seemed an odd restriction given how much else the thing could do.
“I apologize for any inconvenience,” it returned. “It is a privacy measure to ensure you have the freedom to communicate with others without my listening in.”
“Okay. Is that… like a feature I can turn off, though?” she asked. “Speaking aloud is much more natural.”
“Sadly, no. Per international law, subsection 12R, 693rd year of the 7th empire. Would you like to begin an educational program on the subject? I have one entitled ‘Law and its Restrictions on Artificial Intelligence Forms.’ Quite riveting, I assure you.”
“Uh… no.”
She had to pause for a moment on realizing there was an actual pulse sign for ‘uh’. And that she had reproduced it without conscious effort. This AI had some real funny ideas about what constituted as privacy. She would have thought the sanctity of one’s own mind would have rated slightly higher than listening in to people talking—something her other AI really ought to take notes on.
“I’d much rather you help my…” What? Boyfriend? Lover? Husband? Was there a pulse-sign for ‘the only other being of consequence?’ Ultimately, she decided to just use, “…my companion. Can’t you see how injured he is?”
The eye seemed to hesitate. “There… is a medical facility aboard. However, it has not seen use in a very long time… and I apologize if this causes offense, but your physiology shows a great deal of genetic drift from what was last recorded in my data banks. Without a thorough pre-examination, there is a chance I will do more harm than good.”
She rolled her eyes. Genetic drift? More like an entirely separate species. And a better one, thank you very much. But despite her own feelings of superiority, she was far from foolish enough to correct its error. “Can you at least bandage him? He’s bleeding!”
It hesitated again, almost like it was embarrassed. “I would be happy to transport you both to the medical facility,” it offered finally, “but you would need to move him to the transport pad in the center of the room.”
She ground her teeth in frustration. Could it not understand what it would take to accomplish that? She would need ages to tear through all the adhesives—at least in a way that would not tear through all his skin in the process—and by that point, it would not matter anymore. Mike healed fast, but not so fast as to be able to survive something like this unaided. Not yet, anyway. It was critically important that she stop the bleeding as soon as possible, and given that he had already passed out, he would likely need a transfusion as well.
She would be the donor, of course. It did not even occur to her to wonder whether her blood type would be compatible.
But before she could suggest an alternative, the Nexus returned with its findings.
Analysis complete:
Common designer adhesive
Current genetic information insufficient for counteragent synthesis
Known solution:
Will dissolve once exposed to sustained electromagnetic radiation
Approximate Wavelength/Frequency: 1 - 1.2mm/247 - 258GHz
Recommendation:
Check firearms for release mechanism
Her eyes glazed over the wall of technobabble until she got to the last line. A release mechanism? Great! Now they were getting somewhere.
However, when she cast about to retrieve it, she realized their tech had been largely obliterated, and what little of it remained had been obscured beneath the many piles of steaming flesh the ship had strewn about. Far from making her squeamish, she knew beyond doubt that once she began sorting through it, she would be tempted into sampling at least a few morsels. Her mouth was watering just thinking about it! Honestly, they could have both used a bit of additional protein right then, if for no other reason than that it usually gave them a temporary boost to their healing factor.
That alone would have been enough for her to ignore the potential risks… were it not for the presence of one lightly nibbled corpse sitting just on the other side of the room. Her status as a long-lost relative of the AI’s creator race was tenuous enough as it was. Giving it reason to doubt that assumption, especially after having witnessed the levels of violence it was capable of, was foolhardy.
Though it might just decide they had turned cannibal during its long years of dormancy. That wasn’t such a stretch. After all, they were on a hostile, alien world with no support infrastructure and limited access to food and potable water. You had to expect something like that to happen… especially when your ship has gone dormant, stranding you to eek out an existence without proper educational modules.
A malicious grin stretched across her features before she managed to school her face. It was a good plan, but she would not play that card unless forced. And so far, the ship had been nothing but helpful.
Right now, the only thing she needed to worry about was gaining access to that medical facility. More than just a means of healing her beloved, it might be an avenue toward getting rid of a certain unwelcome implant.
With a nonchalant turn of her head, just in case the ship’s verbal communication issue had not been so limited as to prevent it from reading lips, she addressed the implant in question, “Can you please dampen my feeding instinct? Just until I find the release mechanism? You know, since you want to be ‘friends’ now?”
She was fully expecting the Nexus to give her a hard time about this—or at a minimum, question her motives—and was preparing to launch into a campaign for why it might let her get away with it just the one time, but to her surprise, its reply was as quick as it was simple:
Suppression of hunter-prey drive will induce mild to severe nausea
Confirm?
Her lips contorted into a wry smirk.
“Sure, I can do that for ya, girlie… but it’ll cost ya,” she interpreted aloud, affecting an appropriately gangster-esque accent. “Figures.”
The damned crook. It would play ball, but it wouldn’t want her getting used to the idea.
“Fine. Just do it.”
‘It’ turned out to be a feeling like she had just stepped off the tilt-a-whirl. But with no sign of it ever stopping. Her eyes kept dancing about, never quite focusing on any one thing until they helplessly skipped to the next, her sense of balance had been summarily deleted, and whatever was left of her lunch started clawing its way up her esophagus like her second uncle trying to get out of a meeting with his marriage counselor.
She swallowed back her bile. “Oh, yeah… we’re not doing this too often.”
Slowly and very carefully, she began picking her way through the cooling muck, none of which was at all appetizing in her current condition. Thankfully. Maybe it was just curious or really that attentive, but the ship’s eye was watching her like a hawk.
And it was not long before it simply had to offer an observation.
“I am detecting signs of blood flow restriction in your facial features, commonly described as a pallor,” it informed her. “And you are sweating. Preliminary diagnostics would indicate this has been caused by a mild infection entering your circulatory system. I recommend bed rest and plenty of water. Might I take this opportunity to further warn you against consuming unsterilized inorganics?”
It was an effort not to roll her eyes. Not that she was holding back on the AI’s account, but because she wanted to avoid any sudden moves. “Yeah… great. I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she informed it two-handed. It was slower, but sitting up was beyond her at the moment. “Now if you wouldn’t mind, could you help me find the stuff those two hostiles were wearing? Weapons, hand-held computers, that kind of thing. I’m looking for a release mechanism for the glue.”
The AI seemed to consider that briefly. “There are no records of adhesives with a mechanized releasing agent in my data files. Perhaps you are referring to a solvent of some kind?”
She started to sigh, but quickly thought better of it. Her stomach would not tolerate the jostling. “That’s because it’s alien glue? I don’t know how, but radiation dissolves it.”
“Fascinating!” it replied, somehow making its pulses buzz with enthusiasm. Her tutelage must not have covered that bit. “Do you know what kind? I might be able to help.”
She fell back onto her haunches, blinking. Of course, it could. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Just because the tech they were using to communicate wasn’t the electricity she had initially assumed didn’t mean the AI was ignorant of it. Electromagnetism was probably a quaint little cottage craft for a species that could build starships.
“Uh… yeah, actually,” she began before rattling off the specs the Nexus had provided.
No sooner had she done so than a subtle vibration passed through her pervation sphere. It was extremely mild, and had she not been so focused on keeping as still as possible, she probably would have missed it. But scarcely a second later, every patch of foam coating Mike’s body drooped to the floor, magically liquefying like so much candle wax under a blowtorch.
Her urge to rush forward and gather him into her arms was quickly tempered by the need to keep her gorge under control. And it was a good thing, too. There would be time enough to waste on emotional outpourings when she had Mike stabilized. Besides, she was too much her mother’s daughter to put on a performance like that for someone who wasn’t even conscious to appreciate it.
Right now, the only thing she needed to concentrate on was dragging his colossal frame to the center of the room.
She exhaled heavily. “Keep it together, girl. Just a few more minutes…”
As she began heaving away, the eye zipped from beneath her feet to examine the liquid she was putting so much effort into leaving behind.
“What a curious substance. Would you like me to take a sample for further analysis?” it asked, every bit as eagerly helpful as it was oblivious to her plight. “It may be possible to one day reproduce it.”
“Yeah. Sure. Knock yourself out,” she grunted before realizing it wouldn’t have heard her, so she spared both the moment and the pair of hands it took to reproduce the sentiment. And while she was at it, she took the opportunity to complain to their silent voyeur, “My poor back! Why the hell did you have to make him so heavy?”
Consequence of user-defined preference for
strength, durability, and sexual dimorphism
“Sexual dimor—that was a rhetorical question!”
Honestly. What was it trying to do? Give her a complex? She didn’t need it throwing shade at her like that.
Despite her grumbling, she managed to drag Mike the rest of the way in fairly short order and collapsed in an exhausted heap between the four central pillars. She might have even been impressed with herself had the situation been different, but right then, her ankle was throbbing like crazy and her stomach was still doing jumping jacks.
Fortunately, the latter was something she could do something about.
“We’re… far enough away now,” she panted. “You can turn off the nausea.”
Compliance
Effects of hunter-prey drive suppression will subside
over the next 15-60 minutes
Her eyes danced over the words dismissively until she got to the last bit. “…the next fifteen to—an hour?! Oh, come on! I can’t stay like this for an hour! I’m on the verge of blowing chunks as it is, and the ship is seconds from teleporting us back through that interdimensional hellscape. There’s no way I’ll make it through that!”
If the Nexus had intended a reply, the ship interrupted before it could.
“Before we begin the transferal process, I should mention that I have been scanning the local area for signs of further hostiles or other such entities in the case of reprisals, and I thought you might like to know the results.”
She groaned with exasperation but was still too green about the gills to formulate a response.
The ship went on. “There is a craft just outside that matches the energy signatures of the beings that were attacking you, but it has been damaged and seems to have entered a low-power cycle.”
This news came accompanied by a mental image of the craft in question in a way that was not unlike how she perceived things in her pervation sphere. Which was an odd coincidence.
“Additionally,” it continued, “I have detected a pair of anomalous carrier waves that are transmitting from this room. I cannot determine their source or interpret their contents, but the waves are being directed toward a stationary platform in geosynchronous orbit overhead.”
Which was a decidedly less-than-odd coincidence.
She nodded along. “Makes sense. My companion and I were captured by those things recently, so they’re probably tracking us.”
“Captured? And that was what led you to flee here?” it buzzed. Then, almost to itself, it pulsed, “A desperate couple returned in their final moments to their place of origin? How marvelous! How romantic…” It glanced up at her again, its singular orb almost aglow with passion. “Would you like my assistance in evading these ruffians?”
“Uh… yeah, that’d be grea—hurk!” she started to agree before a surge of bile forced her to swallow. “But first, I really think we should concentrate on—”
Unfortunately, the eye was no longer listening. It had already zipped beneath the floor to the other size of the room where it had engaged in excitedly fiddling with the many interconnected strands of root-plasma. Less than a second later, it twirled around to look at her.
“Initiating launch!”
Naomi’s mouth gaped helplessly as one objection after another piled onto her tongue, but by the time the most pertinent one fought its way to the top—namely that they were both underwater and underground—the ship had already begun to rumble. Which, of course, was the moment she finally lost her battle against her own roiling stomach.
She did at least try to keep most of it from hitting Mike.
*
—and I am telling you that Subject #1 has definitely discovered a means of communicating with that Podar’unek vessel! As a relic of a lost civilization, the potential for the advancement to science is simply too important to—
…
Yes, I know, and it’s a tragedy, I’m sure, but—
…
That wasn’t our fault! And any evidence to the contrary was surely destroyed when they attempted to fire their—
…
And what do you imagine will happen when they get here only to discover their point-of-sale contact vanished in the wind? They’ll assume we had something to do with it!
…
Oh, that’s all well and good for you to say. Your name isn’t the one on the bill!
…?
No, of course, I gave them a false one. But these are professionals we’re talking about. They’ll only—
…!
A volcanic eruption? Now?!
< the sounds of stampeding feet crowding around the monitors momentarily overwhelms the audio, giving way to gasps and wails of despair >
The Ark! No!
…
Yes, them, too. Ugh… there goes my entire career. Up in flames. Again.
How did this happen?
…
Well, yes, one does presume an archipelago to be a hotbed for volcanism, but not directly beneath the feet of your entire experiment! And certainly not within the first week of—
…
What? What do you mean you’re still getting a feed? That’s impossible. Our cameras can’t withstand that kind of heat.
< alarms suddenly begin to blare >
And what is that?! Heavenly host forefend, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
…
Proximity alert? For what? There’s no way they’d have been notified so soon, much less gotten here.
…!
What do you…
Bloody Nora… that thing’s airborne!
It’s… It’s headed right for…
Evacuate! Everyone to the transport! Immediately!
The Ark is on a collision course with the station. Grab the tapes. Grab anything you can get your hands on. Essentials only. We have to—
< beep beep beep >
Ack! What is…? Oh, shit.
How long has this microphone been on?