Heusten was living through a nightmare. Pulled out of sleep late at night by a code red alert, he was now looking at the prime suspect, who was just casually sipping coffee in Ortimus's study. Behind him were five members of the Protectorate - all tense and confused. Another fifteen investigators were still busy sweeping every inch of the compound for potential hazards.
"You know nothing about the murders?" the investigator seemed to have aged a dozen years since Norman saw him last.
"Murders?" Norman quirked an eyebrow, "I heard some disturbance outside. But when I tried to go out I found myself locked in."
"Can we please start from the beginning?" Investigator Cornelia, Heusten's peer, sounded exasperated. This had been the strangest of the days for all of them.
"Oh, the senator mentioned that he could use help with some of the Yaskh translations. That happens to be one of my specializations."
"One of your specializations... and you are still a fourth year student?" Cornelia's frown was getting deeper, but her companion nudged and handed her a tablet from behind. The display had Norman's profile open.
"GPA 4.99" Her eyes widened. "I haven't seen grades higher than four... ever."
"He has been receiving the highest scores in the last ninety-five years since his first evaluation." Her companion quietly explained.
Heusten stayed silent. He could not, of course, reveal his association with the Ortimus family to the Protectorate. So he just pretended to have never met Norman - which worked for Norman just fine.
"And you were never given any access card for this room?"
"No. I was accompanied into the study by Mr. Greymus himself. It was supposed to be a short meeting. So I was very surprised when I found myself locked into this study for hours."
The interrogation continued for another hour. But there was just no evidence linking any events to Norman. No grounds for an extended detention.
The Aranius system was found to have been utterly wrecked. All digital evidence of the last several hours was obliterated. While he was led to a separate section of the building for medical inspection, he saw a few cabinets still smoking.
The medical inspection, too, came completely clean.
This was the reason why Norman had visited Martin Yeustor's. After spending months trying to figure out how to get rid of the wyrmblood from his system, he had realized one day that it was easier to work around the problem.
When the Wyrm had reminded him of the motto of the Abyssal Khanate - he also remembered another exhibit in the museum. An exhibit depicting Yaskh anatomy - which featured multiple hearts.
His official pretext for visiting Martin Yeustor's was to see Mervin, who was getting treated there. But once inside, he had been able to bribe a resident surgeon, Dr. Ragnus to perform an off the record surgical implant. The same doctor also helped him steal one of the hospital's decommissioned blood purification devices.
So now, Norman's right hand had a small micro-circulator, of his own design, embedded within, that circulated a small sample of his purified blood, through a single artificial artery that looped around his arm. The doctor had positioned this artificial artery such it would be exactly where the primary radial artery would normally be. So when the examiners had drawn blood for inspection, following their standard process, they were actually extracting a purified sample of the blood.
This would be easily caught by full scan, but the inspectors saw no reason to perform one here. Norman was not injured.
He, Flavia and Celine waited for the inspection to complete in a small but comfortable guestroom. The room provided quite a nice view of the snowy landscape outside, but it was marred by the huge Protectorate vehicles and a stream of armored investigators coming and going.
Norman had the weird notion that Celine, loafing in a corner, was eyeing Flavia strangely every now and then, but other than that they stayed silent the whole time.
Flavia longed to lash out, to unleash the torrent of emotions that threatened to consume her, but she knew that to do so would only add fuel to the flames of her disgrace.
Instead, she drew upon the last vestiges of her strength and forced herself to remain silent, her anger a smoldering ember, biding its time in the depths of her heart.
She also didn't try very hard to pretend to be devastated. Norman couldn't even imagine what tears would look like on her face. She didn't seem to have shared anything about her past encounter with Norman with the investigators.
In the early hours of the morning, Heusten unlocked their room, "Looks like you both are free to go." The bustle of activity had died down, and the strong, sterile smell of antiseptic wafted in from outside.
Norman got up, "Mr Heusten, why don't you take me to Kiri."
Heusten's face darkened by a notch. "I doubt that is a great idea." He looked at Flavia questioningly.
Flavia shot at him with a voice laced with simmering anger, "Come with me. Discreetly."
They waited for the Protectorate to completely clear out, and then took a private hovercraft to a different part of the city. After another couple minutes of silent walk through grimey alleyways, they arrived at a large, seemingly abandoned manufacturing unit. Using a noisy, janky elevator to reach the basement, she unlocked a door using an old-school metallic key.
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The air was heavy with the acrid stench of decay and the metallic tang of blood. Within the dimly lit recesses of the basement, a figure could be seen in the dark. Norman had a hard time recognizing his friend. Her eyes, once bright and full of life, were now dulled by anguish. Her once delicate features were twisted into a mask of pain, as if carved from the very stone that comprised the warehouse's walls.
Celine let out an angry yowl. Flavia turned to kick the cat, but she had already moved away.
Kiri was barely covered by the tattered rags, and smudges of dried blood across her arms and thighs bore unquestionable evidence of torment. A thick chain bound her wrists, the links gnarled and rusted from disuse. Besides the various grotesque contraptions littered about in the room, the scars that criss-crossed her torso, back, and limbs were ample evidence of the horrors that she had endured.
Her dark hair was matted with sweat and grime, and hung in tangled clumps around her face, obscuring her vision with their disarray.
Norman felt Heusten tense beside him. He may have facilitated this, but he hadn't known the full extent of what had happened here.
Flavia casually opened the cabinet and pulled out a laser gun. She pointed it towards Kiri.
Despite the horrors that had befallen her, there was a defiance in Kiri's countenance, a fire that still burned within. She spat at Flavia's face.
Flavia struck her already bruised face with a forceful backhand.
"You either tell me the exact route to the purgatory," Flavia wiped her face on a kerchief, "Or I kill her. Your long chain of tricks comes to an end now, Norman. You will not be walking away from this." Walking behind Kiri, she wrapped her arm around her throat tightly and pointed the gun straight at her temple.
"And before you get any ideas, I have vials of Zythramine in my suit." She continued, "I die - this entire building blows. I have had enough of you, and your bloody games." Heusten tried to plead with her, but she paid him no attention.
Amidst all the chaos, she did not notice that Celine, silent as always, had moved right behind her. The room was already poorly lit, so nobody noticed the pool of darkness amassing under her. Nobody saw the tendril of darkness slowly wiggling around her hand.
Celine looked up at Norman with her deep red eyes. Norman understood what she was asking. What *it* was asking. Gnawing dread seeped into the deepest recesses of his soul like the icy tendrils of a winter's frost. His heart pounded in his chest, once - twice - thrice, each beat resonating like the ominous tolling of a distant bell. There was only one way to solve this. Only one way forward. He pushed down the whirlwind of surging emotions within him with an iron fist, and nodded - once.
Kiri's head exploded into a cloud of bloody mist.
Flavia was left dumbfounded for a second. She stared in horror at whatever was left of Kiri dropping down to the ground. And then at the gun she held in her hand. The tendrils had already dissipated. Flavia's suit might have had linked explosives, but Kiri was completely unprotected.
She recovered quickly though. After all, violence was nothing new to her. Her gun swiveled towards Norman. Her eyes burned with unadulterated hatred.
Heusten moved to pull her back, but he was too late. A bright red stream poured out from her handheld. Norman instinctively shielded his face with his hand, not that it would do him any good.
The stream never reached him. Celine leaped in its way.
Even as the flood of the red streak charred its body, she managed to latch onto Flavia's hand with her canines. The handheld clattered to the ground.
At that moment, something flipped inside Norman. Something died.
He smashed his fist straight into Flavia's stomach. Unassisted. Unguided. Flavia was flung to the stone wall. Norman picked up the launcher.
"Well, you are part of the Protectorate, yes? She murdered my friend right in front of you. Why don't you do your job for once." He yelled at Heusten.
Flavia tried to get up, but a stream of fire, scorching the stone right above her head, served to discourage the motion quite effectively.
Leaving the astonished investigator to deal with the situation as he saw fit, Norman walked out into the city.
Kiri was gone. Celine was gone.
Reality sunk in. For the first time, he had killed someone. Willingly.
The cat had been part of Norman's life for as long as he could recall. Kiri had been the first person in the academy Norman had befriended. And now they were both gone. Because of him.
A voice, utterly alien and yet intimately familiar, whispered into his ears - "Well done."
He knew it was his imagination. But, was it? In the end it didn't matter.
He knew he wanted to blame the alien creature. But he couldn't. He had chosen to pull that trigger. Celine had pushed herself in front of the gun to save him. It was him who had proposed they go into his cursed planet. It was his relentless pursuit of an obscure technology that had resulted in the trail of bodies behind him. And here he was, unscathed.
It was him all along.
Nobody else to blame. Nothing else to blame.
Not even a day had passed, but the city somehow looked different. The trees lining the streets were still adorned with twinkling lights and glistening ornaments, their branches still heavy with snow. But it no longer felt cheery as the day before. His mind kept picturing Celine perched on every branch, or loafing in every corner.
The monuments and sculptures on every turn, were still draped in blankets of snow, and were just as majestic and impressive. But the world felt darker. As he walked through the corners, he saw children build snowmen and sleds on hills, their laughter echoing through the still air. But their joy felt alien.
He sat down on a bench. And called Arianna. The call didn't go through.
For the first time, he desperately needed to talk to someone. Someone he could trust. Someone he wouldn't have to hide anything from. The call still didn't go through.
Norman felt hollow. The cozy cafés and restaurants in the distance no longer seemed to offer a warm respite from the winter chill; their steamed-up windows no longer looked inviting - the aroma of hot cocoa and fresh pastries was no longer tantalizing. The sounds of holiday music playing right across the street still seemed distant. The scent of pine and cinnamon seemed like faded remnants from another lifetime.
He pictured Celine, nibbling at food when he first hand-fed her. He remembered how she loved to curl up on Kiri's lap. How she had bitten Mervin when he tried to pet her the first time. The call to Arianna still didn't go through.
Norman suddenly froze.
Celine. Arianna. He could not remember a single instance of them interacting with each other.
Over the next two minutes, he tried hard to recall. What had Celine been doing the day he visited Arianna's apartment? Why couldn't he recall her ever standing on Arianna's feet demanding attention, or trying to bite her fingers playfully when she wasn't looking, or settle at some unfathomable posture on a shelf in her apartment? Why? A horrible suspicion took root in his mind.
During his ride back to the Academy, he pulled up the institution's map on his tablet and panned through it until he found the agricultural domes. He knew what he would find. He hoped against hope that he was wrong, but he wasn't. There were no student complexes near the agricultural domes. There had never been.
He looked through the student registry. There was no entry by the name of Arianna Silvas.
He looked at the list of ongoing and past dissertations. Zenith Fidaeus had never sponsored any work on deep-space irrigation.
Arianna didn't exist.
He got off the train when it reached the agricultural section. Running with burning eyes, he strode into the dome where he and Arianna had spent so much time over the last few months. The dome was there. The rows upon rows of algae culture pods were there. The hydroponic irrigation system was there.
He looked through the visitor log.
It was just him. Day after day, just him. Arianna was never here. She never existed. The project was entirely his own creation.
He scrolled through his mails. And there it was - a request to reserve an unused pod space, sent to the dean of the agricultural department. Which he had sent. He had no memory of it.
Frantic, he pulled the activity logs from his device. And there they were, late in the night, logs of him opening the mail app, then a message getting delivered, then the reply getting archived. He had been controlled while asleep.
He unarchived the reply from the dean. She had expressed her excitement that someone as talented as Norman was interested in agricultural projects.
Talented. The word stung him.
He was a buffoon. The creature had fed him a rendering of his ideal companion, and he had devoured it like a fool. Never questioning. Never contesting. Never inquiring.