Crystal binds lashed Ly’s wrists to her ankles while a thick cloth gagged her mouth. All around her was ash and soot blackened water. Scorched foliage continued to fume on the small seared sandy island she was on. It was hard to breathe through the acrid smoke filling the air.
No matter how hard she tried, Ly couldn’t remember how she had went from being welcomed by her Goddess to this ravaged island. Were these blackouts the False Gods doing? Was her afterlife to be an endless trawl across strange and dangerous locales? To find her footing somewhere only to be cast to without preparation to another place? Her racing thoughts slowed as she heard the sound of water being disturbed.
A small boat began to emerge from the ashy haze over the horizon. She recognized Kokum’s face, the young man holding his distaff at the boat’s helm. The distaff emanated a warm blue glow. It was doubtful they would have been able to navigate the fog without it.
On the seat behind Kokum, the falling soot failing to coat her luminescent skin like it did Kokum’s, was Unmei. The Goddess was lacked the pensive expression shared between her mortal companions. Her face was serene but determination undercut her gaze.
The person actually paddling the boat remained too far from Kokum’s light to be seen well. It was not till the boat ran aground that Ly noticed the man had an uncanny resemblance to Kokum.
His blonde streaked black hair, beige skin color, and wrinkled face marked him to be rather old.
Ly watched them dock the boat to the shore at her left then dismount.
“She isn’t going to hurt us isn’t she?” stuttered Kokum.
“You can ask her yourself,” replied Unmei. She removed the gag from Ly’s mouth. “Sorry for leaving you traced but I couldn’t risk another outburst.”
“Goddess, I don’t understand. What happened? How did I get here?”
“The same way you arrived in my realm though I have spent a millennium successfully hiding it from our enemies. Your unwanted guests.”
Ly gaped at Unmei, unable to comprehend what the deity was saying.
Unmei tapped her on the nose as she smile. “You see you are a very special being. A being no one, not me nor your evil captors, can detect. Ly you are merged. Half mortal, half . . . Well not immortal but something close to it."
“Merged? Merged to what?"
A blue light flashed across Unmei’s eyes though Ly wasn’t certain she had really seen it. “To a being like me yet not like me. You can manipulate Noa Objectus and Noa Sentientus directly which a normal mortal can’t.”
Ly remembered what Kokum's distaff had done to the Illium attacking her then looked at the destroyed island they were on. She also saw the shapes of other ruined islands past the fog. "I did this.”
“The beings you are merged to did this. See,” she sighed. “There have been prior attempts to create others such as you. Each attempt lead to severe madness which could only be cured by separating the merged. When I tried to do the same to you it just lead to your guests seizing mental control.”
“I don’t want this! Oh, Goddess did I hurt anyone? Did I-“
“Shhhhh. Calm yourself. I managed to lead you away before you did anything except burn a few trees.”
“Okay. Okay.” Ly recited a small prayer to herself, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes but Unmei’s. Her mind drifted to the nightmare she had when she arrived in Unmei’s domain. She licked her lips as she gathered the strength to fully express the memory. “Kokum. Unmei. There’s something I have to tell you.”
Unmei reacted to Ly telling her the strange nightmare she had with a laugh. Kokum joined her laughter nervously but a severe glance from the older man by his side quieted him.
“This makes things so much easier, does it not Farasin?”
“If you say so Goddess,” replied the older man.
“It does! We now know Ly shall have an ally wherever she goes."
Goes?
“There is a chance this ‘G-016’ seeks to have the girl’s body for her own purposes,” said Farasin.
"Let's just ask her." Unmei helped Ly to a sitting position.
Her cuffed wrists chaffed much worse in this new position while her arms complained mightily at being stretched to such an extreme. Yet, Ly kept her discomfort to herself. The Goddess had every right to cast her out for the destruction she created. The False Gods would have done worse. The least she could do was shoulder some discomfort.
Unmei circled her pinky finger over Ly's forehead. "Listen to me. I am going to expand the channels connecting you to G-016. You'll be able to talk to her without succumbing to her control nor anyone else's."
"How do I know to trust what she tells me?"
"You don't. What you do know is that she had a prime chance at controlling you yet chose to bring you back."
"She did."
"The fact you can't remember anything tells me otherwise. Every merged I've ever met always remembers the fight for their minds. It is not something easily forgotten." Unmei's pinky finger closed the distance between them.
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Ly felt the muscles behind her forehead pop and contract. Heat spread down the bridge of her nose like one long papercut. One heart beat to a new tune. Then her second heart joined suit. For a moment, she thought her chest was going to explode.
"Is she going to be alright?" asked Kokum. His voice sounded a million miles away to her left ear.
"Of course, she is," sneered Farasin. "Don't you dare question the Goddess again."
Unmei's eyes never left Ly's face despite clear annoyance at her companions bickering. Those deep brown irises calmed Ly even as darkness encroached the vision in her left eye. Numbness spread from her ankle to her entire left side. She feared she had lost complete sight and hearing on her left when she heard an odd faint voice.
*******
Gold studied Unmei through Ly’s eye. There much more room to stretch now though the inputs to the Low-Sentient’s other eye were sealed shut. What little records she had on this predecessor failed to full encapsulate how out of place she looked in the analog realm. Her humanoid form seemed to emanate a blue light, a superfluous skill trait no Homo Pacificus would ever be granted.
{I wonder why she has not killed the girl yet.}
“Hello?”
Neither Unmei nor the male Homo Pacificus behind her had moved their lips. Gold checked her systems for malfunction.
“Hello?!”
Her search turned up a new input which had embedded itself insider her during her connection to the gold-inlaid inputs in the simulated realm. A corresponding output was located just below her external communicators.
“Is anyone one there!?” The voice was a decibel beneath shorting out Gold’s entire audio inputs.
{Yes I am. Please lower your voice.}
“Goddess, she’s speaking to me.”
Unmei cocked her head as she began to smile. Gold found her expressive countenance to be disturbing would have preferred she stop.
“Hello,” Unmei said.
“She says he-”
{I can hear her adequately.}
"How?"
{You inform me. This is your mind after all.}
"What is she saying?" asked the older one of the two males.
"She says can hear us speaking."
"Good. Can you tell us why and how you entered this girl's mind," said Unmei.
{I can answer neither. I was within the Masters machinery doing my regular work before activating here.}
Unmei's smile deepened to a frown after Ly relayed what she said. "Do you know if it is the Masters planning?"
"Masters?" said the younger male.
"An older name for our enemies," Unmei replied curtly. "Are there other merged such as yourself?"
{No. The Masters ended any exploration in that direction years ago and this isn't their doing. It is Red's, an AAI who somehow escaped deletion.}
The AAI turned deity straighetened her back at Ly's words. " Are you an AAI?"
{Yes.} There was no point in hiding what she was from these people anyway. Her fate, whether Red consumed her or not, was doomed the second the Masters discovered them. Cavorting with her traitoous predecessor, her presence within this Low-Sentient, and the dereliction of her duties were deletion worthy events on their own.
"What's an AAI?" asked Ly.
"I'll explain later," Unmei bit her lip. "The other AAI. Is he there with you?"
{He would have forcibly intergrated me if he were. Red wants to destroy the Masters at any cost.}
"That's great! Can you imagine unleashing the insane power you showed us last noght on those tentacly eggheads?" asked Kokum.
"I don't think that other AAI thingy wants to just destroy them. During the nightmare, he looked at me like I was meat."
{You were meat to him in a metaphorical sense. Red needs to consume both your mind and me to enact whatever strategy he thinks he has to defeat the Masters. Prior interaction with him has led me to believe he has already devoured the only other AAI we knew.}
"I'm guessing without consent," said Unmei. She crossed her arm as she sighed."This is my last question to you. What do you want?"
The question flummoxed Gold. She had not wanted anything since her desires destroyed the decent life she had. Prickles race up the her simulated belly in a sensation her records associated to fear. The sensation stirred the memory files Red forcibly implanted within her systems though they did not attack her sensory inputs this time.
She was afraid to want.
Wanting is what got her in this situation in the first place. The expectant expression on Unmei's face made it clear an answer was desired. Gold reached for the most logical response.
{Safety.}
*******
Ly chewed over the proposal Unmei offered her, and the creature inside her, as they rode the boat back to the main village. Safety was not a thing Unmei could guarantee either them. If G-016 spoke the truth, Red wouldn’t stop till he absorbed them both.
Unmei’s experience with the unsuccessful merges foretold a worrying path. The longer a being like Red remained inside a host body, the stronger they would become. A strength which usually lead to body degeneration and madness for a mortal wasn’t meant to contain the immaterial creatures. Why she was able to and what her fate would be was shrouded in the unknown.
She watched scorched sandbar after sandbar pass their boat while fear hammered her heart. Unmei couldn’t help her here. Her power lay in seeing the many ends available to a person, not mending mortals.
“Gold?” she whispered.
Unmei was too busy speaking to Farasin to notice Ly’s whisper and Kokum was lost in his own thoughts.
{You can talk to me without speaking.}
“Oh,” Ly thought. “Cool.”
{Temperature has nothing to do with it.}
“It’s an expression. Never mind. Are you scared about journey Unmei says we have to take?”
{I do not feel fear. I do not feel much. Emotions are disadvantages only Low-Sentients like yourself have.}
“Excuse me,” Ly snapped.
“Is something wrong?” asked Unmei.
{See.}
Ly bit back an angry retort to give Unmei a reassuring smile. “I just thought I misheard my new friend.”
“If she’s causing you trouble just tell me. She’s to be an ally during your quest to find the other gods, not a hindrance.”
“No, I swear I am fine.”
“Alright.” Unmei turned back to talking to Farasin.
“I am not a Low-cents-”
{Low-Sentient.}
“Whatever. I am not low anything. I am a Rememberer. My line was given the sacred duty to keep the True Gods memory alive until they returned to cast your ‘Masters’ out.”
{It seems your line is not very good at your sacred duty since you are here and not at your village.}
Ly almost punched herself in the head before she realized how monumentally stupid that would be. “You are supposed to be helping me, not being an insulting ass.”
{I will help you when you need it. Otherwise, maybe its best we constrain our communications.}
“Fine!”
She hoped their journey to find the other Gods would be a short one.