“Yes! 3-0. You lose.”
“No way that’s fair.”
“Now you have to do it.”
“Seriously? Huh, I can’t get up. I think I need to finish my physical therapy first.”
***
By proximity alone, they comfort each other in the way no words can. I’m your family, Cora communicates with a squeeze of his shoulder and a smile. I know, his warm touch of her wrist indicates. They venture out of the forest side by side–no longer is she leading him, nor him leading her. They’re a team, pure and simple, better than they were those nights plunged into darkness, scrabbling for warmth against each other, going off gut instincts and a faint hope that things would not remain static.
When other passersby take notice, she offers her characteristic wave with her left hand this time, and tendrils wave back. Apparently she’s been making quite the impression on local culture. Liam offers his characteristic nod and the locals nod back in respect.
Little do they know what’s about to happen. Cora holds her head high as they step into the hospital’s shadow, slinking along the edge like bandits until they find the side exit she dragged him through.
“Are you ready?” he says, grabbing the door handle. “That Transient can trick you. It plays the worst kinds of mind games.”
“Probably.”
He frowns. “Hey, if you can’t, just stay with the guards. We’ll do the rest.”
“I can. Why don’t we tell them? They’re good people.” Cora places her hand over her chest and stands straight. “They protect. They help. They’re friendly.”
“We can’t let anybody know there’s a Transient here. Think about it. Either we cause a riot or a spy warns the Transient to leave.”
“Or we get the help we need. It’s a Transient. They’re monsters. You remember how they fought.”
Subconsciously, her attention slips into the cracks between realities and moves a flayed knee. Her metaphysical self is still there, but badly wounded, though parts regenerated from the governor’s healers healing her.
Like a dam, the delicate tissues in her nose break and she feels the icky trickle of warmth trail down her lip.
“I’m fine,” Cora says before he protests. She quickly swipes her nose using her t-shirt collar. “Okay, we’ll leave the guards out. Let’s get Callista.”
They check the cafeteria first, but she’s not there. Cora waves at a few guards passing by, and they wave back. Liam doesn’t bother to nod, instead choosing to sprint up the nearest staircase two steps at a time, leaving her far behind.
“That’s not fair!” she says, reaching the third floor while he reaches the fourth.
“Get faster!”
It’s good to hear him be so happy. Cora smiles. Released from the weight of his past, having two friends to back him up, he probably feels good in a way he hasn’t felt since his girlfriend died.
When she reaches the final floor, she finds him leaning against the stairwell, arms crossed over his chest. His head is tilted aside, bangs covering his eyes, lips pursed and eyes closed.
“Oh, please, you look ridiculous,” she scoffs, swatting his arm as she passes him by.
“Wait, what? I fell asleep.”
“Sure, whatever you say.”
They go down the corridor and end up at their apartment. He removes a key and unlocks the door, then ushers Cora inside. The last time she stepped foot inside, the furnishings were barren, walls stripped of color, floor empty of furniture.
That all changed. Sometime after her last visit, they had their walls painted a soft green to complement the dark granite floor. Several potted plants are posted near the windows, sporting gray curtains and a refreshed trim. A lone couch takes up half the living room directly ahead, snug against the right wall, and several mushroom-shaped coffee tables carry lamps on their squashed tops. Two doors lie snug to their left, and an open bathroom door to their right.
Callista pauses mid-brush, frozen before the bathroom mirror, comb disentangling her long hair, and slams the door shut in their faces.
“That was rude,” Liam says, and the door shudders in response.
“You guys did a really great job making this place comfy.” Cora runs her fingers along the walls and marvels at how smooth they feel. “You guys didn’t have to pay?”
“We’re unemployed,” he says, barking out a laugh. “The hospital gave us these things for free. They don’t have charities like back home. The Cenarians just like to look out for anybody they find needs help. Not like back home.” A blood vessel twitches dangerously in his neck. “That's why I want to stay here.”
“What will you do, then?”
He throws himself on the couch and props his feet up on the coffee table. “I’ve been gardening recently.”
She sits beside him, opting to cross one leg over the other. “That’s why you came out of the garden when I saw you.”
“It’s not much of a garden,” he says, laughing again. “Mushrooms aren’t like plants, not really. They don’t need dirt. They need a good substrate for growth.” He starts counting out his fingers. “Wood, straw, dirt, as long as it has what it needs, it’ll use that to grow. Here’s the cool part, though. The big mushrooms, the ones that cover the whole city? He told me that they grow using ambient magic.”
“Magic mushrooms,” Cora breathes, lifting her eyebrows.
“Those exist, too.” Liam smiles and tosses his head back against the couch pillows, closing his eyes. “Every time a Cenarian uses a gift, the big mushrooms absorb traces of that energy. Theoretically, as long as the city exists, the mushroom will keep growing.”
“Forever?”
“The gardener told me the biggest mushrooms are at the capital because it’s the oldest. He said they’re so big there are entire ecosystems thriving under their caps. I want to visit there someday, once this is all over.”
She does, too. She wants to see all the worlds, without fear of the Transients chasing her, without fear for her friends. She wants Mari at her side, and Liam, and Callista, and all the guards, soldiers, and permanent hospital residents to see all the worlds with her, to participate in a grand tour of the multiverse.
“I’d like to join you, too.”
If only her heart didn’t ache to go back home with Mari.
The bathroom door opens, and Callista steps out barefoot, combing the last knots away. “Hi, Cora.” She turns toward Liam and she softens. “Did you tell her?”
“I told her everything.”
Callista wordlessly approaches him, bends low, and hugs him. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
“So am I.” He pats her back, and they separate. “We came here because we need your help to take out the Transient.”
“Done.” She works her hair into a bun. “Lead me straight to it and I’ll kill it.”
Liam shakes his head. “We need it alive for intel.”
“And it has a gift of mind control or whatever it does like Liam’s.” Cora sighs and throws her arms up. “Except it’s probably way better at using its gift than he is. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Callista finishes tying her bun and stands by the windows, caressing a plant leaf between thumb and index finger. “We need information, but to get information we need it to be conscious, and if it’s conscious it can and will use its gift.”
“Yes,” Liam answers.
“Information about what, exactly? Apart from why it’s here.”
“Information about who is working with it.” He removes his feet from the table and stretches. “Why it didn’t kill us from the start. When it came here. More information about the box, if possible. I don’t trust a word the governor says.”
“That makes two of us,” Callista says, staring out the window, face haloed by soft sunlight.
“Hey, Callista, did something happen thirty-six years ago?” Cora scrunches her eyebrows and stares at the carpeted floor. “Or around that time historically speaking?”
“No? The Empire might’ve conquered a world or two, but I don’t remember anything special from my history lessons.” Callista turns and makes eye contact. “What is this about?”
“Nothing, just a hunch I had. Never mind.” Both of them look at her like she’s crazy, and she blushes, shrugging her shoulders. “Can’t I ask something completely random?”
“Be honest.”
Cora sighs. “The parasite came while I was talking to him and told me the box last appeared thirty-six years ago. And you know, every time it appeared before, the people who used it ended up destroying a lot. That’s why.”
“The parasite came and you didn’t tell me?” Liam sounds hurt, and already Cora realizes she’s falling into old habits again, choosing to hide her ills and mistakes in the hopes nobody will bother her, or worse, reject her.
“You were hurting,” she says lamely, and grabs his hand. She squeezes lightly. “And it can’t do anything. The only reason it told me anything is because I let it.”
Callista frowns. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”
“I have it under control. Mostly.”
“We’ll worry about it later,” Liam says. He pats her hand and stands, towering at his full height. “And it’s okay, Cora, I understand. Just don’t hide things like that next time, alright?”
“Okay.”
“We still haven’t figured out how to subdue the Transient,” Callista says, face twisting in disgust. “I still opt to rip it apart.”
“I think I can access its mind and search it. But we have to knock it unconscious first.” Liam combs his hair back with his fingers and starts toward the door.
“And if it tries to mind control me?”
“I don’t think it’s possible, but I’ll cover you either way. Our gifts should cancel out.”
“Good. I love the uncertainty. Sounds like a good plan to me either way,” Callista says, cracking her knuckles.
Cora clears her throat. “Aren’t you worried it’ll do the same back to you?” She glances at him, and he shakes his head.
“Not if it’s unconscious,” Callista says. “There won’t be anybody home when Liam breaks in. He’ll have access for himself. Can you change its mind or cripple it?”
He grimaces and shakes his head. “The most I can do is feed images to the person I connect to, and search for thoughts and memories if they’re willing or unconscious. Other than that, nothing else.”
“Wait. How did you figure all that out?” Cora glances at him again, and he matches her in stride, glancing back coolly.
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“The Cenarians helped me figure it out. They have a few specialists with gifts of mentality. That’s what they call it, anyway. They helped me get better so I wouldn’t accidentally hurt someone.”
But you almost hurt me. Did Liam not remember his outburst, his gift flashing memories of his deepest sorrows in front of Cora’s face? The parasite seized control, too, using the energy his gift diverted and consumed, riding the metaphysical current to shield itself against her wrath.
The confrontation with the Transient could devolve very quickly, very fast.
“Ready?” he says, and Callista nods. Cora nods, too, feeling sick to her stomach. She needs the parasite to give more information, to see if it’ll match anything that comes from the Transient. The worst that could happen is the parasite refuses to leave, but all she needs to do is ask Liam to stop, and he’ll listen.
Simple.
They race down the corridor and descend several flights of stairs. Several nurses stare at them curiously, their tendrils waving aimlessly. Liam leads Cora and Callista on a long route to the second hospital wing, covering a blocky U-shape, passing the busy administrative center and plunging them back into sickly shadows. They pass the staircase Cora remembers Liam had camped in, pass a few more doors, and arrive near the end of the hallway, where a stifling silence takes hold. This part of the building is eclipsed in shadow, its lone ground to ceiling window mostly blocked by a large mushroom cap.
He raises a hand to his lips and then points at the second to last door from the window. Cora can’t read the alien floral script etched on the door, but apparently it doesn’t matter, because Liam looks confident that’s the room where the Transient is hiding.
Callista steps up to the door and grabs the handle. Liam checks the hallways, signals to go ahead, and the only warning anybody gets is the faint ring of lavender blazing in her eyes before she shoves her hand forward.
The bolt mechanisms crack. Wood splinters, folding under incredible pressure. The door is nearly ripped off its hinges, letting out a brief squeal of torture, slamming into the wall. Liam moves in first, eyes ablaze, pointing his arm at the bedroom.
“It’s in here,” he growls. He massages his temples and staggers. “Gah, it’s so strong.”
Callista doesn’t waste a second punching the bedroom door down. Pulverized wood grains puff into the air. She moves in like a missile and sweeps a clawed hand at a dim figure perched atop its bed in the corner.
“Why?” it says. He says. The voice sounds worn with age. The Transient is so much frailer and thinner than Cora expects. Clothes hang from his wasted frame. He’s stooped low, back arched, neck bent at an uncomfortable angle.
Beneath the armor, Transients are reptilian, apparently, donning sleek green and blue scales that cover the entire body. A scaleless, pale yellow section of flesh starts somewhere near its stomach and ends at its throat. A crown of scales wrap around the base of its head and run up from the back of the head to the scalp. Ridges of hardened flesh mark the very top. Its face is angular, jaw jutting out a little like a baby crocodile, lips dark, eyes squinty. Vertical pupils gleam liquid gold.
Suddenly, Callista stops, jerking her head back and raising her arms.
“Where am I?” she says, pitch rising high. “What is that? Go away!” She suddenly screams and throws a punch at the air, eyes bleeding purple light, muscles bulging and tensed. “Where am I!”
Liam staggers into the bedroom, clutching his head. “I can’t fight it off!” he roars, slamming into the doorway. His head is knocked back from the impact, and he collapses, twitching on the ground.
Everything happens in less than ten seconds. Cora is paralyzed, staring at the Transient’s golden pupils, and he stares back, unfazed.
“I’ve waited weeks for you to come,” he says. Callista is sobbing. She falls to her knees and swats at the air, claws ripping open parts of a monster nobody but her can see. Liam groans, his eyes burning silver, clutching his head.
“Leave them alone,” Cora says, baring her teeth.
“It’s not up to me, Cora.”
“How do you know my–”
The air ripples, and a massive forearm slams into the side of her head. She’s sent flying, striking the wall and crumpling to the ground. Her ear rings madly. She blinks, and the world spins on a diagonal axis, colors flashing in and out.
Like a thick, toxic sludge, the corrosive influence of another creeps up the base of her skull. She’s powerless to stop it from effortlessly wrapping its tentacles around her brain and strangling her mind.
“Sleep,” another voice tells her. A second Transient’s feet stand at the edge of her failing vision. The first Transient partially melts, then draws back his fleshy goop, thickening and broadening. The ridges on his head sprout outward and fuse into a mushroom cap. His clawed fingers become tendrils. His scales melt into skin and bleach themselves. Swirls of purple lick his sides. Within ten seconds, the Transient becomes a Cenarian.
“No!” Cora shrieks, reaching into the metaphysical plane. But there are no gears. No slabs of earth, refined or otherwise, to call upon. The tentacles constrict, and she loses her motor control, arms and legs becoming no more than jelly.
“She’s a handful, I’ll give her that,” the second Transient says, gruff.
“They said we can’t kill her.”
“I know what they said, you stupid fuck.” He reaches and touches her forehead with two meaty fingers. “Sleep.”
No.
A whirlwind of intoxicating potential and devious corruption unfurls. Her blue eyes come first, and within seconds manifests the rest of her body. Prim, proper, and clinically detached, the parasite stands a head shorter than the massive Transient, yet holds its smoldering gaze with an icy look of her own.
I refuse.
“What the fuck?” The second Transient lands a solid blow on the parasite, and his fist sails through her chest. “What the fuck are you?”
Am I an angel or the devil? A hero or a destroyer of worlds?
She laughs, and the sound duplicates and stretches into deafening shrillness. The Transient changes tactics, leaping backward toward the shapeshifter, releasing his control over Liam and Callista. A wall of something barricades around the parasite, and she blinks curiously, testing the barriers of its invisible prison with quick jabs of her palms.
You forgot to check your flank!
Too late. The shapeshifter steps forward and lifts a meaty arm, melting and reforming into a circular shield, when Callista pounces and grabs him by the arm. She suddenly stops, twists on her heels, and slams the shapeshifter over her shoulder. His massive body strikes the floor with a sickening crack. Cracks spider web around his splattered body, shatters the windows, and tear down the walls.
Liam turns toward the mind controller and releases a bright burst of silver. The Transient shudders, falling to one knee. “It’s her, isn’t it?” Callista advances and grabs him by the neck. He offers little resistance, pinned to the ground. “You fucked up big time.”
“Shut up!” Callista delivers a swift kick to his abdomen, and his ribs snap like twigs, organs turned to mush.
The parasite steps through the barrier and touches Cora’s arm. She gags, jerking it away, but a cool, firm hand cups her chin and forces her to look at the pulped ruin of the mind controller.
You and I. Learn.
She hates the parasite, but the Transient hurt her and her friends, and he’s part of the group of monsters that took Mari. Yes, the Transient is worse. She storms toward him and the parasite follows, clinging to her shoulders. She shudders, but doesn’t push away those cold fingers, either.
The Transient squirms beneath Callista’s foot planted firmly on his ruined chest. He gurgles weakly, staring at Cora, haloed by the parasite looming over her shoulder.
“You hurt me and my friends,” she says, gritting her teeth. She curls her hands into fists and snarls. “Your Empire has hurt so many people. Some of you attacked me and my friends in another world, and kidnapped one of my closest friends. We never did anything to you. You attacked first, and we almost died because the Transients are a bunch of monsters, apparently.”
Yes. The parasite unfurls and positions herself over the Transient. She taps his forehead with an index finger. This will be fun.
“I don’t know why you’re here, or who sent you, but we will find out. And they’re going to pay like you and your friend did.”
He hisses. The sound is weak, trailing at the edge of lucidity.
“What?”
“She’s…”
The parasite reacts. Her icy blue eyes contain the unfathomable profoundness of a glacier floating over an abyss. Suddenly, she feels so much bigger and scarier than Cora ever expected the parasite to be. Traces of her magical light travel down her fingers and into his skull. Moments later, he thrashes, choking on his own blood, bursting from his holes for ears, slits for a nose, and mouth, coating his head in dull purple.
Liam reacts first. He shouts and throws a vase at the parasite, but the vase sails through her chest.
“Who are you?”
A sickly sweet smile spreads over her angelically beautiful features. The parasite blows a kiss and vanishes with a sharp pop. Cora can feel the presence lodged in her mind, yet she can’t dislodge it, much less damage it.
Callista lifts her foot and stares at the Transient with a mix of fascination and disgust. She kicks its skull one final time and scowls.
“Liam, why did you do that?”
He stares blankly at the spot the parasite had appeared in. “That’s the parasite?” He works his jaw and stares at Cora next. “You’ve been dealing with… what the fuck. What the fuck. It just killed the Transient somehow even though you said it can’t do anything.”
Callista freezes. “The parasite?”
“Holy shit. Holy fuck. It’s been able to do that the whole time and none of us knew.”
“It has something to do with using gifts of mentality,” Cora says. She shudders and pushes her hair back over her ears. Whoever controlled the mutants back in the forest had to have used a mental gift to command. The parasite had killed that mutant without needing permission because its mind had been forced open by that gift. “Oh my God. The parasite could’ve killed you and she didn’t.”
“Me?” Liam blanches. “Maybe the governor was right. Holy fuck.”
“We lost our source of intel,” Callista says, probing at the shapeshifter’s body with the tip of her boot.
“You don’t care about the fact that the parasite can kill me whenever I use my gift or worse?”
“Yes, I do care. But there’s nothing we can do about it, can we? Cora is our friend, and clearly she has enough control that the parasite hasn’t killed us all. We have other things to worry about.”
A sickening squelch comes from the pulverized mass of the shapeshifter. Cora jumps. Liam steps back. Blobs of flesh quiver on its limbs and retreat toward its rapidly slimming torso. Beads of blood slide over the ruined floor, drawn toward the rapidly regenerating torso.
Callista doesn’t hesitate, slamming her palm into the center of mass. The still-forming tissue splits and sprays the remaining walls in bloody viscera.
“Wait!” The new voice warbles, tinged with desperation. “I won’t attack. I promise my life on Marpei and the core worlds.”
“And you expect us to believe you?” Cora says.
“I had no choice. If you’d let me regenerate–”
Callista sweeps her palm out and splatters the wall. Almost immediately, goblets of bloodied tissue lump and crawl back toward the reforming Transient.
“Please!”
“He’s not lying,” Liam says, folding his arms. He scowls and makes no attempt to hide his disdain.
“Are you sure?” Callista moves to coat the walls with the Transient’s organs, but Liam grabs her arm and shakes his head.
“I’m sure.”
Cora shudders at the revolting sight of a body piecing itself together. Broken bits of flesh bump into each other and fuse into larger chunks that quiver and race toward the main body. The legs are formed first, muscular and scaly, followed by arms, a head, and finally, a sealed abdomen with all the proper organs fixed into place.
The Transient is youthful, his worn face replaced by a sharp, streamlined one, skin firm and taut, scales hardened and shining a mesmerizing blue. The only thing that remains the same are the piercing, intelligent vertical pupils, crackling gold. He stands tall and proud, bearing rippling musculature that rivals Greek sculptures.
“How did you know my name?” Cora says, keeping her voice cold and emotionless. She’s one moment away from skewering him with the shattered porcelain tiles, damaged metaphysical self or no.
“We talked a lot.” He pats his scaly leg, flexing his calves. “You had that walker first, remember? Then you made that cane, which is pretty fashionable, I must say. Then you didn’t need the cane. Even though I wasn’t supposed to care, I guess I did.”
She takes a step back. “Who were you?”
“A wounded soldier from Uklut,” he says, and he deflates, staring off to the side. “I am a soldier, and I was wounded in Uklut, but I am not a soldier from your side.”
Callista protracts her claws and glares at him with the brightest purple eyes Cora’s seen. She avoids the blinding light, but the Transient stares right back with a golden fire of his own.
“I don’t want to fight. Not if I can help it.”
“Are we supposed to believe that?” Liam holds his knife to the Transient’s throat. He briefly looks down and returns to his staring contest with Callista, who looks angrier and angrier by the second, baring her teeth.
“Whether or not you decide to believe me is your choice. I’m telling the truth. We were pushed back from our positions and they left me and Keiro.” He points at the crippled, bloodied, body. “Instead of killing us, they captured us and told us if we wanted to live, we had to obey.”
“Transients don’t surrender,” Callista growls.
“We’re people, too!” His outburst makes her flinch. Liam digs the tip of his knife into the Transient’s throat, and Cora is ready to turn the gears of reality and pulp him. “Is it wrong I wanted to live?”
Callista pushes Liam’s hand aside and grabs the Transient by the throat. “Tell that to everybody you’ve ever hurt.”
“I’ve never killed anybody!”
“You were going to kill us.”
“That was Keiro. Please. I am–was–a conscript from Durs Aenes. It’s a fringe world. I can’t just say no to conscription. Do you have any idea what they do to traitors?”
“You’re a coward. A piece of shit, genocidal, imperial monster who’s just the same as everybody else.”
She slams him to the ground. His fiery golden eyes extinguish and he pushes futilely against a near-unstoppable force. “Please. Believe me. I don’t want to fight.”
Cora doesn’t know what compels her to move. Maybe she sees echoes of a victim of the Empire. Maybe the Transient does have a gift of mentality, and managed to convince her to feel sympathetic. It feels wrong that they’re practically going to torture him for the sake of a few answers. It is wrong.
Cora grabs Callista by the shoulder. “Don’t hurt him.”
Callista screams in frustration and kicks the nearest chair. She sends it toppling, crashing into the wall, leaving an impact crater.
“Why are you taking his side?”
“He’s not lying,” Liam says softly. His eyes crease. He glances at the Transient and looks conflicted, stuck between a searing mask of hatred and apprehension, hesitation. “I’d know. He’s not lying.”
Callista lets him go. She turns her back to both of them and storms out of the room, her footsteps thundering and cracking what remains of the floor.
Cora gnaws on her bottom lip. This was the last thing she expected. They should be invading his mind and searching for answers. They should apologize to Callista.
“What’s your name?” Liam asks.
“Raezu lir Mohaven. I have gifts of transmutation and regeneration.”
“Who sent you and Keiro here?”
Raezu points out the window. Most of the city is hidden, but a few sprawling suburbs are visible, hidden behind and beneath clumps of giant mushrooms. “I didn’t learn all of their names. One of them is called Vespen, and they gave us our contracts somewhere over there.”
Cora crosses her arms. “And how did you manage to hide here for weeks?”
“A doctor helped me. His name is Eporsa.”