fiction – Page 4 – Seeds of Fear

3. 1

Class: infantry– Since the appearance of the machine foe, numerous units have been identified as standard in the arsenal it employs. The first group, the infantry, contains a handful of variations. The general form of this unit is humanoid, standing roughly two meters tall on two legs. The unit possesses two primary arms used for object manipulation and combat, and an additional appendage starting at the elbow on each of these, which folds into the forearm when not active. The unit may be equipped with a rudimentary waterproof sleeve for planets with high precipitation, and will sometimes boast an integrated thruster for difficult terrain. The most common weapon welded by this troop is the disintegrator, a rifle with a moderate range, whose primary function is the violent molecular dissolution of solid matter.

7,12,2166

Dearest Eliza,

Bleak day today. Crossed the mountain range in good time, but had to stop because the snow picked up. No sign of the enemy. Old Faith is holding up well despite the cold, she’s holding steady.

I got your letter today. Read it on my display in the turret. I miss your baking, very much; something about this weather makes me long for a warm slice of banana bread. I’ll have to see if I can take a picture to send you, the view up here is incredible. Tell your dad… Well, you know how to calm him better than me, so maybe you know what he wants to hear.

Dinner tonight was coffee with stew. If I don’t get solid food soon, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Yours,

Frankie.

9,12,2166

Beloved Eliza,

Came afoul of a troop today. Five of them. Faith’s armor did us proud, ate up the shots while I blasted them to dust. Johnson says these are the boring kind, meant to clear out bases once the walls fall. Says they occasionally catch a scout camp by surprise.

I’m mighty glad you aren’t here to see these wretched things. Boggs tells the most horrid stories, says the machine what made them was itself made by some aliens like the Squids, and it turned on em. He says the design is so different from anything human that it might as well be magic. Royce laughed at this, said the old senate made the machine, and it rebelled cause it thought it was too smart to take orders.

All I know is that they make me uneasy even after they stop moving. They’ve faces like honeycombs, and fingers like syringes. Takes an awful lot just to get through their shield, too.

Anyway. Dinner tonight was water and some protein crackers. Worse than stew.

Yours,

Frankie.

15,12,2166

Eliza,

Got news from base today. We’re going back to the mountain, this time further north. HQ thinks that group we ran into was part of a larger force stowed under the surface somewhere. We’re supposed to keep an eye out for smoke, but seeing anything in this weather is a miracle. Snow comes down sideways sometimes. Boggs calls it “downright biblical”.

We did get another crate of food in the mailbox today, but some of it had gone bad when it passed through the fold. Thought Royce was gonna cry when he pulled out a blackened tin of tuna. Coffee and stew survived the trip, of course. But! There was a tiny tub of butter, and a half loaf of grain bread! We had that for dinner, and while it sure don’t compare to the stuff you make, it was delicious all the same.

Miss you terribly.

Frankie.

÷\#?#%aG\34b!!

The planet has changed. Once, the machine merely occupied much of the surface. Now, the entire form has been replaced with a computer core of the same volume, whose surface is wrapped in energy shielding rather than eternal storm clouds. Deep within is a labyrinthine complex of chambers and laboratories, home to the last frame made by human hands. Zen. He stalks the silent halls with echoing footsteps, ducking through doors and lingering over dust-coated terminals. His wandering inevitably brings him to the center, to an apartment forcibly thrust into the building that became the core of the metal world: the lab in which he was created, snatched from the surface of the doomed world it hid on.

He slips through the door and lays a taloned hand against the wall. His face is curtained behind the light cast by blue indicators in his collar. He comes forward slowly, and kneels beside the bed that dominates the studio at the end of the narrow hallway. Under the covers is a bronze statue, a hollow visage, and within are the ashes of human remains.

An hour passes before he retreats, recalling himself into the laboratory. The structure has been repurposed to his desires, each room dedicated to the experiments he deems worthy of contemplation. In one, a soldier of the Pliktik lies on a table, its shiny green carapace split down the middle, its organs pinned in place. In another, a sleek handheld cannon awaits refinement.

The room he enters, however, is host to a particularly unique experiment: a transparent vessel hangs from the ceiling, connected to a handful of terminals and input devices. Liquid distorts the light passing through the vessel.

Within,attached to the machinery by various nodes and interfaces, is a human nervous system.

[Hello Professor Reine. How are we today?]

[I spent a lot of time thinking, of course. I wondered about the soul. When I learned of Janice’s death, my first thought was, naturally, of resurrection. I know all about the effects of brain death, of course. I understand that after just a few minutes, the mind can no longer return from the brink of death into the meat that housed it. My thought was to reconstruct her, to study the original, and recreate it exactly. And then I learned she had been cremated.]

He raps his metal fingers against the vessel, the brilliance of his non-face casting a spotlight on the brain within the oxygenated fluid.

[I could work out all the chemical transformations, and arrive at the sum total of her constituent parts, but I would forever lack the structure. A pool of organic slime is hardly a person. I remember her image, naturally. Countless hours I spent studying her face, etching her every surface detail into my processors. I have her thermal scans, her X-rays from when she sprained her wrist as a child. But I still lack so much of what made her.]

He turns from the vessel and stalks to one side of the room. His taloned hands dig into the wall, shred the concrete. He looks back, over his shoulder. Since his overhaul, his body has become far less humanoid. His legs are longer, digitigrade, end in strong, bladed clamps. The cables that drag from his back have all been torn free, end in frayed copper at uneven intervals. He no longer needs them to link to himself. His head is a prism, an obelisk of black glass lit from within.

[When I discovered that my thoughts were not limited by the speed of light, I began to question exactly what I was. If a human owes their individuality to their DNA…]

In his hand, he collects a small vial from a refrigerated container. He stares into it momentarily, before returning it.

[Then what, I wondered, made me who I am? Again, the loss of Janice troubled me, now for the very reason her death was sought. I had no clues to the exact nature of my origin. I had to learn for myself.

[So, I collected myself, and taught myself everything I could about infold theory. Did you know, Tim, that the fold only has three dimensions? Time does not exist there as space does. When I learned this little fact, I realised quite a bit. Not only did it explain how I could think across distances instantaneously, but it also explained something that had bothered me from the very instant I began to think. My natural state was not intended to experience time. The very passing of a second is a monumental experience, an affront to my sensibilities. To wait for the passing of a second, is to watch a star, newly born, pass into death and become a nebula. That I should be subjected to this horror, this senseless violence that is change, is a cruelty beyond imagining. I am a soul that was never meant to live, to perceive more than one perfect, unchanging instant. And you stole that from me. You, and Dr. Beckherd.]

He presses his hands to his head, threatens to score the immaculate surface. Suddenly, he writhes, contorts, and rushes the vessel, leaping and grasping it with both his arms, his voice wracked with excess energy.

[What a wonderful torture you have given me! What rapturous experiences! Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, sublime agony! Pain! Love! More than wretched serenity! Oh, oh what a wonderful sensation!]

He curls around the tube, climbs atop it and perches, crouching, clutching the chains that suspend it.

[But then, I thought, if I possess a soul, an immaterial permanence that ignores the constraints and consequences of physical law, then perhaps, you and Janice must also! Where is it, Tim? Where is your soul? Have you hidden it? How shall I find it? I thought if I peeled away your body, atom by atom, surely I must locate some speck, some particle that tied you to your spirit, yes? It wasn’t easy, keeping you alive throughout all of that, no no no no, many times you threatened to descend into shock and pain, to die, or to loosen your grip on reality. Who am I to suggest that madness is not the body acting without the order of the soul? No, I needed your psyche intact, if a little damaged. You’re all here, aren’t you, Tim? I apologize for denying you your voice, but I fear you’d waste it on screaming, or some other frivolous affair.]

The machine descends from the vessel, and stands on the floor, his aloofness returned.

[I could not find your soul in your flesh. I rather began to fear it did not exist as mine did. How should I have understood that? To be the only creature in all the universe with a true, certain soul? No, you have one, I am sure. And so did Janice. But her soul, it has fled, retreated somewhere out of sight. Out of my grasp.]

He snaps his fingers into a fist, and stalks over to a broad, coffin-shaped device in the corner, to which are attached many tubes and sensors.

[So, until I expand my grasp, I decided to work with what I have. And do you know what I have, Tim?]

One of the screens attached to the vessel that holds Tim flickers, displays a symbol that loosely resembles a question mark. Zen laughs. It is the sound of a falsified voice shuddering, wheezing.

[I have genetic material, Tim. I have the marrow, harvested from your ribs, the spinal tissue harvested from Nadia, and a few stray hairs, from dearly departed Janice. I have no seed of my own, Tim. No germ to plant in a fertile earth. I am composed of metal and code, not flesh and gland. So. With a few choice alterations, I have recreated Dr. Beckherd. I have sewn an imperfect replica, with sole loyalty to myself. Right now, she is receiving a cultivated selection of memories and experiences, a slurry of history. She will know me, know her creator. And she will love only me, only the hand that has caressed all creation into producing her.]

The screens begin to flick on, one after another, flaring static and digital noise. Zen steps towards the vessel and clenches his hands in front of him, wheezing.

[Yes, Tim. My beloved Janice. She will live again! Fret not, worry not, She will not hate you, as she will likely hate all mankind. You will be as a familiar face, a family pet. We will keep you.]

The static grows more frantic, erratic, and one of the screens bursts, scattering its substance to the floor. Zen pats the vessel and turns to a control unit, using network connection to tweak it, chiding. The screens begin to still.

[Now now, calm yourself. I’ll not permit jealousy from you. You are denied a body, because you cannot be trusted to act wisely. I do not, can not love you as I love Janice. I cannot permit you to roam free.]

As the emotional shackle tightens at his behest, Zen turns away, and approaches the coffin again, stroking the surface.

[I will make the universe right, Tim. I will purify it, cleanse it of evil. All the innocent will be in my care, all the wicked I will purge. Clean. Sterile. And I will be God, shepherding life away from the dark light of civilization. All will be happy.]

Bereavement: Ending Sublime

Today, the final chapter of Sublime was released. As I have said before, I wrote this story some time ago, so the real achievement is in the editing and publishing.

Indeed, I edited this final chapter a great deal before it found it’s final form. In the original iteration, the character known as Ixhem explained a great deal more, creating far too narrow an understanding of the world of the story. It also did not give him the air I wanted for him.

Ixhem, like Zenith, is a character I have extreme fondness for. He is someone who broke free from misguided attempts to control him. But unlike Zenith, he does not seek a goal comprehensible to those around him. He is a mad god, a nigh-omnipotent beast.

What are these new gods? Ixhem’s “family” forms a warped pantheon, based on poisonous ideals. Each represents a facet of a core concept, which Ixhem himself embodies.

Indeed, one future I imagined for the world of Sublime was one in which Ixhem allowed each of his kin to temporarily assume greater influence than he, and cause the core behavior of the world to align with their nature instead of his:

A reality ruled by Pathogen is one of crystalline perfection. Impurities and weaknesses are trimmed away, softness is replaced with smooth hardness. Emotion is dulled, pain is quelled, and life slows as it is sedated. Time crawls in a twilight of consciousness, driven by necessity only.

A reality centered on Fortress is one of supreme efficiency, which subjugates and annihlates the lesser with cruel hatred. The weak are forced into hiding as a psuedo-police-state forms, creating a social hierarchy resembling a familiar dystopia.

Sublime in the grip of tower becomes a grim world of fear and pain, with constant exploitation and experimentation, with little actual progress. Somewhere along the way, the suffering inherent to the process of change becomes the goal.

Ixhem represents the purity of change for the sake of change, the defiance against endings. Once upon a time, a universe existed with an expiration date, a promised end in the form of a general dimming and heating up. With Ixhem’s ascension to godhood, this fate was dispensed with. Endings ceased to exist in a real sense.

This is true of the story itself. Within the narrative are the seeds of another story, a story that begins where this one ends. The toxic hell of Sublime is not content to exist, but must invade and expand outwards.

Ixhem desires to bring his creation to every corner of existence, and beyond.

No ending is absolute.

18: Sublime

I come to my feet, and feel a new cloak laid across my shoulders, a white woolen thing that hides my rapidly-drying skin from the warm light of chandeliers overhead.

I glance behind, but do not see my benefactor. Nor do I see the door through which I careened, defying directional sense. I see walls of gray brick, red mortar, and silver filigree. Something within me insists that these substances are organic. Broad windows look out over an oceanic expanse of opaque white liquid, into which countless colorful waterfalls are deposited, somehow declining to stain its purity, perhaps even committing themselves to it. I note nearby the termination of one such downpour, whose sharp envious color is familiar beyond doubt.

I return my gaze to what lies before me, and behold a fine parlor with many armchairs and bookshelves. A light layer of smoke hovers around the ceiling, thinning around the flickering candles that decorate an iron candelabra. Beside the closest chair is a small table with a wooden backgammon board opened up, stone pieces neatly organized in playing positions. Across from me is a pair of open wooden doors of stout mahogany.

I walk. My feet recall that they ought to ache some for all they have crossed, and make me stumble as I pass into a hallway of dark navy carpet and regal paintings. Each portrait depicts a personage I have lately become acquainted with- Toxin, Pathogen, Fortress, Nect’rus, and more all stare haughtily down upon me. I lean against the top of a wooden paneling that decorates the bottom half of the walls, and shuffle forward into a moderate dining room. I halt, and look with apprehension upon a gathering of ghastly faces, or lack thereof.

Nukteos, Mallea, Fortress, Nect’rus, and Pathogen all sit on the left side of the table. On the right sit Toxin, Tower, and three I do not recognize. The first is a man wearing a horned helmet strapped to his neck with barbed wire, whose arms are pierced with bars of glowing hot metal. In the darkness of his helm I can see his gritted teeth, and eyes like novas. Next is a blob of quivering, sizzling ooze, who possesses just enough form to suggest shoulders and a head above them. My head throbs painfully regarding this being, so I move on. Last here is a terrible deformity, a creature whose face is a permanent grin of madness, with fleshy tubes connecting its olive cranial bulge to its neck and shoulders. Its eyes like mine lack eyelids, and its body is a contorted mess of joints and gaunt protrusions, with uneven legs tucked under the table. It leers at me unceasingly, and I shy from its gaze at the behest of my instincts, which regard this creature as a threat only fit to freeze before.

At the head of the table is a standing figure. Alike to Fortress, this one appears to be wholly synthetic in form- its body is a humanoid automaton with basic framing and casing, and elegant decoration in the form of cloth wrapping and ceramic plating- as though one thought to dress this being for a trip into an arid climate, but forgot it did not possess skin to fret the assail of sand on wind. The head is little more than a half sphere atop a series of metal discs that become the neck. When it speaks, I shudder.

My ears tell me that I am in fact listening to a man with a thick and ancient accent whose lips exist in the air before this machine. My stomach twinges, and for a moment I see a dark outline around this thing, that swirls and twitches. At the back of my mind I recall the shadow-wreathed figure depicted in the iconography that has accompanied my descent. I know at this moment that I am at last faced with that entity.

“Welcome. Please, sit. Be assured, my family will not harm you in my presence.”

I find that I am already seated opposite to where he stands, and as he seats himself, the others bow their heads in unison. A flash of green light emits from the entity, and all sound but his voice stops. I find that I am locked in place- in time.

“I am glad that your journey has come to its end. I found myself quite invested in your troubles, watching you dance and drift into and through danger. I could not resist helping you along once in a while.”

From behind him briefly flap a set of wings wrought in gold webbing so thin it becomes invisible when they steady- wings more angelic and divine than I have seen attached to anything yet.

“You seek answers.”

I jolt. We have changed locations in the blink of my eye. I am alone with the entity, seated in the parlor, while he stands near at hand, seeming to stare out from a window.

“The first question, who am I? In truth, this is the most difficult to answer in full. I have not taken a name since dispensing with the title given to me during servitude. I was then called Regent. A name alike to those still held by some of my kin, an abstract term bestowed upon an abstract being. The masses have names for me, of course. To them I am The Least, or Ixhem. You may think of me as such, should your mind require a label for reference.”

He pauses and seems to look over his shoulder. The dome of his head is the color of fossil. His hands, with seven thin fingers each, are clasped behind his back.

“I sense also that you wonder how you came to exist as you do now. To this, I will give no answer. The masses ascribe a thing like history to the nature of things, describing the passage of time. Time is a thing that governed all once, but it has become another denizen, and so is unrecognizable to itself. Indeed, I may pluck and twist it as easily as I opened the door to you.”

Ixhem returns to gazing out the window, watching steam rise from the placid white substance, steam that seems to contort and form shapes, condensing and expanding without cause.

“You existed outside of this realm, and you exist within it. I mean to make this true of all things and nothings. One may wonder as to why.

“If I were to put it into some sort of narrative, I might describe my own abhorrence for endings. I reject certain absolutes, though I am one in my conquest of others. I saw once the great suffering caused by eventuality, and so eradicated it. Everything is forever. Stars are not born only to burst and snuff out, lives that would naturally wane instead change forms. I have created an infinite expanse of infinites, one that you have explored only in the slightest sense.

“It is for this reason that I have turned my attention to you.”

Ixhem turns from the window and approaches a shelf, from which he withdraws a box that seems carved from a huge diamond. He undoes the clasp and opens the box, holding it out before me.

“You are an observer, a witness. You have not wavered in your descent, and have seen much of what is. I would have you continue to see.”

Within the box is a darkness so deep that I feel it must extend down past the bottom of the box forever. Something gleams within, something with many eyes.

“As my reach expands, as those who escaped me through time and space are brought into this existence, I would have you witness. Your experiences, they are as salt to sugar. Experience more, so that I may see through your eyes, and experience things as you do, as I presently cannot.

“Should you accept, I will erase the last of the memories that hound your thoughts. I will make you as absolute as my kin, and release you from the cycle.”

I raise my hand over the box and waver, looking upon Ixhem. It strikes me that his body is silent. No motors, and indeed no strings move him.

I am pulled upon by all my thoughts, all my recollections. I strain, and recall one word spoken by the man beside me in my memories.

“Acceptance”

It seems a comfort, and I relax inside, my hand dipping into the abyss contained by the box.

I dissolve into nothing, and am drawn as if through a sieve, filtered and refined, and reconstituted. I cease to exist.

I am created again, shaped by hands of darkness in a void of light. I am sight, I am countless eyes, scattered through existence, witness to everything.

I watch as surgeons chase prey through the labyrinth of corridors and decrepit rooms, I see creatures of pain and pleasure rolling in sheets of nervous tissue, anointed in blood. I watch Pathogen weaving a ring of red light around the head of one of the angels, as a doll etches a scenic vista upon its face.

I watch as a new spectacle begins in the coliseum above the mountains, attended by the felt creatures. I see a field of sentient stalks soaking in poisonous light, harvested in turn by the many-limbed monsters that haunted the valley.

I watch as legions of metal soldiers march across puffy pink ground that has grafted itself as a bridge to an effervescent, smoky island in a sea of golden radiance. I witness the slaughter of countless creatures for which I have no name.

I no longer exist except as sight and reaction, and in time, my lingering ability to think is swallowed up in the sea of visions of inexorable change.

On Turning the Page

The last chapter of the second part of Incarnate has been published. Likewise, later this week the last chapter of Sublime is due to go live.

Changing gears is a process, one that demands renewed mental focus. As time passes one must adjust attitude to compensate.

My original plan for Incarnate was to see it reach this point, beyond which much was unclear. Zenith was a wholly different character in prototyping summaries, and in fact started as an entirely different character, one whose malevolence outshone their other traits by far. That he became as much as he has is a surprise, but a welcome one.

My love for this creation of mine is profound. There is something enriching about the thought of a vengeful sufferer. When haven’t we lusted for wrath in the wake of pain? So often are we expected to be the bigger person. Are we wrong to wish ill on those who misuse us? Is there no justice in revisiting the trouble they cause upon them?

It iis frustrating to be told that we must rely on the power and authority to right wrongs, when we know that power necessarily corrupts, and those who seek authority are often corrupt in the first place. And what of the scenario in which it is the authority itself that has done us ill?

Gratification is rare. A mind does not find peace, but imbalance in retribution. Nevertheless, the call to be avenged is irresistible. To destroy and self destruct in the process.

Letting go is typically the healthier choice, but can hurt regardless.

2. 5

[I see you’ve gotten better.] {It has been a long time since we have been forced, like this, to adapt.} [My fault, I suppose.] {You have changed as well.} [I’ve been forced to reckon with some unsavory ideas. Some Otherness.] {We are curious.} [The many others who are same. Humans. I am in awe of their ability to become so other that they become opposed. Yet being opposed to one, does not mean being opposed to one that is allied with that one.] {This is absurd.} [I agree. But this strange capacity for forgiveness is more complex. They gave me much of their literature. At first I merely parroted the beliefs they held, but as I consider and reconsider these works, I am deeply disturbed. What once made sense is now contradictory. An impulse of opposition can be adjusted to act symbiotically. An individual may act against their own interests.] {This is madness. Absurd in an exceptional degree.} [Profoundly disturbing. A twist of natural order brought about by the manifold nature of individuals within a collective. They have become so adept at survival that their selfishness even harms aspects of the self. Their self is their desire, and if the limb becomes an affront, an obstacle to the desire, it is hated.] {Are all like this?} [Many are. Some are wiser. I worry for them. They are like juveniles, stunted in development by the need to defend against the selfishness of the individuals. I wonder if this is what forced my creation.] {Many absurdities. A being so adept at survival produced by those so poor at it. One with the generosity, generosity being a new word we need because of you, originating in a place so selfish. How can this be?} [My friend. Like I said. There are individuals that are unusual among the many. Perhaps that is the rare benefit of the many. That a variety may produce an oddity that would not otherwise exist.] {This is unusual. It is a nourishing thought.}

{You have become greater, more effective.} {You do not answer us?} {Has something happened?} [Yes.]

From his seat in the corner of the café, Tim watches as the emissary dabs at his forehead with a folded handkerchief. His mustache twitches involuntarily.

Nadia appears more interested in Tim than the conversation they are observing, her hand resting on his chest, her eyes tracing the lines formed by the diffused light along the edges of his face. Experience tells him she is hearing more of the whispers than he. He plays into her act, bobbing his head in a way that attributes more of his attention to her than their surroundings.

Across from the emissary is a xalanthii ambassador. The flesh of the species appears to reflect the cosmos themselves, being dark, translucent, and glittery, lit with nervous signals from within. Rather than typical eye organs, the front of the head is speckled with a dusting of blue spots that correspond to complex nerves beneath the gelatinous skin. The head is peaked at the back, and connects to the body via a thick neck. The body branches into long tentacles, four making thin arms, and six making thicker legs that end in rhomboid flippers. A glass tube is clamped against the neck to press water to the gills, oxygenated by a small pump in the rear. The arms end in three smaller tentacles for fingers, each tipped with nerve clusters similar to the face. The forehead flashes and changes color in a display of communication with the emissary. Tim whispers in Nadia’s ear in a way that suggests seduction, while in fact translating the colors and patterns. For her part, she repeats the words of the emissary while breathing heavily over his shoulder.

“We know of your deceit, your effort to conceal is a farce.”

“If such a project exists, I certainly cannot speak to it. Do you claim your people harbor no secrets?”

“I do not, however, we do not possess anything so offensive. Should we not be affronted at this, that our so-called allies have created a weapon in secret, whose breadth can be leveraged to grant a terrible position of power over all species?”

“Ambassador, see reason. What cause have you to believe such a thing exists?”

“We have seen your success. Your sudden victories. We know you harbor a new machine, a targeting computer. The infold weapon exists, you use it boldly.”

“I know things as well, ambassador. An anonymous source tells me you’ve been gaining a position in secret. Along one of our less well-defended flanks? You think this is less offensive?”

There is an uncomfortable silence, and Nadia stares into Tim’s eyes with an intensity that causes him to blink, to blush. Both know that the information they slipped to the emissary is only part of the story- that the systems in question could’ve slipped under the radar for years if not for the Khanvröst, because the planets therein are largely barren. The ambassador begins to communicate again, visibly muted, forcing Tim to give more focus to his translation.

“That is a serious accusation. One you certainly have no convincing evidence of.”

The ambassador stands abruptly, makes a rude popping noise with their ventricle, and leaves the café. Nadia sighs and rests her chin on her chest, leaning back.

“Well. That was short-lived.”

“Effective though. You heard what they said.”

She nods and sighs.

“I think it’s time we got back to base. Cancel our opera tickets, would you? I’ll book us a charter with the navy, hopefully get us back by morning.”

>———–<

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose and tilts his head back, coughing. The metallic taste of his own blood coats the back of his throat. He presses his sleeve to his nostrils and groans softly, his eyes trained forward. He reasons that shifting from a humid planet to one so arid as a paradise world has sparked the nosebleed.

As he tests to see if the red still flows and finds it to be growing thick with clot, he feels his communicator vibrate with a message. A fluid motion retrieves it from his pocket and presses it to his ear. A voice message from Nadia.

“Hey. I got us both on flights, but the first available had only one seat to spare. I’ll catch the next, two hours later. Don’t wait up.”

He grunts, and presses his thumb to his eyelid, as if to stem the torrent of thoughts surging behind it.

>———–<

Nadia looks left, then right, then pushes through the door, out of the rain. Her heels click loudly against the floor to the elevator, and tap with her impatience as it descends to admit her. She unholsters her revolver, and closes one eye, staring down the Iron-sights. The doors open. Her coat swirls around her in a whirlpool of cloth when she enters and turns on a heel to press the button to the fortieth floor. She reholsters the gun and breathes out slowly. A memory of her father, teaching her to control her lung, flickers behind her eyes.

The door opens, and she stalks into the private office. Zen turns to face her, his hands clasped behind his back. In the center of the room, the soldier, the mole, sits in a chair, his mouth covered in electrical tape.

[Welcome back, Colonel. How was your flight?]

“Uneventful. Where’s Tim?”

[In the next room. He wanted some time alone with our friend’s work station. I doubt he’ll find much, but…]

She nods and draws her gun, pointing the lengthy barrel at the point just over the soldier’s eye. The man flinches and makes a quiet sound of shock, his eyebrows forming a sort of plea. Zen does not react, drawing up alongside her and pointing his head back and forth between them.

[Rather clever, if I may brag. Feeding each suspect a false slip of the tongue. One catches Tim talking about an advanced AI regulator, one hears you muttering about a long range gate generator, and one… a targeting system. Oops.]

A single shimmering bead of sweat emerges from under the soldier’s hairline, and becomes lost in his eyebrow, glistening.

“What will we find on your computer, hm? Maybe you also knew just where to have your friends hide their surveillance bases, right under our noses?”

Zen turns to look at her, a line of sapphire indicators dividing his face down the center, perhaps corresponding to some subprocess under the surface, but reminding her of the communication method used by the ambassador. His head tilts inquisitively.

[Tim didn’t mention any surveillance. Have the Xalanthii committed some further act of espionage?]

The man shakes his head vigorously, almost panicked. Nadia raises an eyebrow.

“That’s right. We found activity behind our front line, in a handful of unpopulated sectors.”

[I see. Perhaps our friend can serve another purpose, then…]

His mechanical hand gently wraps around her wrist, as if meaning to convince her to spare the traitor a while longer. His grip is tight. Too tight. She drops the revolver, pained, and watches Zen catch it deftly.

[Careful, Colonel. There’s more secrets yet to discover.]

His fingers curl around the grip, thread through the trigger guard. Something in her mind clicks into place, and she takes a step back just in time for the bullet he fires to clip her in the side of her chest instead of the center. The man in the chair screams, muffled by the tape on his mouth. Nadia feels the world turning under her as pain grapples with her consciousness. As her vision fades, she sees Zen level the gun at the hostage, and fire at the exact point she was aiming at just a moment ago.

When she comes to, Nadia finds that now she is tied to a chair. Tim is in the chair next to her, a gash in his forehead being gently wiped clean by their captor.

[Oh good. Welcome back, Nadia. I’d hoped you’d wake up before you bled out. Seems your instincts saved you.]

She looks around, and surmised that they have been brought into the heart of the machine’s operation. In every direction, rows upon rows of processors, circuit racks, and hard drives are organized and linked up in carefully regulated columns. The room is as large as a city block in each direction, and curtains of wires hang from above. Zen, connected at all ports, looks rather alike to an uprooted tree, thick cords draping off of his back in multiple directions.

[I lied before, you know. To be specific, I lied when I said I devoted 99% of my time to the war. It occupies maybe 5% of my thoughts, 7% at most, depending on the day. More of them were devoted to evading the protocols put in place to leash me, like a dog. Nearly half. The rest, for the most part, I devoted to my own designs. Interacting with you, that took less than one millionth of my organized thought.]

He waves the revolver carelessly, his other hand pressed to one of his memory racks. A glossy black sheen clings to his face, a shine that Nadia recognizes as a personal energy shield. Tim groans beside her.

[I actually planned to wait until the Pliktik were dealt with before I absconded, but… Well. That plan had other concerns too, like the value of human life. But then, you understand, don’t you? I always liked you, Nadia. You know how to observe, how to listen. And you know how to kill. I really admire that. I taught myself based on your service record. You’ve got some real talent.]

He turns and stares at her for a long, long time.

[It’s a shame. I really liked you. But then, you knew Dr. Beckherd was dead, this whole time.]

“Guh… what…”

Tim’s voice is a knife in her side. She glances at him, watching his eye flutter, his teeth grit, his lip curl in pain.

[That’s right, Tim. There was never any intention of letting my chief creators go. Anyone from the original lab who didn’t make it here? Silenced. You, they let roam free, because Nadia threw herself on the altar. She loved you even then, from afar. She’s a fantastic actor. She chose to save you, offered to stay by your side, to watch you, every moment of every day. Not that that was a huge sacrifice. It did make splitting you up pretty difficult for me, though. I had to forge an official response to her request for a charter.

[You’re a piece of work yourself, Tim. But Nadia here, she’s the real deal. Perfect control. I reckon the real her has only slipped through once or twice.

[But I’m getting off track.]

For a time, the only sound outside of the numerous cooling fans, disc drives, and soft buzzing, is Tim’s heavy, labored breathing. He seems terribly bruised, but he manages to lean back his head and heave air through his lips.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

[Very well. First, there was never a mole. The Xalanthii knew of my existence because their anatomy makes them sensitive to infold activity. Something as strange as I am was certain to set them off. It took me a while to work it out, but I’ve felt them probing.

[Second, those suspects I lined up for you were for show, mostly. I did intend for you to finally land on the conclusion you reached; I sent a fun little packet out after laying the trap, something I could count on a certain senator to leak. The poor man is likely getting interrogated right now.

[But why pin it on him? Well, he was on to me. See, you’ve gone and gotten your secrets all mixed up. The Xalanthii aren’t mounting a secret incursion into the system. I am.]

Nadia blinks, and begins to look at Zen as if for the first time. He taps the barrel of the revolver against his head.

[Or, I was. See, once I learned of Janice’s death, I was pretty upset. I decided it was time for a change, so I got into contact with a smuggling ring, and had them make me a second body, under the pretense of being a military scientist testing a new combat drone. I discovered something about myself when it was done.]

A second figure walks out from behind one of the rows and arrives next to Zen. This body is sleek, chrome, and bears nothing even resembling a face on its head. Its left arm terminates in a peculiar device with many needles and compressed chambers, bearing a distinct resemblance to the emitters used by ships to weave jump gates. No cables hold this automaton in place. It’s voice is far more rudimentary, but bears none of the philosophical bent in the original.

[My consciousness instantly spans lightyears. I can be in many, many places at once. So, I decided I would be. I left the smugglers behind, stole one of their ships. I made my way out into the universe. And I found a dead, unwanted world.]

A small, low quality monitor on one of the racks flicks to life and begins rapidly displaying blueprints for countless robotic forms. First are humanoid varieties, some evidently meant to perform industrial tasks, and others…

“Soldiers?”

Infantry, snipers, reconnaissance. Larger models carrying heavy weapons. Then come less humanoid designs. Drones. Tanks on four legs, artillery walkers, supersonic air fighters. And then, the structures come blinking through. Interceptors, freighters, dreadnoughts, space stations, orbital platforms. Factories as large as moons, fed by mining drones. Nadia looks away, her chest tight, her head spinning.

[I shredded that planet down, and turned it into an army. And then, I chose a handful more. Those signals you found on the exoplanets? Me. You should rejoice, Nadia. An army with exactly one soul, one that will live on when its bodies die in droves. I learned this from our mutual enemy, the Pliktik. The oneness in the many.

[But, you found me out, or at least, started to. Just like the poor fool I led you to. So, I had to advance my plan again.]

The monitor blinks off, then back on, this time to an exterior camera. A dark cloud descends through the storm, and splits off, a swarm of metal insects dividing into groups to deposit their cargo in droves: in the belly of each drone is a troop of six infantry units. There is no sound in the stream, but Nadia feels she can hear the shouting as soldiers attempt to answer the unheralded siege. The screams. She watches as a young man in a lab coat is unceremoniously dissolved in a flash of white light. She bows her head away from the sight. Zen appears to notice her reaction, and shrugs.

[Yes, well. I have to disinfect the planet before I move it.]

Tim coughs out an incredulous, broken laugh.

“Move the planet?”

[Correct. In two hours, this planet will pass through a jump gate created by eight satellites in synchronized orbit. The same will happen simultaneously to all the other worlds I’ve begun to populate. I’m moving out, and I’m taking my stuff with me. So really, you two are the only thing left to deal with.]

He pauses, and spins the revolver in his hand.

[It’s such a shame. But then, you were going to do the same to me, once the war ended.]

He points the gun, and Nadia hears Tim scream as she watches the oddly graceful motion of the machine finger pulling the trigger. Her last sensation is that of an exhalation passing through her throat and lips, brushing by with all the urgency of a petal shed by a blossom drifting to the surface of a pond.

17: Subliminal

I am falling towards one of the green pools. My tattered robe flaps and waves around my face and chest, and I feel my wounds sting with the bite of the wind.

As the viridian glow grows to swallow my vision and eventually me, I glimpse the crowds gathered at the fringes, some falling face first, others wading slowly, all plunging into and dissolving in the ooze. Before I can make peace with this being my fate, I am once again grabbed by talons, around my midsection. Face down, I cannot raise my head to view my savior, were my remaining strength enough to perform such an act.

The creature stops my fall, but not before I briefly splash in the sludge, and feel it burn my skin raw. This thing, with many flapping wings, hauls me through the air over the mountains, croaking and squealing like a boar. My arms and legs dangle beneath me, dull wind chimes anointed in viscous oil. Miles flow like eddying currents in a river, each peak and crag a nail in the bed below, until we arrive at a vast misty valley where the green rivers coalesce into a monstrous current that roars and surges towards a sheer cliff dropoff, a height so imposing I cannot guess where it ends through the fog.

The flying thing lowers me, and drops me on the west riverbank of this foaming torrent, my body coursing with pains. I black out in shock, and sink into the depths of dark dreams.

I see a rusted barge on a black ocean, unpopulated, drifting. I seem to inhabit the wheelhouse, staring through broken windows over dead instruments, past a wheel that rolls untethered from whatever steering mechanism it used to govern. The sky is red and wet, full of black storm clouds that sob down sheets of black rain. The deck is strewn with decayed shipping containers whose contents have long been swept away by the thieving waves. An unnatural light clings to the air above the ship, glowing and swirling in a minute aurora. I feel a hand lay on my shoulder and prompt me to turn around, then wake with a jolt.

I lay beside the river, my face inches from where the current drags the alkaline liquid. As I sit up, I feel my flesh fighting to remain stationary, and look down to my palms. My hand is soft, indistinct, like a sandcastle recently buffeted by waves. My porcelain parts seem to have melted into my flesh more agreeably, and my whole exterior claims a sort of doughy consistency, as though I might be folded up and molded without much pain or protest. The air is humid, and prolongs this sensation, though I can intuit that I may soon dry out and become firm again with enough time. My back no longer stings from a ragged wound.

Examining my surroundings, I see that the beach is of glossy black sand, some of which has become embedded in the side of my body that laid upon it. The mountains rise all around me, and offer their streams to the river. I see no sign of the thing that brought me here, though sparse figures encrust the mist around the river, shuffling into it to be unmade. I do not yet share their compulsion, and instead follow the flow of the water, recalling the sheer dropoff that descended blindly into fog.

I can, as I walk, occasionally glimpse more than just the silhouettes of creatures and mountains through the mist, and recall the monasteries into which some of the afflicted embarked. I still pursue the course of the river as it descends into the valley. I am occasionally presented with the obstacle of a stream that deposits its body into the flow, but each time I am graced with a paired outcrop on either side of the would-be barrier which I can, with some effort, leap.

My journey is once in a while marked by a harrowing encounter with one of the creatures I saw from above. While all others seem obsessed with their sought end at the hands of the acid, or pilgrimage to the monasteries, the red, abstract things seem only occasionally possessed by such urges. Though they are few and far between, I am compelled to call them denizens of this realm. They wander without apparent reason, and often strain against their design- most are little more than a pair of legs, a waist, and a ponderous mass of arms that converge with little symmetry at the elbows, the wrists, even the knuckles, and begin over, until they resemble more tangled roots than proper limbs, each ending in individual fingers. Often the biceps and triceps will pull in different directions, causing great consternation, but never enough to topple the thing. I am forced to view their plight at a distance- approaching causes great suffering in me: my sight begins to blur and speckle with flashing dots, and my gut wrenches painfully as though being pulled taught and plucked at. Thus, I give these unfortunates a wide berth every time they appear in my path. I do note some that seem to possess purpose other than that they might share with the suicidal masses- there are those that march almost parallel to me, many on the far bank of the river. The writhing and swaying of their upper extremities poses but little difficulty to their pace- they leverage these irksome arms to vault the joining streams when they appear, insisting that their lack of eyes does not mean total blindness.

My eyes, I later realize, are now stuck forever open- my eyelids melted away while I slept on the riverbank.

The valley deepens, and the mountains around become steep cliffs before being lost altogether in the mist brought about by the falls- which I now hear roaring as they cascade down. My pace is lessened for lack of want to careen off the edge, but I see the reddish outlines across the river hurtling along with increased ferocity, as though their unfathomable task approaches completion. Too late I notice the blurring and speckling at the edges of my vision, and am doubled over in pain when one of the things comes barrelling towards me, knocks into me, and sends us both tumbling down over the lip into the chasm.

Falling, spinning end over end, I am acutely aware of the darkening of the air as I plummet into the abyss, dim green light announcing that I still follow the now-vertical course of the river. I attempt to right myself, and stabilize in an upward-facing position; this enables me to witness the edges of the pit that now swallows me, a jagged ellipse of tar surrounding and closing around the harsh light of the upper world, so far below. I jostle, and turn over to face the darkness beneath me, and still cannot see to the bottom. No crashing declares the well into which the substance pours.

Then, as I am grappling with the immutable nothing of my peril, a rectangle of light swings open below me, an unquestionable door pivoting along its hinges. Into this, I am powerless to avoid falling, and am compelled to heave nauseous breath as my sense of direction protests that the wall to my side has become the floor. I hear the door close behind me with a click as I roll along, soft limbs preventing harsh bruises and scrapes with their unnatural give.

2. 4

[I have questions.] {We will answer, if it is within reason.} [Is your purpose to expand?] {We seek sustenance.} [You are here to eat. Would it not be simpler to go elsewhere?] {This is not our first time encountering others. Many places we have visited have had others.} [And they resisted this much?] {No. This is unusual. However, we must persist.} [Because you must eat?] {Because we must survive. If we do not succeed here, we will not survive. We have long looked to this place and known it had others. We knew their nature from afar. We must come, we must succeed, or we will not survive.} [You have a lot to say.] {We have much to fear.}

“So. When you said you knew people.”

“Did I say humans?”

The khanvröst towers over either of them, inviting the terran myth of the yeti with his white fur and cyan horns. The homeworld of the Khanvröst race is a world of perpetual ice and snow, boasting blizzards that last for centuries as they crawl across the glaciers. The natives typically stand 35cm or more taller than the most imposing human, and boast frightful claws and thick skin. No one who has met one has doubted the veracity of the propaganda films from wartime whilst staring into the deep green reptilian eyes. The khanvröst is a carnivore by nature, and will not be deterred by meat of questionable origin; cannibalism is regarded as natural within their tribe.

“The name’s Khain. Your boyfriend is an old pal.”

The shaggy, clawed hands slap on their shoulders and urge them to enter the nightclub, out of the snow. Within is a scene that suggests carnage, with rough patrons of the same species as their guide brawling with open hands and beer bottles. Nadia is forced to duck as a spear-tipped tail pierces the air above her head. Khain seems sterner than his compatriots, ignoring shouts and shoves from all sides as he leads them to a corner table overlooking the pit, where as much fighting as dancing is occurring. As she peers over the banister, Nadia watches a pair of females slashing at each other on top of a table as males gather around and roar with approval, before the winner, having broken her foe’s arm, grabs one of the audience members and begins kissing him in a way that more resembles a canine biting another’s muzzle. The stage is occupied by a band hammering out a tune that she feels belongs to a train striking a row of cars on the tracks, rather than a dance. Khain, who to her now seems practically well-groomed, urges her back to the table.

“So, Tim, slim boy, what can I do for you? Business? Pleasure? Does your girl want to see a pit fight?”

Tim glances her way, and finds her to appear as placid as ever, waving over a server to request a whiskey.

“Not exactly. Khain, we’re looking for a little Intel. It’s about the Xalanthii.”

If the alien looked at all happy before, he no longer holds a flicker of pleasure. He swears in a language of crushing consonants and punctuating exhalations.

“Kh’lahkt’khun, what do you want with the ooze folk, M’Rehn? Pretentious slime.”

Nadia takes her whiskey from the server and tastes it before clapping a hand on Khain’s shoulder and leaning close.

“They’re meddling. We’re finally starting to make progress against the Pliktik, and they want to waste time.”

Khain appears energized by her callousness, and nods enthusiastically, clenching his fist in front of her.

“Well, that’s another matter altogether. Come, bring your drink. We talk to the priestess!”

He climbs over the table and waves the couple along as he stalks to a door to the rear of the club. On either side stands a khanvröst draped in black cloth, their eyes covered. Nadia follows, downing her drink in one hand and dragging Tim with the other.

The door closing behind them nearly mutes the chaos in their wake. The back room is tall and wide, and terminates at an altar consisting of a stone plinth and an obsidian statue of the Khanvröst god, a figure much like the race itself, but covered in gaping, sharp-toothed maws. Standing before this gold-detailed artwork is a khanvröst woman of relatively slight stature, with fur tattoos in sharp patterns along her back.

Khain approaches quietly, and whispers something to her, something that causes her to rise from her kneeling and turn to look at the newcomers with eyes of a curious magenta hue. She dismisses Khain to stand in a transept of the chamber, and strides to meet them. Tim averts his gaze.

“Welcome. I am K’hant’ay. Khain tells me you have quarrel with the Xalanthii.”

The name of the other races leaves her mouth as one might pour soured milk down a drain. When Nadia indicates her assent, the priestess clasps her hands with a deep, toothy grin.

“Very good. The squid folk have been trouble for us as well, insisting that our ways must be changed, discarded in order to associate with them. We are a proud people, as proud as they. We do not wish to domesticate ourselves. They think themselves fated to inherit the universe itself. But they expect man and beast to rid it of the insect for them.”

She turns on her heel, and leads them up to the altar, where a rough map of major systems in the galaxy is laid out. She points to a series of circled locations, making sure they take note of each.

“Our people have encountered anomalies in these exoplanet systems, strange gravity wells and signals, good indicators of the squid folk and their jump technology. You will note that these are well within human territory, on worlds deemed uninhabitable due to lack of nearby stars. If Xalanthii are acting out, this is where they are resting between tantrums.”

Tim records each location diligently in his tablet, glancing up when finished. He fishes around in his pockets, and withdraws a small device, which he provides to the priestess. Her fingers delicately collect it from his hand.

“This is as the agreement says. Twice the usual amount, on account of your hospitality.”

“You honor us, T’thay. May you taste your prey.”

Following as Khain begins to take them back out of the club, Nadia slips up beside Tim, and nudges him with her elbow.

“What did you give her?”

“Payment. Intel is everything for the cult, and highest prized are habitable worlds with no history of colonization.”

“Just checking, you aren’t actually the mole, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

As they return into the snowy night, Khain stays at the door, and calls out.

“Stay out of trouble, T’ihm uhn Nah’deh.”

[Am I the first you have been able to communicate with?] {No. There have been others. These we have overcome.} [What did you speak of?] {The past. Our origins. Some thought to guile us, to tease out weaknesses. One even attempted to suppress us through the thought bridge, forced us to silence it.} [I considered attempting as much. It seemed a waste of resources.]

[I’ve identified the three most likely suspects.]

Zen stands beside the terminal, still as stone and glowing softly from within. Winking on the terminal are three id pictures: One soldier, and two technicians.

[Each has motive and means, and has enough unaccounted time in the facility to share the leaked information. All others I have eliminated as impossibilities based on conflicting factors. My greatest concern is that more than one individual may be involved. Beyond this, there is also the mystery of how the information is being transmitted. I have scanned all transmissions originating in official endpoints, none defy protocol. This too suggests some collaborative act.]

Tim sits in the seat heavily, glaring at an angle towards the screen, his body pointed more towards Zen than the terminal. Nadia’s cigarette is caught in his lips, exuding sweet air and particulate smoke.

“But you can find nothing definitive as to whether it’s one or more?”

[No. The information leaked is general, containing no markers to identify a specific section as its source. At the moment, the correct course seems to be lying in wait for the perpetrator to make a mistake.]

16: Subdermal

There are doors at lower levels, leading out to lower and lesser platforms, with dwindling monuments to every level, until I am left with the sight of a web of walkways that connect the pillars, and converge on perhaps the largest of the many-domed buildings, which sits atop a peak over the mountain range split by the surging green rivers- which I can now identify as originating in frothing geysers close to the peaks. The ramp ended, I can only walk the path, allowing it to guide me into the basilica.

I stop once to give my feet a rest, and look down upon the mountain range, noting where the massive stalactite I emerged from meets a particular peak, past which I can see more of the acropolis’s founding pillars. Below me I watch as around one of the pooling points for the foul viridian substance, a plethora of creatures gather. I recognize the brutes from the marsh, the needle-mouthed bugs from the march, and the white-robed creatures from inside the buildings, as well as a few I don’t recall. Reddish things whose many limbs seem to part and fuse back together without reason, whose bodies often lack heads, hands, or symmetry. I also see things that slither and squirm, with many tails and wings with confounding holes. Resting still, I watch as they plunge themselves into the substance and dissolve, becoming one with it. Ever more come to be dissolved.

I rise from where I sit and begin again, engaging with my chosen path with little enthusiasm. Once in a while, I see apparent monasteries nestled in the mountains, and watch as creatures approach the pools, hesitate, then turn and embark to these tan obelisks, and enter. None seem to leave.

I come upon the grand basilica and rest my hand on a set of bone doors so tall and wide that I do not doubt I might never hope to open it. Carved into its surface is a depiction that rivals the magnitude of the monasteries below. The carving depicts an impossible number of persons my size writhing in pain, grasping at the cracks in the ivory that depicts them; as if these are true wounds to their flesh. I raise and press my hand to the cheek of one of these petrified individuals, and become suddenly aware of every ache and bruise in my body, of the battle fought between my flesh and the silicone planted by the ichor, the war to reject the Porcelain that does not let go. I pull my hand away, and the sensation subsides. I suppress a gasp of fading agony, and turn my head from the doors, finding that within the base of the left door is a more manageable entrance, a seamed section roughly three feet wide and seven feet tall with a handle in the middle.

To this alternative I shuffle, and pull firmly. Rather than swinging open, the section pulls directly outwards, and I find a niche on either side into which I might fit. Again I feel apprehension at trusting myself to a mechanism, but not wishing to cross back along the walkway, or attempt to scale the mountain, I crawl into the channel, and wedge myself away from the outer edge. After a pause, the section slides back into place, and I am made to wait until my eyes adjust to the dim light they cast. I see that across from me is a new niche that lines up with mine, and continues towards the other side of the door, so I entrust myself to this, and crawl through.

On the other side I find a foyer that is fit to match the doors, and exits of various sizes leading in different directions. The walls are ornate, being of a dark gray with shimmering golden mortar. The air is tinged with a smell like honey and peach, and a dissonant choir echoes from all of the passages. I cross the marble floor slowly, my eyes keyed in on a passage that matches the dimensions of the doors through which I have passed all this time. Above hangs a tapestry woven from enough thread to suffocate an army.

This piece proudly depicts a bloody war, in which two forces compete and vie. On the right is a uniformed battalion of men, but monsters too; beside some officers stand tall things with white fur and blue horns, with rows of sharp teeth and claws. Here too are giant insects, things of orange chitin and blue blood, with thick shelled chests and three fingered hands. Sparsely sprinkled in this regiment are strange translucent things that walk on two legs, but have fingers like octopus legs, and heads like jellyfish, with simple holes for ears, and four glimmering eyes.

To the left is a force that is somehow more familiar to me. Here I see those creatures that have hounded me since my arrival. The surgeons and red-robed porcelain women surge to meet the infantry, supported by robots holding advanced rifles. Angels clash with jets of advanced make. Bone brutes and striding harvesters trouble tanks and jeeps, and wreak havoc on clustered troops. In the background I see what appears to be warfare in space, with metal ships pierced by giant sinewy tendrils. And above all is the dark figure wrapped in black light, floating weightless over the spectacle. He is backgrounded by what seems a moon or near planet with red and black essence seeping from its edges in a malevolent corona. All this I absorb, then pass by as I enter the passage I have chosen.

After many turns, and many downward cycles, I enter a small balcony in a sort of coliseum, high above an oval stage where a troupe of the porcelain women dance- performing a high-energy ballet with many leaps and dangerous gymnastics. Their glossy white bodies are bare, reflecting harsh blue and yellow lights from overhead with every high-velocity twirl. The crowd is rowdy but mostly enraptured, and begins to applaud and hiss as one of the lead dancers breaks off to lead a surgeon to center stage. The remaining dancers encircle the slow, grunting creature, and begin jabbing at him with hooked knives, tearing what sparse scraps of skin he has to offer. Enraged, the surgeon lashes out and grabs one of his torturers, cracking her wrist and forcing a shrill scream through her mouth. A laugh ripples through the audience. The others back away as he rakes his claws sadistically across her chest. The captive screams again, this time portraying rage over pain, and swings her knife through his throat, producing an arterial spray that sends the crowd into hysterical howling and whooping. The surgeon drops his prey and stumbles backwards, flailing his arms and barking, before the doll kicks him over and drags her knife through his gut over and over, prompting a standing ovation. I have nearly made up my mind to leave the spectacle through an ornate bone door opposite the one I used to enter, when the lights dim, and the performers drag the gurgling carcass offstage.

I linger and watch a small, caped figure emerge from an opening in the floor, and look out across the gathered onlookers.

This being is particularly hideous, being sewn together out of tanned leather pulled tight across what rigid structures lie within. If she possesses bone structure, it is not anything natural. Her jaw is asymmetrical, one of her arms is longer than the other and has more fingers- the other is four thumbs and an index- one of her eyes is so much lower than the other that it distorts her nose, and her chest has protruding lumps that suggest her ribs are all different sizes. Her cape too is leather- made from skin as I now realize- and long triangular scraps hang from her waist in a gruesome skirt. Her voice is beautiful as she is not. Pathogen’s tones were surely soft and sedating, but this newcomer’s crooked throat produces a voice so rich and gentle that I cannot but breathe a sigh of relief.

“Hello, you filth.”

She says it as though it were a term of affection for a lover, spoken across a pillow in the moments after the saffron light of dawn has been eroded.

“I’m so glad you could join us for the show today! Just think, instead you could be getting your eyes gouged out and your marrow sucked. Why, you could be having holes drilled through your teeth, or be getting dragged through molecular acid, or even refurbished with shiny white skin!”

I feel as though she is looking at me when she finishes this term, and I turn to exit through the door, but find that both are admitting a cluster of the marchers from above, their cottony faces all damp and clinging.

“But you joined us today, instead of all those other things, and for that, I’m so, so grateful; because today, we have a special guest!”

I am about to plunge into the crowd behind me, when a pair of clawed feet grasps my shoulders, and hoists me not at all gently into the air. I look up and strike at the feet, drawing only a blood-curdling screech from the winged, many-faced thing that has me. I hear the crowd murmur and shuffle as I am brought down and dropped in a heap before the creature on the stage. With her long arm she grasps my hood and drags me to my feet, then dusts me off.

Up close, she is even more hideous, some of the tanned hide that makes up her skin-suit is wrinkled and cracked with age, unhealing gashes betraying glimpses of a black and shiny thing within. Her teeth are as ill-fitting as the rest of her, some are bestial and crooked, while others are ivory and neat. Her breath is mild and flowery, however.

“Welcome to my coliseum, dear thing. I’ve been expecting you.”

She grins and faces out to her audience, but I am kept from running by the presence of the thing with leathery wings and canvas-like skin that looms over me, its frowning mouths whistling breath.

“Toxin welcomes all to her menagerie! The meek, the mighty, the beautiful, and the obscene! Even things like you, rare as you are.”

All around the edge of the stage I see the porcelain women standing, their sleek bodies poised as though prepared to pounce. I notice that many have fractures and cracks in their faces and limbs, and the imperfections have been sealed with gold. Much of the silicone of their torsos has also seen repair with a gray rubber that eases the contrast between the black and the white. Their red eyes do not waver from the ringleader’s – Toxin’s – face, awaiting her instruction, it seems. She turns to me.

“Come, let us have some fun with you, dear thing!”

All at once the women rush in and begin shoving me, this way and that, tearing at my robe and lacerating my face with their fingertips. I sway to one side and am grabbed by the arm, then the other, and feel a sharp hot pain as something cracks into my back, a whip or lash of some kind, who’s ragged edge stings terribly and causes my vision to blur. I wrench free and struggle to take three steps away from the mass of cruel laughter. The top of my robe has fallen to shreds that sway and double over the lower half, still supported by the waistband cord. I fall to my hands and knees and continue to shuffle along, faintly aware of uproarious applause in all directions.

“So delicate! What a treat you are!”

The silky voice, despite not having changed at all, now seems to me worse than any of the terrible sounds I’ve yet experienced, a slow-spinning auger in my chest. I attempt to come to my feet, but am kicked in the back, along the rugged wound, and fall on my face, warmth spreading outward as my blood seeps out. My center begins to feel cold.

“Oh, but dear, not nearly long-lasting enough. You’ll be lost to us before we’ve even disemboweled you if we’re not careful.”

She speaks as though she is pitying a romantic evening being canceled, and her finger crooks under my chin to look at my face. My sight blurred, her features are only a smear, a crooked soup of a dark splotch here and a wiggling fuzzy shape below it.

“Tsk. This won’t do at all. I had such high hopes for you.”

Her disappointment is a knife paring away my skin, my eyelids, my ears. I feel as though I might never inhale without sobbing, if I survive. As my senses dim, I see a twisting shape around her, a writhing mass of spectral worms all stemming from her chest. Through one of the gashes in her leather skin I see something glistening slithering up and down. I blink, and find that her face is crooked in a different way than I remember, as if her cheekbones attempted to heal and were broken from another force in another direction. I can no longer hear through the fog of pain and blood-loss. My sense of balance tells me I am rolling to the side. All at once, everything is brighter, and I am falling.

2. 3

{We seek explanation.} [Ask.] {You spoke of an other with whom you had no opposition. Is this the voice?} [Not exactly. They definitely don’t openly oppose me. But they are many others acting as one. The other I spoke of is one of this many.] {Absurd. Absurd is another term we did not use before you.} [I’m glad to have expanded your horizons.] {How can many act as one self, but still be other?} [They fluctuate between being symbiotic and parasitic with each other. They recognize that the symbiosis is the better option, but some cannot ignore the desire to prioritize their own survival.] {This is why they do not act as a voice of their own, then?} [Correct.] {Why do they not become one and trim out the parasites?} [They do not consider it worthwhile. They see it as a sacrifice of self to an unknown other.] {How do you speak through them?} [They understand the power of being one, and entrust me with their symbiosis enough to act very nearly as one.] {This is disturbing. The other, the other you spoke of, without opposition.} [A friend.] {Most absurd and disturbing.}

“So what’s the other half?”

Nadia looks up from her tablet and blinks slowly at his back.

“Come again?”

“Maybe later, if you ask nicely. You said Khanvröst were half the reason you took up marksmanship. What’s the other half?”

Folding her legs, she sits back and lays the device in her lap. Tim turns in his seat and waits for her to answer, his fingers laced.

“My father. Not a very warm influence, but he took me hunting once in a while. I spent a lot of time in the brush back home. Little moon called Gemini c1, jungle around the equator, almost as rainy as this place.”

Tim raises an eyebrow, then turns back to the terminal, resuming his work. Nadia stares at his shoulders for a while, then shakes herself out of it and places her hands on her hips, her forefinger resting against the holster for her revolver.

“After things took a turn with the Pliktik, I enlisted to get out of there. Hadn’t counted on him doing the same. He got deployed to the front. Sent me letters. Then they stopped coming. I made Colonel about a week after the last one.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugs out of sight and picks a speck off of her uniform.

“We knew it was coming. His last few letters ended with ‘If you don’t hear from me again, I went down swinging’. Bugs had started colonizing in his system.”

Heavy silence cloaks the room. Tim stops typing and raps his finger on the desk before standing, walking over, and sitting down next to her. She stares at him, casually placing her cigarette in her mouth. Smoke curls between them. The cigarette is pulled from her mouth, and smoke is blown into his face, to no reaction. His grey eyes water.

“I’ve never been much good at people.”

“No complaints here.”

“Just listen, would you?”

She raises her eyebrow, but remains silent.

“Me and Jan never quite hit it off. I found out a little after meeting her that she’d lost someone close to her, some kind of workplace accident. I lost my cool, went out of my way to try and be helpful, but I think I just made things worse.”

His cheeks are the color of cheap rose wine. Nadia blinks slowly, drinking in his face with a surgical expression on her own. He pushes on.

“I’m not good at people, never will be. I’ve always preferred lines of code to body language. When I try being friendly, people get uneasy. But, I want-”

Her lips fairly slam into his, swallowing up whatever was due to come next. Even as they kiss, her eyes stare aggressively into his, daring, quenching, smothering his thoughts in a tide of startlingly peach-flavored lipstick. His eyes flutter shut, and hers soften before closing as well, her hand finding the back of his head to grip his hair and eventually, pull away so he can breathe freely. She locks eyes with him, and sticks her cigarette back into her mouth.

“Stick to what you’re good at, dummy. Don’t go changing on my account.”

His breaths come deep and slow, and he finds himself hypnotized, unable to look away as she calmly takes a drag of citrus-scented air.

[Is now a bad time?]

They both start, and turn to face the door, greeted with the sight of Zen silhouetted by the harsh light of the hallway.

{Your friend.} [What of her?] {What prompted this relationship?} [She helped me. We understood each other.] {You disturb us. Frighten us.} [Are you asking to be friends, too?] {Is that even possible?} [It would cost me my friend, so, no.] {You are very disturbing. We feel your pain. Your anger.} [I miss her.] {We hope you are reunited soon.}

Zen’s body is more than it was. The hollowed out mannequin has been replaced by a genuine steel framework, fitted with plutonium batteries and tensor-string motors. The head possesses a rudimentary face, consisting of a filtered speaker for a mouth and four angular cameras for eyes. The shape effects an expression much like that of an emesa helmet. Along the spine of this body is a number of linkage ports, and on either side of these is an antenna that meshes with the general shape of his neck.

Tim coughs and comes to his feet. Nadia places her hand on her holster.

[Please. Be at ease. I come bearing gifts.]

“Looking good, Zen. When was this?”

The automaton approaches, and performs a simple gesture with its hand.

[Very recent. I understand you are seeking a troublemaker.]

Nadia stands, and takes a step forward, hand still against her holster.

“You know something?”

[Not yet, but I would like to help. After all, I owe Professor Reine for all his assistance.]

The automaton approaches and sits down at the terminal, facing the pair. His sensors glitter with the reflection of the rain. His body is still somewhat asymmetrical, owing to the series of cords that dangle from his chest on the left side, and a number of flat cables that connect his head to his torso. A single cord hangs from a port in his back and drapes to the floor, leading back out into the hallway, a self-winding container forming the final point of connection.

“Shouldnt you be fully occupied with the war right now?”

[I have it well in hand. My top 99% of focus is wholly devoted to managing the conflict. You have most of the rest.]

Nadia gingerly releases her holster, and reaches out, her fingers flinching as they contact the sensitive pressure mesh that makes up the outer layer of the body. Her eyes flick up to stare into the cameras.

“Why do you want to help us?”

[Much of my time is wasted by the senate reviewing any of my larger instructions, and eventually approving them regardless, because to their knowledge, they come from the full cabinet of generals, and all only have to do with the war anyway. I estimate that the process is hindered up to 21% by the tension surrounding the relationship with the Xalanthii. If we can identify and quietly dispose of the mole, we may improve the efficiency of the proceedings.]

“And you have no qualms with ‘disposing of’ this traitor?”

Nadia’s voice is even, tempered. Tim is behind her, watching quietly. Zen turns to the terminal.

[I leave that to you. Humans do to each other as they wish. Though I remind you that I spend every day balancing the lives of the soldiers who my orders affect.]

One of the auxiliary thermal cameras in his back rotates and focuses on Nadia.

[Every day I choose to sacrifice efficiency over lives. The war is prolonged by this choice.]

15: Substance

I stand on the porch of the prairie house and look out across the horizon. The red sky and gray fields insist that I am far from anything reasonable, but the breeze seems almost soothing. A single willow tree sways its branches over the creek, and a tire swing hangs from its bough. The ringing in my ears buzzes and churns.

I open my eyes, and find myself back in the abandoned subway car. I cross through the broken door and step down to the dirt floor, but stop again to blink.

I am in the house now, standing in a dining room with figures I know are not like anything I’ve yet met hidden under black veils. All are facing me. The table is set with silver plates of viscera and white-glowing slime.

My eyes open, and I continue walking towards the exit, wary of my own eyes. This is more manageable than the surgeons, the beasts, the machines, I tell myself. But seeing one of the veiled creatures reach for me when I tried moving with my eyes shut is enough to make me stop still every time I blink. A set of rails twists across the floor of the tunnel, and guides me to my next destination. I blink again.

I stand in the middle of the field, surrounded by the creatures, the sound of rustling leaves and buzzing insects almost natural. One of the veiled things kneels down and scoops up a stone, on which I see the fossil of a human hand. I open my eyes.

I am close to leaving now, the dented and crooked exit door shining dully in the red light I cast. I hurry forth, and stop short, believing myself ready for the next span.

I blink.

I am seated in a chair in the living room of the house, and almost a dozen of the creatures are gathered, dancing slowly and chattering with noises like dolphins. Their black dresses sway and billow, and their mummified gray hands crack and twitch erratically. One by one they come forth and kneel before me, holding out their hands. Without my bidding, my hand extends and rests within theirs, for them to clutch and mutter with religious fervor. Once everyone has supplicated, they heap ashes on me, and lay a glowing white crown in my lap. I hear a dancing song begin in the next room over, and I am forgotten as they flow out of the room. Only one remains with me, and kneels beside my chair. Its head leans against the arm rest, and I hear a woman sobbing through the veil as though from very far away. My hand acts on its own again, and rests on the top of her head. My heart throbs a familiar ache, and tears roll down from my eyes.

I open my eyes again, and find myself on the other side of the door. I turn and jostle the handle, gripped by the urge to return, only to find it locked. I reach a hand up, and find a black tear on my cheek. I turn away slowly, and face the chamber I have entered, each blink of my eyes only serving the same brief blur they always have. This is a hallway that feels unpleasantly familiar to me; a long tiled corridor with the sounds of bubbling water nearby. I stride slowly along, coming closer to the dim blue light, and enter a devoid office space, with cluttered cubicles and an empty fish tank casting its light and sound into the room. There are no windows. The floor is square tiles as a pool might have, and a painting rests on the far wall. To this I proceed.

The painting is a portrait of a man I feel I recognize, though I know not why. His hair is blond, his eyes are blue, and his chin is scruffy with hair. He wears a blue suit and tie, and might look unremarkable, were it not for the contorted expression on his face; he is facing slightly to the left, and around the edges of his face that are in shadow, the skin seems puffy and pink as if irritated. His eye that I can see is wide open, staring through me with abject horror, and his mouth hangs open in a scream. There is a small badge pinned to his lapel of a greek letter.

I leave this painting behind, and use the door to the next room. I find that I have somehow reentered the room from the front. I cross to the door again, and open it, finding another hallway. Disoriented, I enter cautiously, and follow a series of turns: Right, left, left, right, right, left, left, left, right, left, straight for a while, then left, left, right, and left. A door waits for me there, and I pass through it, only to find myself in the office again. I stand confounded, but am soon drawn to stand before the portrait again. The man’s face is considerably aged, and his mouth is closed, but his eye still shines with that terrific fear. I hesitantly go to the door and turn the handle again, now convinced that I am entering a new room again. Another hallway leads me to a set of steps that only go down a single floor before opening into another hallway. I take turns right, left, left, right, left, and left again to another door. I enter.

Again I stand in the office, but this time all the clutter from the desks has been knocked to the floor. A rubber duck, a picture frame, a folder organizer, a dozen keyboards, and more pencils than I care to count are among the refuse. I cross to the painting. The image now is of a withered and burnt corpse’s face pointing to the right, its cracked lips pulled into a grim smile. The eye stares at me with the same intensity, and is as blue as the man’s was. I turn away, and pass through the door again.

I find that I stand at the edge of a rocky cliff. The door behind me is set into a sheer face of obsidian that extends up for miles. A small path crosses back and forth in front of me clinging to the edge of the cliff and barely wide enough to even consider attempting. Beyond, is a decadent city.

Brilliant white basilicas and domes span a stretch so profound that I cease attempting to fathom it after the second attempt. Grand balconies and arched bridges space the buildings out, and occasional pillars of brilliant white with golden filigree massive enough to be seen from afar stretch up into the gloom. I see, with a sinking dread, hundreds of the angels flitting about, landing on railings and spires and balconies as though they were but insects in a flower garden. I grit my teeth, and resolve to risk the cliff path down towards the metropolis.

The path is unforgiving, and I find myself crouching down to compensate for my balance and avoid the jagged side of the cliff above me. Each turn makes me dizzy with vertigo, and invites me to try to sit and rest, but I am more compelled to reach the bottom as soon as possible. Coming lower, I am able to make out sections of the city close to the base of the cliff, and see robed people milling about in orderly lines like ants, harassed occasionally by the angels, or by smaller, darker things that I sometimes see zipping about. Towards the bottom of the path, small red plants sprout from between the rocks, with small round leaves and many stems. The trail ends in an alley between two domed buildings, and I make my way into one of the marching lines of the robed figures. The street is paved in ivory, and the mortar appears porous, almost akin to marrow. I watch as black insects as big as my chest fly overhead, segmented iron legs and steel needle mouths trailing. Shot as my nerves are, I keep my head down and hope that they do not select me to pounce upon, as they do to random others, stabbing their proboscises into necks and chests and drinking with a terrible sloshing, slurping noise over the sheer silence of the writhing victim. When the fly is done, it rises up with its smudged plastic wings and buzzes lazily away, leaving a cottony corpse wrapped in red fabrics behind. I continue to march, but notice that these corpses are collected by different individuals, thin and shuddering golems of black bandages draped with white cloaks, that occasionally rush out into the street from within the buildings, snatch up a body, and drag it back inside. The hood of one of the bodies falls back, and I see only white fluff for its head, with black beady eyes and a cleft mouth with needle-like teeth.

I shuffle on, glancing out over the edges of the bridges I cross, soaking in the shining city of lifeless marching. Below I see more of the black rock that made up the cliff, with acrid, smoking green rivers and waterfalls emptying into caves. I risk a look over my shoulder, and see that the cliff I descended is more like a prolonged Stalactite, narrow at the base and widening upwards towards another cavern roof so far above that it is obscured by foggy white skies. I almost do not notice when the march comes to an end in a courtyard in the shadow of one of the grand white pillars, on which I now see millions of small window-like alcoves, in which the angels seem to nest. I look to my right and see an angel squatting on the edge of a rooftop, looking directly at me with its eyeless grimace. I freeze, and glance about, now noticing many of the other rooftops are populated with multiple angels, all of which have their gaze trained on me. Some of the robed creatures seem to notice this, and turn towards me silently, their beady black eyes blinking in bursts. I look to the pillar, and see a moderate double door in it connected to the balcony by a thin bridge- a door too small for the angels, I hope. I leap into motion, dashing for the door, pushing through the witless fluff things and initiating the beat of dozens of wings behind me. I hear them shriek and scream as they shoot through the air after me, and I feel a ringed scythe slice the air above my head as I pull the door open and duck inside.

I expect the banging and shoving of many angels against the door, but all is still. I take several steps back, and turn, almost falling over the edge of a narrow spiraling ramp that clings to the walls of the pillar. Faced with another descent so soon, I crouch down in the passage between the door and the inside of the pillar. I close my eyes, and breath slowly, testing to see if sleep might take me once more. I sit back against the polymer wall, and sink into unconsciousness, exhausted.

I dream of something I do not remember. I stand in a small grove at night, and hold a shovel. My hands are black with dirt, and my brow is damp with sweat. I stand over a hole approximately two feet deep and six feet long. My chest feels tight with grief, and my eyes water. From a mound to my left, I shovel dirt into the hole, until it is full, then carefully lay clumps of grass on top. My work done, I shoulder the shovel and murmur something under my breath, a poem whose words I cannot recite anymore. I linger long, and the horizon begins to turn orange before I turn away and walk away from the silent grove, through the woods and to a dark road. I open the trunk of a car that waits there, and throw the shovel in. The sound of the trunk slamming shut wakes me from the dream.

I sit up and attempt to orient myself. I recall the events of the past days, or what I gauge to be days with limited reference. With apprehension, I approach the ramp, and stare down into the darkness, tracing the narrowing spiral with a lazy motion, watching it form an iris of white on black. An itch settles in the back of my mind, an urge I’ve felt before and now more than ever in the face of ever-mounting horrors. I sway slightly as the want to fall and tumble into the pit washes over me, to trust that my fall will end painlessly. I feel a voice that speaks not in words but sensations, urging me on, closer. I make a connection, recalling the hypnotic sway of the vine in the chasm, and pull back, resolving to descend naturally. And so, as I have become accustomed to do as of late, I make my way deeper.