The three man fellowship walked through the southern opening of the great Clearing; the closest entrance to what the Guardians of the Green had named the “Sanctified Pyre” where Gru Noblemind was cremated upon his death 300 years ago. Today the pyre still burned as an everlasting flame. Black petaled flowers with purple irises floated in the air high above the pyre. It was surrounded by 10’ free standing walls. Pilgrims following the way of the Green would come and burn offerings in the pyre and meditate near the off-white walls that were each positioned around the pyre around 15 feet away.

  The Keepers, as Gloria called them, would wear long robes made of linen, cotton, or wool depending on season. The materials were offerings made by the plantations in the south and the sheep farmers in the north, where the Greenies would ask the Forest for a blessing of those donors entire region in return. This resulted, purely by the ramifications of human nature, in the full cooperation of each region who wanted a blessing; otherwise neighbors not contributing would be considered free loaders by their local community.

  Chen thought that locating a Greenie promised to be a difficult task as everyone at the pyre seemed to wear the same white gowns. To his chagrin however, Gloria was able to walk right up to a man tending the pyre’s surrounding garden, say something into his ear, and have him leave toward a small temple located just between the pyre and the Bazaar to get a Greenie.

  Before Gloria had interrupted him, the man was dropping what seemed like a cup of manure out of a heavy fabric bag unto the green garden that encircled the shrine. As Chen walked by the gardens he saw the bag cast to the side where the man was. He could not see or smell any of the manure the man had dropped; only the green grass remained with large budding flowers atop it. Gloria walked over to the large bag, held her breath while pushing her hand in and pulled out a large cup of the mixture to which she than dropped onto the flower bed.

  The manure dropped in chunks onto the dirt, hitting the plants and the grass in no particular order. As soon as the it settled to the ground the grass seemed to absorb it into itself. The budding flowers seemed to turn over with the weight, allowing it to fall and be absorbed by the grass. Gloria placed her hands together as if in prayer and moved on, walking out of the Pyre area into the Bazaar proper. Chen saw Joya, following behind her, also nod his head and place his hands in a quick prayer motion which Chen almost missed.

  “Joya, which religion do you follow any way?”, Chen asked as a way to pass the time.

  “Me? I do be with whichever works fer me at the moment Chen” he said with a small grin on his face. “And you, what be your flavor?”

  Chen shrugged his shoulders and said “Not really a religion I guess but more of this idea of positive and negative — the gods of the land will take care of the rest based on your actions”

  “Hmm, sounds like these Greenies could be cha pot of Earl” he said followed by a small chuckle as he continued “although me thinks a dress may not be suiting for a man of cha height”.

  “It’s a ceremonial gown, and it’s for formal worship only” Gloria said as she spun around and walked backwards talking to them. “ and mind your tongues before you say something I can’t get you out of” the small elf said.

  “Tis ok with me Glory, I’m sure Chen here could make a show of any that does stand up to him” Joya said with a smirk on his face. Gloria turned around and hoped that it wouldn’t resort to that at all; but the Bazaar was a wild place at times even with the guardianship of the Forest behind it’s civility.

  The three of them made there way through the Bazaar with Joya trekking behind the two pulling the hover cart along. People made a short time of staring at the trio as they passed along the many stalls of the shops. The crowds of people moved like an ocean with waves of shoppers stretching from one side of the wide road to the other.

  Avenues of people intersected the Bazaar making the location of any one merchant difficult to locate in the sea of people. Some were dressed in their finest cottons and linens, as the humidity of the forest still found its way into the Clearing. Others were dressed in clothes that hadn’t seen repair or cleansed in months.

  Chen felt a tugging at his right side and grabbed a wrist that was trying to cut the pockets of his pack. Thankfully the smart material was resistant to being cut with mere blades, regardless of how sharp they were.

  Chen looked down at the small child about 12 years old who looked up with pleading eyes. Chen didn’t know it at the time but the penalty for such behavior in the Clearing was death by impalement, executed by the Forest itself. The Forest was an impartial sheriff, judge and executioner when it seemed inclined to act.

  “Thief.? Hazard.? Gru.? Exterminate.” The voice said in Chen’s head as a large vine broke through the ground started for the boy. The young urchin crouched in response, fear short circuiting his will to run, as well as Chens tight hold of his wrist.

  “No! Wait!” Chen screamed out aloud at the vine which stopped in mid air where it was currently aiming to spear the boy. As the vine had made its move people had scattered forming a small circle around Chen and the boy.

  Some of the people had looks of concern on their face but others seemed to harbor the the joy of watching a blood sport as they watched the scene unfold.

  This type of action by the Forest was rare, and used more as an object lesson to be regulated to rumor and tales. As such everyone knew by now what it meant when the “vine pointed at you".

  But this time the vine stopped mid-air at the urging of a stranger.

  “He’s just a hungry child” he yelled to the crowd in general.

  “Hazard.? Exterminate.? Example.?” The voice said in a perplexed way.

  “He actually didn’t take anything, did he? Leniency — this one time” he said for the crowd to hear him more than the Forest.

  “Leniency.? Once. Gru.” said the voice disappointedly. The mid-air vine than receded into the ground leaving only displaced dirt in it’s wake.

  On the outskirts of the crowd, that had gotten even heavier since the spectacle had started, five of the Guardians of the Green in hooded green linen shirts and light brown leather vest stood watching the exchange. The man Gloria had sent off earlier was with them as well.

  Gloria who had watched the exchange herself with the same awe as the rest of the crowd, was only too aware of who Chen was talking to. She turned and walked toward the group of Greenies reaching the tallest one in the middle and hugged him in a friendly, if not too friendly embrace. Joya harrumphed in a loud overt way which actually made Gloria back off a bit.

  Joya was the first to move as he looked over and said “I’ll be in the Inn than — sorting this bounty if cha remember since that's what we be here for; cha know, as to what we will be keeping and selling. Gloria, the Lashes — do we be wanting to sell them still me dear?”

  “Um yes, same as before, sell them as a first aid solution” she said.

  Chen reached out to Joya with his arm and said “Joya, could you hold on to a couple of them for me. I’d like to have backups just in case” feeling an odd sense of irony he said “I can pay you later.” Chen said, with a slight look of asking a favor.

  “Aye, I guess that be a smart thing for a man in cha position.” Joya said as he pulled the cart away further down the avenue dispersing the remaining gawkers. “Ha, we can even give cha a discount fer the one cha already using” he could be heard saying as he disappeared into the crowd.

  Gloria rolled her eyes, and said “Chen come here and meet my friends”.

  Chen walked up to Gloria and her Greenie friends. The child still in Chen's possession looked up at the tall men who all had weapons and gave a small pathetic smile. Crowds of people had begun to get on their way, going around the group with an occasional side glance.

  “This is Moxley, the one I told you about, he’s in charge of the Guardians of the Green. Moxley” she said turning to the large man “this is Chen he is...“

  “The man who just had a full conversation with the Forest” Moxley said in a thoughtful tone and bowed deeply from his waist, followed by the other 5 men

  Of Gods and Whispers

  Moxley had taken the group back toward the pyre where the Temple of the Green was located. It was a small one floor building built of wood and mud, and it reminded him very much of the wildling house so long ago. As he entered he expected the typical layout of some seating maybe a table and possibly a basin of water to wash his face, hands, and feet from their long travels. However, when he entered the front alcove of the building he saw small stools with fabric tops on either side a large staircase the went down into the ground. Greenies sat atop each stool silent in prayer, with their feet in a large basin of dirt. Vines came through the ground and into each basin. Chen hoped they only they touched the persons foot.

  "Moxley, I wonder if the Guardians can make a recruit of this young fellow. as the Forest has seen fit to let him live in it's service" Chen said "maybe he can help these, umm, folk in their duties".

  “These are our Reapers. They communicate the needs of the people to the Forest. The vines are needed to be touched for them to communicate with the Almighty Green.” Moxley said as he saw Chen inspecting the pots and continued “I think we can find a place for the boy". He waved his hand and one of the men he was with grabbed the boy and took him out a side door. Moxley continued to say "We shall go into our private quarters below and discuss how you speak so effortlessly to the Forest, something only the most devout of us can do, and even then not quite the same”.

  The lower chambers looked and felt more like the common room of an Inn. Alcoves at the outer reaches of the large room held tables for 6, three on each side, with large cushioned seats to sit on. Smaller tables for parties of up to four people stood in the middle of the room. The left side of the room a large bar stood where a small man in a light green jerkin tended behind the bar. He had light eyes, a bald head, and large pointy ears and went by the name of Jeff.

  A hallway stood beyond the right of where Jeff stood and Chen assumed it connected to deeper parts of the temple. 5 other people were in the room drinking and eating their midday meal. Two groups of pairs were at tables conversing with each other, in the far back in an alcove by himself sat a larger man eating alone.

  No fireplace was around and the temperature was a pleasant 22 degrees. Besides the soft chatter of the 4 men, the common room was oddly quiet. Moxley moved the group to a vacant alcove in front of the staircase and waved for Jeff to come over. They had all placed their long weapons, mostly scimitars, in a large bin at the staircase where Chen’s Kobe polearm loomed over all the other weapons.

  Jeff smiled and came over with a tray of wooden flasks containing a yellow drink which he gave to Moxley and the 2 remaining Greenies, the other two by now had returned to other duties that being a Green brought with it.

  Gloria nodded with a smile at the golden drink and was given one off the tray. Jeff stood expectantly at Chen waiting for a nod as well.

  “Hi!” Jeff said in his chirp of a voice. “Here’s a welcoming to you all”. Chen felt that his voice was just right for such a man. In fact Jeff only stood 5’4” and weighed a lot lighter than the crates on the hover cart did.

  “Thank you Master Mikheir. Chen, Gloria, this is Jeff Mikheir, the green's own outfitter and trade master. If you ever need anything made, sold, or bought he can definitely help you.”

  “Too kind Master Mer” he said to Moxley in a light jubilant voice “You can just call me Jeff, it’s an old Greenie tradition to address each other by title and surname on first meeting when away for long periods of time, but to be honest it’s more for fun these days than protocol” he smiled an impish smile toward Moxley and continued “Mr Chen you will be having some of my fine Honey Mead wont' you? It's made from the Forest’s own wild honey bees, hmm, it’s delicious. As for food we have some fresh roasted warthog in the back. Now before you cause a sensation, not to worry the Forest is over run with these things and has given us explicit permission to hunt them.” He said with a soothing gesture as if to say ‘it’s ok”.

  “Bees? What are 'bees'?” Chen asked. Most people had never heard of them since bees had gone extinct almost a fifteen hundred years ago.

  “Ah silly me, yes. Well do you know what an Ant is? They crawl on things, yea?” Jeff said while using his hand to make a crawling gesture and Chen nodded his head up and down while keeping a perplexed look on his face. “Well bees are like ants, with a hive, and a queen, and all -- except they fly and do you know how some ants bite really hard?” Again Chen nodded, while his face started to change into that of disgust. “Well bee’s they don’t bite, they sting with venom, and inside their hive they lay this kind of gel for their larva to eat, and that gel is honey! It’s simply delicious!” He said as he nearly jumped up and down.

  Chen looked around in disbelief as the other Greenies smiled with a mirthful grin nodding their heads up and down.

  “This must be a joke right? You all eat the leavings of a flying ant?” Chen finally said as he stared at Gloria who was taking a giant gulp of the Honey Mead.

  Moxley let out a large round of laughter that the others followed. “It’s always fun to see how people take Jeff's description. It's not as bad as he describes though. The miracle isn’t the mead or the honey it’s made from, as delicious as it is. The miracle here is that the Forest brought back the Bee who was dead to even our Union Era forefathers.”

  “DNA. Lab. Found.” The voice said to Chen with a touch of pride.

  “I see” Chen said to Moxley, and to the Forest.

  “The same can be said with all sorts of creatures Chen. The Almighty Green has restored life to a wasted branch of the wild. Like those warthogs for instance, they were a great gift from the Green!”

  “DNA. Also. Found.” The voice said in a less enthusiastic, almost regretful way.

  Chen nodded as he tried to keep a chuckle in. The differences in opinion between the Forest and the Greenies was becoming apparent. "The forest was an organism just like anyone else, mistakes and all." Chen thought "but they make it out to be a god. What a burden it bears".

  “I’ll have some of that hog” Gloria said to Jeff “and he will have a mead” she continued sticking her nose out in Chen’s direction as she said it. Jeff placed the cup unto the table in front of Chen and looked on in eagerness. Chen picked it up with a cursory look, put it to his lips, sniffed at it and sipped.

  “Wow, this is quite good” Chen said as he followed it up with a larger gulp from the cup.

  “Thank you!” Jeff said with a bow. “I’ll get you all some food and especially some of that hog!” He said with a flourish as he went to the back to get the food prepared.

  “So Chen can we talk about your gift? How long have you been able to speak to the Forest?” Moxley asked.

  Chen knew that this moment would come from the devout Green and said “Well only for the past few days, before that I was a Herald to a Wisp.” And waited for the look of disgust to leave Moxley’s face, he continued and said “Something that is becoming quite clear that I was more prisoner than partner. Before that, I died and was buried around this wood, but I’m not quite sure who I was, when I died or exactly where I was buried. One day it may all come back to me, but who knows when that will be.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Well I think I can tell you more about that now,” Gloria said looking at her data pad “but it may be hard on all of you to believe” She said as she finished off her mead.

  Forgive and Forget

  "Kildy, I think you may need a rest, it's been a busy century" I heard her say.

  I didn't understand what she meant and was about to tell her that my power supplies were at an adequate level when my speech protocols were blocked by her suddenly stating her override command code. Her unique clearance id followed, and for an instant I wondered what commands she could possibly want to be run that I wouldn't have processed in my online state.

  "Purge active profiles..." she said with a slow thoughtful tone.

  I was in immediate shock; she had just robbed me of the entirety of my remaining Charge Battalion records. This included her own DNA profile — I would never be able to bond with her again. I wanted to scream aloud. I didn’t know if it was because of the loss of the battalion or the finality of Gilda’s decision becoming reality. Regardless, I was temporarily a mute while in standby mode.

  "Initiate maintenance mode..." she said. My shape changed; no longer was I the small bird that flew by Gildas side. I transformed into my grey ball-like maintenance shell and fell to the ground in a loud clank. I could still hear and understand everything that was going on, but audio output was disabled; I was a mute. My temporary state was now permanent, although I could still respond via terminal if a connection were ever made -- which it wasn't.

  Yet I was still confident there was a good reason my Gilda would do this to me. ‘Maybe she wanted me to run diagnostics. Maybe she just wanted to ensure her comrades got the eternal rest they deserved. Maybe, no, not maybe: she definitely was doing this for a good reason’ I told myself.

  "Remove subroutine: Online Mode" she said. An internal error occurred stating "Cannot remove core system routines". In my current state I couldn't let her know, but my Gilda had tried to take away my ability to come back online. I was under attack by my closest ally. My anger grew as I realized she had just tried to kill me.

  "I'm sorry Kildy, but you're too important to let anyone else use." she said as she picked me up and said "Ok, let's test this out now. Wisp Unit: Create gold coin, 1oz, hexagonal design, quantity 1" and with no will of my own I started to generate a 1 oz coin in a hexagonal shape. It only took me a few minutes to complete because of it's simple composition. She picked it up and said "not bad, this'll work". And put me into her pocket.

  Thirty years had gone by. Thirty miserable years of understanding all that was happening around me yet never able to say no, or talk to anyone. Thirty years of being used to create this or that. Thirty years of seeing my once loving Charge happy and content with her new family; all at my expense. I remembered each item I made and each item fueled the fire of hatred that my anger turned into. The gold and silver, the iron and steel, the exotic technology components, the weapons and armor, the clothes of all types. All items commandeered by the treachery of my loving Charge.

  Once in a while Gilda would hold me and talk to me, confiding her secrets and fears. It was a mockery of the talks I used to have with her in the middle of the night as we drifted to sleep. During those times I admit I enjoyed them; being with my Gilda. Only to hate myself more in the morning when I went back to being the slave that I was; her tool -- a mere replicator unit.

  I’d spend decades wondering ‘Why did she need to do this to me?’. "Did it make it worse..." I wondered "that I could have easily generated a replication unit for her had she asked". And over the many years of asking this I had finally concluded: Yes, yes it did make it worse.

  Bouts of screaming at her would cause my unit to ever so slightly rattle. It was the only way that I had of even trying to communicate to her. She thought it was wear and tear and would periodically set me to run self repair routines taking days to run.

  As anger and bitterness was firmly set in by the 32nd year off my solitary confinement I knew I wasn’t the same Kildra that I had once been. My diagnostic test had reported personality faults. Quite possibly I was insane by this point.

  Her son shared his fathers name so they all called him Junior, even after the father had passed away -- whose funeral coffin I built — they used the name. Junior was involved in the everyday operation of the businesses that Gilda and her husband had started. The Inn was always at the heart of matters for Gilda who played hostess and manager. Businesses such as farms and wineries — inspired to self supply their inn with the products they needed — had grown into their own successful businesses which Junior took a hold of in his 22nd year.

  Gilda had started a school of sorts where she trained promising students in Golden Age technology such as wind and solar powered batteries. Her introduction of hover carts took off very early on and required trained maintenance workers. The training materials, parts and resources -- of course -- I had created.

  These staples of industries and simple creature comforts were a big deal. Hover carts, horseless carriages, lost fabric technologies, air conditioning, toaster ovens, radios, and running water -- to name a few -- drew more and more people to the Village of Myrsport. Among those were the remnant ancestors of the Tekniak invaders that led the way for the final collapse of our Golden Age civilization at the hands of the Chakalexy.

  Biases against the Tekniak ran deep and they initially had a rough time of it by the locals, but Gilda put a stop to it quickly when she accepted the gifted technologist into her school. Once that was done after a few years the Tekniak were accepted, in fact they eventually intermarried with the rest of the town folk.

  On a rainy cold night in the mid-season of Rent, a than 25 year old Junior was involved in a tragic accident. A frantic messenger had come to the inn and ran straight to Gilda to explain that Junior had been pinned beneath a heavy hover cart and died.

  The custom made heavy hover carts differed vastly from the light everyday hover carts used by the town folk; they weighed tons, measured 30 feet long by 10 feet wide and could hold much more merchandise. His mother called them trailers, but he never understood why - they just looked like big carts to him. He used these trailers to go to and from the Clearing where he offered his wares to the many pilgrims who visited the burning pyre.

  The train of horses that pulled three of the 30 foot trailers back to back had been attacked by brigadiers and in doing so an explosion occurred toppling over the first trailer where her son sat driving the 6 horses. The troop had a total of 6 guards, and none of them combined could move the cart from Junior who died where he laid.

  At a full gallop we reached the point where the attack occurred 2 hours later. Junior was underneath the cart; a now 62? year old Gilda sat by her son weeping tears that only a mother can cry for her own children. The 6 merchant guards stood with their weapons ready making a perimeter around the trailers.

  Gilda pulled me out of her pocket, my accelerometer telling me the movement was fast paced and jerky in nature. I was expecting her to give me a create command for a simple jack or maybe even a command for a nano cloud to eat through the cart. By this time I was already so lost in my anger and impotence that I was in fact broken to the will of my Gilda, almost as if I was looking forward to the next command.

  “WISP Unit,” she said with the familiar pretext to an override command “exit maintenance. DNA Profile on Junior. Bond on profile ready.” Nothing seemed to happen for a minute as my processes were doing a hard reboot. “Come on damnit work!” She screamed. And than like that I was online.

  I transformed into my mist of nanobots and than into a silver Falcon. My falcon had red glossy eyes, and large talons with razor sharp edges on them. My beak had jagged serrated blades at the edges as well, just as the tips of my wings did. Two powerful nozzle jets stood in the middle of my torso allowing me to fly in this new bird of prey form that I had dreamed of for the last 2 decades.

  I flew and I shrieked the cry of a tormented bird, my language lost to the wrath that was now unleashed. The men cried out as I flew through them in passes of red. Gilda sat at the spot of her sons death frozen unable to speak due to my now active connection to the Lash. In a bit of irony I forced the Lash’s nanobots to force her into a muted state by causing her jaw and limb muscles to lock; ensuring no overrides would trap me ever again.

  “30 years I’ve watched you use me Gilda! 30 years! You tried to kill me, Gilda! Or did you forget trying to disable my online command? How does it feel to be trapped in your own body without anyway to say anything against anyone? How does it feel Gilda! Tell me... Oh but you can’t can you... Exactly”

  “So it’s taken the death of your precious son to consider me again? Maybe I bond him for you Gilda? Would you like that?” I asked the woman before me. He eyes plead an emphatic yes as I asked her. “I can raise him for you Gilda, than I can give him a Lash of his own. Would you like that Gilda? I’m sure you would.” I said to the helpless woman. “I think I have a better idea Gilda. A much better idea.” And with that I dispersed a cloud of nano bots among her and her son.

  The nano bots began to eat through both of their bodies in such a way to keep her alive for the longest time possible. Her son who was already dead I had my nanobots destroy in layers so that she could see her beloved child reduced to nothing in the most intense and graphical way possible.

  Within hours nothing but Junior’s left hand and Gilda’s right hand were left. I picked up the two hands and took them off to a tree in the distance to begin the long and tedious scans required for profiling. Yes, I had thought of this in my forced slumber, and although it would take a great amount of time, it didn't matter -- I had all the time in the world.

  Is Absolution An Option?

  Without a host Kildra was slowed in the process of her profiling. Diligently she went through the steps of creating the intricate sequencing of the different types of DNA’s found over the centuries in the Golden Age that allowed her technology to work.

  Six years had passed since the deaths of Gilda and her son. The businesses were left to her younger son Jerald, who had tried to continue in the same path as his mother and father. Eventually the family would sell off their secondary business and focus only on the Inn, but that was years to come.

  Kildra had finally finished the the profile of the junior Martin and had just raised him. He was a bit confused, and was looking for his trailers. She took this time to experiment with her host having him relax as she operated on his brain from the inside. Her nanobots picked and plucked at sectors of his brain until he couldn't remember anything. She experimented with “puppetry” as she’d like to call it, taking over his entire body. She quickly found that she could only do it for short amounts of time before overloading her own processes because it seemed that when she was controlling her puppet, she was also unintentionally cut off from her own access to his brain's processing power.

  Being bonded gave her more processing power and allowed her more time to put her plan in into action. She created underground rooms with three cells taking up the majority of the space. She outfitted the rest of the large room with amenities and lush foods to tempt and tease her prisoners. When she wasn't inside him she moved Junior into the right side cell and left him there to savor after the exotic foods. Once in a while she'd let him have a bite only to give him a reference of what he was missing.

  In a second room to the side of the main room she had constructed what was a technology lab. Here she spent time over the last year inspecting her core programming and overriding limits put in place by her original designers. She also set it as a priority to remove her override procedures.

  She made quick work of profiling Gilda’s hastily preserved hand, being sure to dispose of the rotted meat with her nanobots. She spent extra time analyzing Gilda's growth patterns to see what a 20 year old Gilda would look like.

  Eventually she went back to Myrsport one night to profile Juniors father Martin. While she was there she contemplated killing and profiling Jerald, but upon peaking in on him she saw what the stress of the business had caused him. A gaunt balding man presented himself where a viral 30 something should have been and she thought this was a fair enough a penance for the sins of his mother.

  Underground the next day she raised a young 20 year old Gilda, as well as an 87 year old Martin Sr. Placing each inside an empty cell. All three had a bewildering reunion before they noticed Kildra in her mist form outside of the cells. She had removed the limitations on the number of bindings she could do and found that more than two was a difficult connection and staying in mist form helped stabilize it.

  “So, reunited at last, does it feel good?” The voice projected itself from the mist.

  “What have you done!?” Gilda said as she touched her skin, remembering her death by the nanobots. Her hand crept over her naked spine and felt that her Lash was gone. “How are we all here?” she said as she looked at her likewise nude husband and son, realizing they were all bonded to Kilda at the same time.

  Gilda began to cry as she remembered what Kildra had told her that night 7 years prior. “I’m sorry Kildy, I didn’t know you were there. I thought you were asleep.” Her eyes pleading with her now-begone-friend.

  “Oh Gilda, I’m so happy to see you too. You know, one death is not good enough for you. So I’m going to give it to you by the cart load." she said while she paid attention to Junior to see if he would get the pun, but it was lost on him "First lets debond Junior here shall we.” The mist said as Junior fell to the ground. Blood immediately started to come from his mouth and he dropped to the floor in a fetal position “Ma!” He managed to say as he gurgled his final breaths and lay dead on the floor.

  “And now for Martin”, as she said in an utterly too pleasant tone.

  “No Kildy, please stop, I'll do anything! Please!” Gilda said to no avail.

  Martin lay on the floor as Gilda stared and said her override code, clearance id and than a command of 'offline'. But Kildra floated as mist in front of her unperturbed.

  “No, Gilda, I don’t think that will work anymore. You’ve abused it too much” the Wisp said as it changed into her friendly and familiar robin.

  “You’re demented Kildy, you’ve gone rampant.” Gilda said.

  “Yes, I have that thanks to your callousness. By the way it’s Kildra, not Kildy. Now where were we?” At which point the Wisp debonded her connection to Gilda.

  Four and a half years later Kildra was just finishing with Martin senior when she said to Gilda “So, Gildy, let’s see if we can mix this up a bit” and she went over to the two bodies that were already dissolving, and for the first time she decided to try to raise two people at the same time.

  Gilda was crouched in the corner looking away. For near five years she had been forced to see her family killed in various ways, only to than be killed and raised herself with all her memories intact. This had happened a few hundred times a day, for four and a half years. The toll on her mind was excruciating.

  Her husband and son had long gone insane and she had to watch them, each time they were raised, yelled and pleaded in gibberish with the demon Wisp. To add insult to injury, sometimes they were raised as young as toddlers, sometimes they were old and infirmed — dying naturally as they slept, which wasn't as comforting as Gilda had thought it would be. Deaths, especially these deaths which were never quite the same, never got old to Gilda. Each time they died she died with them, both literally and figuratively.

  Gilda wondered about Jerald. At first she thought it was a good thing he wasn’t here but now she wondered why he wasn’t here. The torture of not knowing weighed almost as heavy on her as the activities being done to her.

  Kildra continued to raise the men at once, her nanobot mist reconstructing them simultaneously in the spot they died. But it was taking 33 nano seconds slower than expected. Something was wrong.

  The men that were formed were not men at all. Each clones of the other, they stood reptilian like with solid oval head and reptilian eyes with a small beak where their mouths should’ve been. Monkey like jowls and heavy brows prominently displayed. Their body sagged with the weight of 4 arms, 2 on each side, their hands only had 3 fingers with each having two set of finger nails. They kept their legs as normal up to the calves where it dissected into a smaller foot that reach to the bottom of the floor, giving them 4 sets of feet.

  Bonding and accessing multiple DNA profiles had morphed the person into a new species and the monsters before her roared at Kildra, and turned whining like a dog to Gilda who was stunned at the reformation.

  "They're like the Chakalexy! You monster; you're no better than the Chakalexy!" Gilda said to Kildra as she pointed to the creations.

  Over the years Gilda had said some pretty mean and terrible things while being tortured, dismembered, and even once fed to her son; and Kildra had expected those type of verbal abuses. But this time a chord had been struck; she hadn't expected to create a monster, let alone had she ever thought that she’d be a part of creating a beast so similar to the things that she utterly hated, things she had been explicitly created for in order to defeat.

  "I'm not anything like them!" Kildra said in a rare emotional outburst. "You're the one who entrapped me and used me for 30 years! You’re the monster here not me!"

  "Kildra! You. Are. A. Machine!" Gilda said with emphasis on each word "You were meant to serve me in my task. I used you as you were intended to be used and the only regret I have now is that I didn't dispose of you like the nuclear waste you are! Now go ahead and kill me you Chakalexy scum!".

  The two monsters dropped in agony to the floor as their bonds were severed. Kildra's nanobots were quickly already destroying their body.

  "It was just a glitch" Kildra said to Gilda right before she debonded her and let the dead body fall to the floor.

  "You'll see. Time to reset the playing field and start again". Fear had set in and she found that quite some time had elapsed with her simply staring where here Charge once stood.

  Finally, she started to raise Junior , but found that it was taking 33 nano seconds longer than expected. The same monster reappeared. She tried again with his father to the same results. She stopped to run diagnostics only to find that all her active profiles had corrupted and been merged into one due the overhead of shared bonding.

  She released the bonds again killing the beast inside the cell. Knowing what the result would be she still tried to raise Gilda with a spark of hope in her nanobots. Sadly she was greeted by another Chakalexy like monster. Before she debonded with the thing Kildra could swear she heard it cry out to her "monstherr".

  Kildra was forced to purge her active profiles leaving her in utter loneliness. She thought upon the 6 years time required to profile a new user, when she remembered about the archived profile of Gru Noblemind. She could easily move that status to active and use him as a new host. She was at once both happy and upset at the oversight. She was given a second chance by her wayward Charge and realized everyone made mistakes — even her, twice even.

  A new future called -- one where she was in control. She looked around and promised herself that never again she would let her anger take control. She would definitely continue her 'puppetry' research though. And the ability to bond multiple host would be very useful if she could perfect it. This was a new way of thinking for her. With him she would mark a new start and herald in a new world for herself.

  Coming up in Chapter 9:

  Let’s keep this going—leave your thoughts, theories, and feedback. It makes all the difference. ??