Jack barreled through the door of the humid, darkly luminous, gently thrumming bathroom, blurting out, “I agree! I’m in, haha!”
Neex was sitting down in the center of the room, cross-legged, with the Heart in her hands and lap. She beamed at Jack’s entrance and took a deep breath, her smile turning into something more serene as she nodded. But her head tentacles were in curls like a crown around her head. “Good, Jack.” She pointed to the spot in front of her insistently.
“Right.” Nodding, Jack closed the door behind him and then hesitantly locked the door, too.
Nothing fishy going on here at all, nope… Not in this mood-lit, pulsating bathroom with an alien hybrid sapient and an alien artifact from the abyss. Though it might seem that way, I can explain!
Banishing his slightly hysterical thought patterns, Jack turned back around and walked over to sit cross-legged in front of Neex, glancing at the blob of plasma waiting to ‘textify’ just above their heads. He cleared his throat. “So, uh… anything else I should know? About the Bond and whatnot. You said it wasn’t a pact or contract? Is it reversible? Does it hurt? So on.”
The blob of plasma did its thing, reversing to form script she could read. Neex lifted a hand to form her response and flipped it back to him in English.
“See, I expected soul pain, somehow. It’s soul pain, right?”
Neex squinted at his text, puzzling over it.
“Uh, no. Don’t think so. It’s just weird, I guess. Different. Alien.”
“Yes.”
No pain. Well, I guess I already know my price for this. What’s that trilogy of curses? ‘May you live in interesting times. May you come to the attention of those in authority. May the gods give you everything you ask for.’ Yeah. This is all three. Frag me. Time to buckle up — with a racing harness, no less. I doubt there’s an ejection seat. Maybe one without a parachute. Ha.
“Isn’t it listening right now, though? Big Q.”
Neex’s head cocked and she squinted at the translation.
Allotment. There’s that word again. I look forward to understanding what the hell that means, but I’ll get off-track to ask.
“Okay, backing up — transformative, you said. Am I… I’m still going to look the same after and all?”
Neex’s pupils went squiggly.
Jack nodded slowly, digesting those nuggets of information eagerly, though he certainly felt some trepidation about his ‘soul stuff’ being fragged around with. Consciousness. Psyche. Get it right, Jack. “So, the sort of thing that happens to every Champion of Humanity, then? Bodily, anyway.”
“Naturally.” Access to the System, in some way. Right? The idea left him in awe. It was almost sacred. Holy. It would’ve been if he had changed in his youth, certainly. Not quite, anymore. And Neex was very clinical about it.
“Jack was born ready! Let’s do this, Neex.”
She grinned and nodded. She whistled once, and the vibrational aura of the air subtly changed. Then she held the shell-like Heart out between them with two hands, its innards softly pulsing. Her hold was top and bottom, with the exposed portion directly downward in a hand and the top holding the shell. “Hands over Neex hands.”
Jack took a deep breath and obliged. His hands engulfed hers top and bottom. When his fingers touched the shell, he felt the presence in the room slowly focus on him. The air got heavier around him. Charged.
Neex smiled at him and nodded encouragingly, her pupils going big and nearly round, ringed by a faux-human iris. Her head tentacles wriggled at him. He was sure it was supportive, too. “Okay. Take bottom.” With lightning quickness, Neex slipped her hand out from underneath his on the bottom and reversed the hold, so that she was putting pressure over the top of his hand.
When his hand closed over the pulsing faux flesh, smooth and hard yet very alive, the presence seemed to become truly aware of him — recognized him and did something that was a greeting. A movement, a feeling, but nothing tangible.
“Hi,” Jack managed. Maybe. It might’ve come out unintelligible.
Whiskers or tendrils extended from a great distance gently brushed, then held there placidly. It felt to Jack like they were there to comfort him. Prepare.
He fought off a shiver. He felt cold. Engulfed.
“Ready, Jack?” Neex asked.
Jack just swallowed and nodded.
Neex returned the nod and closed her eyes. “Dauda no’ah. Quallakuloth, Neex, Jack… begin.” She made a musical, harmonic call from slightly parted lips, and the Heart echoed it strongly. It ensnared Jack immediately and he was mesmerized, all other thoughts within him blotting out.
The tendrils brushing him smoothly wrapped around and through him like a thousand fibrous threads — the embrace of an Archon somewhere unfathomably distant and deep.
?? ?? ?? ?? ??
He gradually became aware that he was in a black void. A cold, thick liquid pressed from all around him. It flowed through him, too, soothing away the heat of pain and stress. That place slayed such things, as they were needless. Disruptive.
He could not see the symmetry — it was not a place for eyes. He could feel it, though. A perfect construct, smooth and curved, cascading into infinity. Spiral in, spiral out, it was all the same, everything held in balance. Like Nature’s cycle. That was extended to reality.
In their tiny pocket, something nonetheless more massive than him was extended toward him from deeper within the latticework. Tendrils wrapped him, feelers brushed him without and within. Information. Diagnosis.
A part of him he couldn’t even feel unless it was touched was being touched. It was warped and damaged — horrifyingly so, like ephemeral tendons twisted into a vast, bruised, and blackened web of knots and frayed ends. ‘Corrupt’ was right — like cancer or gangrene. In that place, if vibration were a taste, it would be foul and spoiled.
Most of it was separated from him, or like a tool, a specialty arm attached to him — a prosthetic. Broken, but not directly diseasing ‘him’ specifically.
Some parts, however, were twisted and contorted into such terrible pressure that damage — cancer — occurred in his flesh. By tiny, tiny vectors, corruption seeped in. Somehow, the entity embracing him translated what it was as his own sudden knowledge: cellular errors, slow and insidious. Unscripted DNA change and ensuing malfunction of cells.
It was as if he was exposed to dimensional toxins leaching in from the catastrophic trauma he was otherwise oblivious to.
“What could do this?” was his thought.
He felt the lightest brush through his mind induce answers — formed out of his own thoughts. An accident. Memoria tried and failed in my adolescence. She pulled away in a fraction of a second — the instant she knew the damage was dealt — and this was the fallout. I dreamt of her touch. Fire in my head. She fled. I felt her ritual disappointment, like ashes from crushed coal when she hoped for a diamond. I felt the callus grown over her millionfold grief. Necessary numbness. On to the next, on to the next…
Jack was stunned. “I don’t remember.”
Again the brush came, this time touching different spaces, and imagery flashed hot through his mind. I do.
He was a boy of twelve, in his bed asleep, when a piercing headache woke him up with a start. Hot. Someone was there? Momma? She was gone in a flash, she was unhappy. Cold. Disappointed? Did he do something wrong? But Momma wasn’t there. Wasn’t she…? And he had a headache. Wait, who was there? Did he have a fever?
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
But it was fading quickly. He shivered. He was sleepy. It was just a dream, that’s what Momma would say.
Whore. Shut up! I don’t need you. He pulled the covers over himself in agitation and went back to sleep, forgetting it all by morning. But his uncle was complaining that he had to be taken to the doctor for extensive tests due to some ‘potential exposure event’ years ago. Jack was clueless what it was about.
Holy hell! It did happen. And instead of superpowers, I got cancer? No. It can’t be. Accidental, it said. But Memoria risks it, risks us. An arranged doctor’s visit? Is that arranged for everyone? Frag us all…
He formed more questions. “What is my damage? How bad? Does it happen to everyone?”
Varies. Degeneration of cellular function is a given, but minute for a decade or more, no worse than minor radiation exposure. But it compounds with time. The end result can be treated and mitigated but the source cannot be removed by Memoria. If she tried, she’d only exacerbate. Lifespan is reduced and non-optimal. Mine is quite extensive. 45 to 55 years of age, illness and death from brain tumors likely. Possibly earlier.
‘Mine’ was awkward. ‘His’ thoughts, he had to remember. The personal bad news was no fun, but the rest was worse. Everyone would live longer, otherwise? Less cancer? More secrets. They never end. Damn you.
I must trust that it is necessary. Champions must be born; Champions must be raised. Memoria acts for the best interests of Homo Sapien. Species survival. All Archons conduct themselves principally for the sake of the organism they serve.
“I try to trust. Believe me, I try. Why is it like this? The damage. Can you help?”
It is desirable to facilitate repair. Perhaps more will be possible. The matter at hand should proceed. Energy is finite. Potential is high. Do I desire full adaptation, if feasible?
“I’m sorry, what?”
A pragmatist’s benefits. Improvements. Internal, clandestine. Exhaustive. Proceed?
“Uhhh… yes. Proceed.”
The tendrils immediately tightened around the damaged, knotted structure and tore it out in every direction at once. The movement itself was a tangle of incredibly complex action that was a blur to Jack’s senses. But he was somehow aware that there was never any actual separation — instead, the prosthetic was bent at bizarre angles that undid the knots and relieved pressure. A million points of adjustment twisting around to unravel a vast, chaotic puzzle.
From the surgery’s great, sudden violence and sheer scope, there was a very momentary blacking out as everything went blurry.
When his senses returned, the tendons of his connection to the latticework were stretched and held to frames as if anchored. It was a web as deep as a sea. Numerous exposed parts were frayed, uneven, or loose — tendrils touched these to solder, straighten, and tighten.
On and on it went as the entity repaired the grand construct before it. Eventually, the actions slowed more and more, and those whip motions died down. Finally, they stopped.
It had become perfect. Jack could only ‘stare’ in awe. There was stillness — soothing cold where only burning was before. He had become like the rest of reality around him.
“Symmetrized.”
Yes. My surgery was successful.
A million pinched points suddenly released in perfect synchronicity, and the structure collapsed in on itself, an implosion of uncountable wrapping, folding, and twisting strands locking into a new macroscopic form.
He blacked out again.
His senses returned with a flash. Energy was surging into him, so intense he felt like he’d explode. The prosthetic connections were pristine and felt something like a new phantom hand branching out of his brain. Moreover, they were coated in something gel-like, yet hard. As hard as the reality he saw.
The seal. Unbreakable.
New, nerve-like lines were spearing into him and branching, and the entity was not the source. It was something different. From the greater structure of reality, from some hidden space far beyond the Deep where they resided, they bridged through the spiral into jagged angles of startling new definition.
He was being changed. Remade. All according to the details Quallakuloth had repaired. Automatic protocols.
She can’t see me, but this is from Memoria. It’s Memoria’s touch! All the hurt, resentment, and suspicion in the world couldn’t stop the excitement underneath. The desire to understand, to know. To be ‘in.’ To…
I must remember principally, this is mine. My Allotment. My Archon facilitates as a medium by need but I am the vessel of my universe, my planet, my species. I am matter, I am its master — it answers to me. I am Time’s Arrow made to carve out the future. I am the supernova, I am the crashing meteor, I am the compression and contortion of many forces made into the hammer of violence. I endure, I build, I destroy. I am homo sapien.
Jack was shocked by the thoughts injected. “Wait, where does this come fr-”
With one final heartbeat pulse, he was cast out of the void, spiraling back to consciousness.
?? ?? ?? ?? ??
In the fog of semi-consciousness, strange glowing text slammed itself into his brain, absorbing much faster and sticking much easier than it should have despite the volume, like re-written memory. Still, it was a ridiculous barrage of information.
What the hell?
Jack was blinking through it all trying to process it, up at a bathroom ceiling with dripping moisture. He was lying on his back in a thin puddle of water. The air was dry and the light was bright. He felt… different. Like he was poised ‘behind’ something, like he had on a new flesh, with new muscles underneath that he didn’t know how to flex, or they were missing tendons. They were ‘loose.’ Weak.
It’s like a new network, a new body system threaded through. Between. Above.
He shot his hand in front of his face, anxious about changes. But it was just his hand. Oh! A normal forearm attached.
There was an odd feeling of knowing he was weak, yet his energy and movement were uninhibited. In fact, he was charged, awake, and aware. Crisper than ever! It was more like a warning than anything. He was hungry. So, so hungry. And he had a strange taste in his mouth, for something he couldn’t define, something he never knew he needed.
Should’ve eaten, just like Neex- Wait! The air!
“Neex!” Jack shot up, eyes flitting around quickly — but she was right there. In more ways than one, actually.
“Neex here, Jack,” she said, knelt right next to him. She smiled shyly and gave a thumbs up, and her head tentacles raised, trying to mimic it. She seemed drained but well. Her other arm was cradling the Heart. It looked quite dead, with no pulse or sense of life to it. “Success.”
Somewhat dumbly, he returned the gesture, as his brain flashed with mem-text again.
Jack took note, but he was also somewhat annoyed. “Yeesh! You can’t assess that I wouldn’t have an interface without her? We wouldn’t even be conversing right now!”
The voice of Alice answered in his head this time. “That is an impossible fantasy. If you believe this, you are under some sort of hallucinatory effect and doubly should report it to a higher authority. I cannot stress this enough. Please report immediately!”
“That would make you a hallucination, too. I’m twenty-five! We don’t get powers that late. This is weird shit every which way. Also, why are you using Alice’s voice?! Stop that.”
“It seemed logical. As you wish.” The voice shifted slightly to a different, unique, yet very ‘AI’ type voice, that could’ve been Alice’s peppier sister. “You’re correct about the situation being anomalous. I won’t bore you with saying ‘I’m not a hallucination.’ That’s what a hallucination would say. Please report, Jack? Pretty please with sugar on top?”
Jack just shook his head. “Later. You’re dismissed!”
— 12 Chapters Ahead (around 40k words)