Variables – Anomalies

An eerie silence crept over the ship. Dominic and Anemone had retired to their cabin, numbed by Holland's request and feeling clumsy and heavy in their own bodies. Anemone stumbled over a sleeping Gulliver and flopped limply onto the newly made bed. Fine strands of hair trickled over her shoulder into rivulets on the white comforter. Dominic slid the panel door closed behind them, plunging the room into indigo shadow. The window screens masked all penetrating sunlight and for a moment streaks of vibrant colors flashes across Dominic's vision. His companion's pale frame swam out of the darkness, a pitiful folded model barely making a dent in the mattress. Still so thin – she hadn't eaten much over the course of the past few days. Digging his shoulder into the doorframe, Dominic felt the shameful sting of tears itch at his nose and eyes.

"How can they ask this of you?" he muttered, voice nearly catching in his throat. Anemone remained silent, her sides rising and falling imperceptibly with shallow breaths. Muted, snuffling sounds tugged Dominic's attention downward. Gulliver was inspecting his shoes, no doubt curious where they'd gone while it slept. Smelling nothing edible on the lieutenant's boots, the comically obese badger waddled his way over to the bed. Anemone made no move to help the struggling glutton onto the bed, leaving Dominic to lever the massive ball of fat up himself.

"Gully…" Anemone mused dreamily, pulling the snuffling creature close and burying her face into his fur. "Gullyver…"

"What will you do?" Dominic whispered, resting a hand on her waist. Anemone sat up abruptly and slapped it away.

"God, Dominic, I don't know!" she shrieked. Her face contorted in a mask of fear and fury. Not since the horrible days under Dewey's command had Dominic seen her so frightened. Gulliver quailed in its mistress's arms, its rotund body shivering. Madness blazed for a moment in Anemone's eyes, then quickly drowned in a sudden surge of tears. "I don't know, Dominic." Careful of her fragile state, Dominic lowered himself carefully down beside her on the bed, maneuvering Gulliver out of the way.

"The choice is yours," he said softly. Anemone turned and gazed out across the room, eyes roaming over landscapes invisible to him. The stream of tears dried and her skin grew cold under Dominic's touch. Turning her head slowly, deliberately, Anemone trained her lilac on his.

"Would you come again?" she asked dully, as if the question was addressed to the air around them or to Gulliver.

"P-pardon?" Dominic stammered, blushing in spite of himself. What am I thinking at a time like this?! he wondered furiously.

"Would you come save me again? Like last time?" Anemone leaned over him, cascades of carnation hair rippling across her arms and forehead. Her strangely unfocused eyes, two orbs of striking lavender, scanned Dominic's face.

"O-of course!" he replied loudly, too loudly. Dominic's blush deepened. Anemone, however, smiled widely and kissed his flushed forehead.

"That's good to know!" she crowed. Gulliver, still shaken, evacuated the bed as its occupants collapsed into each other.

An opening, vulnerability, should we investigate? The last visit experiment habitation - unfinished cut short we should take advantage shouldn't we we should.

The host, we, says nothing no objections no answers at all.

Proceed.

Anemone shuddered violently beneath Dominic's fingers. The taut, ivory skin moving under his hands, smooth and unblemished – truly a perfect construct – glistened with the sweat of their combining bodies. How long he had waited to feel this? There was no room in his thoughts for reminiscing of the cold days, there was only Anemone. The supple angles and subtle curves of her body; the faint pink flush that rose in her cheeks, mimicking the rosy fan of hair that splayed across the bare white sheets; the enticing whimper in her voice as he took complete control of her.

All control was lost. Every sensation, emotion, and response were lost to the paralyzing waves of consciousness that wracked her body. Dominic was no longer hers, he belonged to the hive, with her body and mind along with him our body our mind. Eureka's face, pale and frightened as her own, loomed over her now. Dominic was gone, lost amid the thousands, millions of beings that inhabited her our portion of time and space time means nothing to us there is now and will only ever be.

"Dominic!" Anemone, Eureka, one hundred thousand voices screamed. We could feel nothing anymore the body that had been mine ours hers was now complete. Whole and at one with the great Cluster. All feeling was universal and shared all emotion and physical sensation – there is pain here and great feeling – that strange variance of human affection made physical.

"Anemone!" replied a cacophony of male and female voices alike, impossible to distinguish and isolate. A thousand women cried out in agony and pleasure, inhuman grunting and unearthly moans reverberated in her our ears, every pair for we have many, we know what these sounds, noises, emotions feel mean.

The sickening crack of Dominic's skull sliced through the still air of the cabin. Vision blurred and head swimming, the dazed lieutenant desperately tried to assess his current situation. Naked and drenched in sweat, he shakily lifted himself off the floor and tried to regain balance. Lying on the bed, tousled sheets shielding her body, Anemone stared at him with panicked eyes.

"Why did you do tha-"

"Stay away from me!" she shouted hoarsely, frantically scrambling backward til her bony spine was flush with the wall. An odd buzzing noise filtered through the ringing in Dominic's ears and he paused in his journey back to the bed. Did the fall addle his hearing as well? White spots danced in front of his eyes, partially obscuring the now-quaking figure on the bed. Staggering toward the door, Dominic groped blindly for the light switch, an aching throb thrumming in his skull.

"What is going on Anemone?" he snapped, flipping the switch and shielding his eyes from the momentarily blinding fluorescent.

"A-anemone?" came the meek reply from the bed. The disrobed lieutenant turned, hesitated, and rubbed his eyes. Surely his eyes were deceiving him or the fall had incurred some sort of concussion. Anemone's loose hair shimmered under the light, tinted icy green. Her face shifted; nose, eyes, lips, brow, and chin twisting and changing into countless different identities.

"Who is Anemone?"