Status Review - Current Session.
Time Elapsed: 10 Hours, 48 Minutes, 22 Seconds.
Chamber Contents:
Biomass: 8%
Stimulant: 90%.
Negative Matter: 2%
Subject Condition: Stable
Close window?
The alien took another deep breath of the gas swirling around the chamber, and opened his eyes. The substance had thickened; so much so that he could no longer see the screen where the information was being broadcast. The serum was like a crimson sheet swept over his vision.
"Close."
The machine gave a small beep, and the voice functionality shut off once more.
Giegue's first stint in the machine had lasted a mere five minutes. The pain then had been excruciating, and the progress in his training was incomparable to other methods he used to increase his PSI. Even the voice assistant seemed useless back then; surely the serum wouldn't become so obtrusive that you couldn't see the screen.
But session after session, those thoughts became more and more obsolete. He had exhausted his other options. So he subjected himself to the ordeal. There hadn't been even a minuscule part of him that wanted it to come to this.
As the eleventh hour approached, he felt the pain apex. He resisted the urge to writhe, knowing that it would only send him into hysterics.
That wasn't the worst part.
It was white hot, attacking him from every angle. It reached new, torturous regions, like it did every session.
That wasn't the worst part.
As the excruciating physical agony pressed down on him, his mind was flooded, not only with psychic energy, but of the memories. Those memories which normally lay mostly dormant in the back of his mind were forcefully brought to the surface, an unbearable assault on his mind once more.
That was the worst part. It always found a way to break him.
When he first picked the docking location of the Mother Ship, Giegue had assumed that the more covert, the better. They needed a place high up, with good cloud cover, and a location inaccessible enough that no human would ever accidentally discover the site. Holy Loly Mountain fulfilled all three criteria, and they landed without incident.
Giegue took note of the silence almost immediately after they touched down. Even the wind was strangely muted. He relished in the ambiance of the plateau.
That absence of noise no longer assured him. The kids had locked hands now, as they sang. They were thin, ragged, beat to hell and barely alive, but they stood more resolute than ever.
Giegue couldn't hear the sound of the wind anymore. The song encircled him.
He felt spent. The onslaught of attacks he had blasted them with just moments earlier hadn't taken much of his power, but now it was impossible to summon even a pinprick of that strength.
"Stop singing…"
Why? Why was he so helpless? Everything else in the plan had been so easy - the capture of the earth people, the mind penetration of the humans and creatures that should have exterminated the children now in front of him. He'd sparred and come out on top against adversaries with greater psychic and physical strength than himself.
And yet, here he was.
He hadn't even been worried about this confrontation. As the months stretched into years of preparation, this was the only part the alien race had spent no time planning. It should've been easy.
They kept singing. Giegue couldn't keep his eyes off the one in the middle - the one with the hat. The way he set his jaw and furrowed his brow.
It was exactly like her.
The alien closed his eyes. He was so tired.
Giegue switched off the gas as the counter rolled over to twelve. He opened the glass door and made his way out of the capsule, his head still throbbing.
The small room was instantly flooded with light from above, and he had to shield himself for a moment before his eyes adjusted.
His lieutenant was already waiting in the corridor outside.
"Another successful phase, commander?" the Starman inquired, as its superior came out the door.
"Yes. Stop asking. It is the same, every single time."
The Starman bowed its head in apology. Giegue set off along the corridor, the Starman in his wake.
"Commander…" the Starman began, "I apologize again for asking the question, but - "
"If you feel the need to apologize before you even speak," Giegue said without turning or stopping, "why bother?"
"I would do anything to change your mind. I absolutely must remind you that the procedure is both experimental and underdeveloped. The side effects - "
" - are worth the rewards I will reap."
"Your skin, commander!"
"I am perfectly capable of looking at that myself, thank you," Giegue snarled.
The deterioration had barely been noticeable at first, but there was no denying its effects. The way his skin sagged at the corners gave him a horrible semblance to a wax candle past its prime, melting and wasting away. He carried a sickening scarlet glow around with him all the time now, as if the stimulant was merging with his form.
"It is still under review!" the Starman cried, "We do not even know the full extent of what could happen to your physical or mental state if you press on. I cannot in good faith allow you to continue with the treatment."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Giegue growled, "But unless something in the ranks has changed, you are still my subordinate."
The Starman appeared to shrivel up as he spoke.
"You do not, and will not, have the authority to decide what I occupy myself with. Is that clear?"
The Starman bowed its head again and fell silent. Giegue felt part of his anger abate.
"Commander, perhaps we could help you."
"What could you possibly have in mind that you've neglected to mention until now?"
The Starman hesitated, as if it was already regretting its decision to speak.
"If you could just help us understand as to why we had to retreat from the peak."
Giegue stopped.
"The Mother Ship had not sustained any damage," it stammered, voice weakening with every word. "The infiltration of the earthling creatures was proceeding without any complications. You yourself even said that the powers of those earth children were impotent compared to yours."
He could already feel himself slipping away. He waited for his lieutenant to finish.
"What was it that they did?"
There should've been anger. His lieutenant deserved to be punished for putting him back in that painful memory.
Instead, his shoulders sagged.
"If I knew," he lied, "they would be dead. And we would not be here."
Giegue could hear his heart pumping furiously as he raced through the passages of the laboratory. Gliding would have been much faster, but he didn't have the mental clarity. His tail slapped rhythmically against the cold steel floor as he ran. With each passing second, he felt icy dread strike at his heart; the awful feeling climbing to an peak that he had yet to discover.
He arrived at the gate. It was impossible to miss - a huge metal door, flanked with the only real security in the entire facility. As soon as he arrived, the two Blue Starmen each took a step inward, blocking the path.
"Apologies, general," they spoke in unison, "We've been instructed not to let you in."
Red hot anger instantly replaced his panic, and Giegue suddenly found it very easy to summon the energy.
The Starmen had no time to react. With a great roar, the alien slashed his tail through the air. The door collapsed upon itself with an almighty wrenching sound, crushing the guards.
Giegue struggled to make sense of the contents of the room once he was inside. A huge metal vat formed its centerpiece. Extending from the vat was a mess of multicolored pipes, each one connected to a metal cylinder. The Starmen gathered around each cylinder was motionless, shocked by the new entrant. His brain felt sluggish compared to the mounting feeling in his chest.
His father stood just in front of the container. Giegue was big for age, but his father, a monstrosity of an alien checking in at well over ten feet with thick muscles to boot, towered over everyone and everything else in the entire room.
"Ah, finally," he said, turning to face his son, "Such good timing, as always."
There was no warmth in his greeting.
Giegue hardened. "What are you doing? Where is Maria?"
His father was motionless. He was still studying his son, as if appraising a broken gear in a clock.
"Give me answers." Giegue felt the psychic energy within him well up. The ground beneath him began to quake and fracture, and the Starmen gasped. "What have you done with my mother?!"
His father didn't respond. Instead, he moved towards the other side of the metal vat and hit a button.
The lid of the vat moved, unveiling its contents. Giegue felt the breath escape his lungs as he tried to take in what was in front of him. An icy chill spread across the room as wisps of gas emanated from the open container.
"Please, try to understand," his father whispered, a cold smile spreading across his lips, "Your other caretaker managed to escape before we could catch him. He will, of course, be accounted for. In due time."
Shaking, Giegue moved closer to the open vat. He looked at the face of the woman nested inside. Her skin was a delicate shade of blue.
"This one proved a much more complex case. She refused to cooperate once we informed her of George's departure, and she caused quite a stir. The council voted in the option before you."
Maria's face showed no sign of discomfort. The freezing process had preserved just a hint of a smile on her lips. She looked almost peaceful, as if in a pleasant dream.
Maybe she was.
Something painful was working its way up Giegue's throat. He swallowed, but he tasted bile.
"Humans are fragile," his father continued, "They are difficult to preserve, but not impossible. After all, we have sufficient resources to maintain this state almost indefinitely."
Giegue's eyes darted towards the cylinder closest to him, realizing too late what the contents were.
"You killed her." Giegue fought to control his voice. "You killed my mom."
His father looked triumphant. "I don't think we did. You know, they call it cryopreservation for a reason."
Giegue looked down again at the still figure. His eyes burned.
His father moved towards him with the air of a conqueror preparing for a coup de grâce.
"She's not your mother," he said, patting his son's shoulder, "She never was."
Aboard the Mother Ship, there were only two rooms that bore the coveted status of 'restricted access'. The time Giegue now spent as a commander was split between these rooms.
The first of those rooms was the most familiar to him. It housed the capsule that he spent twelve hours at a time in. It was grueling, painful work to train under the procedure it offered, but there was a part of him that relished the tangible progress that it offered. With each passing day he could feel his abilities magnify and mutate. Sometimes even tenfold. But that was only one part of the grind.
The time he spent in the second room was dwindling by the day, never exceeding a half hour at most now. But it was these brief periods that he wholeheartedly despised. It was these brief periods that he had to steel himself and suppress a reflex that made him want to pull off whatever remained of his skin.
Even now, he had to channel this determination as he entered that second room. As he willed the doors shut behind him, the white light flooding in from the corridor faded, replaced by the ominous glittering that the room was constantly bathed in.
It intensified as he drew close to the artifact. Bile rose in his throat as he knelt at its base, and he recalled the conversation he had had when the room was constructed.
"The strength you will gather from it will come at a price," the researcher had advised, "It will show you terrible things. The things you least want to see."
"Ah, so the machine - "
"Yes. It primes the hippocampus, pierces the defenses you have set up in your mind. The prayer exploits that vulnerability."
"But it will make me stronger?"
"Even more than the other method. Their combined effects would likely render you almost unstoppable. But still, the damage the machine will inflict upon you does not even compare to the repercussions of this second element."
"How much time will I need in each period?"
"The time will decrease as you become stronger. However - "
"However?"
"The stimuli it presents will augment as the period shortens. It will not get easier the more you engage. The memories will become sharper and more fragile. Breaking them will cause exponentially increasing suffering."
The fear had not hit Giegue in that instant. "But still, the end results are sizable?"
"Exceedingly worthwhile, in that regard. But I would still suggest it only as a last resort. It is not designed to be kind. You won't stand a chance."
At that point in their conversation, the researcher looked so grave that Giegue thought it wise not to argue. Anyway, the chance that he would be pushed to that extreme limit was so small it might not even be worth considering.
Giegue grimaced as he looked up at the golden statue. Something in his gut was telling him that this was the last session before he was finished. Just one more phase in the machine after this, and his metamorphosis would be complete.
It took a minute before he could will himself to speak.
"Mani Mani," he muttered, "Master of illusion and memory. Show me what I have left to conquer within myself."
"I thought he'd be way different, but he actually isn't! Look at how tiny his fingers are, they look just like any other newborn!"
"Maybe."
"…Look! Look! He's wrapping them around one of mine! Isn't he something special?"
"Precious."
"Oh come on. Don't give me that tone, George. You said you wanted a son."
"Yeah. I did, Mary. I thought he'd come without a tail. That's all."
"Don't say that in front of him! He has feelings, you know!"
"He was born an hour ago. He can't understand us."
"…"
"…"
"Ah - he's squirming now! See?"
"Okay, okay, sorry, I shouldn't have said it. Look, I need to go. There are some things I need to take care of."
"Fine, see you later."
"…"
"Don't you worry, baby, he'll warm right up to you. I can tell. George loves you already, just like I do."
"…"
"Aww, you're yawning. Are you tired? How about I sing you a song? Would you like that?"
"…"
"My mother used to sing this to me every night as a child. It's a simple tune, but I promise you'll love it."
"…"
"Yeah, you'll love it. As much as I love you."
"…"
"Ready?"
The Starman pounded on the door.
"Commander! You told me you would not exceed twelve hour sessions! Open the door!"
Pausing for a moment, the lieutenant listened intently. If there was anyone (or anything) inside the room, it made no sign of acknowledgement. The fear that had existed deep in the Starman; the fear that been festering since day one of his master's regimen, was bubbling and ready to burst.
Raising an arm, it blasted a beam at the door. A loud bang reverberated through the corridor, and it exploded in a starburst of red and orange.
An alarm rang instantaneously as the sprinkler system activated. Wasting no time, the Starman leapt into the room. It was dark, and just barely illuminated by the embers from the explosion.
The glass of the capsule was coated in a red, viscous substance. A faint squelching was emanating from it, and the whole contraption was shaking.
The Starman brushed an arm across the glass surface.
The thick substance was on the other side. The sounds grew louder, accompanied now by a faint, deep, gurgling groan.
There was something inside; not quite struggling to escape, but not content with being trapped either.
"No - "
Scanning the rest of the room, the Starman's gaze fell upon the operating system on the right external side of the pod. It pounded the ON switch.
The screen flickered feebly for a moment before a stable image formed.
Status Review - Current Session.
Time Elapsed: 45 Hours, 15 Minutes, 5 Seconds
Chamber Contents:
Biomass: 0%
Stimulant: 0%
Negative Matter: 100%
Subject Condition: N/A
The conversion is complete.
The Devil's Machine will now switch off.