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March 18, 2578
Location : Enigma II
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High expectations from movies and comics made growing telepathy an intense let down. No neat mind voices, no clear images, no distinctions or lines, no amazing projection of powers into other minds. Often, she had no way to tell whether something was her own thoughts or someone else's. Outside information came as naturally as invase thoughts; as a human she had no experience with what information to process and what to discard. As it turned out, there was a whole lot of more energetic information about living beings that just conscious thought; the one thing blocked by those infernal chips.
It wasn't unusual for her to walk into the kitchen, driven by hunger, only to realize it wasn't her hunger. Jay and Bison had started to notice her appearances always coincided with their presence. Given the fact they both had anti-telepathy chips, they initially were skeptical, but they weren't dense. People didn't survive on Enigma II if they didn't have the minds to match the environment.
Though, they didn't fare very well if they lacked the heart for it. Jay and Bison just understood they had to be useful, but they refused the drugs that dulled emotions and had their limits. Not only did that mean Sarah had an easier time reconciling getting along with them, it also meant they didn't report her oddities.
Well, if she were fair, the latter mattered more than she wanted to admit. Jay and Bison had assisted Sullivan in something down there. They probably still worked on it, because sometimes they'd just disappear for a few hours with no report on their whereabouts, but she'd know they were deep below. However, loathing people for something she couldn't see was hard, especially when they were friendly and human.
Sometimes she wondered whether she'd hate Jonah less, if he still felt like a person. Oftentimes, this was exactly when she left her new room to wander out, timed with the other two residents. How long had she been like this, while living up there in Jonah's quarters, not noticing her newfound senses? Not noticing how unusual it was that little fetus thing leaned into her mentally?
Now she was distant of both, but near two more human beings, things stood out more, whether it be resenting Jonah or reaching for an unborn chimera. She didn't know what to do with this information, just like she didn't know anything useful to do with her newfound sensory perception or the things it planted in her mind.
What she did know was her new, tedious but more productive job. Initially she'd been kept on for Jonah's work and couldn't contribute much. Jonah had the education already and didn't need help, much, save perhaps train a successor. Sarah dreaded that idea, so she was more content down here.
Jay and Bison worked ten levels down most of the time, but they had their room up here, as Sarah did now. She had daily company that wasn't emotionally stunted, and also ... people to learn with. They had chips in their head that made telepathic suggestion and expulsion harder, but not impossible. It wasn't uncommon for Bison, the more naturally curious of the two, to test her.
Bison was a nickname, and it had taken ten days before he did more than just reply to her questions. The first real conversation they had were on his suspicions she was developing telepathy, during which he suggested small tests.
Today, he was setting mugs on the shelf when she entered, careful to have the most colorful sides to the front. That was typically Jay's doing, so Bison was up to something.
"Hey, Sarah. You're early. I put something in one of them, which is it?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Whatever you put in there isn't important."
Some objects could retain signature, but that only helped if it was unique and intense. An object of deep personal value was easier to recognize than a card with an arbitrary number on it, and one might have an easier time picking up someone's beloved memory, than the random documentary they were watching. The typical telepathy tests always fell flat because they didn't even ask for needles in haystacks to be found, they asked for specific straws.
He looked a little disappointed.
"I can tell you that we're probably eating Sambar, though."
That got a smile.
"You are getting better," he said. "But not good enough. Sambar's for tomorrow. Today we're having Rajma. Similar letters though. Do you pick up flavors, sensations, verbal stuff?"
She had no idea. She didn't even have words for it, aside of telepathy.
Jay's Rajma once again confirmed his cooking skill, but she didn't have much appetite. She rarely had, when she so often got random information floating into her mind. It wasn't like it demanded attention. She wanted to make sure what were her own thoughts and which were not, and she wanted to test her limits.
"She got it almost right today," Bison said after Jay had finished stacking things in the sink and joined them; he compulsively did this before anything.
"Oh, did she?"
"You're making Sambar tomorrow, right?" Sarah asked.
"N—" Before he got it out, Bison shot him a look. "Yes. You're not ... you're not supposed to know that."
"I keep telling you, this whole paranormal fields thing is far more complicated than just blocking a tiny section of your brain," she said.
"Right," Jay said in a voice so stiff it could rival concrete. "Anyway, ehm, we're going to have some time off tomorrow, why don't you two help me make some things?"
Jay always had bowls of pantua, poli, chhena gaja and idli ready. However, he was rather particular about the quality and never needed nor asked for help in preparing them.
"That's a first," Sarah said. "And why are we having time off?"
"She's probably catch it if it happens anyway," Bison said.
"Catch what?"
Bison nudged his head at the mugs. "My chip either works better than Jay's, or didn't actually try to see whether there was something worth picking up."
Sarah jumped up, went to the shelf and grabbed into the mugs until she found a little paper.
Neatly typed out, it read; Tomorrow, Regina Insolita's children will be born. Following this were the times, procedures and names of those afflicted. At the end, Bison had typed she might want to try the emotional suppressant drugs this one time. Just in case death leaked into her dreams.
Bison meant to warn her, probably out of kindness, and Sarah did have a sinking feeling at the imminent death, but ...
"Who is Regina Insolita?" she asked, but she had a sneaking suspicion, or perhaps no suspicion at all. The mother of Odygos.
"A particularly weird queen," Bison said.
Jay fidgeted with his fingers. "She's usually frozen, but they're waking her now to make her lay a new batch of eggs. Sullivan never took it well when that happened, so I guess maybe we should warn you. I just thought it would help to distract you. Y'know, happier people are less affected by xeno madness."
"I won't go mad," Sarah said, too calm but successful at hiding the tiny spike of excitement.
· · · · · · ·
That night, Sarah dreamed about herself, or someone else steered the dream for her. In almost methodical way, she got the answer to why she lived at all.
A regular brain would dissolve in a way due to the rapid decomposition of a crucial element, for some reason this had not happened with her. Somehow, she had been infected by nanoscopic agents that belonged to the mother of Odygos. Had he done it, or had she been ... incubated?
The humans had kept her around for research as it had been proved a dead body could still be used as host, when they had tried to reanimate the useful parts of her, she had woken up. Well, that had explained the weird "sickbay". Jonah had lied his ass when he tried to sell her that.
If she had been incubated, they would have found an embryo growing within her, though.
She tried to learn more, but for a long time she wandered around through sterile halls. Slowly, dim smudges of pain waved up, until it felt like water crashing just outside the walls.
In the morning she woke up, probably, and went through the routine of her day.
Hours passed in a daze. She went through her work, responded when spoken to, and ignored the worried looks of the humans. She didn't help cooking, she just did her duty and swam through a lake of minds.
They were her children, but they died at her call. Her command had them kill themselves when they could, swift quick death, then the humans stopped them.
Pieces of conversation drifted by. "The rest simply dropped over and died. Sarah ... Sarah, are you listening?"
That was probably Jay.
Not giving up, rather, saving them pain and preventing the humans from learning. She still waited, these drones were not needed. No point in letting them suffer. Adverse to let the humans have them.
Sarah's lower lip shivered, but she showed no other sign of shock ... shock for what? Grief for the dead children, of herself, or of the queen? Did being pointless make them discardable, or was this a true mercy kill?
The present matters. Future is nonexistent, relative. They were not needed. Only now they lived.
The Mother had been here all along, since before she took her second breath of life.
"~If they are not needed, you will let them die. Am I needed?~" Sarah thought.
The moment she asked her question, the sea pulled her under.
Assurance, in some form, ebbed up her mind. No force, just suggestion. Sarah's initial distrust remained, which had it's own way of comforting, her mind was her own still.
Be my child.
It wasn't water that surrounded her, but a thicker fluid. A veil of safety that almost suffocated her, but never quite. Sarah curled up and almost let herself shrink smaller, but that would come at a cost of ...
No, she was an adult. Merely feeling safe didn't help her, she needed something better than this.
"I'm not submitting," she said.
The water sank away, leaving her standing on a single slimy rock.
Toxic mist surrounded her, and somehow she remember that this was Terra Mirror. The chimera had been found here, but there was no trace of life now.
Sarah did not breathe, she did not have to. She remembered that too.
And finally, she remembered a name like she had heard it already.
"You're here, I know it," she said, her voice rising. "Noasyvé!"
Something wet forced itself into her shoes, and she staggered. Below her, the rock turned to mush and sucked her in.
She didn't panic, because she also remembered, somehow, that nothing could kill her here. Rather, she observed with interest as her feet merged with the matter.
"This isn't nice, you know," she whispered.
In the water before the rock, a woman's face made of muck emerged. The face smiled, but the empty eyes only painted that unsettling.
Then what do you want?
"You're in my mind already, you have no need to ask that," said Sarah, an edge of annoyance in her voice.
But you like it when I individualize you.
"But it's a lie."
Not entirely.
"If my choice is between free will and being a drone, I'd rather stick with the old."
But not all is black and white.
"But what is all, hmm?"
A sudden jerk pulled Sarah deeper into the liquid rock and the face rose out, now a detached mask floating eye to eye with Sarah.
You only need your absolute individuality because that is what makes a human strong, but not all is human and you are certainly not limited to being a human.
Sarah looked away and tried to cross her arms, only to raise droplets instead of arms.
Privacy, why? To hide your embarrassing secrets, to sort things out on your own? If you are not just one but a part of the others as well, shame would no longer exist. Your secrets, their secrets, they would only be for those outside of us. I do not plead for loss of your individuality and interdependence. I am with you because I need you for those.
Sarah sighed. "But you do place a black and white. Us, and our enemies."
The face opened its mouth a little, producing laughter without sound.
Not black and white. One formation. Another formation. And many other formations. Will you not see?
"Could you not at least have asked me before entering my mind?"
Your subconscious invited me, you needed and need me. Here I am.
Sarah had no more throat to scream with, and could only remember her own questions. The mask laughed, not unkind, as she fell like water into the marsh.
She was still there as much as before.
A vast grassy plain surrounded her, once more she stood on a rock without an idea how she got there. High white clouds contrasted themselves against azure
There was an endless grassy plain around her and again she stood on a rock, this one covered with soft moss. The sky was many shades of green and littered with stars and nebula.
Run, my child.
She did want to run. After cropped up in the void so long, she needed it. Maybe it was taking the hand of a dangerous creature, but just a little. She could take just a little bit of this. Who knew if she'd ever see it again.
Her first step off the rock was slow, but as she felt the grass brush against her now bare legs, she broke into a run. Still Sarah, but she no longer wore the restrictive laboratory clothes nor the stench of cleaning fluids.
Faster and faster until the rush of the grass was only one touch on her skin, she was sure she was no human anymore; no human could be this fast. Faster than the clouds, it did not take her long to reach the edge of the horizon.
There she had to stop, because the world turned out to be a mere wall of the black abyss. It stared back, of course. They abyss always did, even if it had no eyes in its crested head.
The abyss — the Mother — the Motion's Bride — Noasyvé — almost disappointing her. A mere xenomorph queen, perhaps a little more regal. She stood on four legs rather than two, her shell had a dark pearly sheen to it, which marked her apart from the starts reflecting on her. This form didn't look like enough to encompass all she promised to be.
"Hello, ancient grave," Sarah said.
The abyss did not respond, but reached out one of its smaller arms and pointed to the other end of the horizon. Sarah turned, and stood on the other end without a single step. The plain had become a little blotch of sand at her feet, soaking with water as it grew into a rainforest.
Chirps of birds surrounded her and the rumble of a herd of beasts sounded in the distance. From the shrubs, a gargoyleosaurus emerged. As it passed by, it said, "Climb."
So she climbed the nearest tree and when it ran out of branches, she went to the roots of the next forest giant and climbed that. She didn't count how many trees she climbed, but time seemed very kind today. When she had climbed the last tree, there was a plateau before her. She stepped off the branch and the jungle became a heap of leaves at her feet.
Go talk to your friend.
Sarah nodded, and quietly told herself she only cooperate because she was so curious.
To the truth.
Sarah sank into the plateau and liquefied. Again she broke apart, but now motion was more fragmented and clear, and she could take it step by step. When she found the exit, she reformed in a sandstone chamber, quite barren.
A smile broke on her face when she saw who was in the room.
Kirindi sat on the floor, cleaning some bones, but she looked up at once.
"Sarah! You came, you came!" she said, jumping to her feet and embracing Sarah. "I missed you! I kept calling, but you didn't answer and the Mother was sleeping!"
Sarah took Kirindi at her shoulders and pushed her away gently to look her in the eyes. "I think you missed you too ... you mean your Mother?"
"Your Mother! Don't you know? But come, you have to meet the others, we are happy here! They wait for you!"
Kirindi took Sarah at the arm and pulled her into the wall. Both of them fell apart, but Sarah had become used to it. When they reassembled, they were deep in the water. With powerful strokes, Kirindi swam to a xenomorph unlike any Sarah had seen before. Brown, quadruped, feathered ...
"Who is that?" Her words didn't get a response.
She'll only feel. She cannot reach far yet, not when I am under the veil.
The underwater hive was not as easy to cross as the plain and rainforest. It seemed to be more real to her and hence harder to grasp. Or perhaps it was that she felt less...
"Why did you bring me here?"
To show you Kirindi, my creation, of course. She already is my child.
· · · · · · ·
"She just dropped over, I don't understand why," Jay said. "Could just be stress."
"Maybe," Jonah said. "I'll take it from here, you go back to your work."
"Okay, but—"
"Leave."
· · · · · · ·
Astral projection turned out to be another thing not quite like in the stories. For starters, there was no projection of the soul. Her own body radiated the same life as always, but hyper aware of the surrounding. There were no clear colors, and not all outlines were equally sharp, except for her own body.
She didn't stand at its side as much as she knew the surrounding. Looking at herself worked, but it didn't mean much when she was just at a wider space at the time. It only felt like leaving one's body, she presumed, if dissociation set in.
"~ Why am I here? I wanted to stay with Kirindi. ~"
There is another one to be like you. He is not ready to meet me. Kirindi had to go. You will meet her later. Again. We are a secret too, you see.
"~ I see your point, but not this form I am in now,~" she said.
The door opened, and flashes of another sight seeped into her mind. Colors became clearer and outlines sharper as she picked up things from another human mind.
One other human mind, even though two entered. Waltraud in the flesh, and ... Jonah. He was nigh unreadable, with his strange eyes, his neurological chip and his emotional suppressants. More than ever did he seem foreign to her.
He is no stranger. This man loves you because he always did, and now more because you remind him.
"~ He is Jonah, but I can't love him. He is like Humans. ~" That came out too easily.
He is surviving. He is useful. He is their enemy.
"~ Do you need him, Noasyvé? ~"
Not now. Do you hate him?
"~ Not always, ~" she said with a sigh. "~ So, what's up with me? I was dead, I live. How? ~"
The orincubix used during Kirindi's visit here, they were my children. You do not remember being impregnated. I disabled the embryo and directed the nano-agent to enhance you.
Sarah stuck a toe through the floor, which rippled like water, but only in her own mind. "So. I am not very human anymore already. I am yours already. Liar. I have no choice in this, do I?"
I give you a choice because I can. It is convenient if you serve me without my direct command. Yes, I could force you and I will force you to serve me if you refuse. I cannot hold your discomfort at momentary loss for freedom higher than my continued lack of freedom for years to come. Should you hold it higher, when I am your best chance at getting off this hell?
Aside of her reflection on the floor, or the lake, a woman with dark skin and black hair all the way stood at her side. Sarah thought the woman smiled, but it was hard to see, and nobody really stood there.
Waltraud and Jonah were at the bedside of her physical form, taking a bloodsample. They spoke in a hushed voice, only about technical things.
They won't find anything.
The reflection held out her hand. Sarah didn't take it, she just narrowed her eyes, or at least had the impression she did.
"~ Why does it matter what I choose? ~"
I am practical, as are you, and I will have the best result from cooperation. Let me prove it, for I ended up here because I forced one.
She did need to know what to expect, and so Sarah leaned over and took the shadow's hand. The touch brought the urge to let herself be absorbed, which Sarah resisted as much as the monster herself.
They broke apart like grains in the wind, falling out of the station into the void of space. After a far time falling, they rained down on a planet and sank deep into the ground.
Sarah reeled from the sensory forces, the loss of her body's sensations and the sight that was both intense yet devoid of colors and sounds. As knowing everything so intricately that those became irrelevant, but she could not see them if she tried. Her host and guide did not deem them as important.
They were in a reserve, their focus on a cell of a hunter alien. Their name was yautja, and this one had been an outcast, a badblood. The criminal of a culture of serial killers, worst of the worst.
He bled from unbound wounds and bad implants, the stench of infection all around him. She dimly knew he had developed an allergy to certain things, he wasn't normal anymore ...
As prone as the body was, so vivid was the mind. Violence and bloodlust radiated off the murderer. He never looked up, but the rattle of the mandibles intensified.
He knew Noasyvé was here.
"Failing failing failing, stupid! You are all! Nothing is really alive, cause it all dies? You? You? You? You? You? You? You you you! Stop hurting ..." Sarah didn't actually hear anything, but she knew the meaning of what he said.
"What did you do to him, Noasyvé?"
"Syva? Syva? Syva is her name?" growled the yautja, crawling up at last. It glared around, at nothing.
Meke'tor. I needed him; I forced him, but his weak organic brain could not deal with it. I kept him alive until his chemicals and synapses could no longer respond to my command. He is insane. This happens to all those forced to obey through the telepathy of a Queen. That is why I try persuasion.
The yautja's attempts to stand up failed and he dropped to the ground. "Hear!" he growled, before curling into a ball.
He is at fault that I was captured. I do not blame him, nor resent him. He has his own mother to serve and he did it well. His betrayal was unpredictable, it led me right to the worst place to be, as inspired by the wife of the path.
"Hmm. What's your point of bringing me here?"
Look at him. What a downfall for one such as myself, ha! I had no idea what he might do not merely by my pride, but because I do not make a habit out of mind control, you see. I had used his clan to retrieve the eggs from hence Kirindi and her sisters were born. When my enemy came, I believed he would be easily controlled into steering the ship safely from the planet.
I prepared a nest within the ship to transport my new children, he closed it off and we left. I do not know to what extent my enemy might have influenced him or not, but here I am. He led me to the humans and to the one entity that can hold me down in this weak condition.
Sarah wanted to embrace herself, lock out everything, but she had no body. She only could float, just be here to watch the wretched thing. Pity in her heart fought against knowledge in her mind; should it matter that this was a ruthless killer? Noasyvé had not destroyed anyone who deserved to live, and one serial killer less meant more innocents surviving ... right? There was no telling that much, though. For all she knew, this thing would have by chance killed some crime lord and thus collapsed a mob society or something.
The only thing that should matter to her was the admission of weakness. If not for the right reasons, Noasyvé made a point that she wouldn't resort to outright mind control again. Still, the line between obeying to save her own sanity, and obeying because the monster understood the negative effects of forcing someone, ... it was thin as a hair.
There was no guarantee that Noasyvé's promise of softer guidance would not render her some other form of insane. On the other hand, both of them wanted the same thing, and her bets were better with a sapient and indifferent monster than the malicious humans.
More importantly, if Kirindi was indeed somehow endorsed by Noasyvé, then Noasyvé must see some value in humanity. The difference between the sisters was stark, and Sarah knew Kirindi to at least be genuinely loving.
Would you like to see the options for the chimera children? Soon you can experiment by yourself, and see what my choices were, knowing Ti'chai-di was grown without influence, and Kirindi with mine. Make your own call, we have time so far.
Learn what it is to be my child.
The stars faded and the black formed again, taking away all dimension. Enfolding her, Sarah became seed and entered the womb. The moment she did this, Noasyvé let go all control of her. Now, the fluid didn't feel oppressive anymore. Only comfortable. She wouldn't mind staying in this form ...
· · · · · · ·
Karga'te looked down at the sleeping Kirindi, who would not wake despite him shaking her. She just turned over and continued sleeping with a mild smile.
It wasn't the first time she wouldn't wake up so easily and he had tricks, but those could take long.
Behind him, Ti'chai-di chuckled; it sounded like wheezing but she made no effort to mentally disguise the meaning. She looked forward to seeing him try and fail.
"Oh really? If I'm going to fail, why don't you try to do it better?" he said, looking back at her.
She replied with a toothy grin, or the idea of it; without lips he only knew she grinned because of the idea behind it. Nope.
She turned away oh so elegantly, scraping a few stones off the wall in the process and nearly knocking Karga'te off his feet. He ducked in time.
"Excellent. Just excellent! You know, if she doesn't wake up, you'll be the one to join me on the shift!"
Something like hiccups came from the retreating monster.
Karga'te barked back, "Oh I know how much you like that, don't pretend!"
"What the hell do I have to do to make you corporate, you stupid hardmeat!?" he roared out.
He clenched his mandibles together to keep himself from shouting anymore. She'd just laugh more.
Damn Shadhahvar for her drunken moods. Amusement was one of the first human things Ti'chai-di picked up on, and this came with gloating.
Karga'te blamed the fact that Kirindi was sleeping so long lately on her sister's increased mental activity. It didn't actually tire him, but then again he was not fully exposed.
Something jumped on him from behind. Surprised that he hadn't felt her wake up so suddenly, Karga'te looked up. Kirindi had settled on his shoulders as usual and peered down into his eyes. "Who's been learning you to wake without me knowing it?" he said, trying to act angry and failing as his anger ebbed away under Kirindi's mental touch.
"People I meet in my dreams," she said happily.
Weird, but he shrugged it off. "Because of you we are late now. Get your gear and let's go."
"Ti'chai-di says she wants to join us anyway."
"Oh indeed? And why would I let her?"
"Please?"
"No, really. Why?"
"Please?"
"Not good enough." With a grin, he picked her off his shoulders and put her on the ground. "Get your gear, now."
"Please?"
"Good luck explaining why not to Ti'chai-di," he said, while shoving her out of the door softly. He closed the door behind her.
While Kirindi and her sister mentally linked to share their experiences despite separation, Karga'te stepped into their den. There he knelt down and hovered a hand over the place she had been sleeping.
His attempts to pick up any energetic prints got him nothing. He grumbled to himself, he hadn't gotten much better with reading psychic residue. He didn't even really know how to get better at it. It existed, he was pretty sure, but that was it.
Ti'chai-di knew how to hide parts of her mind, insofar she saw reason. He had picked up that much during shared dreams about some guy named Jonah, whom she hated. For him, she had secrets. Might she and Kirindi have others? He had no real evidence, just an inkling ...
There were hundreds of dolls here, all custom made, all people whom she had wanted to keep. Most had eyes made from nuts, knots and pearls, even when their actual species didn't. Except for this one, and two others at least.
Kirindi entered the room again, fully in her armor now. She glomped him from behind and he nearly toppled over. Placing a hand on the ground to keep steady, Karga'te said, "After this shift, you can let me meet your new friend."
She didn't say yes.
· · · · · · ·