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April 10, 2578
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"Jay!"
"Oh crap, it already talks."
Two pairs of wide eyes stared at each other from across the table. Jay fidgeted with his sleeves, which Lemura tried to mimic. Lacking sleeves, she use the table's edge. At this point, Jay abruptly stood up and started pacing the room.
"Dammit, Bison, why'd you have to leave me with this thing?" he muttered at someone. Not her.
Lemura never blinked, never let her eyes off him. He was the only interesting thing in the room, and he must know where the Sarah was, but she could not get into his head. She pushed herself to stand on the chair, trying to get up as well. The Sarah hadn't explained walking, but she was sure she could figure it out.
"Jay!" she said again, her voice sounding like a dry breath.
Something about her voice just unnerved him more.
"Dammit, Bison!" she tried.
That just got him to frown. She again tried to reach his mind for an explanation, but only got as much that it had something to do with another person. Why did it have two names, though?
The Dammit Bison had said the word Jay a few times to get the Jay's attention, she thought that would work for her too. They communicated by sound, according to the Sarah. So weird. The Sarah made sounds too while watching over her, but those were soothing addition to the real communicating.
"Jay!" Why didn't it respond like it did to the other one? She probably did something wrong.
She wanted to move. This was the first time she was in the air when nothing hurt her. She had limbs like humans now, she could do things. She could go over to the Jay and make him stop moving ... the Sarah was annoyed with him just walking around here, or was that just herself? It disoriented her, being apart from the Sarah now she had to do her own moving around.
The Dammit Bison entered after a while, at which the Jay stopped pacing at once. "What did the tests say?"
"The good news is that the flesh is doing things that are absolutely not human. I ran a scan and her bones are regenerating. The bad news is that it's happening slowly. We need an excuse for why she won't be in the upper levels."
The Jay threw his hands up. "Wonderful. Just wonderful. And what about that?"
He pointed at Lemura, which she didn't like. Broad gestures at her seemed threatening somehow. She felt the urge to bite, but his hand was too far.
"The least of our problems. I had expected something like a human baby, but she's up and about."
"And talking."
The Dammit Bison lit up. "Excellent."
"It's creepy. Look, can't we just bring that ... thing to Sarah? She can just telepathically take care of it."
"We can let her see it, but Sarah's in a bad spot. We'll just tend to her."
"Oh come on, neither of us know anything about monster babies or broken spine people!"
"Dammit Bison!" said Lemura with a rasped breath.
The Dammit Bison's eyed widened in a weird way, and then an eyebrow went on. Fear? Something? Faces meant stuff, but she should be able to read minds. They were fuzzy around the brain.
"You've taught her to swear? Should I be worried in case we ever end up having kids?"
"I didn't say that to her," the Jay muttered. "I said it to the wall."
The Dammit Bison rolled her eyes and leaned on the table next to Lemura. "My name is just Bison, do you understand that?"
"All words! " she said, a little proud. The Sarah had been teaching her things and words were really easy, but she didn't have all yet.
"And my name is?"
"Bison."
"See? We'll be fine taking care of her. Come on, let's go talk a bit outside."
The Jay ran his hands through his hair, and hesitated before he said, "Fine."
Lemura sank down on her chair as the two men left. Somewhere invisible, the Sarah reached out by mind. She wanted her to go listen to the Jay and the Bison and the sounds they made.
They'd notice if she went out the door, but this place had absurdly spacious ventilation shafts — along the way the Sarah explained ventilation and oxygen. Humans needed it to survive.
She half leaped, half fell off the chair, and crawled towards the wall. The Sarah guided her to push a chair near the sink, from which she leaped at the closet.
The Sarah led her to the next room, a storage full of equipment and a small fridge for snacks, because the Jay liked to eat on the job. She wanted to know more about job and eat, but the Sarah urged her to go listen. She didn't really trust anyone — except her now — so it would help to know the words they made.
Walking wasn't easy, but the Sarah lent her some idea on how to put her legs. She went on all fours, that helped. It wasn't far till the arguing humans.
"The chimera has left the room. Retrieve her."
This noise didn't belong to a person, it came from a weird patch on the wall. She stopped to look for the source, but the Sarah said it was a patch in the wall near the others.
"What the hell? How?" the Jay said somewhere around the corner.
The Sarah was annoyed that she didn't get to hear anything. That was bad.
"Jay, calm down. Nuitar, where is she?"
"Two corners to the right."
Soon, the Bison appeared around the corner and lifted her.
"Sorry Sarah. If you're going to eavesdrop on us ..."
Very much annoyance from Sarah's side. Lemura frowned, this wasn't wanted.
The Jay leaned around the corner. "Seriously, how did it get out?"
"She went down the shafts. Secure them for the future."
Lemura tried to turn in the Bison's hands, looking up at the body's face. The Bison was somewhat amused, according to Sarah. The Jay was anxious.
"Okay, we'll bring her to a secure room first."
"I say we let that thing take care of Sarah and stay away from both of them."
"I just told you..."
They started making so much noise she couldn't keep up with the words, but she tried to send as much to the Sarah as she could. It only made her more annoyed. Something about excuses and monsters and cages.
The one holding her got annoyed too, his grip tightened. The other one got more afraid. Knowing that caused the little trickle that had suggested she bit, before, to get louder.
She wanted to go to the Sarah and these people kept her from it. So, she bit down on the arm, straight through the cloth.
Just as the blood filled her mouth, the Sarah threw all her mental call at her : she had to stop. Now. Anger, disappointing, fear. That was more important than the noises the other humans made right now.
The moment she let go, someone grabbed her tail and threw her away. She slammed against the wall and that hurt, but not as much as being born the first time. Didn't like it anyway.
Confused, she looked at the humans, but only got a brief glance before a door slit close between them.
"Sarah," she muttered. "Why?"
On one side, it felt like she should have gone on — gone for a weak spot like the neck — but on the other side was the Sarah.
Why not bite? What else should she do to get away?
Sarah poured in too much options at once. Ask, wait, wrestle free in various ways. It just made her sad, because none of those were what she'd done. It sunk in that she was stuck in another room, this one without shafts.
She sat down, and waited. Almost bored, but now Sarah was determined to set her on the right path. Whatever a path was.
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April 11, 2578
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In retrospect, Jay quietly decided that he should have just grabbed the thing and put it in the room with Sarah.
Bison insisted that he was fine, even though he'd been bit half through the extensor muscle. He didn't take time off; not that this was an option as far as Utara was concerned.
The chips didn't work as well as they should. What if the thing could get into their heads? Maybe it already had. Sarah usually wasn't this careless. She'd never even come close to falling.
He fumbled with his sleeves and stood up, sat back down and stared ahead. Then he stood up and knocked the chair back. It toppled to the ground with a clatter and he reached to pick it up.
The chips couldn't be working right. Bison should be more worried about this. How could he even tolerate that thing, let alone tend to it?
The chair slipped from his fingers and fell onto its four legs. Slowly he started to push against the plastic, until it fell once more, and he grabbed it again. This time taking the chair with both hands, his knuckles turned white from pressure. He gritted his teeth and let go, then kicked the chair away as hard as he could, a frustrated scream escaping him.
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Lemura looked at the dull walls. Well, she didn't actually look, since it was dark and her eyes were not much good anyway. She could sense it through electromagnetism though, and she practiced her echo location. Sarah had told her to do so. Until ...
Until now.
The door opened. In stepped the Jay and all his fragmented, incomplete mental radiance. He felt worse than before, full of emotions Lemura couldn't make sense of. Variations of angry and sad and fear.
The lights turned on.
What she saw of Jay now, she could at least show Sarah.
Move!
Lemura didn't get why, but she leaped away to the left. Behind her, the loudest noise she'd ever heard sounded. The Jay lumbered closer to her, holding a large sharp thing. Sarah told her it was dangerous, and denied Lemura's impulse that biting it might help.
The Jay said something. She had no idea what.
Keep moving!
The room had racks with weird stuff on it, she moved behind them. Sarah panicked, but Lemura didn't yet feel the rush herself. Panicking was a good fear thing that helped survival, maybe Sarah could explain how to do it?
No, just move. We need Jay to stop attacking. Here's how ...
For Lemura, it was nothing but a simple execution of orders, a welcome exercise. Her body did not move as well as it should, yet, but her instinct kicked into high gear. She climbed up the racks, the Jay threw them over in a haze of his rage.
Sarah made it clear she absolutely could not be hit with the thing he swung around. She obliged. Her legs did not carry her well, but the emotions of the Jay was also a hindrance to itself, it appeared. How else could it move so erratic and uselessly?
Lemura rolled across the floor, inches away from the Jay, right after he'd knocked over yet another rack. Something heavy. Yes. Something heavy, hit the body on the head. How easy. The human practically posed for it with that huge body. She shot across the floor, feet trying to stamp her but never hitting.
One hit. Pain shot through her body. The room came in sharp lines back to her ears as she screeched. She felt and heard the sharp object come down and twisted an arm up, jamming her fingers into a tiny bit in the ankle.
Pain was obnoxious, it stayed even after she knew she had been hit. As she ran for the rack she had in mind, she tried to block all the obsolete signals. Climbing the rack was painful too. Maybe not so obsolete, the damage persisted.
Loud mouth noises from the Jay. It came in fast. She went higher. It tried to pull the rack, but this one was too heavy, so it tried climbing after her. It was not heavy enough, but it pushed off fast enough to not be crushed under it.
Lemura fell behind the enemy, which brought her fresh, obnoxious pain. She ignored it. Near her was a small cylinder, maybe as long as a finger. Sarah instructed her precise movement, she completed it.
The human forehead has a sensitive point right above the nose, hit it correctly and you can knock one out. Doing such with machine particles from just two meters is particularly difficult if one does not have an exoskeleton and superhuman three dimensional senses, so it is not recommended one relies on this for survival. Blunt objects are preferable for regular humans. Especially when they charge at you.
The Jay fell with a smack down. Sarah's panic thingy stopped. The disabling of the Jay seemed to be a distinct alteration of the situation. She could attack now. So, what now?
Lemura fiddled with her long fingers as Sarah sent her instructions, but slowly stopped doing that. Then she stood up and crept closer, hesitant. Sarah told her to do something complicated and she wasn't sure how to do it. So many movements she did not know yet. Sitting down at the back of the humans neck, she looked him over. Yes. Brain located here. She reached out and cut away the skin at the back of the head using her nails. However, her nails were frail and started to break.
On Sarah's advice, she spat a bit of drool on her fingers. This way, she pushed into the wound she had just made, making a circling motion. The acid was not very strong and it took several doses of spit to get through the small metal plate that was there. Underneath it would be a chip with slightly biomechanic traits, intended to regulate and particularly dull telepathic perception.
Ah, there it was. Now just to get it out without ruining the brain too much. This was nice, there were all these new things to do all of the sudden.
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He felt like he was sleeping, but was aware of it. Opening his eyes was a struggle, but he eventually managed. Crawling up, he found himself on a warm smooth surface. A soft glow came from this surface and as he looked down at it, he saw the reflection of his five year old self.
Could a glowing surface reflect?
"I'm bored," someone said.
"He'll come over soon. He can understand us now."
"Sarah?" But she sounded younger...
A soft whizzing sound filled the space. On the ceiling, a light became visible. Another glowing mirror floor was there, where two humanoid figured floated faraway.
The moment he stood up, they seemed closer. The mirror seemed to sink until it fit a ceiling's distance, and the dim light of the floor revealed them : a pudgy girl with blond hair and a thin girl with curly dark hair. The first was a little older, the other however maybe just three. The latter waved at him, but the former looked too serious for a child.
"Took you long to come to us," said Lemura.
"I didn't..." he started, but stopped as a sudden smile appeared on the little girl's face, revealed a set of thin sharp teeth. Her eyes turned black too. It should have creeped him out, but his body did not respond with fear for some reason. He remained perfectly calm.
The other had started smiling too, but her face stayed human. She breathed in deeply and said,"Are you you ready for some info-dumping?"
Jay shook his head. "I don't want to know about this all. I want to be left alone." His voice was his older self, he realized, and so was he. Only his reflection was young. To the two on the ceiling, it seemed inverted : young below and old ... no, they stood in the same was as he did, just a level higher.
"But you arrived here," said Lemura, still grinning.
"I did not!"
"You're here, you will hear it. We need help, but Bison did not come yet."
Jay hesitated. Was there any way he could decline and pretend he wasn't here? Where the heck was here anyway? He was in a big black void on a mirror. Clearly, this situation was not reality compatible.
Or maybe it was a small void. How would you define the size of nothingness anyway?
"Ah, there's the Jay we know, trying to puzzle things out. It was so unlike you, doing nothing over the past days. But I'd rather have you'd contemplate what I'm about to tell you, rather than the nothing," Sarah said.
Jay breathed in and realized there was no air. Great.
"Alright. Shoot."
The two mirrors expanded until they touched, became one mirror. Sarah and sank through her floor, but Lemura stayed a reflection below them.
"So?" Jay said.
"We are certain now. Either Utara or Nuitar caused it. How often did I climb the womb wall and slip, Jay?"
An obvious rhetoric question, so Jay did not answer.
Lemura continued, "They are the walls and the arms of the walls. Could have pulled Sarah. You saw your monitor but did not see real. I saw. I did not know at first. I did not know much."
Jay frowned. "Why in the world would they do that?"
"Noasyvé and Utara have had a relatively effective way of communicating with each other, mutually helping each other. Both of them are in a situation they do not want to be in, but both are selfish. Utara does not want Syvé to leave, for one thing. Syvé couldn't care less what happens to Utara. We're not sure what Utara does want or what role Nuitar plays, but she turned me into a trump card : to survive this, I had to mutate in a way that makes me conspicuous. Something else was done to me while I was asleep."
"A set-up," Jay said dryly. "You're right, Utara requested additional back-up in containing the psychic activity of one of the queens...they... they didn't find anything in your body when you were dead, but now they would, right?"
"Indeed. Without Noasyvés influence the nanomachines attached to my DNA fell back on their original functioning and my body reasoned that I had to heal fast to be able to reach Lemura. Once I come out of that cocoon, I will still look like a human, but if they were to have a closer look at my insides, well, then I'm toast. Now, all Utara needs to do is send a cyborg down here, blow my brains out and have me dissected. Could be done well enough without revealing the womb wall or what you and Bison really do down here. A perfect trump card, Syvé needs me alive to escape because I am her only servant not based on silicone."
"And what do you need my help for?"
"I want you to continue raising Lemura when I'm gone."
"Wait, hold it, time out! You're leaving?"
Sarah looked momentarily surprised. "Ah, I'm sorry. I figured you might have seen the order already. Utara has requested Enigma Prime to arrange an expedition of a planet known as Kyasumeni. You've heard of it I suppose?"
"No, I've...oh, yes. The dinosaur planet. Why the heck is she sending you to that place?"
"That's where the chimera girls went, Lemura's mother and aunt. I've been there through dreams. Utara has been providing me with all information I requested during my time in the laboratories and I thought I had hidden my interest in that place well enough, but she might have measured my neurological responses. I've got a chip in my head too and did not manage to deceive it. It'll be disabled once I'm done transforming, but that's too late. Utara knows there is something on Kyasumeni. Maybe she just wants to know what it is, but I'm afraid she wants the androids and Kirindi and Ti'chai-di-"
"Hold it again!" Jay shifted uncomfortably. "Too much information. You visit the place in your dreams? Androids, Kirindi, Tishaidi? What the heck is this old age nonsense? I'm supposed to believe this all?"
"You're here. Does this type of awareness belong to a regular dream or a hallucination?"
Jay paused. No one spoke. He still saw the image of the two girls opposite of him, but could not recall for the life of it whether he'd just seen or heard them talking. What had been said he did remember...
"Yes, in a lucid dream one can reason like this and be aware, but not visit actual other places. The whole point of lucidity is that you create the world of your dreams. For whatever disturbed reason Utara would send you to a planet invested with dinosaurs, well, she's chasing a ghost!" he said, raising his voice.
"Denial phase?" said Lemura.
"No, but you guessed close, it's disbelief," said Sarah.
Jay stood up. "Telepathic activity has been proven to be limited to certain factors and you cannot cross the void of space with a sense that evolved for earth fields! Let's not even mention the differences between the passing of time here and there! This is bullshit, this is..."
"Nothing does not exist," said Lemura, starting to grin again at the image of the small boy who became red with frustration.
"She means there is a fundamental force spanning the universe, we use that. Call it aether if you will. It goes beyond hyperspace and wormholes, but I suppose we indeed do not have actual evidence.
So let's by hypothetical first. Let us say, there are indeed chimeras on Kyasumeni and that they are not the result of my maddening mind or anything like that. I have no idea what will happen there, but let us presume things escalate. You and Bison need to be in tune with Lemura when that happens, because we will need help and you will need help too."
"You're asking me to join that hivemind of that thing, aren't you? I won't do it! You and all those things, you're not human!"
Sarah's face grew hard and she glared at Jay.
"Humans do not exist," said Sarah. "Do you know how little of the human body is actually human? Water, bacteria, raw material. This is a scientific fact, Jay. If it's about 'racial purity', you'll be closer to home with us."
"Oh quit that bullshit, you know exactly what I mean."
"The human mind?" said Lemura. "Where? Where is a human mind?"
"Where?! You don't get it at all, do you?"
"There isn't any," said Lemura simply. She didn't smile anymore. Her face now looked much more human, but it was solemn.
"Alright then," said Sarah calmly. "I will tell you one more thing. Nuitar is down here too. Not as a program, but in a body of some sort. Him included, there are four forces playing on this station, Syvé, Utara, the humans and Nuitar. Utara and Syvé at this moment are an unsteady alliance, but this will not last. If you insist on trusting the human minds, you should go up and reveal what Utara is doing down here. That would mark you as unreliable though, for both the humans as for Utara. You'd be eliminated. The way things are-"
"Let me out of here," said Jay, his teeth gritted.
They ignored him. "Human nature dictates one seeks survival. If you play by human cards, you ought to seek the side that will actually care for your survival."
"Let me out! Now! Let me out! You're all the same, you're all monsters!"
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Jay woke up to a spinning world and a stinging headache. Unsteady he tried to get up, but sank right back to the ground. Groaning, he muttered a few curses.
That's when he noticed the sticky liquid around his neck. Steadying himself against the wall, he touched it with one hand : sticky, and thicker on the back. It went up his skull, where it mingled with his hair.
A cold sound echoed around him. With some effort, he twisted his neck to the source.
There was Lemura, and a glass of water between them. Most of its content had spilled. The way she looked at the splashes was almost ... regretful?
Then she looked up. The same dark eyes, but somehow less creepy.
She waited, and he waited to become less dizzy.
Eventually he pushed himself up and reached for it, only to stop.
"Utara?"
"Yes?"
"What just happened?"
"It would seem the chimera felt threatened by the disability to access your mind. Your earlier behavior indicates repeated attempts to access your mind by some source."
Did she know anything? You could never tell with machi- wait, who'd been trying to access him?
Now Jay thought about it, he'd been acting like a lunatic before. Trying to kill Lemura for some reason, but why? He couldn't remember his reasoning, or even why he'd have dismissed the reasons not to do it.
"Utara, do such access attempts usually result in violent behavior?"
"No sufficient data."
Nuitar is down here too.
Jay grabbed the glass and drained it, trying to ignore the pain in his spine.
"What now, Utara?"
"I would suggest getting your wound treated with additional medication."
Sarah told me how to close it.
Jay's eyes opened wide, then he remembered.
Whatever the game, he would not want Utara to suspect anything of conspiracies, even if he did not intend to partake in them. He feigned frustration. If the darn AI could measure emotion responses as Sarah claimed it had done with her, then ... well, he didn't know. Were there paranoia levels?
"What is this crap anyway?" he asked, tapping the goo on his neck.
"Assumed, a restorative substance."
"Wha...?"
"It seems to not consider you an enemy. It can perceive your emotions now and therefore considers you a lifeform, if I were to be hypothetical."
Hypothetical?
The chip that had been in his brain for so long lay now in a bloody little bundle on the other side of the room. If what Sarah had told was true, then it could have been measuring all his neurological activity too. Great. There went any illusion of privacy he had ever had.
He stood up, staggered a little, then found his balance. His head stung at every turn and moving his neck was a horror. When the door opened, he had to brace himself with both arms just to get through minus collisions.
About halfway between the storage room and his dorm, he noticed the shuffling behind him.
"Utara...?"
"The chimera poses no threat to you. You will ensure its health."
"No, that thing..."
"You will ensure its health."
He imagined it, but it was imagination based on experience when he thought that the AI's voice sounded more threatening the second time. Utara rarely repeated orders.
"Jay? Quick, you need to come over here!" Bison's voice was such a welcome change, Jay increased his pace despite how dizzier it made him. "Jay, where are you?"
"Here!" His voice sounded so hoarse, he expected and got a worried Bison racing around the corner soon enough.
"Oh god. What happened to you? Did she attack you again?" Bison put one of Jay's arms over his shoulder. Grateful, Jay leaned on him.
"I ... I attacked her. It's ... okay now. She took out the chip and ... we need to clean up that room."
Bison's strangled noise was an adequate response for being told you just had backroom brain surgery by a monster.
"I think Sarah directed it, I'm fine," he said, though he began to doubt the way his voice slurred a bit. "Why were you shouting anyway?"
"I checked up on Sarah. Her entire bed is overgrown with brown veins come from her limbs. It's probably some sort of infection, but we can figure that out after ... how did that get on your neck? You're infect—"
"Don't ... don't worry. It's just a cocoon. Sarah's bed, I mean. I'm not. I just need a drink a painkiller."
And a reality check.
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