I have heard of some liberi and a few very adventurous felines participating in a sport known as “skydiving.” This is where those with far more wealth than sense commission a VTOL or balloon to take them thousands of meters up in the air. At which point, they jump out with a parachute and free-fall through the air. It is supposed to be exhilarating.
It is that, but I was also screaming like a panicked girl on her first roller coaster. The sky I was falling through had little glowing flecks of crystal in it, shimmering like stars in the sky. The sea below me was a deep gold color, with jagged chunks of originium sticking up out of the endless waves. Above me was a black sun that seemed to peek out of a cracked sky, like a baleful eye gazing down in judgement.
“Dr. Sussurro! Hold on!” Mon3tr called and reached one of her arms to me.
She did not have to tell me twice, and I clamped on like a rockshell with all four limbs. Fortunately, she’d removed the serrations and was able to reel me in without cutting me to the bone, where she gave me a much more normal hug.
“Hang on,” Doktah said, gliding closer to us. Texas was falling beside us, her arms and legs extended like she was a gliding musbeast. Her expression was calm and neutral, and I felt slightly silly that I was the only one panicking. However, Texas and Mon3tr make a habit of leaping out of upper-story windows, and Doktah is certifiable, so perhaps I was being reasonable after all and the world is just insane.
We all grabbed on to Mon3tr, and she suddenly warped her four talons, which spread out like the webbed fins of a skimming drifter. I was jerked hard, but didn’t lose my grip on her. Our descent rapidly slowed, along with my pulse.
This was still probably far more stress than the baby would appreciate, but they would appreciate me finding James so they could grow up with a father. I’d have to let Gavial give me a very thorough examination when this was over, and put up with endless “I told you so’s.”
It would be worth it. I just had to keep telling myself that.
As we approached the water, I closed my eyes and whispered the Prayer to Saint Gianno. I was a bit surprised that I was returning to my childhood religion now that I’d found out the Law was some sort of ancient alien relic, but, well, hopefully someone is listening.
Apparently they were, because when we splashed down in the golden liquid, it came up only to my chest. This was still very irritating, because to everyone else, it came up to their waist, and meant that I would have to swim, or bob about like an overly fluffy buoy in a lab coat. Mon3tr picked me up and set me on her shoulders before I could decide which.
I scowled down at her, but she just grinned at me, then fished the spluttering and struggling Doktah out of the water and set them on their feet. Apparently, even pregnant, I am far more graceful than the terrifying Ghost of Rhodes Island.
I felt slightly better, but still mostly soggy and bedraggled.
“No sign of enemies. Visibility is poor. Can’t see far over the waves,” Texas reported. I started, because she’d lost her halo and wings, and was back to sporting fluffy ears and a tail.
“Um, Texas, you-” I began.
She shrugged. “Water. I felt…memories. Empathy is gone. It’s fine. I prefer lupo combat arts. Blueberry and Dark Chocolate are restored as well.”
She held up her giant swords, which looked terribly awkward to lug through the water. They dripped with the golden fluid, though they had been two guns just a moment before when we’d entered this place. I shivered, feeling a faint sense of dread, and touched my abdomen. This hadn’t done anything to the baby, had it?
“This place is defined by Memory and Will. Interesting. It also seems to have been infected by something similar to the Sarkaz Realm of Souls,” Doktah commented, sticking their hands in the pockets of their soaking jacket.
“Priestess, it seems, is losing control,” they said, peering down into the golden water. ”The Originium is rebelling. The memories of the Terrans are becoming stronger and stronger. As more and more are assimilated into this universe, their resistance solidifies. However…I sense something else. I think Operator Bones might have something to do with it.”
“James?” I gasped, my head jerking around. Mon3tr squawked as I involuntarily pulled at her ears in an effort to spin her in a circle, and I hastily stopped and muttered an apology, though my ears were still swiveling to see if I could pick anything up.
To my surprise, I did. I’d spent enough time in and around the ocean at Palermo to recognize the faint splash of an oar.
Texas picked it up at the same time, growling and charging forward through the water to put herself between us and whoever or whatever was approaching.
“Hold on, Texas,” Doktah said, raising a hand. “Amiya and I sent for someone. This should be our guide.”
I tensed, my hands knotting themselves in Mon3tr’s hair. She hissed, her pincers rising above me like a gloompincher rearing up to attack. Then, around one of the spikes of crystal, a skiff appeared. It was piloted by a single oarsman standing at the stern, and was about seven meters long with a shallow draft for this sea, and seemed to be carved from originium itself, with glowing veins of stone visible on the hull.
That was disturbing enough, originium was far too dense to float on a normal sea, but even worse was the steersman. He was hunched over, wearing a frayed and tattered military coat of the kind favored in Victoria in the past century.
The sigils, however, were Sarkaz, as was the man. He had light pink hair and two horns, but the left half of his body had been consumed by oripathy. Even the little that peeked out from under his cloak was utterly devoured by the crystal: his hand was black and skeletal, his shoulder a mass of crystal spikes, and face devoured by the disease.
My first thought was that clinically, this man should have been dead long ago. No one could survive that much oripathy and live. Not even James. His heart and lungs had to have crystalized completely. And yet, he seemed rather adept at handling his skiff.
“Oracle,” the ferryman grated, the half of his face that was still flesh twisting into a sneer. “You have returned.”
“Theresis,” Doktah said, nodding their head slightly. “I hadn’t thought to find you here.”
“I am but a memory. The real Theresis of Kazdel has passed beyond this realm. However, even as a memory, I well remember his hatred of you,” the boatman snarled, drawing the skiff up to us.
He pointed into the skiff with one blackened finger. “Get in.”
“Doktah?” Texas asked, still tensing for a fight.
“Help me aboard,” our leader said, reaching for the boat. “He’s on our side, Texas. Theresis may hate me, but even his memory will value freeing the Sarkaz from Priestess’s curse more than killing any of us.”
Texas nodded, hopping on the skiff so lightly she barely even rocked it, while Mon3tr gingerly picked her grandfather up and set him on the prow, as far from Theresis’ ghost as she could, before setting me gently beside Texas and scrambling in herself.
Silently, the ghostly ferryman began to paddle us through the golden waves.
“Where is James?” I asked, turning to our guide.
The memory didn’t answer, continuing to steer our craft through the waves, a slight sneer on his face.
“You know? The tall, handsome idiot?” I said, crouching in the boat and glaring up at him, tail stiff. “Looks like an Aegir, but he’s actually a Precursor? Can’t shut up, even if his life depends on it? A doctor! You have to have seen him, somewhere!”
“My task is to ferry you. Not keep an eye out for your missing lover,” Theresis answered, his one eye flicking balefully to me.
I bristled, but Doktah reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. I quieted, and Doktah looked up at Theresis. “She refers to the one who stole Priestess’s permissions.”
“‘Permissions.’ As if the keys to the souls of my people are nothing more than data to be accessed,” Theresis chuckled darkly.
“I mean to give them back to Terra. Where they belong. Mine as well,” Doktah said quietly.
Theresis went stiff, lifting his oar slightly out of the water. The skiff rocked gently in the waves for a few long moments, and I saw Texas rise onto the balls of her feet, eyes locked on the ferryman.
“You have no hope against me, little wolf. You cannot kill that which is already dead,” Theresis rasped, dipping his oar back into the waves. “So. You would give Sarkaz utter control over Originium, then? To burden the King with full power over Originium? You know what this would mean.”
“I did not say that I would put this burden on Amiya. You haven’t met my bride,” Doktah held up his left hand, where a silver band gleamed.
“If this is a farcical way for you to claim to have married Theresa, I know she has passed beyond as well, and only her memory dwells within the Black Crown,” Theresis said, shaking his head.
“I married the Great Migration.”
Theresis blinked at that, his head snapping toward Doktah. “The Great Migration? Surely you do not mean-”
He stopped, a dawning look of horror coming over his grotesque features. “Ah. The song. Of course. You truly are a fool, Oracle. You think to tame the restless sea itself? If you give Ishar’mla the keys to Originium, then you damn us all. Not just Terra, but perhaps the stars themselves.”
That was a frightening thought, and one not far from my mind. I didn’t fully understand what the Seaborn were, but I did know they were one of the gravest threats to Terra. If even James was terrified of them…well, hopefully Doktah knew what they were doing.
“I am not giving the keys only to my wife. Nor to Amiya.” Doktah looked out over the golden waves, towards the shattered horizon.
“I will give the future to the Terrans. To the Beast Lords. The Feramuts. I will open it to the Law, and if I have my way, my daughter, Kal’tsit. All will inherit equally.”
Theresis was silent, his eye narrowed in suspicion, his grip on the oar tight.
Doktah turned back to the dead king, and shook their head slightly. “Terra will belong to all who live upon it. Originium will serve them. It will still be a danger. Oripathy will still exist. But the keys will no longer be mine, or Priestess’s. Instead, the future, and how it is shaped, will be determined by those who come after. Not those of us who came before.”
“And where are you on this list, Puppetmaster? For millennia, you and your kind have moved my people and the races of Terra across this world like pieces on a game board. Where will you be in all this?” Theresis growled.
Doktah shrugged, putting their hands behind their head and leaning back in the skiff.
“If I have my way? On a sunny beach in Dossoles with a drink that has a little umbrella in it, admiring my wife in a swimsuit.” They paused, and added, “I will, of course, be slathered in sunscreen. I burn easily.”
“And this…Bones. He too is a Precursor,” Theresis argued. “How do I know that he will not immediately see a void of power, and seize upon it, dragging us all-”
I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. I laughed so hard, I was a bit worried I might wet myself a little. Mon3tr was snorting and giggling, and even Texas had a smile on her face, tail wagging.
“What? You dare mock the last true King of Kazdel!?” Theresis hissed.
“No,” I gasped, wiping a tear from my eye. “It’s just…have you met James? Do you know how I met him? The idiot discovered he could manipulate Originium…and immediately gave himself Oripathy so he could cure one Ursus child. Then, upon discovering he could burn Originium…the first thing he did was go into a trauma ward and give himself an Arts overdose so he could heal as many people as possible. I had to drag him away to keep him from collapsing and killing himself.”
“He also told Director Kal’tsit ‘twenty words or less,’” Texas pointed out, her tail swishing back and forth now. “It was very funny.”
“Yeah, mom was really pissed about that. Though she was a lot more mad that he kept trying to ‘prove he had a bigger martyr complex than that idealistic fool Theresa and kill himself faster than that idiot Ace,’” Mon3tr agreed.
She winced. “Um, sorry about your sister. Mom did like her, I think she was more just sad Theresa died trying to save everyone instead of caring for herself. Just like James.”
Theresis paddled for a bit, his expression one of pure incredulity. He finally asked, “Oracle, the man cannot be that big of a fool.”
Doktah sighed, shaking their head.
“He had several thousand pictures of naked women on his phone. I won’t go into how he got them, hilarious misunderstanding, but if I had that much porn on any of my devices, and you can’t prove that I do, you couldn’t drag an admission of that out of me under torture.”
I frowned at the memory, while Texas chuckled. Theresis looked baffled, and Doktah held up a finger.
“James, despite me and Kal both trying to get him to shut up as best we could, confessed to it in front of Sussurro, Texas, and Exusiai.”
Doktah paused for dramatic effect, and chuckled.
“Exusiai immediately shot him in the ass.”
“Alto idiota deserved it. And the gluteus maximus is one of the least catastrophic locations to be shot. No bone to complicate things. Usually heals cleanly,” I muttered.
Theresis continued to paddle, obviously wrestling with this revelation. “And you are certain you want to rescue this fool, not simply destroy him and Priestess, and be done with it?”
“And my mom!” Mon3tr said, waving her arms frantically. “She’s OK too, right Mr. Memory?”
Theresis grunted. “I am merely the guide. But the witch was well, last I saw her.”
We paddled through the sea for what felt like hours, years, or maybe just moments. Time was difficult to keep track of, and I found my eyes sliding shut. It had been an exhausting past several days, and the baby wasn’t helping anything. Adrenaline was wearing off, and I so desperately wanted to sleep.
I forced my eyes open, and gritted my teeth. No. Not yet. Not until I had James back.
Eventually, after how long, I could not tell, a blocky shape appeared on the horizon. We crept slowly forward, and I sat up, squinting. That profile…I thought I recognized it.
“Texas, you have better eyes than I do. Is that…?” I asked, my heart suddenly pounding.
She nodded. “She is slightly different. Missing the upper deck expansion and the crawlers. But it is her. Rhodes Island.”
I swallowed, my mouth going dry as the land ship, or well, I guess just a regular ship now, drew ever closer.
We were going home. Back to the Island.
Back to where we began.
Entry 48, Day: Still dead, but kicking
You know, being dead is a lot less interesting than I was led to believe from all that mythology stuff I was forced to read as a kid. I mean, I’m basically a Force Ghost, right? You only think about the cool bits, where you show up, haunt someone, drop some cryptic riddles, or bemoan your tragic fate.
Not the very long stretches you spend sitting on your ass.
“I spy with my little eye…something…” I looked around. We were in some sort of inner sanctum boss room, with a sarcophagus in the center, and all kinds of cables and stuff up above us. Most of the room was blank white tiles, with not a single motivational poster or artistic decoration to be had.
And by ‘we’, I mean me and Monster Kal. She was still a giant crystal demon thing that looked like her summon and less like her. If said giant monster was moody and depressed. She was curled up, with all her spiky legs drawn up along her thorax, head tucked in, sort of just…laying there.
“...something white,” I finished lamely.
Kal twitched slightly, her head lifting up to stare at me before flopping back down with an exasperated sounding warble.
“Okay, so, maybe ‘I Spy’ isn’t the best game, but we both gave up on Tic-Tac-Toe,” I said, and pointed to the nine cat’s games that had reminded even my idiot brain that this was a solved game with no point in playing. “And what else are we going to do to pass the time?”
Kal’tsit closed her eyes and appeared to take a nap. But I couldn’t do that.
Somewhere, out there, was Lucia. With our baby.
Was she safe? Had Priestess kidnapped her and turned her into a fox? What about Texas? Exusiai? Mon3tr? And everyone else? They’re out there, doing SOMETHING, and I was stuck in here playing ‘I Spy’ with a mute old hag!
I got up and began to pace around the room nervously. I was dressed in scrubs and a lab coat, with a little card that read ‘Dr. James McCoy - Project Originium’ clipped on. I ripped the laminated plastic off and tossed it away. I kept my eyes fixed on where it lay as I walked, watching the white tile with my ID card until my eyes burned. When I finally blinked, it was gone.
I felt at my lab coat. The ID was there again. With nothing else to do, I threw it again without even looking. I was careless, and it bounced off Kal’tsit’s flank. “Uh, sorry.”
She didn’t even stir. I groaned, walked over, and picked it up. I dropped it and turned around, the ID back on my lab coat. I slumped down, resting my head on Kal’tsit’s side. She shifted slightly, curling around me. Her head rested on my shoulder, eyes still closed.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t answer. But she didn’t have to.
I had no idea how long we had been here. Some time ago, Priestess had appeared in the chamber with the Law and the Pope. She’d just touched me, and I’d vanished and appeared here. No teleport ‘pop,’ no ‘fwing’ of Instant Transmission, just somewhere else one moment, and here the next. I panicked for several long seconds, until Kal’tsit arrived as well.
“Oh thank God,” I had gasped, and run over to give her a hug. To my surprise, she’d leaned down and very carefully moved her razor-sharp scythe arms about me in the approximation of a hug. Her body was hard, and cold, but it was still her, and it seemed like the old cat needed a hug just as much as I did right then.
And after that…the waiting. It felt like I was trapped in limbo. Shit, for all I knew, this was some sort of weird ass Dante’s Inferno deal. Wish I remembered more of that book from AP Lit. I mostly read the CliffsNotes. Maybe that would have told me how to get out of here, or at least made the irony funnier.
“Did I ever say sorry?” I asked. Kal opened one eye, which was multifaceted and glowed slightly like an LED. “About the whole twenty words or less thing. I uh…I was wrong, and stuff. I wish…I wish you could say a lot more than twenty words right now. A good old Kal’tsit speech…be kinda nice, actually. Soothing.”
The crystal body shook, and I jumped up, frightened. Only to realize that Kal’tsit waa laughing. She shook her head, and nudged me with her muzzle, full of more teeth than the Abyssal Hunters have, and I flopped back down.
“I mean, I could improvise one,” I offer. I raise one finger in the air. “How amusing, lay in front of me lies of thousands of decisions yet to be made, and yet they are all but the false illusions of choices, designed to give me feelings of-”
Kal’tsit headbutts me none too gently in the shoulder, and I grunt. “Okay, fine. I won’t improvise one. Actually, I was quoting that Wendy’s meme. I’m too tired to improvise something.”
I rub my eyes with my hands. “I wish I could sleep, I just…what about Lucia? She…she has to be OK, right? And the baby, I…I was…I was looking forward to being a dad…”
Kal’tsit rumbles slightly, and rests her head on my legs. Not completely: she’d crush my legs if she did with how big and dense she is, but enough that I can feel her weight. Enough that I can know, wherever I am, in hell, purgatory, or just Priestess’ fucked up Matrix impression…I’m not alone.
I finally close my eyes, and I think I sleep. I’m not sure. I don’t dream, exactly, but images and sensations flash through my head for a bit. I’m awakened by a loud hiss and a variety of warbling alarms. I jerk up, doctor instincts kicking in to overdrive. There’s a stethoscope around my neck suddenly, and I jump to my feet as Kal’tsit uncoils and rises up, hissing softly.
The alarms are coming from the sarcophagus, and I watch as several robotic arms descend and began performing a variety of tasks. I step over to one of the stations and tap at some keys, bringing up a diagnostic screen of some sort. I peered at the readouts, but a lot of it was closer to computer code you get when you accidently hit F12 on your browser than a medical report I could understand.
“Come on, at least give me vitals,” I snapped, stabbing my finger at the screen. “Heart rate, blood pressure,respiratory rate, temperature, blood glucose—something. Hey, Director, can you make heads or tails of this?”
I step aside and let Kal’tsit bend over to examine the screen. She hisses and twitches her pointy arms. Right. Not sure what I was expecting.
The sarcophagus suddenly vents steam, and the hatch pops open. The voice that warbles out is distorted, like someone didn’t get the audiomixing on it right.
ThoSE fOoLs! TheY reJeCT my mOdeL? WhY doeS evERythIng and EVeryOne on tHis CUrseD worLD hAVe to BE sO blATantLy sUIcidaL?!
Out of the wreck crawls a woman in extremely bad shape. She’s got gun-shot wounds all over her body that are leaking blood and black fluid. Crystals are poking out of her skin everywhere, and Originium is manifesting in the air about and around her. She’s clutching the side of her head, which has been half torn away, revealing a brain that’s more than half Originium by mass.
“Priestess?” I gasp. But I’m not seeing the devil, or even a god right now.
I’m seeing a critically injured patient who needs help. I run over and grab her, and try to lower her to the ground to prevent her from exacerbating her already dire condition.
Get OfF of mE, you UNevOlved BArbArian! She snarls, and bats me aside, hard enough that I crash into one of the metal supports and slide to the ground.
She’s panting and bleeding, her expression deranged. Kal’tsit slithers between me and Priestess, but I managed to haul myself up using a hose of some kind, and get to my feet.
“I can help you,” I pant, which sparks a roar of disapproval from Kal’tsit.
Priestess turns her gaze to me, lowering her hand and revealing an eye shot through with black crystals. She shakes her head slowly, and her voice gets a little more regulated and under control. You MCCOY? You, the supposed doctor with medical knowledge that might as well be from the PALEOLITHIC, compared to what MY people understood? YOU can help ME?
“That’s my whole deal, right? I traded ultimate power to heal the sick and cure oripathy.” I gestured to her with both hands. “Well, you look like you got a bad case of that, lady. Also, multiple GSWs, intracranial trauma, and God only knows what else is wrong with you. But I can help. And I will help. On only one, very small, condition.”
I am NOT freeing you! Priestess spits, blood and flecks of black crystals flying from her frothy lips.
I shake my head, and point to Kal’tsit. “Turn her back. Not into AMa-10. Into Kal’tsit. The overly verbose old cat lady with a face of iron and a heart of gold. That’s all I ask. Do that, and I’ll do what I can to fix you up.”
Kal’tsit roars again, but Priestess throws her head back and laugh. So much for MEDICAL ETHICS. You claim to be the NOBLE HERO, but at the first chance, you LORD it over ME. ME, the Priestess of the PERFECT MODEL! So you prove yourself no better than the UNENLIGHTENED thug I knew you to be!
I hesitate. She’s goading me, and I know it. Fuck. She threatened the life of my wife and child! But…well…shit.
“You don’t appear to be actively dying,” I say, and shove my hands in the pockets of my labcoat to hide their trembling. “If you collapse, I’ll stabilize you. But you want the Miracle Arts? Pain relief? A cure? Then you fix Kal’tsit. You hit her with the devolution beam with a touch, so I’m not exactly asking for much here, am I?”
Priestess glared at me, then pointed a finger at Kal’tsit. Fine. But if you FAIL to uphold your end of the BARGAIN, I shall erase AMa-10 utterly.
There’s a squeal of crystal shattering, and then there’s Kal’tsit, standing there. For a moment, she loses her normal poise. A trembling hand reaches up to her face, and a tear trickles down her cheek. She closes her eyes, and whispers, “You should not have done this, Operator Bones. You should have simply let her suffer, and withheld care. My life and form are not worth sullying your soul with a bargain with her.”
“Yeah, I ain’t so good at that,” I said, and hurry over to Priestess. “I’m going to need you to lie down. Do we have a gurney, or bed?”
I have whatever it is I demand. A bed of black crystal rises up out of the floor in a pulsing wave, and I have to step back out of the way. When the Originium recedes, a full hospital bed, complete with patient monitor, IV drip, ventilator, bedside chart, and even a crash cart nearby. I got Priestess down onto the bed, put on some gloves and a mask, and took the surgical scissors from where they appeared on the nearby table, and began to cut away her lab coat.
“Little help here, Director?” I ask as I begin to reveal the full extent of the trauma. “I’m only an R1, after all.”
Kal’tsit shakes off her momentary hesitation and steps forward, pulling on her own gloves and a mask. “I suppose I am already morally compromised enough I cannot quibble about being asked to treat my own mother.”
I was never your MOTHER, Priestess gasps, writhing on the bed.
She’s clearly in pain, and I wish we had Myrtle here to get the IV going. I do it myself, but I’m not nearly as good as that crafty little Durin nurse.
You are NOTHING but a modified BASIC security drone, Priestess snarls as I get the needle in.
“Real smart move there, antagonizing the best doctor you’re likely to find while you’re actively dying and all,” I say. I run my hands over Priestess’s body. It’s not good. Before, she looked like a normal human who was flesh and blood. Now? Now the illusion is stripped away. This isn’t a human being. And I don’t mean that in the sense that she’s some super advanced alien with two hearts or something.
“Shit, is she completely Originium?” I ask Kal’tsit as my fingers probe at her wounds.
The Director nods, using a scalpel to cut away a bit of the damaged pseudo flesh where a bullet entered Priestess’s abdomen. “Indeed. You can see this tissue here, the discharge? That is not interstitial fluid: That is the damaged area reverting to its natural Originium state. Her physical body was destroyed during the bombardment of Rhodes Island.”
Traitor! You did this to me! My flesh, my FORM, was stripped from me! Priestess wails.
“Quite,” Kal’tsit says, and I see the predatory gleam in her eyes. “To take form in the physical world, Priestess constructed her entire body of Originium. It is quite the remarkable feat: she has constructed a fully functional nervous system, GI tract, lymphatic system, and so on. All of it Originium that has been formed and shaped as flesh.”
Kal’tsit moves her scalpel to indicate the multiple GSWs and other trauma. “However, she has sustained a great deal of damage, and her control is slipping. Without aid, she will lose control entirely, and the crystal will revert to its native state.”
“Do not think this will end my mother,” Kal’tsit says, her tone bitter. “Oh no. She is embedded too deeply into the Originium. Her data is fully encoded into it. It remembers her form, and will endlessly recreate her from the latest cached data. In this case, it is struggling because it is drawing from two sources: the physical body that was lost, and this artificial one she has constructed.”
Remember…it keeps coming back to that. Language, data, memory. Shit. This isn’t a medical procedure. This is like playing a game of 4D Scrabble blindfolded, but in French!
“So…I have to set her check point, so to speak? Then she can be healed, and function again?” I ask, trying to form a mental reconstruction of Priestess's body in my head like I normally do when I heal someone.
I can’t. The Originium is too information-dense, too complex. That’s really saying something, because the human body, Terran or otherwise, is a remarkably complex and fascinating machine. That’s why medicine is an art as much as a science: With so many complex interactions, sometimes you just can’t go with what the textbook says, and the physician on the ground has to intuit what’s wrong and how to fix it.
But this isn’t anatomy. This is some sort of weird metaphysics lesson that’s been turned into computer code and spat back out as a memory and convinced it’s anatomy!
“That is a crude way of looking at it,” Kal’tsit says with a nod, “but not an incorrect one.”
“You are, in essence, trying to alter memory. You studied neuroscience: you know perfectly well that a memory is changed each time it is retrieved by the brain. Well, the memory of Priestess is becoming worn thin. It has been retrieved too many times. The Originium has conflicting memories of her. To heal her, we must cut away the incorrect memories, and assert which are true. Alas, this is beyond me. I never received such permissions. You are the only one who can do this, James. Not I.”
I take a deep breath. “To do that…I’m going to have to go into the Originium itself. Aren’t I?”
Fool! You understand NOTHING. You are already WITHIN my MODEL, Priestess gasps. Her voice is becoming weaker. The distortion isn’t too bad, but the reverb is amping up again. She’s fading, and we need to do something, or she’ll come back bigger, badder, and crazier than ever.
“She is correct,” Kal’tsit says, gesturing to our patient. “You and I are just as lacking in real physical form as Priestess, James. We are ourselves are memories, our bodies destroyed days ago. We exist purely within the Originium, our souls bound to the identity it has stored. All this around us is illusion.”
Kal’tsit takes my bloody and crystal stained hands in her own and squeezes. “You do not need to temporarily leave your physical body to interface with the Originium as you once did. You have no physical body. You may traverse as deeply within what the crystal holds as you wish. Only, do not become lost. I shall do my best to tether you, but this is a delicate process. Go too far, and you risk losing your very identity. And unlike Priestess, the Originium is not programmed to restore you endlessly. You must be cautious.”
I swallowed, and squeezed Kal’tsit hand’s back. “Am I doing the right thing? Should…should I even heal her?”
Kal’tsit pulls her mask down, showing me her face. “James. Since you have arrived, you have consistently done the right thing, even when it was madness. You healed a young child and saved a life, though it could have cost you your own. You never asked for fame, riches, or glory, but instead volunteered to be an R1 for meager pay. You gave away your great power, and asked nothing in return. You took the ills of the world into your own body, asking only to be given more of the sick to heal. And, finally, you laid down your life for the woman you love, and did so gladly.”
“I mean, yeah, but…but I didn’t think about that. I just did it,” I admitted.
She smiled at me. “Do not ask me if this is the right thing. Your ability to heal is your weapon. Your heart is a sure guide. And your passion to heal and restore the broken for no reward, is the most dangerous thing about you. Do not restore the disease, restore the patient.”
Her eyes flicked towards Priestess, then instantly were back on me. Her tone firmed to that of command. “Use it now. Not for yourself. Not for Priestess. For all those you love.”
For all those I loved? Well, that didn’t include Priestess, so why would I…wait. Restore the patient? Wait…
“Heal and restore, one final time, James,” Kal’tsit repeated. “Take my broken mother, and mend her. Give us back the woman who would have saved Terra by forcing it into a form that could be saved. Do it for Her, James. As you have done since you first laid eyes on Her. Do not overthink. Simply be what you have chosen to be.”
She smiled, and winked at me. “ A doctor.”
Her. Kal’tsit didn’t mean Priestess. She couldn’t. I hadn’t given a single rip about Priestess except for getting the hell away from her since I met her.
No, Her could only mean Lucia.
A form that could be saved…
I thought back to what Doktah had said about Skalter. About what had happened to Ash, and Tachanka, and Doc.
And suddenly, I understood. I knew.
I sucked air between my teeth, and nodded. “Beginning procedure: Full body rebuild of the patient.”
Priestess seemed to relax, a grin on her face. She probably thought I was about to hand over my permissions or whatever to her, gift wrapped so she could take over the world.
Well. Time for her to learn just what you could do when you practiced medicine.
I started diving into the Originium. It was like falling into a dream. The reality around me was stripped naked and bare, and I saw the Simulated Universe for what it was: Just a recreation of life. Not the real thing. I wasn’t standing there, operating on Priestess. I was dead. Just a cloud of Originium particles that remembered being Doctor James McCoy.
But, that was the key now, wasn’t it?
I suppose I could have used my energy and effort to rebuild my own body. Maybe get the hell out of there and found Lucia and the others.
Nah. That would have been smart. Since when do I do the smart thing?
Instead, I gathered up all the blueprints that were saved in my dust. All the people I had saved. Wow. There were a lot of them. Andrey. Texas. Rope. Exusiai. And of course, Lucia. And so, so many more. I paged through them. It’s hard to explain, but…the information was already within me. I already understood it. I just synthesized it.
Using that, I compared it to the data on Priestess. There was a lot. Sheesh. Her original form was human, but, well, she wasn’t kidding about being an evolved form of humanity. Having two hearts would have been a simple explanation. But it was like every cell in her body had been engineered from the ground up to be a perfect expression of itself. She’d been biologically immortal, with the capacity to regenerate lost limbs and organs, even without advanced medical care. Her physique had been incredible, beyond what we would have called peak human in my day.
Focus. This was all very interesting and had all sorts of ramifications for future medical breakthroughs, but that wasn’t why I was here.
I distilled it all down, and cribbed notes from the Originium. It was used to modifying bodies, turning all races into the same compatible baseline. It had to do with something about a single linguistic model being more robust and easier to reconstruct after degradation of the model? I didn’t get it. But I didn’t have to. All I needed was to understand was how it changed organisms.
That was complex, but fortunately, I had a lot of experience with changing organisms and rebuilding their bodies now. I began to build Priestess’s body. Kal’tsit was a feline, so, her mother became one, too. Her facial features and build stayed mostly the same, with a few of the modifications that came with being a Feline. I don’t just mean the cute ears and the tail: Felines have different eyes for better night vision, a different proprioceptive system so they can always land on their feet, and a lot of other tweaks and adjustments. I’d healed a lot of Felines, so I had lots of data to work with.
The reconstruction happened in mere moments, once I began it. Had to act fast, because if I were too slow, Priestess would absolutely have seen it coming.
The last step was, well, there’s not a real medical term for it. It’s more…metaphysical. I didn’t just put Priestess’s memories in her new body: I bound her soul. I can’t explain how I did it. Sort of like how it’s hard for someone to explain how they know to catch a ball that’s coming at them, or flip a pancake just right, or do anything else you’ve done a hundred times. It’s just…instinct.
Doing all this took a lot of energy. I mean, like, an incalculable amount of energy. I wasn’t just making a whole ass body from scratch, I was imbuing it with memory and being. Fortunately, I had an excellent source of energy. The most energy dense substance known to man: Originium.
Priestess’s old body became the fuel that created her new one.
And you know what? I did a damn good job. Physically, she was maybe 30. Absolute peak condition. She took good care of this body, it would last her another seventy, eighty years. Easy.
I stepped back, grinning.
OK, I fell down, and Kal’tsit had to catch me. My soul and memories or whatever did reform into the James McCoy data illusion, but that data illusion was spent. My muscles were limp rubber bands, and my brain was sluggish and foggy.
“What…what did you DO!?”
I blinked to see Priestess sitting up, looking down at herself with an over exaggerated look of comic horror on her face.
“Healed…healed you up. See? No more holes! Allll goooodd,” I slurred.
“Well, mother,” Kal’tsit purred, her tone dangerous. “I believe we do look related now. Don’t you?”
Priestess slowly lowered her hands, which were trembling with rage. “You think this is enough? You think this will stop me? You think binding me to this disgusting, unevolved flesh will defeat me?”
“Uh, well…yeah?” I managed.
Then you are more of a fool than I imagined.
Spikes of Originium slammed through the floor, and Kal’tsit dove out of the way, barely dodging them. Priestess was hovering up in the air, her tail a stiff bristle behind her.
I AM Originium, fool! I, and no one else, created this model! I alone can control it! Priestess raged. She was clawing at the air, her muscles visibly straining as she fought to control the Originium.
Three more spikes came from the walls and ceiling, all converging on Kal’tsit and me. She cried out, and tried to shield me with her own body, wrapping herself around me like a protective mother. I squeezed my eyes shut, certain that this was the end.
Only…it didn’t come. I opened one eye, and peeked out to see the spikes frozen a hand’s breadth away from Kal’tsit’s vulnerable flesh. The crystals were straining, trembling. Priestess still had some authority.
But so did someone else.
“Priestess. I’m disappointed. And here I thought we were partners.”
“Doktah!” I gasped, spying the familiar jacket and hood.
Then, I saw her: Wonderfully fluffy tail. Cute pink ears. Rumpled lab coat. And the most beautiful grin I had ever seen.
“Lucia!”
“James!” she cried, and tried to run over to me, only for Mon3tr to grab her.
“Oracle,” Priestess said, her tone cool even as she summoned more originium. “It seems you have arrived.”
“Yes,” Doktah said, stepping forward. They gestured, and the spikes threatening me and Kal’tsit retreated, even as Priestess visibly fought to impale us. She snarled, and a new spike grew, this one aimed at the Doktah. They stepped to the side, guiding the Originium away. Not perfect control, Priestess was clearly fighting, but she wasn’t having it all her way.
“Now that we’re officially over, I think it’s time we had that custody talk. Don’t you?” Doktah asked, dusting off their hands.
I swallowed. I had made Priestess Terran, alright. Unfortunately, I mostly seemed to have pissed her off, not robbed her of Originium completely.
I hoped Doktah had a plan. Because I certainly didn’t.