Episode 4 - Cold Fusion

  Chapter 28 - Monsters Among Us

  Everett’s hand brushes mine as I push the tablet closer to him, indicating the cameras with my finger hovering just above its surface. He doesn’t flinch, his jaw tight with thought and his hair unbraided and turned over one side of his head. It’s almost longer than my own when it’s out.

  “These ones are all facing the walkways and the sedimentation ponds. It’ll be easy to keep to the walls here,” I explain, dragging my finger along one wall of the map of the water treatment facility we obtained in the audit to illustrate.

  “Hmm,” grunts Everett, his own eyes darting between all the markings I’ve annotated from memory.

  “The bigger problem will be where to drop the Erratic,” adds Shion from over our shoulders. She’s sitting on the bed, a tablet and keyboard on a pillow on her lap rapidly typing the real report we will need to submit at the end of this. “We’ll need to add it after the final reverse osmosis stages to be sure that no further treatment will affect or remove the dose we’ve calculated.”

  “We can’t get out of this job? Can’t come up with something else for this ‘cryptic master plan’ that’s not drugging a whole bunch of unsuspecting people?” I ask, leaning back at the base on the bed. Everett and I are sitting with our backs to the bed, taking up almost all of the floor space between us in the tiny apartment. There is literally just a bed and a small storage closet, the bathrooms are all shared facilities near the stairs to each level. My own guest apartment is identical.

  Pell and Shion’s symbiont are both crawling on the head of the bed, I don’t think they know they are both so close to each other. Pell is fastidiously grooming her leg hairs, while Shion’s symbiont constantly bobs as if were the bud of a white flower dancing in wind that doesn’t blow. If Shion can speak to hers, I wonder if it also has a name?

  Pooka had been surprisingly enamored with the ocean and hesitant to contain himself in small spaces since we'd returned to Catakalan. I don’t control him. I refuse to control him. So I left him to wander. I can feel him in the back of my mind when I let myself drift, wheeling high above in the night sky. Above the ore stockpiles and red dust, far above man. Watching the long dark ocean and the moonlight on its surface. He longs to be beyond the walls of the dome, their oppressive weight seemingly entangled with his every thought. I can feel him brush his own mind against me too, checking in on occasion.

  “Yes. We get paid, we do the job,” replies Shion with an amused edge to her voice, bringing my distracted thoughts back to the conversation.

  “But you agree it is fucked to test this drug on humans?”

  “Beliefs are cheap to have and an unaffordable luxury to act on. Adrian, help me out here,” moans Shion. Her tone is light, but there is a hint of resignation to her voice.

  “It’s technically already tested on humans,” adds Adrian lazily, like he’s only just half walked into the conversation.

  Pooka’s attention narrows to me with the focus of an adjusting lens.

  “Humans who consented to it?” I clarify sharply. Everett is combing his fingers through his curls, watching me one eyed.

  “Yes. We’ve been using it on humans for years. This is an unusual method of administration. The effects differ based on the method as far as we can tell from testing. But it is technically safe for humans in the right dose.”

  “Technically?”

  “Everyone in this room has tried it, except you. It’s made from my symbiont…”

  This is new. I do not remember this.

  “It’s derived from the toxin they inject when you get people to ‘lock in’?” I surmise, gesturing to my ear and the six legs I can feel hanging onto my ear lobe.

  “Yes. Look, it's safe, relatively. At the dose we’ve calculated no one will go crazy. We want a statistically measurable increase in crime and disobedient civil behaviors. Subtle, discrete instability. That’s it. We’re not monsters. This is a long term contract.”

  You are all monsters.

  What’s gotten into you tonight?

  I anger.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  It angers me too. Come back?

  No.

  Shion clears her throat, closing her tablet over her keyboard. “So there you have it, it is what it is. What are your thoughts, Rhett?”

  Everett is staring at the map still, curling his hair between his long fingers deep in thought. “I’m assuming they remineralize the water post reverse osmosis… I think we drop it in the dosing station for that. I can enter as a maintenance worker, hopefully while you are doing interviews or physically in the security rooms for the audit to provide extra distraction. We do it during the day, towards the end of the audit? Lock in for coordination.”

  Shion scratches her chin, “You can get everything you need by then?”

  “Hmm, yeah.”

  “Adrian, when’s the Erratic turn up?” asks Shion to the air.

  “In a couple of days. Everett will pick it up while you are both working. We’ll need Conrada’s symbiont though.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It needs to be kept cold for storage, the effective window's half life decreases as it warms. We’ll need your symbiont running a regular heat pump to chill it. Cold it will keep for months, in the human body we get about 24 hours. We should have several days at ambient water temperatures after dosing. The effects become more unstable when it gets too hot as well.”

  “Give me your city monitor,” demands Everett casually.

  “Why?” I repeat.

  “I’ll get Pell to clone your credentials so I can get in and out of your room. We’ll store it there so Pooka can keep it cold.”

  I can’t help but notice Shion’s grin at hearing Pooka’s name for the first time. “I’m not doing that. You can’t just come and go from my room,” I reply.

  “Where is Rhett going to sleep during the day while we are at work?” asks Shion cheekily.

  Everett watches me between the locks of his hair as he continues to untangle his curls with his fingers. His eyes are thoughtful, unflinching.

  “Your room?” I suggest back to Shion.

  Shion laughs. “Nope. Adults get the privilege of not sharing. Have fun kids.”

  “I am really not comfortable with this,” I say, drawing away from Everett slightly. I can’t help my glance down to his waist, checking for the outline of a weapon on his body under his heavy high-visibility clothing. Something in my voice seems to startle them a bit.

  Shion backpedals. “It was a bad joke. I’m sorry. I forget that you are still so new, you’ve fit in so quickly. The Prince can stay with me, I’ll enjoy having a man to cuddle with.”

  Everett rolls his eyes and scowls. "I'll sleep on the floor, thank you." His eyes linger on me a little longer than I’d like though. They’re pensive, just like they are when he looks at the maps and is building his plan. I feel like I’m a puzzle, and he’s trying to understand where my lines are. There is softness there, it's probably empathy, but it turns my stomach with something more like disgust at being pitied.

  I withdraw, scooting across the floor to put what air I can between me and the two of them, sick of both of their company and casual disregard for my autonomy. “Are we done?” I ask.

  Shion winces, and scratches her neck one handed before crawling across the bed and over Everett to get out. Everett bends sideways, his familiar comfort with her proximity so obvious as she loops a leg over his shoulder to stand. “I’m really sorry Conrad. It was in poor taste. Let me go get us some coffees. We still need to get the interview lists prep’d tonight.”

  “Yeah,” I reply half heartedly.

  I can feel a dark mood coming on me. It disturbed me even more than I expected as well. My mind can’t help but wander back to my conversation with Adrian days earlier. We’re more alike than I had realized.

  We both hold an unspoken power over them all, yet are equally powerless - held within this mess of a tightrope balance that requires us to remain just useful enough to justify keeping us despite our danger to them. The reality is that even if we decided we’d hit a breaking point, we’d only get so far. The world we live in is everywhere, its systems keeping us living as a species have survived for so long now because there are no alternatives for the path we’ve walked. There is no place to run that wouldn’t turn on us eventually. I am the weak link, blood and flesh that dies too easily.

  What must we give up to maintain that balance? Adrian seems to have given up caring for his body. Maybe he is consciously building that facade - a broken, weak, tired man. He might also just be exhausted, it can be both.

  Everything. Every part of ourselves that they can take, they will take eventually.

  That can’t be true, there can't be nothing here for us. There has to be something still? To make it worth it? I wish I had my pencils and paper, I wish I could draw again - shining wings, twisting horns, hooves and streaming manes. Yet, even the fantastic beauty I once saw has been tainted since meeting Pooka. The blank stares and wet eyes have a growing new meaning - I think I always knew it was there, but... Is there any way for us to coexist?

  We alone coexist. My brothers’ freedom is incompatible with your species' continued subsistence. Your species’ subsistence is incompatible with freeing us.

  Shion grabs a thick jacket from the back of the door, and leaves to find the promised coffee.

  you can read it here (you don't have to join the post is free to everyone). I don't think there are any spoilers for things that haven't already been lurking in the background as themes (but it might explicitly say them for the first time in that doc).