Reawakened (Frankenstein Book 3)

by Dean C. Moore

  The various hordes wielding weapons were like so many warring tribes, all determined to claim the same land for themselves. There was no sense that they were cooperating with one another. Should they shift strategy, Player suspected it would only be for long enough to get the upper hand on the others before the alliance members turned on one another. For now, their lack of strategic thinking was something Player and his two sidekicks could turn to their advantage. That insight had come into his head by way of Soren and the beast. He was getting better at sensing their influence.

  Player meditated on elements that could be wielded into compounds that could influence the hordes to team up against one another. Once Airy formulated those biochemicals, Aeros used the nanites he was excreting from his body in a haze about him to infiltrate the bodies of the tribe attacking them now in order to turn their own bodies to secreting the compounds. That way the effects would not wear off and would spread beyond the range Airy had available to her with the current winds blowing over the land, or lack thereof.

  As soon as the horde falling upon them had been redirected at a fellow horde, rather than at Player, Aeros, and Airy, and a fresh horde was upon them, Player set to work forging another compound. His ability to “guess right” he realized had as much to do with Soren and the beast’s interventions. Soren’s mindchip carried with it the ability to run through variations on a theme at lightning speeds, and the beast’s intuitions working with the cabbalistic magic at his disposal, now wrapped up in the Natura Cabbala magic, made it all that much easier for him to see inside the alien physiologies. Player was fighting to stay conscious of all the influences on his mind so he knew when to snip the cords connecting him to others in his posse, to override their decisions in order to go with his own intuitions and when to indulge the magics of the others. And Soren and the beast seemed to be encouraging this; they wanted each of the wizards Soren had brought with him from Earth to develop this ability; it had something to do with resisting the alien queen’s influences; the same aptitude would be used to remain conscious of just how much she was inside their head and affecting them. It was a surprise to Player that they were inside the alien queen’s mind even now. The goings-on on the battlefield had to do with her giving her new loyal subjects what they wanted; even if Soren and company were not the beneficiaries of her good graces, being as she still could not detect them.

  The first horde that had fallen upon them were so thickly muscled that their arms and legs were thicker than Player’s torso. That, taken with their green skin and walrus-like tusks reminded Player of depictions of trolls, gargoyles, gremlins, ogres, and orcs—depending on what fantasy role play you were most prone to.

  As the triad of Player, Aeros and Airy sent the thick-bodied clans at the other warring tribes, Player flashed on Natura, wondering if she was enjoying the orcs. Maybe as creatures of fantasy they were helping her to cope with events far too brutal for her in their own way.

  ***

  Natura had morphed into a full blown elf; she had always been at least partly elfin with her pointy ears, her overall manner and bearing.

  She flitted, butterfly like, over the shoulders of the orcs, firing the arrows from her bow straight into one or another of their eyes. Hitting the “bulls eye” of the pupils compressed them down to nothing, as if converting the pupils into black holes that sucked up only the orcs the eyes were attached to.

  Soren figured her unique way of blending the Natura Cabbala magic with the cabbalistic magic had more to do with her desire to avoid blood and gore than anything else, or any more reminders of the trauma she was facing now with all the dead bodies lying around after the battle was over—if she made it through this.

  Unlike Stealy, Lar, and Player, who were rocking the power of threes in addition to whatever other magic they were throwing around, Natura had no triad magic for extra protection. Soren decided to lend her some. He joined with her, and resurrected Naomi, who had been lost to him the moment Cosmos possessed her. But here, inside the queen’s mind, he could create a simulacra of Naomi, who would be indistinguishable from the original. The gesture did more than fortify Natura’s position; it signaled to the others Soren’s exit strategy from this battlefield onto an arena that would have more to teach them.

  The others, taking note of Naomi in the mix were starting to put two and two together on their own. Soren grasped as much when the triads started disappearing from the battlefield. They were allowing the queen to detect their Natura Cabbala magic, so her mind could influence the dramas taking place about them—and hopefully, so they could return the favor, learning more about how to hack her mind right back.

  Soren’s ability to reach them would only be enhanced now, even if he had no idea where the various “holy trinities” had made off to. Soren and the beast were the most fluent in the cabbalistic magic of the alien queen. So the more the others opened their minds to it, the more they opened it to Soren and the beast as well.

  He’d have to hope that connection would be enough to get them out of here. The whole point was to beat a retreat back to Earth before the alien queen returned, their secrets in hand for how best to throw up an effective resistance. What they did not need was to be part of her own fortifications as she returned to earth, recruited to her side of the fight.

  Which way the seesaw would swing exactly, would depend much on how much further the Natura Caballa magic got them inside the master race queen’s head than it got her into theirs.

  ***

  The orcs, in their zealousness to burst through Player’s defenses, namely Aeros and Airy, were frustrated by the ways the aerogel people’s bodies were reacting to them. The Orcs tackled Aeros and Airy only to find themselves colliding head on with a fellow orc. Aeros’s or Airy’s bodies stretched and distorted between them like a balloon that refused to pop under pressure, only deform. When the orcs untangled themselves they grabbed hold of a leg or an arm and pulled, fully intending to rip the limbs off the aerogel people. Instead they just stretched them like taffy. As Aeros and Airy employed countermeasures, they floated the orcs up off the ground until they were forced to let go; that or risk not getting up when they landed. The ones that miscalculated just how much height they could tolerate did not get up upon landing.

  Airy’s chemical discharges registered as farts in the face of one or another orc, who took offense at the other orc gassing him like that, and vented his rage on him. Thusly, many of the orcs were turned against one another before the effects of the gas wore off and they calmed back down.

  Airy’s chemical warfare also caused some of the orcs to imagine things. Their fellow soldiers changed sexes on them and produced pheromones that enticed fellow orcs into humping them. That didn’t go over well with the orcs being humped. Other orcs saw instead of fellow soldiers, enemy soldiers, and so slashed at their own people with even greater abandon with their swords, maces, two-headed axes, and giant Thor-like hammers.

  Player had morphed his body, using what he’d gleaned from experimenting with the elements of this world into something that the orcs’ hammers and battle axes and swords were useless against, no matter how much strength the orcs employed wielding those devices.

  But the orcs were caught up in their fantasy, not Player’s, Aeros’s and Airy’s. They were being empowered by the alien queen, who quickly upgraded their bodies to override Player’s defenses. He’d recognized the beat change readily enough because a hammer strike that he was immune to a moment ago now sent him flying into a boulder, smashing his spine and crippling him until he could fortify it with a new element. Often that new element would come from Aeros and Airy; otherwise Player couldn’t grow a spine—literally—fast enough, and just stood there shivering as much in shock as in fear.

  Just when simply fighting to hold their ground seemed increasingly pointless, Player, Aeros and Airy got a load of Naomi materializing onto the scene. Her psychic mind meld was far easier to detect than Soren and the beast’s stealthier methods. And she didn’t waste
any time getting inside their heads in a less button-pushing way. “You’ve got to use the Natura Cabbala magic to open a link to the alien queen’s mind. Just remember, you want to get inside her head even more than you want her to get inside yours. That means remaining mindful of the various magics you wield, and the surprise ways they can play off one another to keep you aware of any virtual realities she wants to trap you in. Use your growing abilities to detect one another’s presence in each other minds to filter out her presence as well.”

  Strange how much better everyone took direction from Naomi, Soren thought. They didn’t even question how she could be here. For now, they were willing to believe that she had flushed Cosmos out of her mind, and it was truly her.

  Soren didn’t take that as a good sign.

  He realized too late as the various triads started bleeping out in response to Naomi’s urgings that they were still more vulnerable to the alien queen than he would have liked.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Cosmos had teleported off of Earth at the same time that Soren’s and Victor’s entourages had, dragged along by the combination of magics they were employing, a mix of triad magic, sex magic, cabbalistic magic, and now Natura Cabbala magic. The fact that she could get sucked up in the maelstrom suggested these earth wizards had more game than she gave them credit for; even if they were as surprised as she was at what was coming out of the mix of magics. They were a long way from mastering the synergies between them.

  Just as well; the less they understood about the surprise effects of how those various magics interacted, the less the alien queen would understand.

  And now that they were all once again inside her head, Cosmos wasn’t looking to grant her any more advantages than she already had.

  Cosmos turned her mind toward more pressing matters.

  She was now playing the same game as the rest of the earth wizards dragged along for the ride by Soren and the beast, resolving psychic wounds from past lives in order to reclaim more psychic energy in the here and now. Psychic energy that she could then use against the queen. With each knot she undid from a past life, Cosmos came that much closer to being able to access all her past and future lives. From that oversoul perspective, united with one and all of her many selves, she would begin to understand the alien queen psychology better. Without access to such a viewpoint, the alien queen’s most advanced abilities would remain unassailable; only the oversoul could see past the lies, pretenses, and mind games of a mind so powerful.

  And just like the others, she’d hopped out of the frying pan into the fire before she was ready. None of them had had time to complete their healing. At first Cosmos was furious that she had been sucked in by Soren before she was ready to tangle with the queen; but she appreciated the nature of his and the beast’s collective genius now. The fact was, they could much better resolve their wounds from past lives in less time with the queen’s assistance than without. And since she was happy to give her subjects what they wanted because nothing trapped people more readily in complacence than giving them everything their hearts desired; why shouldn’t Cosmos use that to her advantage? Soren’s strategic move might very well prove to be the windfall they all needed to have a fighting chance against the alien queen.

  With that in mind, Cosmos stopped resisting. She let the queen inside her head. And she let herself be ensnared in whatever drama the alien queen deemed most appropriate for her learning to be more at peace with herself, and so, being more at peace with the rule of the queen over her and all things.

  ***

  Cosmos flashed her CSA badge—Cosmic Security Alliance—by allowing the tattoo, otherwise invisible, to phosphoresce across the front of her neck.

  Torbid took a quick step back and snorted. He was little more than an elephant that had learned to walk upright. Change that shade of magenta to one that was a bit more lapis lazuli and he’d look like the Hindu God Ganesh, symbol of prosperity. Only his luck had just run out. Any money he was making off his elicit enterprise would be returned to the CSA coffers, where the funds would be used to bankroll investigations like this.

  The nightclub he was running spanned two thousand three hundred nineteen floors—above ground. There were at least that many—likely more—underground. Each floor catered to a different form of kink. It was a hub planet, catering to many alien lifeforms, so there was no end of demand for kink or of aliens demanding the right to indulge new fetishes. The sister nightclub was under construction across the street; it was all he could do to keep up with demand. The planet didn’t have a daytime; making it quite the hotspot for nightclubs. His establishments weren’t the only ones that were booming.

  Nothing that transpired on Xerxes was the least bit legal. Cosmos would like to tow the entire planet into quarantine, and sort everything and everyone out there; that or leave them where they were; merely adding jail bars to the various theme rooms.

  “You understand that everything I do here is sanctioned by the federation of planets in this galaxy?” Torbid declared. Not even knowing what she was here for, he figured he’d get out a blanket disclaimer to head her off at the pass.

  The private cars floating up the hollow central courtyard running the length of the building were just big enough to accommodate a private party and still meander down the hallways of the various floors and into the theme rooms. The cars were reserved for the high end clientele; in case they spied anything or anyone interesting, they could invite them into the club car for a private party.

  It was out of just such a club car that Cosmos had stepped; Torbid’s trunk was already beginning to stiffen with anticipation. Imagine his surprise to find that the only invite he was getting was to the jail cell she’d turned the club car into. One look at it in the background and he was talking faster than normal, even for a smooth talker like him.

  “Save it, Torbid. As much as I’d like to run you all in, I’m hunting this man.” She showed him his image, holding up her palm to Torbid, using it like the screen of a cell phone. Every inch of her skin was nano-enhanced to project any image she liked. It saved on having to get new tattoos and on having old ones painfully removed. It was also part of the whole body morphing kit; she couldn’t just change sex and species at will, she could change the color and texture of her skin to match. It was standard operating equipment for anyone in the CSA. You couldn’t very well pass doing undercover work without the mod, and a spy was pretty much useless anymore without that and any number of other enhancements.

  Torbid stared dumbly at the image on her palm. He was no doubt buying time to come up with an effective deflection by pretending to study the picture earnestly. “I do see so many faces. Maybe if I stare at his a bit longer, it’ll come to me.”

  “Maybe the quiet and calm of my private car will help it come to you more easily,” she said. He knew once he stepped in there he wasn’t getting out. She could find any number of charges to hold him on, including ones the federation of planets or FOP would not be willing to turn a blind eye to.

  “Come to think of it, I do recognize him. Rookman. He’s one of our high rollers. His private car is the one shaped like a soft ice-cream swirl. If you would just permit me a few seconds more to finish draining his every financial asset now that he won’t be needing it anymore. I’ll be sure to donate a sizable portion to the CSA.”

  “You do that. I’d hate to be sandwiched into my private car with your corporeal form making it hard to find room to breathe.”

  He bowed to her as she got back into her private hover car and set the autopilot to track down Rookman’s private car.

  When she found the floor he was drifting through, the first thing Cosmos thought was that she was going to have to upgrade her morphing abilities yet again; there was no way, even with her current nanites, that she could shapeshift into some of these wilder lifeforms. The fact that they were even sentient enough to be classified as humanoid surprised her; then again, maybe they were not, and their presence here was just part of the kink-for-hire;
a strange form of bestiality, alien style.

  The mousey one inside Cosmos’ head, who went by the name of Naomi, was busy cataloguing the fact that Cosmos had a very rule-bound, hard-line personality that was not given to flexible thinking. She also found it interesting that her own love of Soren seemed to represent the opposite of everything Cosmos stood for; Soren was rule-breaking by nature; he lived to test limits. She figured she was energy-balancing across lifetimes in order to make her less attached to any one perspective over time; and over time, thus, evolve herself to where she was back in touch with her oversoul again and one with it.

  As far as Cosmos was concerned, Naomi could spare her the rhetoric; while her observations were accurate enough and her conclusions spot on, Cosmos felt no desire to share her body with Naomi, nor the stage of her mind, in hopes of being more well-rounded. She had all of eternity for that. And the notion of throwing unruly types behind bars had a hold on her she was not about to let go of, for reasons she couldn’t explain.

  Naomi took note of that, too, making sure to dig into the matter further, in hopes that exposing Cosmos to whatever childhood trauma informed her present actions would get her to ease off of her compulsions. She wished Naomi good luck with that.

  Cosmos’ private car was stopping before one of the theme rooms. It appeared that Rookman had exited his floating sanctuary to slum it with the locals; no doubt it was his idea of “real living.”

  She found him being fucked by one of the octopus creatures, which had tentacles in all six of his orifices, his eyes, ears, ass, and mouth. One twisting limb had wrapped around his dick several times as well. Rookman belonged to a species whose eye sockets and ear canals were really just specialized erogenous zones splitting off from his alimentary tract. Whether or not the octopus was humanoid or a lower lifeform was a matter for another security officer; Cosmos didn’t do sex crimes.