by Renard, Loki
THIS ISN’T REAL
Krave
Once again, Seven is on her way to me. I see her as a green dot on the radar as she is flown out across what she believes to be the ocean, but what is in effect a large saltwater reservoir. The first time this happened, I anticipated tormenting a misbehaved human and sending them back to the simulation the better for it. I never intended on falling in love. But that is what has happened, twice now. Every time I am inside her the bond grows. I am hopelessly lost in her.
Bleep bloop.
My monitoring software indicates that she has been dropped into the chute. In a matter of minutes, she will be before me and I can do this right, finally, for the last, and first time. Seven will be mine. I will show her my true form and I will tell her that she is to be mine. I will refrain from ripping Tyank’s limbs off, even if he really deserves it. I have promised myself this, because I need this woman more than I need anything in the universe. I would give up my position as first hatched, if that were something I were capable of renouncing, and not something hard coded into every piece of the DNA which determines my physical form.
Sure enough, she is led in between two murketeers. I expect her to mouth off to me right away. I brace myself for the sass which I know will make my palm prickle with the need to slap her naughty ass. She is going to be so much fun to tame this time. I can’t wait to verbally spar with her and feel the soft embrace of her body wrapped around mine.
“Well, human,” I say. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
She stares at me blankly. I think perhaps she is just working on something ultra disrespectful to utter, but the silence goes on too long and becomes not just awkward, but worrying.
“Answer him,” the murketeer says, nudging her in the ribs. I resist the urge to rip his head off for daring to touch her. I am being good. That means everybody gets to keep their body parts attached to their bodies.
She makes a grunting sound and looks away, disinterested.
“Is she on something? Has she taken one of the drugs down there?”
“Hard to say without taking a sample, sir,” one murketeer escort says. “But I can’t smell any on her. They usually stink of drugs if they’ve been taking them.”
The first time I met her, she was unconscious and had to be jolted into wakefulness by a murketeer’s probe. Maybe she needs that again, even though she seems to be somewhat awake. Maybe she’s somewhat asleep.
“Does she need a jolt?”
The murketeer who escorted her in makes a subtle cough under his breath, as if he has something to say. I glare at him, which is as close to being an invitation to speak as he’s going to get.
“What is it? What’s wrong with her?”
“We’ve seen this from time to time,” he says. “It is rare, but the way the simulation has been handled lately, this was somewhat inevitable. When you conquered us, you didn’t read all of the Galactor manuals.”
“So?”
“So there was information in them, detailing the process by which humans are kept, how their minds are managed, how delicate it is, how wiping should be done by medical professionals. There were many Galactor professionals capable of managing those processes, but they were all slaughtered, so it’s been sort of an amateur effort…” he trails off as I start to snarl.
“Keep. Talking.” I growl.
“Well, sir, it’s just that you didn’t follow the instructions. Humans can’t be wiped and reset every few days. Galactor designed the process to be used once every few years at the very most. This human has been wiped on two occasions in a matter of days. If she is wiped a third time, her mind may not survive at all.”
“You’re saying I damaged her brain?”
“Possibly, sir. As I said, the processes haven’t been used this heavily on any human before that I’m aware of. I’d suggest you get the other human out of prison, and ask him. The one they call Andrew.”
Yes. I remember. There was a human imprisoned down here when we took over. His crimes were of a vile nature, and I felt no inclination to let him out of the small cell where even Galactor had decided to let him rot.
When Galactor ran the simulation, they used a select number of hand picked humans to interface with the other humans. These humans knew what was happening inside and outside. They were effectively jailers to their fellow man. This one took advantage of that and was sentenced to human punishment.
“Bring him to me.”
* * *
They bring him. He is not impressive. He is older, graying, paunchy, and terrified. The one somewhat relatable thing about him is the scars which cover his body from head to toe. It is said that he was attacked by boolean mastiffs inside the simulation. It is also said that he deserved it.
I point toward Seven, who has wandered off and is now facing a pillar and not moving. She seems to view it as the end of her personal world. She was so bright, so wicked, and so incredibly rebellious. I miss her. I feel the deepest writhing sense of regret in my gut where my internal organs are seeming to flail in misery.
“Tell me, traitor. What is wrong with her? Don’t touch her. Just tell me.”
He swallows.
“Well, sir, from looking at her, and hearing what the murketeers said, being memory flashed is very hard on the human mind. It’s not really built to be wiped and restored. The neurons suffer over time. In some cases, a subject might become what we call time-bound, it’s when the mind becomes locked to a specific period of a past strand of existence and can’t actually exist outside it anymore. Trauma can trigger time-binding. If I could make a suggestion…”
“Yes?”
“The human suits are very effective. If you put one on, you could approach her within the simulation, in her time-bound state and perhaps re-start your relationship.”
“That’s how this happened. I was wearing a human suit inside the simulation. I tried to mate with her and broke it in the process. She saw me. So I wiped her again, so she would not have the memory of my true form while living in the human world. Then she rebelled again, so I brought her out, determined that she should live here with me.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well. Uhm. Hm. Uhm.”
None of those noises are in the least way useful to me.
“If you return her to the simulation and make no further adjustments to it, or to her, she should make a quick recovery. She’s like a fish out of water. The longer she stays in this incompatible time strand, the more neural strain she is under. If she stays out another hour or two, she might be completely unrecoverable in any sense.”
“So there is all this technology at our disposal, and the best option you have for me is to return her to the simulation?”
“I’m sorry, but this is a wetware issue. The human brain is sentient goo. You can only do so much to it before it just breaks down.” He looks at me seriously. “She could die.”
ALIEN ATONEMENT
Krave
I did harm to Seven. I did not intend it. I thought I was saving her from my true nature, but the truth is, I was doing it for myself. I did it so I did not have to deal with the horror of her gaze that very first time when she saw what I was capable of.
She is in her apartment, drinking coffee, a stimulant which most humans don’t really need, but which she does. I have been told that the coffee will be her best friend. It will help her reintegrate into the system and the time strand where she became mentally tangled.
Time travel is possible for our species. We do it without trouble, skipping forwards through eons at a go if it means we gain an edge in war. What we know about time travel could be summed up in endless tomes. What I personally know about time travel is not as broad, but it is intensely practical. I know that going forward is easy. Back is, well, much more difficult. Back almost never happens, and when it does, it’s usually a disaster. Literally.
I didn’t think about it this way, but now I realize I’ve been putting her back in time over and over. I thought it didn’t matter be
cause it was only a few hours each time, but I should have known better.
And now I will pay the price.
I have decided that I will join the humans in their prison. I will live inside this simulation, as a human. I will eat as the humans eat. I will drive, even though the bus would be quicker. I will clip coupons and never use them. I will lift weights instead of doing work which has practical application. I will discuss curtains, if I have to. And I will kneel when the humans kneel.
As part of the preparations, I gather my two trusted, or at least, physically present, broodkin. Or I try to. Tyank shows up, but Vulcan is nowhere to be seen.
“Where is Vulcan?”
Tyank shifts uncomfortably. “About him…”
“Where. Is. Vulcan?”
I know I have been distracted, and I know that being distracted is dangerous. The first hatched must pay constant attention to his brood. He is responsible for maintaining order and demanding discipline. I am used to keeping tabs on a clutch of ninety-nine scythkin. But over a hundred thousand humans have stretched my attention past its limits. Though, if I am honest with myself, it is just one human who absorbs my thoughts now.
“Don’t pull my arms off again,” Tyank says, holding up his hands.
“Where. Is. Vulcan?” I repeat the staccato question.
“He went to old Earth. Fighting has broken out between Scythkin and Galactor forces. I would have told you, but you were boning the human.”
“He did what? There is what? Why was I…” I let the questions hang and make a motion with my hand to indicate Tyank should not even try to answer them.
“We are at war, sir, and Vulcan wanted to be in the middle of it.”
“We all want to be in the middle of it,” I growl. “But we stay here. We guard this resource. I gave him a very clear order.”
“Maybe you should have ripped his legs off instead of my arms,” Tyank suggests.
“Maybe,” I sigh.
I am now as torn as Tyank was. On the one hand, I want to follow Vulcan to war. That is where I should be. On the other, I cannot abandon Seven and the other humans. Galactor may be using the old Earth site as a distraction.
“How DARE he disobey me,” I snarl. “Tyank, that means you will have to run the war machine here. You will liaise with the rest of our brood. Call them back. Make sure they are in orbit. Make sure we are protected. And call our allied broods too. I want Galactor to be blown from existence if they attempt to come within light years of this place.”
“You’re leaving that… to me?” Tyank sounds surprised.
“I need to go into the simulation.”
“For the girl?”
“She needs help. What I did harmed her. I need to fix my mistakes. And it is time you took responsibility yourself, Tyank. You’re more capable than you know.”
He swells with pride. I feel pride in this moment too. I kept Tyank with me here because he is supposed to be weak. He has always played the role of last-hatched. The clown. The fool. The miscreant who must be forced to obey. But today, I need him to rise above the order of his birth, even as I cast off the mantle of mine.
“You really want me to run this place? In war time?”
“I will be in the simulation, fixing what I broke. If you need me, you can summon me by drone.”
“You mean, I can have you picked up and thrown into a hole in the ocean?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m going to do that,” he grins, sharp fangs flashing.
“If you do without cause…”
“I know, I know,” he laughs. “You’ll rip my arms off again.”
Scythkin never apologize, but I feel as though I might owe him an apology.
“I did that to protect Seven,” I say. “But there may have been a way to do that without seriously maiming you.”
“There may have,” he agrees.
“So. I am…” I pause, feeling as though I am on the precipice of a great change I never anticipated. “Sorry.”
“Oh. Well. Uhm…” Tyank does not know what to do with the apology, much as I did not know how to give it. “Thank you?”
“You are welcome?”
“Why is this interaction almost as painful as actually having my arms ripped off?”
“I don't know. Let’s move on. Tell Vulcan to return immediately. Tell him it is an order. When he refuses it, or ignores it, tell him again.”
Seven
I wake up, feeling a faint hint of surprise at being conscious once again. I’m lying in my bed, but I don’t feel sleepy, or tired, or rested. I don’t have any bed feelings at all. I have an absence of feelings. When I look out of bed, at the apartment room where I live, I have that same absence. It is like waking up to discover that I've been robbed, but I haven’t been robbed of any of my physical belongings, just of the bits inside me where they mattered.
Well. This is weird.
What’s even weirder is that I don’t care that it is weird. This place I have woken up in is a place I recognize, but it’s not a place I find myself capable of caring about. It’s just a location, like any location. I am a body, just like any body.
“Bits of meat,” I murmur to myself. “What do they mean? What do I mean?”
I feel as though I have been very far away, but also right here the whole time. That doesn't make sense, but I get the feeling nothing does anymore. So many feelings. No reality. What? Huh? Hmm.
I push out of bed when my stomach rumbles and go over to the kitchen. That is where the food things are. I open cupboards and look in the cold box and I see some shapes that look like they might give me some mouth pleasure and full stomach feel, and then I think… nah. And then I think, well, okay.
I put something in my face. I don't know what it is. It has a crumbly texture. It could be toast. It could be a bit of wall. What is even the difference really? I chew and find some liquid, pushing my face under the water tap which dribbles into the sink with a clear flow, running over my face and a bit on my nose and a lot on my chin. Relatively little gets into my mouth hole, but enough does.
So that’s nice.
Standing up, I figure I’ve achieved something today. What day is it today? Does it matter?
Where’s my dog?
I feel like I had a dog.
“Dog?”
I leave the apartment, calling for my dog. What was my dog's name? What did it look like? Am I married? No. Definitely not married. That would not happen.
A woman I know stops and looks at me. She is wearing bright red lip color and bright blue eye color and she has soft pads on her shoulders which make the chiffon power suit dress skirt sort of thing she is wearing look like an inverted triangle with her little frizzy bobble head on top.
“You look amazing.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She seems surprised. Maybe I don’t say nice things to her very often. I can't remember. I should be nicer to this woman. She clearly spends a lot of time trying to look somehow like she is somewhat together and she seems to have some understanding of what the world expects from her, which at this point, I admire.
“Do you think I have a dog?”
“You have a dog,” she says. “It’s not allowed. I reported you to the building manager.”
“You did? Wow. That’s kind of mean.”
“Not mean,” she says. “Just following the rules.”
I look down her body and see that her knees are contrary to the rest of her appearance in a very stark way.
“What happened to your knees?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your knees are all dirty and scuffed, and your stockings are ripped and torn and gross and…”
“I was kneeling,” she says with the kind of attitude which says I am uncouth for bringing the state of her knees up. Dirty knees are something you’re not supposed to mention. Like farts.
“Why?”
“Because the rules say we must kneel.”
“Why?”
She twists her fac
e and looks at me with great displeasure. “You’re crazy,” she says. “You're insane. You’re just crazy to ask questions like that. Who asks questions like that? We know what we have to do. Just follow the rules and everything will be fine.”
With that, she hurries away. She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. I have made her day unpleasant. Good.
Now. Where is my dog?
BING!
The elevator dings and a man steps out of it. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smile made for me. He is holding something white, fluffy, and bright eyed under his arm.
“My dog!” I reach out for the animal, feeling a rush of excitement and connection. There is something about that cheerful little face which makes me feel suddenly inside my body. From the moment I woke up, I have been floating somewhere above myself, observing myself going through the world but not feeling as though I am actually here. I feel the animal’s fur, and suddenly I am fully back online, a human all over again.
“Where did you find him?”
“He’s been hanging out at my place,” the man says. I stare at him, wondering if I know him. He seems familiar, but no names are coming to mind.
“I’m Krave,” he says, extending his hand so I can shake it.
“Krave? Cool name.”
“Thanks,” he says.
“Did your mother call you that?”
Krave
No, my mother didn’t call me that. Scythkin have to choose their own names because our mothers are twelve foot tall monstrosities with ovipositors who lay their eggs and then go on the offensive, destroying as many clutches belonging to other females as quickly as possible. Matriarchs rarely survive their first lay, and never their second. Scythkin reproduction is a brutal, bloody business, though I think humans give us a run for our money. No matter how nasty a matriarch battle may become, she is never incapacitated by her infant bursting out of her flesh.
“I chose the name myself,” I smile. I am trying not to be overwhelmed with relief. Seeing Seven so blank beneath the world made me concerned that I may have damaged her beyond repair. This is attempt number three. I now know I will not get another one. Whatever happens between us this time is what will comprise her memory of me forever. No more take backs. No more do overs.