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Arrivals
The morning alarm had just started off, but it wasn’t for her. She’d been awake for hours. Neatly in a row, 4 backpacks were laid out and packed full of the gear needed for their group reconnaissance mission. Against the wall hung 4 more, fully packed as well, but only as a task to keep her hands occupied so the knot in her stomach didn’t tie up the nerves in her brain. The lab itself was nicely quiet so early in the morning, but as soon as the incessant buzzing of the hallway alarm stopped, the whirring and clicking of computer systems and monitors started to fill the air with a technological symphony.
“Aye, Dense? How long you been up?” Mixed with the sounds of electronics, the words seemed to echo in her mind.
Snapping her head to look at the entryway, Aria could see that the doors were still sealed. Whoever it was knew her codename, but she knew nobody here performed telepathy anymore. Jumping to her feet she whirled around and nearly face-planted into the girl standing behind her. Falling backwards she let out a startled shriek followed by a sigh of relief.
“How many times have I said this Tele, if you’re gonna teleport try to do so in front of me.” My nerves are already shot as it is, she silently added to herself.
“Cause then I wouldn’t ever get to see ya flustered.”
Tele was one of the few girls who’d been at the lab before Aria, and the only one who’d remained after all this time. She was younger than Aria by a few years, but her height and flush face made it appear as though she were half her actual age. She held a surprisingly neutral complexion which contrasted her desperate desire to make fun; frequently playing tricks on Aria who was seen as the unphasable leader of the group, though it was never enough to bring a smile to her face. Any other girl her age would have let loose even a small grin as she teleported a raw egg into her teacher's purse or teleported behind someone to give them a scare, but Tele never showed any sign of joy from her mischief.
“I haven’t been awake too long,” a lie, “why don’t you get some actual clothes on and get back here with the others.”
Looking at the backpacks on the floor, on the wall, and then at her own lack of clothes, Tele shrugged and vanished a moment later.
Hearing a light knocking on the door, Aria made her way to the bulkhead and prepared her biological key. Sticking her head through the door she saw Plus and Minus with nervous eyes darting around the tiles on the floor, gripping each other’s hands like they were fused together.
They’re still scared of me, Aria thought to herself. It probably makes sense, I’m the only real adult down here and they’ve only been here a couple months. As much as she tried to be friendly to the two youngest members, Plus and Minus couldn’t warm up to anybody. The twin’s file said they’d been found wandering one of the many European battlefields, their fear generating large surpluses of directable energy which made them impervious to the damage around them, but unable to reach out to anyone for help. How long they’d been that way was unknown, but it was evident they still only trusted each other.
Ducking back into the room, Aria opened the bulkhead and tried to pass off a warm smile on their way in. Avoiding eye contact, Plus and Minus plastered an unsure grin over their nervous faces and hurried over to check their gear.
They need something to occupy themselves too, Aria noted, I guess we’re all feeling the same today. She turned around after locking the entrance, knowing Tele wouldn’t even bother to use it, and watched the twins check their bags, tossing affirming glances at one another. It’s amazing how they look so alike, they could easily be one person.
Average height & weight, blue eyes, blonde hair, but when moving through the shadows they almost seemed to fade into one another, like two streams of water blending into the same river, indistinguishable when together in motion.
With a flick on her nape, Aria stumbled forward in surprise, whipping around to see Tele leaning against the steel rods that surrounded the computers behind her.
“Can you STOP doing that?!” Aria exclaimed in surprise. “Please,” she added, aware of her influence on the twins who were clearly wondering what the fuss was.
Ignoring her exclamation and walking past her, Tele quickly whispered, “there’s someone in med, still unconscious but her injuries are strange. Take a look before these two get their morning exams.”
For a moment Aria froze. Research didn’t send anybody down here unless there was another Manipulator they were given custody of. The fact that she was apparently already injured was even more concerning. Shaking her head, she walked straight through the door and down to the med room. For this to happen on the first group recon of all days…
“This is quite fortunate, isn’t it? Who’d have thought we’d get another Manipulator the same day we send out Recon.”
“Poor girl was just walking to work when she was hit. I doubt she even knew she was a Manipulator. What kind of idiot drinks that early in the morning and thinks they can drive to work?”
“That’s true, are you sure we should send her in with the rest of them? Her ability is self-preserving, but even then, she was in pretty rough shape and more importantly might not have the instinct necessary to survive in such an environment.”
“Whatever happens will be fine. Dense is on the edge right now and this might just be what we need to tip her over. Either Mira will somehow pull her back to sanity, or some unforeseen tragedy will push her over the edge.”
“What’s her codename by the way?”
“Ah, yeah, I’m thinking Replicator might work because she seems to be able to replicate properties of matter, but we need to look into it further.”
“Replicator, huh? Rep sounds fine to me.”
“Alright, Rep, let's see how long you last…”
Departure
Alone inside her bedroom, a morning alarm was being ignored. She’d been awake for hours, standing out on her balcony, waiting to watch the river of people filter their way through the busy streets, none of them bothering to look up. Even if they did, they’d hardly notice a thing. A tall, thin girl looking down from a third story balcony never drew any attention. Sometimes her red hair would catch the sun in the afternoon and draw a couple glances, but the golden rays she once remembered hardly shone anymore, and all those strangers could see was a lonely redhead looking down at everything and yet nothing at all.
6:25. Sunrise. She sighed; it was going to be another grey day. Not even a hint of light on the horizon filtered through the thin sheets of clouds. The smoky tones making red bricks look grey and the surface of the city landscape seem dull. Slowly but surely, doors started opening and the sunrise workers made their way onto the street, their lonesome footsteps echoing up the wide blocks that formed the corridors of Far.
Making her way back to the window, she paused. A cold spot had suddenly formed on her right thigh, then one on her left forearm, then a couple on her back. Rapidly spinning on her heels, she gasped. Rain! There was hardly any reason to get excited about the grey weather anymore, but rain was even rarer than the sun. Water conservation efforts had long ago closed off the surface of lakes and streams, converting them to underground springs, only accessible to customers of the national water grid. This disrupted the natural water cycle and made clean water a premium. Most people had to suffice with the daily ration of barely filtered water, collecting every last ounce in cups and buckets till the faucet stopped dripping.
Making her way to the edge of her balcony, she rejoiced in the refreshing feeling of freezing-cold water on her face. She knew the rainwater wasn’t safe to drink, but the fact that water in the clouds had made its way this far inland was essentially a miracle. Looking down again at the crowds of people forming underneath her, she recognized an uncommon sound, rain on umbrellas, jackets, and sheet metal. Pitters, patters, and clangs filled the air with its own kind of natural percussion, ringing off the leaning alleyways and right into her soul. The daily fatigue she hadn’t even realized she was accustomed to was slowly rinsing out.
The alarm in her bedroom grew louder and louder till it eventually even broke through the sound of falling water and tugged her back to reality. Rushing inside to turn it off, the tone suddenly changed to the seemingly delighted ringing she always dreaded to hear. Picking it up, she already knew what to expect.
“Hia there! Glad you’re up Mira, we need some help here at the diner. Two of our cooks got food poisoning and our waitresses are all kinda a mess. Can you make your way over real fast? Thanks!”
Without a word escaping her lips, that entire call had gone just as Mira expected. So much for enjoying the beautiful day, she grumbled as she found her waitress uniform laying on the floor where she’d crumpled it up the night before. Extra water was rationed monthly for housing units to wash clothes, so the uniform she wore while doing greasy labor at a diner was especially messy. This feels so disgusting. Just like the actual diner, she joked to herself.
Picking up her backpack and leaving the despondent apartment behind, she headed off towards Biscuit House, or as some of her coworkers joked, Biscuit Purgatory. Not a particularly nice place to work at, but because diners were so few and far between, making lots of money there was rather easy. Water had a priority route to registered restaurants so there was hardly any chance of a shortage and considering that each shift got you a free meal there was nearly no reason to not pick up extra hours whenever possible. Still, it didn’t make the dry taste of going to work any sweeter. If the customers saw what went into the food, they’d probably lose their interest even quicker than Mira lost her interest in the job. Nothing particularly bad went into the grub, just lots of corn. She frequently marveled at how much you can use corn as a filler without it making a significant difference in taste. Meat patties were blended with corn to give it more body, corn syrup was added into milkshakes to make it thicker and sweeter, and even vegetable platters themselves consisted of veggies stuffed with various corn-based fillings. We might as well just serve corn as it is instead of ripping off customers, she thought to herself, most stuff on the menu is probably 80% corn by weight anyways.
Lost in her mild contempt for corn, her feet dragged along with the crowd, growing ever heavier with the thought of work. I wonder if I could call in sick, she pondered. It wasn’t uncommon for employees to get some kind of stomach bug due to unsanitary work conditions, and she’d been working in the heat of it all for numerous days straight. If I twisted my ankle maybe I wouldn’t have to waitress at least, surely, they’d have to believe me if I told them that? She knew it would be near impossible to pull off though. Recently, she’d even received an award for being the only employee to never get sick or injured while on the job for a year. The substantial raise in her pay made it far too worthwhile to throw aside for just a day off.
Her feet stopped as if to remind her to come back to her senses. Upon looking up she saw the dull red paint and rusty white stripes of the Biscuit House’s exterior. Letting out another sigh before using the final ounces of her false enthusiasm to don a fake smile, she started walking around back to the employee’s entrance.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a glimmer of light forming against the grey landscape of the city. Turning to look with sparkling hopes of seeing the brilliant sunlight shine through glistening rain, she instead saw only a familiar, dull delivery truck barreling straight towards the restaurant, blaring its horn as the headlights flooded the street, passerbys flowing out of the way like water parting in the wake of a fish. Staring at the dented and dusty biscuit logo on the front hood, she froze right in its path. That’s odd, she thought absentmindedly, there aren’t supposed to be any cars on the street till an hour after sunrise…
Time seemed to stand still as she made eye contact with the man looking down from the driver's seat, a stare as blank as the slate pavement he was careening over and as empty Mira’s mind. Not a single thought would come to her head as she blankly stared up to what could very easily be her end, as if expecting it to just wash over her with ease. When the truck was only a meter away, a single thought came to mind, maybe this is easier than twisting my ankle…
All she could process after that was the flash of blinding sparks against her flesh and the deafening sound of metal screeching against metal.
“Quickly, get her to medical bay 5. We need to retrieve her organs and tissue before the necrosis sets in. Disconnect those monitors we’ve already proclaimed her dead.”
“But her brain is still functioning, and it seems like her heart is still active! Even if her life signs are weak, this might be a special case. I mean, she was mauled by a truck for god’s sake. I think something’s preserving her body.”
“You can’t be serious!? How could this be a special case? According to her ID she was never on the list of parasitic transplant patients and even her medical insurance is essentially nonexistent. We don’t have the time for this, we need her organs more than we need some dead corpse and a faulty lab test.”
“She’s somehow managed to hang on this long with these devastating injuries, I think that’s enough of a test as we need right now. We can run the lab data later; we should bring her down to Medical Bay -1 and have Dense work on her.”
“Hold on! Do you see this? Her wounds are crystalizing over like some kind of metal, she absolutely has to be a Manipulator, or this wouldn’t be possible! Look, even when I peel back this flap of skin her muscle seems to shine silver.”
“This can’t be right. Send her to Dense now, we can’t let anyone else see her.”
“On it. Good luck Mira, don’t let this be a waste of our time…”
Connection
Unable to open her eyes, Mira could slowly feel her soreness and fatigue blow away as though carried softly by the same winds that brought about a nostalgic scent, encasing her in its aroma.
“C’mon sweetie, don’t give me that look. Momma’s still here.”
“But ma-ma, aren’t you dead...?”
Mira lost her breath upon hearing the gentle yet hoarse whispers of her mother and the painfully contrasting reply that came from her own voice. Recognizing the sounds of this particular memory, she immediately felt her entire body tense up.
Letting out a croaky laugh, her mother responded, “Love you’re smart enough to know that I’m still here, can’t you feel me? See me?”
Within her mind Mira wanted to scream, the muscles in her throat tightening up even more than before, Say something! She’s on the verge of death! Why did I have to be so selfish at the worst point?!
Mira hated this memory which had been buried in the grave of her soul for so long. It had no right to overtake her mind like this. It always made her feel endlessly lonely. But she knew she had no right to feel so alone when her own mother was never reassured by her daughter’s voice on the verge of dying. How could she face her mother when she couldn’t even cry? Feeling a gentle hand rest itself on her head, she couldn’t stop her jaw from locking in place and her eyes from quivering.
“There you are darling! I know it’s hard to say anything right now, but the chance to hold you is enough. Please, don’t forget me, I promise to protect you for as long as you live. As long as you promise that you’ll remember me then I can be happy right now.”
That last sentence was all it took to break her dreamlike spell. She thrust herself forward, starting to sob, wrapping her arms around her mother as though trying to drag her back home again no matter what it took. But when she finally opened her eyes and glanced through the blurry slit that made up her vision, her mother wasn’t there. She looked up to see the concerned yet gentle face of another girl, her pale and lanky arms resting around Mira’s shoulders in the same way her mother’s once did.
Making eye contact for the first time, she smiled with radiant hazel eyes. Mira, painfully embarrassed, tried to roll herself off the hospital table. Roll? As she uncomfortably shifted about her weight with the desire to escape this stranger’s tender grasp, she noticed that her arms and legs weren’t exactly functioning as she recalled. They weren’t functioning at all. At most, all she was doing was rocking her head from side to side, causing the tears on her face to pick up momentum and fall onto her bloodied clothes.
“Shhhhhh, it’s ok.” The soft voice seemed to wrap itself around her mind as the strange girl held Mira’s head closer to rest on her breasts. “I’m not sure what’s going on with you right now but you’re safe. This might not be the most delightful of situations for you to be in, but I need you to stop moving. You're at risk of losing a lot more blood if you keep trying to fidget like that.”
Mira glanced down at her body and immediately regretted it. Her chest seemed to have caved in on itself and both of her legs were bent at angles they don’t even teach you in Geometry class. She couldn’t initially see her arms, but as she was set back down in a reclining position, she saw the girl bring them back out from underneath her body and lay them at her sides. They were covered in harsh scratches and what seemed like dents.
“Alright, now that wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to start things off either, so how about I walk out this door and then come back in again as if it’s the first time we meet? She stared down at Mira, expecting a response, but she could only barely nod yes. Mira watched her leave, only to feel like throwing up a moment later as the girl walked straight through the door without even bothering to open it. A moment later she re-entered, opening the door from the outside as if nothing had just happened.
“Hello Mira! You can call me Dense. I’ll be in charge of your check-up this morning and whatever else needs to be done for you!” She said it with such a cheerfully delighted smile Mira honestly thought it was a joke. Is this seriously the same girl that just walked through a solid door and seemed to ignore the fact I was a blubbering mess all over her just moments ago!?
With the sudden remembrance from the last few minutes when she had been sobbing and threw herself onto this poor girl, Mira felt her face grow hot with embarrassment.
“Oh good! You’ve got blood flow returning! I knew you had to be pretty sturdy with all that metal inside you but if you didn’t get a steady blood supply to your brain, you’d be in bad shape no matter what!”
Huh? Metal? Mira looked up at her and then back down at her own body. Under the dull lights she could barely make out faint glimmers under her skin around where every wound had formed.
Dense cheerfully broke Mira’s thoughts apart once again, “I’d love to give you more time to recover, but we really need to get this test done before we can be sure of anything. It would’ve been nice if I’d been able to do this while you were still asleep, but if you’re feeling squeamish then I suggest you look away.”
Curious as to what was about to happen, Mira looked intently as Dense made her way closer. She said she was gonna do some kind of test, but I don’t see any tools or instruments that they should normally have in a hospital. Actually, why am I not hooked up to any monitors at all!?
Suddenly, without a second of hesitation or moment of explanation, Dense drove her hand straight down towards Mira’s gut. Expecting the impact to render her breathless, she closed her eyes, tensed up, and prepared for pain, but nothing came. Opening her eyes, she saw Dense reaching her hand straight into her abdomen as though she were a child reaching into a jar of cookies. It didn’t feel right at all. Here was this girl who was very evidently reaching straight into what should’ve been her intestines or liver or something, but there was no sensation to it, it felt like nothing was happening.
Pulling her hand back, Dense looked at Mira with a sympathetic smile. “I found it. While it may have kept you alive this time, unfortunately one of the parasites has certainly made itself at home in your womb.”
“I found her file finally. The people at records really don’t keep good track of anyone without rank 3 insurance or higher. S’pose it makes sense though.”
“So? What did you find out?”
“Nothing really important about Mira Bronx herself. As we’ve now confirmed, she was not at all involved with the parasitic transplants, but what’s interesting is that her mother was one of the original biochemists with the task of investigating them. The mother died at the age of 36 from an overdose of antimatter tearing apart her insides. And she died before we even started any transplants.”
“So essentially there should be no way for one of the parasites to have made its way inside the mother, but somehow there’s now one in her daughter… Any thoughts on how this could’ve happened?”
“I got nothing. Mira was born after Mary Bronx had started research, and since her death came before the experimental trials, she should've been completely cut off from any involvement in this at all.”
“This is a major problem. I don’t even think that word is enough to convey how bad this is. I can only try to guess that she was somehow naturally exposed to one, or there was someone here who implanted one inside her later on. Either option opens up a lot of dangerous possibilities.”
“We’ll discuss that later. I don’t think we can remove it at this point. The minute we try to cut it out, the natural defense system her body’s developed will immediately stop us.”
“We’ll just have to sit back and see how this goes. She’s already been in contact with Dense so let’s just see how the two of them get along…”
Affliction
Upon hearing those words, Mira was immediately lost. Whatever else Dense was bothering to say was completely unintelligible, as though she were whispering through a mile long tube. A single set of thoughts echoed in the space that was supposed to be Mira’s brain, There’s a parasite in my womb? Is it gonna kill me? She said it saved me…
Feeling a sharp slap on the side of her face, Mira was pulled back to reality where Dense was waiting for a response. “Are you back to the side of the living?” She joked. “It seemed like you suddenly lost it for a moment there. I guess you didn’t expect to hear that, huh?”
Aria looked at Mira with a puzzled expression. Why does this girl seem to not know anything? And the fact that I don’t know anything about her is even more strange. If someone my age is a Manipulator, then she should be in the available records. She doesn’t look like she came from overseas like the twins. Why didn’t they send down a file with her?
Looking down at this poor girl she let out a sigh, “This really isn’t your day, huh? I’ll get to your questions in a moment, but first I need to complete your tests and make absolutely sure you’re healing properly, or else Research isn’t gonna want to keep you alive.” She began to busy her hands with the digital monitors and metal instruments hanging against the wall, when a sudden high-pitched croak sounded off behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Mira looking in her direction, her head fallen off the pillow and her mouth agape.
“Do you think you can talk now?” Aria asked. “We tend to heal from the head down, so you don’t have to worry about being mute for too much longer. I don’t know how long ago you were injured but it’s incredible that you can even breathe. Just keep doing what you’re doing, I’m almost done here.”
This really is incredible, she thought to herself, to have been able to preserve herself for so long in such a sorry state. How the heck are her lungs not popped?! Turning around again with a set of needles to extract tissue samples, she readied the blood bag in preparation for the first of many collections. Upon sliding the needle into Mira’s forearm however, it suddenly hit something solid. As she tried to pull it out, the needle only became more stuck in her arm as the flesh surrounding the insertion became hard and metallic.
Aria stared at Mira blankly. Upon eye contact it was evident that not only did Mira have absolutely no clue what was happening, she likely also couldn’t feel any pain. Whether or not that was due to a disconnection of the spinal cord was a question for later though. Aria stopped trying to pull the needle out and marveled as the arm in which she’d inserted it into, slowly pushed the entire needle out all by itself.
As amazing as this is, I can’t do any of the biological tests without first finding a bypass for this self-preservation. As though hearing her thoughts, the main monitor on the far side of the wall lit up with a notification that Mira’s file had been updated. Instead of just reading off her name this time, it included various estimations as to her ability, weaknesses, time of parasitic infestation, codename, and numerous other records of possible biological data. So, it’s all estimations. They really didn’t keep a very good track of you now did they? Poor girl. At least things like blood tests and checkup data are finally here so we won’t have to mess around with needles anymore.
Turning to check on Mira’s condition one last time, Aria was appalled to see her sitting up on the hospital table, her chest decompressed with each breath and her legs straightened out in real time, as though invisible strings were pulling each break back into position. As remarkable as this was, Mira only stared at the main monitor with a concerned look. Following her gaze to the very top of the page, Dense noticed that it said, “deceased,” next to her name.
This must have come as a shock, Aria realized, though it wasn’t exactly unusual. Both the twins are marked as deceased. They’d been found in the midst of a European Conflict, so it really wasn’t that hard to make people believe they’d been killed. Looking down the list of files, Aria felt her heart sink a little further. Many of the girls on the list were permanently marked as missing. They’d either been killed in The World Across or had simply gone missing due to unexplained circumstances.
“Why?” A hoarse whisper passed itself across the room and hit Aria straight in the heart, which was already taking on water.
“It would be too hard for me to explain all this to you right now,” she replied with a sigh, “but if you want to read what led to your ‘death,’ I’m about to pull up the next page.” As the next few passages unfolded the many details surrounding the fatal truck accident, Aria watched Mira’s face grow paler and paler.
“Why didn’t I remember any of this...?” She finally asked, her voice slowly returning to a healthier tone.
“It happens sometimes.” Aria said sympathetically. “The shock from a traumatic experience sometimes fogs up your memories for a while. I’m sorry. This all has to come as a shock to you but try not to dwell on it too much. You’re about to start a new life after all. The others will be here soon so let's get you out of that bloodied uniform first so we can go over some of the basics. Starting from here on out, I’ll be the only person to know your real name. You should get used to being called Rep. Today, we’ll be going to The World Across.”
“The other three have been informed about the new group member. For now, let’s try to get everyone through to The World Across on schedule. Lucky us, Dense was anxious enough to pack extra bags.”
“I’m really worried about how the rest are going to react to Rep. Even with the twins being new, they at least had a few years of training before their facility was abandoned. Rep is going into this with no knowledge of what to expect. The others might see her as a burden and try to abandon her.”
“I doubt that’ll be an issue. Her age alone is enough of a seniority status and I’m sure Dense will do her best to educate her before too long. If they’re all as smart as we think they are, they’ll hold onto Rep. Her self-preservation is a force to be reckoned with.”
“Hopefully.”
“What do you mean ‘Hopefully’? She survived being hit by a truck! I doubt even a Spiny-Turtle could break her apart.”
“We still don’t have enough data about the creatures from Across, and even less about Rep’s abilities. I don’t think we should be taking the chance.”
“Quiet. Both of you. We don’t have a choice in this matter anymore. Once we found out she was a Manipulator there was no way we could let this chance slide. She’s going with them. If she dies, then we just send Mili to recover her parasite. Rep doesn’t have to survive this. We really just need her emotional amplification and that ability parasite.”
Encounter
As Dense walked out of the room to find the other members of Recon, Mira stared blankly at the door, which had only once been used for its intended purpose. She then unfolded the handcrafted pamphlet she’d been handed a moment earlier. The front cover read: “So You Just Found Out You’re a Matter Manipulator?” With a small note in the bottom right corner, “Handmade by Dense :)”
Cute, she thought to herself. The handwriting itself was a tad scrappy, but what intrigued Mira the most was the fact that the name, “Dense,” had been written over the etched out remains of another name. Holding the open pamphlet up to the dim tube of light in the ceiling, all she could make out was an uppercase “A” at the start and a lowercase “a” at the end.
I wonder if this was a part of her real name, or maybe someone else’s name from before Dense was even brought here. Mira mulled over possible “A” names that she thought might fit this strange girl called Dense, “Do you think she has brain damage?” when a voice in her right ear caught her off guard and she jumped off the table, only to fall to the ground a moment later as her knees buckled from under the unsteady pilot above.
“Why yes she certainly has drain bramage, just look at the way she fell just now.”
“Oh dear that was certainly horrendous, we need to operate right away.”
“Yes yes, a full brain transplant.”
Mira turned around in panic to see a young girl standing behind the lab table where she had just been sitting. Two young girls? One? My vision must still be blurry… Mira rubbed her eyes and looked up at the shifting image of two girls that seemed to be a single entity. They had a foggy sparkle in their eyes that reminded Mira of the vast nebulas and stardust she saw in childhood picture books. It only took a moment later to realize the two of them were actually holding scalpels and were making their way closer.
“How many fingers am I holding up,” one of them asked.
Mira blinked again, “six?” Wait, there can’t be six on a single hand?
Her vision reeled and she suddenly realized that both girls were only holding up three fingers on a single hand each. Leaning over the table to look closer, their eyes appeared to get less and less foggy, seeming to glow from within as though the darker shadows on their faces only made the stars shine more brightly. In unison, they raised their scalpels and plunged them towards Mira’s panicked face just as Dense re-entered through the wall behind her. Rushing forward, Dense extended her arm directly in the path of the scalpels to stop them from gouging out Mira’s eyes. Preparing for a shower of blood to splatter onto her face and new clothes, Mira let out a squeal and covered her face with her arms, but to her surprise once again, nothing came. Mira looked at Dense in shock, and Dense looked with surprise at the two girls who at this point were also looking at Dense with wide eyes and an almost comically horrified expression.
“Both of you. To the void. Now.” As Dense took the scalpels out of her arm where they rigidly protruded from her skin, she was obviously trying her best to keep a straight face, though the embarrassment in her flushed cheeks was far too evident. Placing a hand on the shoulders of each girl, both of which stood frozen with fear, all three of them fell straight through the floor.
With the initial shock of being so badly injured, resurfacing from a terrible memory, finding out about a possibly intentional parasitic infestation of her womb, nearly having her eyes gouged out, and watching three girls fall straight through the solid floor, Mira’s lethargic state of recovery was only becoming exponentially more painful to endure. Getting back on the table where she could at least steady herself, she rolled onto her side only to see a shadowy figure in the corner, where the light from the center of the room didn’t quite reach.
Mira froze. This is either another wacko or a psychopath, but please let her just stay over there. Though of course luck wouldn’t have it that way. Looking straight into Mira’s eyes, the shadowy figure instantly disappeared, and Mira immediately felt a pressure on her back. With another shriek, she rolled back off the table again and got up to see that the hooded figure in the corner was now somehow laying right next to her, facing the opposite wall in nearly the same position where their backs would’ve been touching. Wide, caramel, frightened eyes met blank, green, circular eyes.
“Come on back to bed honey, I’m sure it was just the neighbor's dog.” What could’ve been a decent joke was pushed out of the way by the unfeeling, unblinking expression that tried to convey the attempted humor.
Mira’s sunk to the ground, those circular eyes still following her, waiting for a response or a laugh. What the hell... What the HELL. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE! She had never actually expected to long for the gentle and sympathetic tone Dense had first shared with her when she’d originally woken up, but here she was, on the floor with more than enough questions to make her mind blank to the point of wishing for any sense of safety, no matter how irrational. Why does this have to happen on the first rainy day in months? I miss the cold water on my skin… This floor is nice and cold. I think I’ll just become the floor. People will step on me like they always do, but at least I’ll be safe here…
After a minute or so Aria resurfaced, holding onto the twins behind her who both looked a little dejected, only to find Tele crouching over the floor and poking at the ground with a stick.
“Nevermind where you got that stick, what are you doing down there, and where’s Rep?”
“I think she might’ve broken.” Tele stepped out of the way to reveal a Rep shaped cement statue, gently laying on the ground as though it were a sleeping golem.
“She’s certainly picked up on this fast. Whether or not she did so intentionally, being able to fully shift her entire body into stone like that without it being a danger response is impressive.”
“Excuse me?! I would absolutely call that a danger response. The poor girl has been through so much today and then the rest of the recon squad did all that to her!? She might've gone mental for all we can tell.”
“I hope you don't have any feelings developing for that ‘poor girl’ now. It would be rather unfortunate if we had to take you off this project board like we did your older sister, would it not?”
“No… sir. I was simply stating that she’s been through numerous unfortunate circumstances all throughout this trial so it would be fair to say that she was acting in response to the intense mental fatigue as a defensive mechanism…”
“Glad to hear it. Both sides of the possibility have been taken into consideration. We’ll have them run a mental health diagnostic once she’s woken up. This emotional fluctuation is impressive. Maybe we should’ve been taking people off the streets from the start…”
Welcome
For the third time that day, Mira woke up. Recalling the unsettling dream she just had, she groaned and rubbed away the murkiness in her eyes, only to once again see the same individuals from that psychedelic freak show she thought had only happened in her head. All three, wait, four? yes, all four of them sat with patient stares in a flattened circle around Mira, who now realized she had been propped against a wall in a different room this time. The buzzing of monitors from the wall across the room buried its way into her ear, and the somehow soft yet vibrant lights made it impossible for her to close her eyes a bit longer.
Her head and shoulders felt heavy, and when she looked down at her lap, she noticed that a marbled grey tone was slowly fading away and back into the fleshy pink shades she remembered. What’s this about? she wondered, slowly lifting her arm to find that it clinked against her leg like the uneven, polished stone tiles did back on the floor of the Biscuit House.
Looking up once more, she saw all eyes looking in her direction, evidently mesmerized with the dissipation of the stony texture as though it were slowly being washed off from the head down. Making eye contact with each of them again, the twins and Dense looked down in embarrassment as though seeing her naked, and the girl with the strange sense of humor and the hoodie just acted uninterested.
“Alright!” Dense started off, “let's have a quick set of introductions and then try to get back on schedule. There’s some food by your feet, Rep. Eat up quick cause this is likely the last warm food we’ll get for a couple days.”
She looked down to see a trio of biscuits with steaming gravy over top and a glimmering glass bottle of chocolate milk. How she didn’t notice the savory smell beforehand will always remain a mystery. Picking up a biscuit she gave it a sniff. The starchy, sweet smell she was so used to recognizing was replaced by a salty and rich scent that made her doubtful of the contents. Assuming they’d have killed her already if that was their intention, she took a bite and immediately understood why it smelled so unfamiliar.
“There’s no corn in here is there?” She asked after swallowing the biscuit in one bite.
Dense, who had moved to start writing info on a white board, turned around in surprise. “Why would you put corn in a biscuit? All that starchiness would make it too dry and sweet.”
Mira looked around and recognized that they likely had no reason to cut costs here. What was decidedly the meeting room was lined with computers and monitors from the corner of one wall all the way to the door. The heavy-duty backpacks leaning against the wall next to her made it clear that absolutely no cost had been spared for the four girls living here.
“Do you eat a lot of corn?”
“Is that why you were so heavy to carry here?”
Snapping back to reality, Mira looked in shock at the set of twins who’d just quipped at her. Didn’t their parents ever tell them to not speak like that? She expected Dense to come back and apologize for their behavior again, but she just kept on writing. The only one who said anything was the strange girl in the hoodie.
“They asked a question, didn’t they?”
Realizing that it was somehow on her to explain, Mira was flustered to come up with a response. “Uh, I think, maybe I was heavy because of... the stone… I think? Corn doesn’t usually do that I’m pretty sure.”
The twins looked at her with delighted faces, “Yay! You’re smart! We couldn’t tell if the neurons in your brain were fully healed yet.”
“Don’t neurons never fully heal though?” Mira asked out loud.
Making her way back to where they sat in a semicircle, Dense did her best to explain, “The neurons in most people’s heads don’t usually heal, but we aren’t exactly in charge of our own healing anymore. We can heal in the same way that normal people do of course, but that parasite I brought up earlier decided that it had the right to speed up that process for us. That’s part of the reason you survived such a terrible crash…”
Her voice faded out as if she was saying something Mira shouldn’t be hearing. “And the other reason I survived?”
“Ah, yes.” Dense’s face lit up once again like a child talking about her favorite toy. “The parasite I mentioned has been genetically modified over the course of multiple centuries, all the way back to the original Great Wars, with the intent of creating a living being that can manipulate dark matter. The environment we’ve been raised in over the course of our lives is what determines how that dark matter is dispersed and what it’s utilized for. Tele over there can teleport, but it’s technically just pulling matter through higher dimensions of time which makes it look like you’re instantly moving through three-dimensional space. The twins over there are called Plus and Minus. They have a unique duo-ability that allows the transference of energy between each other. Minus can take any type of energy from the environment, amplify or reduce that with her emotions, and pass it along to Plus who can release it back into the environment. They can chain energy back and forth this way which makes for some really serious problems with many physics’ theories. Mine is simple enough. I can change the physically observable density of numerous components which you’ve already seen me use to make myself and others permeable to solid objects.”
All in unison, they turned to stare at Mira with inquisitive eyes, “And you?”