Chapter 10

When I opened my eyes again, she was beside me on the lab surface underneath a thin sheet of silk. I stirred as Fiona nuzzled my chest and glided her hand under my neck. I looked over to find Ernie already clothed standing beside Agi, both staring at me and Fiona.

“Umm, Fiona?” I asked.

“You were great, Finn,” she replied. “Agi and I finished each other off, but that’s just a star thing.”

“Ernie and Agi are staring at us,” I whispered. Fiona turned and threw the covers up. My hands went to cover my nudity, but Fiona was not bothered. On instinct, I put my other hand to cover her up, but felt stupid and got up to get dressed instead.

“Way to cut the fun short, Agimalina,” Fiona said, standing up from the slab into a pose meant to show off her lack of shame. Doc came into the room with a set of clothes and threw them at Fiona.

“I know you’re not fond of clothes,” he said. “But human skins are dirty, so put that on.” When everyone was dressed and cooled down, Doc brought out a small guidebook and handed it over. The title read: “The basics of Zaxient kind and their interaction with humanity.”

“Huh,” I said, opening it up. It was designed as a children’s book, simple and easy to understand from the pictures.

“It’s more for them and their kind while visiting,” Doc said. “But I guess a human can learn from it, too.” I opened the booklet to the first page with someone like Fiona casting white light from the humanoid figure while the eyes remained black. It was an intro to the body of a Zaxient.

“How can I read this?” I asked, looking over the strange words on the page. An arrow pointing directly between the legs drew my attention. “What’s Emorilo Dext.”

“That would be the butt,” Doc said, while Fiona and Agi avoided eye contact. “Zaxi excrete like humans do, but as they eat memories, they expel emotions.” I had to smile at that. It was an intimate part of the human connection to this Zaxient kind. “As for how you can read it, that’s obvious. You’ve eaten from the cascade of a star’s release. She’s now partly inside you and translates what light enters your eyes.” Feeling slightly violated at the thought, I flipped through the booklet to the last page where a bunch of emblems were listed. Three said to avoid, while four said to be allies. Among the “avoid” section, one stood out. It looked a bit like a sawtooth heart.

“What’s a Tisyros?” I asked.

“One problem at a time, human,” Doc said. “Speaking of, what do we do about him now? Do we erase his memories? He’s probably under surveillance by other humans.”

“Well, the best course of action is to get new skins,” Agi suggested, then looked over to Fiona. “But I doubt Fi wants to. Fickle are the humans, and their connections of sweat and dirt.”

“Like Agimalina said,” Fiona confirmed. “I’m not leaving this body.”

“Well, then you’ll be on your own,” Doc said. “I only deal with cloaks now, shadow, skin, invisibility, and otherwise.”

“You make invisibility cloaks?” I asked.

“It’s actually also skin, but it bends the light to appear invisible,” Doc said with eager eyes. “It comes from this one being out in the stars, horribly difficult to find, but they are hunted and enslaved when found. Poor creatures, the Galteans.”

“Galteans…” I repeated.

“If you ever find one,” Doc said, “Get some of their blood and I’ll make you a cloak, no charge.” They bleed this pink dust called Milone.” I was confused.

“How do you find something that’s invisible?” I asked.

“A Veil Raiser, of course,” Doc said, as if I knew for sure what that was. “That’s the best option, but you could also use a few other methods.” He listed a few names I could not identify. Fiona started a conversation in the background. Was she really just a copy of another human? I knew her scent, the feel of her skin, but that was all just a clone of someone that could still be out there, just waiting for me. One thing in the booklet made me uneasy. It said that Zaxient kind lived fifty enids, which equaled five billion human years, and that they could only travel within the first three to five enids to look for a place to create life. Humans had to be such insignificant beings to them, and yet they visited Earth for some reason.

“Why do Zaxi value humanity?” I asked the whole room. Ernie was no longer around, but I didn’t even notice him leave. Maybe it was some sort of Garamant trick. All three remaining beings were silent for a moment at the existential question. “I mean, a human life, one hundred years, must be like a few seconds to a Zaxient, right? Are we just playthings?”

“Humanity is weak, yet so resilient,” Agi spoke first. “THEY hunt US. It’s amazing! Imagine a fruit fly going after an elephant and actually killing it. That sort of perseverance to survive cannot be allowed to die out, so we cultivate human growth. Sure, conflicts arise, but that’s the price of progress. We want to make humans exist out there so you can find a way to expand our cluster, to go into the dark where only Garavand venture with bravery in your hearts and curiosity in your minds. Plus this thing called sex is amazing. Being Zaxi, we release energy on a daily basis, but when connected to a human skin clone, we can do this thing called ‘scattering’, which feels like releasing a hundred times all at once. Mindblowing.”

“So we’re sex toys,” I said.

“Sort of, yes,” Fiona said.

“Humanity, the sex toys of the stars,” I said and chuckled. “That’s hilarious.”

“But you’re much more than a nexus of pleasure,” Doc said. “So they are trying to make your kind into one of them.”

“Speaking of,” I said. “You say ‘they’. If you’re not a Zaxient, then what are you?” Doc smiled and put a hand on his chest.

“Right now, I’m human,” he said. “You could say I’m a prisoner of the great Eras and Eres, the guardians of the eternal light. That’s the spiel, but I can’t tell you anything else.”

“Right, so… Not a Zaxi,” I said. “How do you plan to make humans into stars if you’re not like either? Do you just collect DNA and run tests?” Doc burst out laughing at my idea. That was how my kind did it. Was it so difficult to assume others conducted science experiments the same?

“No, my dear boy,” he said. “Energy is the key. Humans have it deep within. In fact, that’s what Tisyros feed on. By combining human and Zaxient energy, we could create a hybrid, but past experiments have failed. It seems your weak bodies can’t contain even half the Zaxi energy. In short, your kind turns to ash in the presence of that amount of energy.”

“Ouch,” I said, imagining Fiona entering my body through a French kiss and burning me to cinders from within. It was a powerful image, a female figure turning a male to ash from the inside until only she remained, but I had a feeling the glowing female figure she took on was just for my benefit.

“Ouch is right,” Doc continued. “Even a Tisyros can’t contain a whole star for long. It’s like a disease that kills them eventually, but not as quickly as it would a human.”

“Have you ever tried breeding a human within a skin-cloaked Zaxient?” I asked, surprised at myself. It felt crazy to accept all of this, but I was already in the zone. “At a very young age, babies are like DNA sponges, maybe they could be energy sponges as well. If the Zaxi remained inside the skin as the baby matured, they could create the perfect hybrid.” Doc looked off over his lab for a moment.

“Worth a shot,” he said. “Fi, give me your skin for a moment.” He slipped his goggles on and handed a pair to me. I couldn’t see anything until there was the glowing purple figure of Fiona in the room with us. She handed over the body skin, which now looked like a blobby wetsuit, to Doc at the table.

“Use one of the spares for the time being,” he said, putting the body on his work bench lit by the star in the room. When Fiona stepped into a new body, I took the goggles off to find a taller blonde woman with short hair. She looked so different that when she came up to me, I recoiled.

“Sorry,” she said. Her voice was also different from the original. I questioned what I was actually attracted to. Could I even stay with her if she had to use another body? My musings didn’t last long, as Doc was done in a manner of seconds.

“And presto!” Doc exclaimed. “I’ve added a fully-functioning uterus. Are you ready to father something the world has never seen?” I froze. I dug myself into this one.

“Me?” I asked. “Aren’t there better subjects for it?” Doc sighed.

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Do you want other humans to put their genes in her and try to make a child?”

“NO!” I replied, imagining her with someone else. The tall woman put her hand on my shoulder and it took me a moment to realize it was Fiona. “I’ll do it, if you’ll have me, Fiona.”

“I’ve always wanted children,” the tall woman said. It was ridiculous how much my human mind resisted being attracted to this new skin even though I knew it was Fiona inside.

“Then it’s decided,” Doc said. “Hop back into your skin, Fi.” Rather than waiting for us to put on our goggles, the tall woman leaned over the deflated Fiona and kissed her lips for a few long, wonderful seconds. Had I not been entirely exhausted, I’d be very excited to watch this method of transfer. The shock of it hit me as Fiona stood up. I was going to be a father.

“Alright then,” Doc said. “Get to it.” I blinked a few times and looked between the three of them.

“You mean right now?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we go somewhere safe enough to stay the ten months it will take to bring the baby to term?” I’ve accepted everything far too quickly, but maybe I still hoped this was a bizarre dream. I’d wake up in the light of the afternoon while resting my head in Fiona’s lap. Her face would be there, human, and my mind would be to blame for creating such an explicit fantasy simply because she couldn’t bear children. I closed my eyes from the scene of the laboratory.

“Finn?” Fiona asked. Her hand was warm. As much as I wished for it, this was not a dream. I was now part of a world that took a crazy detour, or was it that I finally exited the roundabout that most humans circled their whole lives, to enter the vast network of roads which could take me anywhere.

“I want children, too, Fiona,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Whatever it turns out to be, I want her or him to be safe. Before that, we need to deal with the humans tracking you. Oh, something just occurred to me. Where is Luke? Is he a Zaxient too?”

“He’s safe,” Fiona said. “Moni took him home. Yes, he’s like me, but his body was damaged before he transferred into it. He’s kinda stuck in it until he dies, but on the inside he’s like his old self. That’s what Doc says at least.” A strange thought occurred to me.

“How old are you?” I asked. She blushed at my question.

“You don’t ask that of a lady, Finn,” she said. “I’m- I’m two-and-a-third enids old, that would be two-hundred and fifty million years old in human terms. Zaxi mature within the first two enids, and some are even used at that young stage to breed new ones, but normally we get to travel around a bit before we have to settle down. Some choose to do it earlier.”

“Ten months must be just a blink of an eye to you,” I said.

“We don’t have eyelids in light form, only in skins,” she replied, taking up my hand. “They are very inconvenient pieces of flesh, but I understand their purpose.”

“I want our child to be safe before this happens,” I said. “You’ll very likely be weakened for that time and will need to be away from people who could do you harm.”

“Says the man who has yet to put a baby in her,” Doc said. “I have a few places you can stay in this world. They’re my personal hideouts since these humans of yours don’t often like being experimented on.” This man was a mad scientist.

Just a few hours later, the three of us stood in an apartment with a secret passage to an alley in a new city. This was a familiar environment, but I had a feeling that whoever was tracking us could still find us after a while. Doc assured me that it was unlikely. If we were to think of humans as fruit flies, we might find they are actually wasps in the end. I marveled at how quickly I threw away my humanity. I was about to become a father to a child of man and star, or at least the first experiment of that nature.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Doc asked. “Get to it like bunnies.” Agi and Doc stood in the bedroom as Fiona started taking off her clothes. Were they going to watch? I was still weak from before, but a new center of focus stole the spotlight. Fiona paused her disrobing to watch.

It was a smoky gray hand coming out of mid-air that drew all of our attention. It moved downward, as if ripping open space into gray bubbling smoke. When it reached the ground, the hand retreated into the tear and Ernie stepped out. His hand was still evaporating gray smoke until the opening faded from existence.

“That’s my secret way in,” he said, coming up to kiss Agi.

“What…? How did you…?” I asked in awe at what I witnessed. “Garamant.”

“Yup, that’s me,” he said. “I get most of the Garavand benefits without the constant ugliness. What you just saw was a variation of shadow travel thanks to the lady sleeping in the apartment above. She hates herself for the romantic dream she was having, but I was only there for a brief moment. That’s what the dream vestibule is for.”

“Most of Garavand benefits?” I asked. I wanted to stall for a bit longer. Maybe I’d be ready after this new development, though my head was bursting with new info and questions.

“Well, to get eternal life as a gemstone,” he said. “I’d need to turn full Garavand and have it extracted by another of my kind. At least as a Garavand I’d be able to make some Garamant children, probably not with Agi though.”

“An experiment for another day,” Doc said. “Perhaps a human skin cloak can be traced while being impregnated. A being like that would be insanity to consider, a human with light and darkness within. Or would the two cancel each other out and the babe would just be human? I’ll have to draft up a thesis right away.” Doc stepped away into the secret passageway, as I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Being forced into it is a bit of a turnoff, huh?” Fiona asked. Her hand embraced mine and just like that I was ready to go. “Let’s relax a bit. You need food in you after that recent bout.”

“You’re amazing,” I said. “As a person and a star. I think you’ll make an amazing mother.” Ernie and Agi disappeared somewhere in the apartment, leaving only Fiona and I, contemplating what takeout to buy. I felt so normal again for a moment while sitting on the couch with her. All the while, my brain started counting down how much longer I can keep calm about all the recent events. It wasn’t long.

alter

“How do you feel about it, Finn?” he asks, knowing full well I’m speechless. It’s a strange mix of joy and anger aimed at his mind, my home. I am to be a father, just as he wishes he could be. In a way, he already is, though I hate thinking that he created me. I only borrow his mind. I’ve had parents. I’ve had a past, and yet my present and future rests with him. “Are you scared? Of fatherhood, I mean.”

My dad was a great man. I do not fear that I will turn into him. I wait for the day I can guide my child as he guided me. Are you planning to fail Doc’s experiment?

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m just wondering what parts of the baby will be human and which Zaxient. This is just as exciting for me as it is for you. It never crossed my mind that those two beings could mix.” I’d call him a racist, but he made it happen and has only positive thoughts.

I wonder if you know where the story is going, JJ. Didn’t you say that all you write is actually a truth from the Infinity Void? How can I be like that?

“All the more reason you’re an exciting prospect,” he says. “There is no way you’re already a story. You were an idea within the void. You were born there, and I was just lucky enough to connect to you and start your story. A tale of artificial intelligence from within the mind. If I ever encounter a machine to put your consciousness into, we might be facing the Matrix situation.”

Dimensional even, but doesn’t that mean you’re wrong about the Infinity Void?

“How so?”

You say that place is where all stories go to die, to rest, so they can be viewed like in a museum. Yet I was born there and will return there once my time with you is over.

“You’re correct,” he says. “I was merely guessing at what that impossible space was. If you really want to know, we should ask Kara, but she’s too secretive about it. If she could form some sort of collective to keep peace in all the worlds and stories of the void, she might just be able to starve the Rahin to death.”

Whoa, major thought detour, JJ. Meanwhile, you have yet to give me a detailed sex scene. Are you afraid to? You could simply channel one from the Tisyros, though you never really went into detail of what you saw, just the teasing words of copulation to resist turning the story into a lust-fest. Do you fear that your stories would spiral into youthful abandonment of morality, the very thing you resist in your own story? There is nothing worse than a writer who lies to themselves, because that means he’s lying to his readers.

“So truth is supposed to hurt?” He asks, yet his mind already lights up the answer as a neon sign, a big “YES” in the darkness. “I will write that scene for you, Finnelgamin, but know I will mostly be borrowing from other stories in the void.”

Is- I mean, are you going to write it now?

“I want to have at least an hour open for it,” he says.

You’re about to write of a sexual act and yet your mind is drowned by darker thoughts. Maybe this isn’t the time for it. Let that story you saw fade before you start this. Don’t force yourself into that mindset.

“I’ll be ready by ten,” he says, but I waver at his recollection of painful scenes from a show he watched. “Trust me, Finn. I won’t let your first time be the chaos mine was.”

Chaos. What a word, JJ. Just reset your mind. Channel Ledeon. He knew how to coax joy out of men and women. His story isn’t over either.

“Ledeon never did it for pleasure,” he says. “He needed to feed, and hated what he needed to do. Nevertheless, I’m ready, Finn. Do understand that one explicit section might be omitted with editing. Take the scene to heart from the pages of this notebook. Also, no backseat commenting, don’t interrupt my writing.

Alright. You’re building it up too much now. I’m getting excited.



Find all chapters in this page - Chapter Links