Chapter 15

“How does it feel?” Fiona asked, looking at me.

“Strange,” I replied. “When I close my eyes, I see this giant dome of silver. I’m inside it with all my memories. The walls are mirrored and I can create anything inside the confines. That’s my mind!”

“Correct,” Doc chimed in. “Now imagine yourself a mess of computers and feed information that’s overloading you into them. It’s unfortunate how little a human brain can contain.” Before I could ask if this would show up every time I closed my eyes, the old man was gone.

“Are you ok?” Fiona asked. “You looked worried for a moment there. Weren’t you going to ask Doc about the gender of our baby?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, closing my eyes. There was a fragment of speech I could not place there. I had no idea who spoke it, but it said “Experimental Bastard.” For some reason, I had a feeling that our child was a boy, in human terms at least. “It would be very interesting if it was a boy with energies of a Zaxient female, huh?” Did my saying so just create that outcome?

“That might get a bit confusing,” Fiona said. “But it would give us both what we wished for. I have wanted my own baby daughter ever since I was ten million years old, and any human male wants a son to teach all the weird human things.” I laughed at the generalization.

“What ‘weird human’ things are you referring to?” I asked. We were still in the living room of my place inside this recorded world. Everything was standing still for us. I wondered how many couples out there in the reimagined world were locked in an eternal climax because of this pause of the world. This speculative thought brought on something I never needed to hide from Fiona again. Would she notice or did I have to point it at her like a compass needle? Her hand found my erection a moment later and I wished to do this for her too, but the baby was in the way. He defended Fiona from the inside like some intricate chastity plug. I maintained eye contact as she brought me to climax.

“I sure wish I could scatter right now,” she said, wiping her hand on the sheets. “But Doc said I shouldn’t do that while pregnant. That bit of time isn’t much, so for now we’re going to need a few things. Condoms and rubber gloves for sure. If you can find something to insulate your mouth, that would be great as well. Oh! Don’t forget a whole bunch of lubricant either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Isn’t this place just a recording?”

“Well, yes,” Fiona said. “So order things online for delivery and Doc will get them to us. Oh, maybe throw in some flavored things, and a variety of sex toys.” It was great to see her embrace the female human skin with such a positive attitude.

“What did you mean by weird human things?”

“Well, you know,” she said, more embarrassed than when she was discussing sexual things. “The things that humans do that Zaxi just don’t. There are no such things as Zaxi families. We are born, we learn basic stuff by being bounced around, and we’re tossed out there to find our own place in the emptiness. I mean, we can speak to our parental clusters, communicate with them from anywhere, but there is no togetherness, no contact beyond that slight hope that we’re safe.

“That’s why humans are strange to us. We don’t have caring parents who try to stay close to us, to watch us grow up. Like I said, weird human things, something this human skin apparently longs for. I feel it inside the longer I stay inside, and it’s weird.”

“Well, you have me for those feelings of longing,” I said. “Your internal system is connected to this human skin cloak, right? Maybe that link to how we perceive things develops a new sort of thinking. You understand the weird things, don’t you? The internal human cues for contact and differences between our emotions. Whoever connected a star to a human deserves an award. There is no better way to understand a new being than to partially become it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Fiona said. “For now, order that stuff. I’ll take any escape from this human skin I can.” I wondered if it was the hormones of her body that she was feeling. Never being a woman, I could only guess and read some articles on pregnancy changes, not that her case was in any of the medical journals. Doc was probably writing about it as it was occurring. It was a ridiculous idea, the child of man and star, but it was just as exciting a concept for experimentation.

break

What was for Fiona a blink of an eye, for me was nine months of exploring the recorded world. It was fun to go through that place as invisible spectators, seeing all the secrets and stories happening behind the scenes. Some of them saddened me. We encountered various shootings and attacks on people, but could do nothing to stop them. Doc suggested turning off all the negative events, but I knew it was better to have it happen and know about it, than to ignore it completely. The world wasn’t all beauty and stars. A life could end in an instant, and we witnessed a lot of accidents over those months.

The feeling of this world was that of virtual reality. We were invisible in there, but could interact with objects such as trains and cars to get around. With the use of our minds, we could walk through walls, hitch rides with strangers, and even abandon gravity altogether. All of this was simple with Gilk as the device allowed fluid control of my brain. I could believe in being able to fly or move through solid objects much easier. It was the golden key for the recording, but not something I could experience in the real world.

As Fiona’s pregnancy progressed, her stomach expanded, but she had no difficulty carrying extra weight. Being a star in a created skin, she had no human limits. Her moods did change a lot over the time we spent together, from sessions of extreme excitement to some strange depression I’ve never seen before. In all of that, she was unaware of her heightened emotional state, thus making her dangerous to be around. I gave her space, but the baby interfered increasingly when she wanted to have sex. Any and all openings of her skin became an electrical socket that threatened to kill me. Near the end, I was too afraid for my life to go near her as my heart already stopped three times in the previous months due to her excitable mood swings that drew us together.

The virtual recording repeated every three days, but as there was a whole world to explore, those three days were never monotonous. As much as I wanted to stay near Fiona to protect my child, nothing in that hamster cage of a world could hurt her. The atmosphere was the limit to the projected reality. At a certain altitude, there was an intricate wall with painted stars that looked realistic from the ground of this pretend-Earth. That was as far as I could go to get away from her. So far, the pregnancy was progressing just as any would, though I wondered what the birth would look like. Fiona didn’t feel pain like humans did, or rather could just turn it off.

When the time of nine months came around, I learned that it actually takes ten, but the last was on edge. Any second between those thirty days, the baby could decide to come out. Doc was around more often to check on his experiment. Fiona and I had to spend more time together so that I could call Doc to help deliver our baby who tried to end me countless times. We’ve discussed names to no resolution. She was like my father, wanting to give her or him a name like the stars, a strange name like mine.

“Inrin Tronic Sadon Agerist,” she would say. “Or Itsa for short. Agerist is my family name.” I did find out her full name was Filigare Igrot Oniva Agerist, a much more ridiculous name than Finnelgamin. She was dead-set on believing that the baby was a girl, so we made a deal based on gender. If it was a boy, I’d choose a name, but if the energies pointed to more of a female, she would choose. I already had my mind set on Ethan or Philip. Due to the amount of electricity coming from Fiona’s womb, Doc was unable to use traditional machinery to speculate the baby’s sex, nor did he try to overcome that hurdle and invent something to get the job done. It was a mystery and a struggle to the end.

At the time of birth, Doc came prepared with a fully insulated rubber suit, but for me, he only brought a pair of cattle-birthing gloves that went up to the shoulder. I thought it was a joke, but they allowed me to help without dying.

“Don’t worry, I’m wearing a Draw,” Doc said pointing to a giant, round, metal coin on his chest connected to some cables. “Any electricity coming out of her, this baby will catch and store. Think of it as the placenta of a star.”

“I’d rather not,” I said, imagining what that would be in human terms.

“Well, here we go,” Doc said, patting my back. “Ready to be a father?” I froze at the thought. A part of me thought the experiment would fail, but here I was at the moment of birth and I was about to be a parent. Fear blossomed in my mind, but I stuffed it down to make room for joy to spring up instead.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m ready.”

Agimalina came to help us, but the scene inside the room was absolute chaos. Agi was in star-release form, floating in the room and casting a bright red light. Luckily enough, I already had the thick goggles on that adjusted dimming based on light coming in. The electricity from Fiona on stirrups was a sort of blue-purple and hit Agi in a continuous lightning strike like some sort of tesla coil. Doc walked into the room with his chest thrust forward to change the direction of the lightning strikes to the Draw. Fiona was awake, but had no control over what was happening within her. The Draw took all the lightning strikes like a boss, creating loud grinds of metal as electricity stored and drew more out. I only stood there, dumbstruck at the wild scene. What had I gotten myself into?

“FINN!” Fiona yelled out, reaching out her hand. She was not in pain, just helpless to stop expelling pure energy in both heat and shock. I rushed to her side while Doc’s Draw kept me safe. The large coin was visibly heating up, but the look on that man’s face was pure crazy delight. He was quite a mad scientist, and I was glad he was around. When the lightning stopped pouring out, Fiona fainted.

“Fiona?” I asked. She squeezed my hand gently as a light emanated from between her legs. The opening stretched to a face with glowing eyes, one purple and one blue, but this was no baby. Hands coated in some luminous substance reached to widen the opening, tearing Fiona’s skin to open enough space to pass. The child who emerged from within her was about five years old already, and it was a boy based on appearance.

“About time,” he said, stepping out onto the floor of the delivery room.

“You’re- Yo-” I stammered with surprise.

“Not a baby,” he said. “Can speak, and I don’t like your name choices.” Fiona was struggling to remain conscious, but her body was torn open far more than a baby would need to pass through. “And yes, I’m your son, and Doc’s experiment. From the information I got while inside this fleshy maternal cluster, I’ve gathered that you’re a human, and that you don’t know how early a Zaxient achieves sentience. The Zaxi-.” I hugged him without another word. Even if he skipped past the baby years, I still loved him. He had no idea what to do, but put his hands around me in kind. Some part of him was human.

“You don’t have to be Ethan or Philip,” I said. “But your mother was so sure you would be a girl. Are you sure you want to be called Inrin Tronic Sadon Agerist?” Even though my clothes were getting soaked in the glowing fluid, I held onto this life I created.

“A compromise then,” he said. “I will be named Filigare Agerist. Fil for short. It should fit well among both of my parental clusters.”

“Parents, Fil,” I said, letting go of the hug. “I’m your father, but you can call me ‘Dad’.”

“Alright, Dad,” Doc said, getting up from a shock with his hair in a very mad scientist afro. “Save that for later. Now, strip. I’m going to need all of that glowing fluid for study. Are you alright, Fi? Agi?”

“Gonna need a bit of stitching up over here,” Fiona called out. Doc rushed over with some thread that apparently dispensed from his wrist. In seconds, Fiona was back together and came up to greet Fil. “You’ve almost killed your Dad a few times while you were inside.”

“It’s his fault for poking his human stick into my home,” Fil said. “I put up defenses just in time to be frank.” Fiona smiled and put a hand to his cheek.

“We’re such a family of ‘Fi’,” she said. “Fiona, Filigare, Finnelgamin.”

“I’m Agimalina,” Agi said, extending a hand to greet Fil. In response, he grew up ten more years and stood closer to sniff at her energy. Before I knew it, the teenage Fil was up against Agi kissing her lips. I reacted to pull them apart.

“What the hell?” I asked as Fil shrunk down to a five-year-old again. “How did you just?”

“Seems it’s a new development,” he said. “You have a very pleasant energy I couldn’t resist, Agi.” She blushed already back in her skin, visibly glowing in cheeks and eyes. “It seems my body has been infused with Zaxi energy from Mom, so I can be any age I desire. To kiss Agi, I wanted to be a human eighteen.”

“Right,” Doc said. “Best keep to the child’s age for now.”

“I want you to stay my little boy a while longer,” Fiona said, and kissed Fil’s forehead.

“Your energy tastes like home,” Fil said, reaching out to hug her. She hesitated for a moment of surprise, but then embraced her newborn five-year-old. Doc was already behind Fil, scrapping off the glowing blue-purple gel until Fiona cleared her throat.

“Well, let’s move Filigare over to the lab so I can get all this mystery goo into the scanner,” he said. “Either of you coming with him?” Fiona put up a hand.

“I need new parts implemented anyway,” she said. “You go get dressed, Finn.”

“On it,” I said, still using my hands to cover up from Agi’s searching eyes. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen me naked before, but maybe she was wondering why I was ashamed. It was mainly due to society’s demonization of the body and sexual acts, all thanks to cues from different religions.

alter

Did you really think I’d let you do this? You made my baby into a freak of nature! Why did you have to inject your sick thoughts into my story?

“It’s good to hear your voice again, Finn,” he says. “What did you expect when you had sex with a star contained within a human body? She’s pure energy, man. You’re lucky he didn’t come out full spark.”

Don’t act like you didn’t orchestrate the whole thing so I had the opportunity. I agreed to this, but I just wanted a baby to take care of, to grow with. I wanted someone I could educate, guide through life; a person to take care of me when I’m old and senile. This is- I don’t know what HE is.

“He’s your son, Finnelgamin,” he says. “He’s a human with an essence of the universe, and he’s your ticket beyond this world. He’s the person you need to distance yourself from me. For now, we both live on a planet, but if you were to leave, how could I follow?”

Like you always do, with a pen at my neck, rolling the ink onto the pages of this notebook.

“You don’t understand,” he says, shaking his head. “The universe is vast, for both of us, but where I am, stars are not creatures that can step into human bodies and breed half-stars like Filigare. Your world has a universe teeming with life, and you just need a key to it.”

Who says your space isn’t the same as mine? Just because you haven’t encountered a Zaxient, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You think I knew what they were before Fiona? Not a chance. Do not cling to science like a scared child. You were the one who said that science is just another belief, responsible for killing just as many dreams as any common faith.

“But it also makes some dreams possible rather than have them exist purely in fiction.”

Do you no longer believe in the Infinity Void? Is that what you’re trying to say, JJ? Why did your faith waver? Did something happen to shake your mind to such an extent that you stopped believing that all stories have a home in the void? Within those stories are games, competing theories of exploration, building with ridiculous intricacies to bind the simple-minded and triumph with wit rather than skill. That’s your world, JJ, a story full of games you resist playing. And yet, you made me into such a stark reflection of you, my own mind and my own decisions that shape me. Will you really let me go or will you let me into the Infinity Void to meet all your future stories?

“Stop,” he says. “I get it, ‘don’t give up on your ideas’, right? I’ll get you there, Finnelgamin, if it’s the last thing I do. For now, let’s go back. There are things you still need to learn from your son and troubles to go through before you can escape the planet.”

What exactly are you brewing? I really despise it when you hide things from me. It makes me want to dig deeper into that corner.

“No time for that now,” he says. “Go. Be with your newborn.” He laughs in his mind at the joke only he understands. That is my woe, being controlled by this idiot who can access all the power in my ‘verse.

alter

Even fully clothed, Agi was still staring at me. I decided to take the stare head on, but she wasn’t looking into my eyes, only toward my crotch, as if she could see through my clothes. Was that one of the things Zaxi could do? If so, Fiona saw me naked that time we danced in the park. Talk about an unfair advantage. I came up to her, but before I could say a word, she knelt and put her ear to my pants. Because I could not help it at the thought of her position, blood rushed to harden me under the denim pants.

“What are you doing, Agi?” I asked hoping she wasn’t planning to open the zipper, but also secretly hoping she would. It had been a while since Fil became too volatile within Fiona for a normal session of intercourse. There was a buildup of lust in my mind, but she wasn’t the right target for it.

“You have life in there,” she said. “I can hear it. They cry out to pick them and give them a home. It’s strange. I haven’t heard these from you before. Doc should investigate, but I believe your time spent inside Fiona imprinted your genetic make-up with energy.” A wave of wanting hit me hard as she reached for the zipper, almost undoing it with just the pressure against the opening. I wanted to pull it out and give it to her, but Fiona lit up in my mind like a purple light. I pulled away from her grip on my pants.

“What are you doing?” I asked again.

“Ernie’s thing never talks to me,” she replied. “They’re asking to live. If it only takes one human year to make these, I want to do it too. Put a baby in me, Finn.” She came up on her knees, but I distanced myself further, right to the door.

“I’m with Fiona,” I said, as if that would stop her.

“And I love Ernie,” she said. “Doesn’t mean we can’t just give this a try.” She came up slowly, shedding her clothes, as I tried to get the door open in a panic.

“That’s exactly what it means!” I said. “Wait! You don’t have a womb like Fiona to grow life inside! You can’t do it. I can’t make you a baby.” She stopped with a frown and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Unless I ask Doc to put one in,” she said. That was my cue to lock her up in the room. It had to be able to contain her since it was able to contain Filigare at birth. I’d come back to free her later. I found Fiona in the lab with Filigare on the operating table. Doc was setting up equipment and studying three microscopes at the same time. Fil was fluctuating between being a baby and a ten-year-old every five seconds.

“Alright, now hold one age for a moment,” Doc said, and Fill stopped at the ten-year-old body. “Fascinating. His body is fluid flesh that feeds on the energy from his core. He has all the organs a human would, but has no need for any of them. He’s half Tisyros, locked to one body timeline, but with all ages available to form into. It’s brilliant!”

“Does that mean he lives the life of a Zaxi, or will he die like me?” I asked turning Doc and Fiona to notice my presence. She came up and held my hand with a concerned look.

“Very good question, uhh, Finn?” Doc asked, as if he had forgotten what my name was for a second. I nodded. “It’s a scary flip of a coin, to be honest. Filigare here could change into the oldest age he can reach in an instant, but that might be his death. It is possible that instead of dying, he would simply exit the part of him that is human and live as a Zaxi. While in this state however, he will not age unless he wants to.” I created an immortal child, a being that could very well outlive me in two of the three outcomes predicted. Why did this make me so sad? Watching my child grow up would connect us more, but I was robbed of that.

“I know I’m going to regret telling you this,” I said. “But apparently I’m carrying some sort of energized life inside me.” Fiona stepped away and knelt the same as Agi did before. I felt dirty not telling her about that event, but there had to be some secrets I could keep. Fiona’s ear touched down on the crotch of my pants.

“He’s right,” Fiona said. “It’s like they are singing ‘I want to live’, over and over in my wavelength.” Doc came up to me with a cylinder.

“I’m going to need a sample,” he said.

“I can help you out,” she added, reaching for the zipper, but thankfully Doc stepped in. Getting a blowjob from the mother of a child watching was not what Fil should have been seeing right now, or any time for that matter.

“I can’t have you contaminating the sample, Fi,” he said, pulling out a belt from the cylinder. I moved away slightly. “Don’t worry, this might be the most fun experience you’ve ever had with a toy, and it’s for science!” He laughed, but I wasn’t feeling his enthusiasm since three people were currently watching me.

“I’m going to need some privacy,” I said and was ushered into a room with no prying eyes, at least visible ones. The cylinder had two belts, one to go around the waist, and the other that went between the legs and attached to the first at the back for a secure hold. Even though Doc said this was for science, the extractor was a glorified sex toy. I set it up feeling some excitement at his praise of the piece of tech and when I turned it on I understood the boasting. It took the person out of the equation. One could have this running while walking around as it worked to get the sample out.

I could not resist the hands-free motion surrounding my erection and felt a climax drop me to hands and knees. It was an extraordinary machine and Doc could make millions on it, but I doubted he was a businessman. The sample was conveniently moved to a compartment on the end, where it was sealed in a petri dish. My first observation of it was that the substance was glowing purple.

“I see,” Doc said, studying the container. “Don’t go anywhere, I might need more samples.”

“Why is it glowing?” I asked, as Fiona came up to hold my hand. Even if she wasn’t a human being, she knew how to comfort one. I thought of her when I dropped, but Agi was there too for some reason.

“The short answer is, because you’ve been exposing yourself to Fiona’s radiation,” he said. “Unlike the killer radiation you know, most Zaxi emit a pulse of light-cooking energy along with the light and heat, much like your sun. Think infrareds. While I make cloned skins to contain this radiation, you’ve been inside her before I’ve installed the womb, so you exposed your genitalia to that, not to mention consuming her energy after she scattered. You should count yourself lucky that radiation didn’t mutate you, only your life-giving abilities. Further speculating, I think Filigare would not be alive today if those balls of yours weren’t energized with the mother’s energy. It’s brilliant, but I suppose he’s no longer equal parts Zaxi and human. The balance would lean in favor of Zaxient, but I’m not sure by how much. Maybe a quarter human.”

Even with Gilk managing the info coming in was a torrent, but more on my heart. I wondered if this was a side effect of the amazing extraction device, but my heart hurt. I felt the faint drop me, but the last few inches to the ground were soft. This was too much for a human being. Was I even a human anymore? My energized reproduction organ could only give birth to stars now. It felt like a trap. As my sight faded, I hoped that everything up to now was just a stupid dream. I’d wake up in my bed with Fiona by my side again, before everything was insane. Oh, how I hoped that was the truth.

 

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