Dazed, Polycline-57 slowly rose from the kitchenette floor. While quick in its onset, her fainting spell had been preceded by a brown out. That brief event had permitted her to lay down instead of falling down: a controlled collapse, as it were.
Or was she remembering the event correctly? Which, by itself, was a troubling question!
Presently? Presently, she hadn't a clue how long she'd been unconscious. Minutes? Hours? (And why-o-why weren't any of her internal clocks online?!)
• What was painfully obvious was that she was obviously in pain. Ha, ha... Shudder.
(Who am I? Oh. Mit'ka Ivanovna Yeltsin. CHECKING POLYMORPHIC STABILITY :: SCANNING... SCANNING... RESULTS: VARIABLE 60% TO 80% TRANSFERMATIONAL INTEGRETY --- LOCK FORM: RUN)
Polycline-57 considered her options.
¡¡halt!!
MIY: Mit'ka Ivanovna Yeltsin considered — her — options!
Having an upset tummy is, frankly, nyet happy-happy / fun-fun news.
Point of order:
Her innards presently included an uncalibrated nuclear reactor. And every alarm light on its mental control panel was blindingly red!
"-owie-owie-owie-" gak
Another spasm roiled through her slender frame like a whole-body migraine coupled by a dual potassium and sugar crash. She saw only red chaotically splattered with black. She couldn't breathe. Her runny nostrils screamed. Her bowels felt full of setting concrete. Sweat ran off of her in rivulets.
Suddenly, all of her muscles turned metallic. Electricity flared through every ligament and tendon.
Then, just as suddenly, she was naught else than a terrified child who hadn't a clue what had just happened to her. She was Mit'ka, pure and simple: a child warrior who, for sooth, had never existed in the first place. A fiction. A phantasm. A ghost that existed solely in her own imagination. Polycline-57 had simply invented her during its reconstruction in order not to go insane from loneliness.
• Polycline-57 loved being female. Being "gleaned?" from her previous organics had prompted it to invent an entire femininity — including fake memories — so that "it" could stay a "she." How could it / she / they have understood that this wonderful new host was being prepared? That she would be so gloriously welcoming?
But this "Mit'ka" was who "it / she" was now. This was real enough for the moment.
• The fiction who was Mit'ka Ivanovna Yeltsin had become the girl who was Mit'ka Ivanovna Yeltsin. In a terrible and visceral way, she had just emotionally given birth to herself.
##
"-owie-" blink, blink SCANNING... SCANNING...
Curious: Present condition = not happy-happy-happy
LOAD OPTIMISM: RUN
Things could always be worse: "their" nuclear fuel could be uranium instead of tungsten. Even so, something was (really-rather-maybe) very much wrong.
Then it hit her: some of the fuel had, um, "gone down the wrong pipe." Pretty much literally.
Problem: nuclear reactors don't usually have a gag reflux. How! Rude!
She closed her body's eyes before doing a controlled, nuclear powerplant shutdown. That helped tremendously, but she still needed to refuel. Plus-also-too, she wanted to upchuck.
• Yes, that part of her body actually had a built-in gag reflex — and it was dancing a jig.
-breathe- just... breathe...
##
Not wanting to wake up her new friend, Mit'ka tiptoed towards the windowless apartment's restroom . . . and almost ran into...
A periscope?!
O. No windows. A-frame building. A periscope lets one see out whilst keeping heat in. Curious architecture. (But I already knew that.)
Seeing no further navigational hazards, she continued tiptoeing to the restroom...
And don't step on the roach!!
Hmm. It seemed worried about her. How! Adorable!
Shaky, she cautiously knelt down to pet and reassure the empathetic insect. (And... Yes. It even had its own litterbox. [giggle] That, or it had eaten the cat!)
Reassured, the wee beastie toddled off to, um, take care of business. (Ok. Not so little: it could use a hockey puck as a footstool!) Or a chew toy.
Ah! The restroom! Checking for any... Roach kittens??
All. Clear. (Stepping on any baby bugs would be... Impolite?)
Now for the tricky part — namely, how to get violently sick whilst adopting a stealth mode?
This simply had to be the strangest wargame that the commando-grade cyborg had ever played: real, or imaginary!
~•~
This is a good point to remind at least myself of something — whilst letting you, the reader, a tad deeper into my creative process.
Many things on Homestead came from somewhere else. Homestead's solar system is in the "core" universe of a cluster of miniature universes. There are at least 9 major, satellite universes — plus numerous "pocket dimensions." The Hall of Sorrows is a nexus, pocket universe. It, and portals / wormholes, allow travel between these universes and many "pockets."
Homestead is partially based on fairyland. (Scottish fairy lore was once my minor hobby. Science and science-fiction are my major hobbies.) Living things that arrive on Homestead often get "assimilated." Their descendants almost always get "assimilated." This often involves some degree of mutation.
Point blank: unassimilated humans find Homestead moderately toxic, especially after prolonged exposure. However, there many restrictions on directly mutating humans — but a human's microbiome is fair game.
• Ramesh Craythur symbiosis with her microbiome is significantly altered. To her, it's "absolutely bonkers." It's a nonsensical, and wholly undeserved, gift that helps her help others.
We can't always choose our strengths and weaknesses. You work with what you have!
• Tanagra Pujari has an extremely altered microbiome. It's almost a separate character.
However, human height is variable. Hence, unless they're already "pygmies," shrinkage is the first major mutation. This conveniently makes everything else bigger...
• Including pet über-roaches. Deal with it. 🙂
As for the whole "fun-sized superhumans with laser beam eyes and can fart fireballs," what's not to love?!
1, 2, 3...
"MACBETH!! YOU'RE STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON!!"
I know. I know. Ain't it grand?
"Uh... No."
ČTEŠ
Bright Shadows 2: A Hinterlands Anthology
Sci-fiI want my second anthology to be more user-friendly on Wattpad (TM). Hence, I'm reorganizing material from my first anthology and exploring some creative gaps. The front material is almost a writers and directors guide. While I'm launching a quality...
