Martha's vision burned, the pain was in her skin, all around her.
It was the same pain that happened when Rossin and she switched places, only turned up to 11.
She had her eyes closed but everything was white, she couldn't hear anything.
The pain subsided after a short time, and she felt her voice horse
Martha Crisp
'Was I screaming?'
She opened her eyes
The pain was lowering but everything was still white.
Slowly things came into focus.
She was in Flanagan's foyer
She was still holding the mirror: squeezing it, in fact
Rossin stood at her side
Kent was next to Rossin, behind him was Flanagan in Felix's body
Flanagan walked forward and through Rossin
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"It's one thing to push her in from a dream..."
Lana Alacira
"Are you back yet?"
Martha's head was still clearing, waking from a dream
She sat up
Martha Crisp
"Al-tok has the spear."
Gerald and Wilbert shot glances at each other
Lana Alacira
"Did you get it?"
Sonny tilted her head quizzically
Martha heard chittering coming from the ceiling
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"The one that...?"
Alacira pressed on
Lana Alacira
"Did you find it, Martha?"
Martha Crisp
"Yeah, that one."
Alacira was nearly shouting
Martha Crisp
"Yes, I got it."
Alacira visibly relaxed
Lana Alacira
"Not having a ship is really inconvenient.
Just keep it safe for now.
What's this about a spear?"
Flanagan waved for her to sit down
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"That spear was supposed to funnel the algera into martha here.
She modified it, and now Al-tok has a direct connection to every human heart.
Martha, what happened?"
Rossin
'We happened, I...'
Rossin smiled weakly
Rossin
'I wanted to change the system, I wanted you to.
In so doing we built the tool of our destruction.'
Martha explained the dream
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"This isn't the worse.
It still needs Alice's serum to exist in a host.
It wants to consume, not just kill us."
Kent Barbado
"So you're saying it's not going to kill everyone on the planet in one go?"
Flanagan didn't answer at first
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"I don't know."
The phone rang.
Flanagan tilted his head, but walked behind the desk and pulled out a small device
It had two round holes and a grey display in front
Flanagan picked up the phone and placed it in this device
A short while later words appeared.
'Is Martha there?'
Flanagan held a finger to his mouth
'An echo, she is.
Come outside: so you - '
The machine clicked and Flanagan placed the phone back in its cradle
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"If that was -"
The phone rang again, and Flanagan placed it back into the device
'Come outside: so you can be free.
I want to thank you.'
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"We'll stay here."
'I'll come to you.'
The machine clicked
Martha Crisp
"He doesn't know where we are, does he?"
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"It called here. It, not he."
Flanagan hesitated
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"We need to know more."
Flanagan pressed some buttons on the device and the phone started ringing
There was no answer
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Calling number.
lets see..."
Flanagan read off some numbers
She recognized that number.
It was her Mother's
The phone rang again
%%%%
Felix could feel the lock on his mind.
Bits of the conversation Flanagan and the other's had slipped from his memory.
They were talking - discussing a plan - sitting around a coffee table.
Flanagan at the head, standing.
Everything froze in place
Felix could think, but something was wrong...
This happened occasionally, parts of their conversation he couldn't hear, so from his perspective: everything froze
Felix Danabrus
'Something Flanagan did...'
Felix struggled, but still: could not move
Felix Danabrus
'Again...'
Try as he might, Felix couldn't move, nor could he reach Flanagan's mind.
He saw a ghostly version of the world, locked in a relative position behind his own body.
With Flanagan at the helm.
Felix could see...
Something on the table.
It fuzzed into non-description.
Flanagan was interacting with it, holding part of it
Everything around Felix jumped into place and started moving again
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"They wouldn't have called unless they were sure.
Lana, what did you have?"
Lana Alacira
"Meta-metastatic over-writing."
Flanagan
'Well that would kill her for sure.'
Flanagan coughed
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Well, that would work.
Rather high cost."
Lana Alacira
"Do you have anything better?"
Flanagan sighed
Felix could tell Flanagan did not
Felix Danabrus
'But do I?'
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Al-tok can't have a physical body for that to work..."
Flanagan could hear his direct thoughts, but just the surface level.
Felix kept still and let his mind glaze over, a plan starting to form.
It would save Martha, free him, and give him leverage.
He had no leverage right now, and look where that gotten him.
He was stuck watching his own body.
Around him everyone had been frozen.
Felix Danabrus
'But for how lo-'
Everyone jumped into place again
The Chemist
"...4 ave, New York."
He noticed he missed a large portion of the conversation.
Martha was crying, and Kent...
Kent was holding his badge
Flanagan had that device in his hand
Felix saw Flanagan's hand fuzz, blurred
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Center the last one around this address..."
Felix felt a Flanagan filter through his memories, until one stood out.
It was where he had killed Alice
Flanagan put down the phone
Kent Barbado
"You were speaking metaphorically, yeah?"
Kent's voice was tight
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Yes, of course, we're actually just firebombing a city block or two: not nuking the city."
Felix Danabrus
'What were you talking about before?'
Flanagan
'Something that does not concern you.'
Felix watched, trying, and again failing to move
Felix Danabrus
'Get another host!'
Kent Barbado
"I'm sorry, you did what?"
Flanagan
'I rather like this one.
You can have it back when we are done.'
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"We just sent a cruise missile to Alice's lab, and the undernet headquarters."
%%%%
Most of Al-tok was working in the lab.
Now that he could reach anyone, well, why would it waste resources on public interfaces.
It could just take a host, and walk them back to the lab for a permanent upgrade.
Al-tok was still incomplete.
More hosts let it fit more of itself in this reality.
But they were pitifully small pools for its essence
The husks moved about in a hive of activity.
All stopped and looked up to a whistling sound in the distance.
They shuddered in pleasure the the screeching wind breaking apart to form that whistle
Then they were gone, in an instant Al-tok reeling.
The New Yorker it inhabited did not have the serum yet, Al-tok was just about to walk him over...
But now...
Now Al-tok was in only one.
Al-tok still had the spear, and as it felt this host's heart give out.
It was Al-tok's shock that did this host in, so...
Al-tok spread to the next one
If it had no hosts...
Al-tok
'There is still the link.'
But Al-tok wouldn't have the same raised privileges that having a body gave.
Privileges like being able to use objects: like that spear...
It wouldn't be able to spread how it wanted
Al-tok was in the mind of a child and mother in a shopping mall
It timed how long they lasted, only a few minutes
Al-tok, in the body of a teenager in the middle of a skating flip, roared, then tumbled
The serum took days to make, was a delicate process, and took several people working on different parts of it at the same time
Al-tok
'There is not enough time...'
Everything Al-tok touched burned without that serum
Al-tok, in the host of a young girl, drew at a desk.
It threw away the child's unfinished drawing and furiously started it's own
When the host died, Al-tok took another - the host's mother from downstairs - Continuing the namshub.
Al-tok's host's heart felt weak
It took the picture to the living room... it would be a shorter distance for others.
Al-tok unlocked the front door, then layed on the couch.
A neighbor passing by walking their dog dropped their leash and walked inside the open house
Then the next neighbor...
Neighbors...
A lost dog barked at the open door
The neighbors - the curious ones - drew closer; they wondered why people were dashing into this particular house.
Less distance for the hosts, Al-tok didn't mind, more time for drawing
Al-tok moved the drawing to the kitchen table
So the next host would have more time to draw.
It wouldn't have to climb over the bodies piling the living room.
But that wasn't the biggest difficulty...
Really it was finding the right colors: no one had colored pencils.
So Al-tok improvised
Al-tok, over a pile of bodies in a suburban kitchen, took a picture of that image on a phone
Al-tok searched through the hearts, filtering
const serum_producers = spear.heart.filter(h=>Globals.humans.filter({role:Scientist}).find(x=>x.heart==h))
const numbers = serum_producers.map(x=>x.phone number)
Al-tok sent that image to a list of phone numbers
It took several bodies, it was a long list of numbers.
Now all it had to do was wait
Al-tok
'Burn through them slowly.'
It could take them all, but then what?
A few moments was not enough.
So it waited.
Moments before the host died, Al-tok noticed the curiously normal behavior of the neighbors.
No longer distracted by it's mad rush to regain a solid foothold, it look at them closely
Al-tok took the next host outside the house
It was an old lady on a scooter, and waited, not rushing in like before.
Observing them, Al-tok saw them behave how it expected humans would
Al-tok glanced around
Not one raiding party, everyone acting as if...
Al-tok took the next host when this one's heart gave out
People rushed over to help, but Al-tok was focused on that bit of algera that was supposed to be in every human heart
Al-tok didn't sense algera in any of its hosts, but for how long?
It had been so focused on the namshub, it didn't remember...
Al-tok
'What took it out?
And where is it?'
The harmonic resonance of a human scream was a delight to Al-tok's hearing.
Every time a host died in the crowd there was an eruption.
Another delightful scream came from the door, indicating someone had found the bodies in the kitchen
The neighbors scattered
Finally fearing for their lives in earnest, unsure of what was going on
One by one Al-tok took them all
Regardless of how far they ran they all fell.
To its frustration, none of them had algera.
Al-tok waited, it would wait for days.
One body was just enough to fit the tip, the edge of Al-tok.
So he would stay in a few at a time
%%%%
Kent held his badge
Kent Barbado
'You doing alright there, Kent?'
He was not.
Kent was wrapped up in more than he could chew.
He had far too little sleep, no gun, no backup, no plan
Kent Barbado
"Now we're firebombing cities?"
Others could hear his question, but it was directed at himself
Kent Barbado
'Or just letting it happen, Flanagan made the call...'
Lana Alacira
"If we can't use the way out, We need to make sure he doesn't have a physical presence anymore."
He should have stopped Flanagan
Kent Barbado
'And did you have time?
Once you knew what he did?'
Kent admitted he didn't have that time
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"If it still has a body, it doesn't have Alice's lab, or that serum."
Kent Barbado
'Sounds like you should maybe not beat yourself up about it.'
Lana Alacira
"Yes, you've made it more desperate: good job /s ."
Kent glanced at Martha
She too had that far off stare of things escalating too quickly.
The chemist was sitting in a room next to the kitchen. His voice was raspy from shouting
The Chemist
"The news is showing the lab.
They're saying it was a meth lab."
Kent Barbado
'They called him a Guinea-pig...'
For Alacira's Namshub, apparently it was embedded in the television
Kent Barbado
'See, can you be glad for once you have zero addiction to that boob tube?'
Gerald took a bite of cheese
He was to Kent's right, in the liminal space between rooms, siting in a rocking chair
Gerald Whitewater
"That's nice, keep watching."
The navigator was sitting next to Alacira, keeping a close watch on Kent
Kent Barbado
"You blew up a lab?
With people in it?"
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Don't worry your pretty little head about it.
You'll find the building owner to not be pressing charges, pay for the damages..."
Flanagan waved his hand dismissively
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"And some charity money for the city."
Kent Barbado
"You think you can buy your way out?"
Flanagan had a predatory glean in them
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"No, I'm not buying anything, I'm paying for what I bought: which isn't The Way Out, unfortunately.
I'm paying because good people pay when the toll comes due.
I don't try to pass off those costs to you."
Kent Barbado
'He destroys a building and gives me this philosophical bullshit?'
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Better than it coming here."
There was a small chirp, an alarm, that sounded
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"That would be the guard informing us of some unwelcome arrival..."
Martha sat up
Martha Crisp
"It's here?"
Lana Alacira
"It did say it was coming.
Just as well.
Sonny: hallway."
The woman sitting on the floor got up and exited through the front door, leaving it open
Kent heard rustling above him.
He pointedly did not look at the spiders following on the ceiling.
Tense moments passed.
Kent could hear the elevator door dinged on arrival
Kent gripped tighten on the arm of the chair
He saw everyone else was tense as well
Robert Glass in Juan Long
"Oh what the fuck!
Get it off me!
Stop: okay!"
Kent Barbado
'Does that sound like this Al-tok thing to you, Kent?'
Kent got up and looked out the door
Along with Martha and Flanagan...
He saw the man wrapped up in webbing.
He could still make out the stranger was wearing a 3 piece suit
Flanagan in Felix Danabrus
"Juan... What a surprise!"
The stranger moved some webbing away from his mouth
Which was a difficult task
Robert Glass in Juan Long
"Well, actually..."