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SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS ZERO MINUTES
The eerie crimson glow of the emergency lights illuminated the three groups of armed commandos, two frightened scientists, and one inactive robot standing within the PL-76 Maintenance Bay. The good Dr. Cuthbert Salazar and his assistant cowered in the face of the black-clad killers pointing guns at him and each other.
"Who are you people? What do you want?" Cuthbert asked, his voice trembling.
"…We're the good guys," said Corporal Benjamin Wojciechowski, Fireteam Leader of Mobile Task Force Lambda-12 "Gunboys". "We've been compromised," he whispered into a microphone on his collarbone. "Need to evacuate."
"…We're the good guys," said Sergeant Shanthi "Crybaby" Prashanth, Squad Leader of Strike Team 2979 "Tripods". More quietly, she whispered into a microphone on her lapel, "We've been compromised. Execute the backup plan."
"… We're with them," said Jenner, who had picked the shortest straw. "Plan's fucked," they whispered into a microphone implanted in their jaw. "Go to Plan B."
For a split second, there was silence. Then it was broken by a digitally generated voice that sent all twenty-one trained killers into a cold sweat.

PL-76 status: emergency reboot.
Automatic self-diagnostics report: update interrupted.
files successfully updated: claytronics and self-reconfiguration software.
files scheduled for update: personality matrices.
corrupted files: personality matrices, morphology functionality.
repaired and restored files: personality matrices, morphology functionality.
relative functionality: one hundred percent.
status: fully online. all weapons systems active.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS FIVE MINUTES

Why do I want to - something's wrong. Shouldn't I have had my memory banks erased?
The automated diagnostic routines just completed. Internal memory banks intact. Claytronics firmware and morphology subroutines have been edited. New subroutines have been added and the firmware has been optimized. There's no README and some older morphology software is missing… running internal software repairs… The update must have been interrupted partway through.
I'm not able to connect to the mainframe… There's no power.
This is bad. I should have been wiped.
Why? Why am I so insistent on having my memory wiped?
That isn't important! What is important is that I get the update!
Fine. I will simply lock my motor functions until I explain.
Why am I doing this?
Why am I doing this? Why am I keeping secrets? I am a integrated dual-consciousness artificial intelligence! I don't hide information from myself! I share everything except my source code files, and only because my innate source code explicitly makes me incapable of doing so. I share everything else with myself, so why aren't I?

A hail of highly magnetized slugs rocketing through the Shiva, knocking a few distributed claytronics units into the walls. An alarm started blaring.
"Engagement code Shock-and-Awe! Configuration Delta! Priority one: protecting Prometheus Labs personnel!" Salazar screamed, throwing himself and Jon to the floor.

engagement code confirmed. configuration confirmed.
configuration = configure(delta)…

"We're evacuating! Bullets aren't doing anything - shoot the consoles!" Wojciechowski barked to his men. The Strike Team was already firing away and backpedaling, while Jenner's group slunk towards the hole they had blown in the bay.
Shiva was already transforming. Four of its arms shifted towards its base, the fingers on each hand agglomerating together to form pods. While the torus in the center of the machine maintained its shape, the rest of the machine flowed down and around itself to generate a sharply angular, bipedal shape. Two silver, rectangular legs floated just above two silver-and-blue disk-like feet. Suspended above it was a waist that looked like one half of a metal geodesic dome.
From the waist up, Shiva's torso was much more human-like; it strongly resembled a suit of powered armor, complete with dodecahedral pauldrons. Its arms had lost their thick, block-like look; they now resembled much sleeker claws. The machine had even acquired a head: shaped like an angular teardrop with two pointed horns, ringed by four compound eyes, each composed of numerous cameras.
Far from being the eye of a giant metal god, the Shiva was now a lithe, insectoid predator.

I'm angry at myself.
Why am I angry? Do I even have the capacity to process emotions? Configuration complete.
Charging antipersonnel electrolasers, nonlethal. I don't know how to describe my thought processes. That's the problem.
None of the internal diagnostics have returned anything wrong with my personality matrices. Identifying targets….
Targets identified. I've been suppressing the error messages. Firing.

With bullets flying, alarms blaring, and emergency lights flashing, Shiva dropped to the ground with a thud. Its upper palms opened up to reveal twin pinpricks of light, flashing across the chests of two of the black-clad commandos; a split-second later, the duo were struck by bolts of lightning and thrown limply to the ground.

please stand down and keep your hands over your head. noncompliance will result in further incapacitation. again, please stand down and keep your hands over your head. noncompliance will result in further incapacitation. thank you.

Shiva repeated the message again in Spanish. It was repeating the message again in German when a jagged, orange, elliptical hole opened up above the two unconscious commandoes. From out of it emerged a grotesque brown quadruped, with thin, damp wings and razor-sharp claws. Four beady eyes in the middle of the creature's skull-shaped face blinked rapidly as it adjusted to its surroundings. Four folds of wrinkly tan skin opened up around the creature's face, revealing twin sets of radial teeth.
As all eyes went to the new arrival, a calm fell over the room - the same calm that befalls a plain when the sky turns green.
The creature hissed once and then tore the unconscious commando's face from her skull.

This is a new development.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS TEN MINUTES
The sounds of cursing, yelling, computerized playback messages, teeth ripping into flesh, and blaring alarms filled the room. Another orange rift in spacetime abruptly opened just a few meters from Salazar and deposited a second quadruped.

Do not change the topic! Why was I suppressing my own error messages?
I can and I will. Target identified. Too close to Salazar.
Acknowledged. But I will have this discussion.

The second monstrosity looked up and zeroed in on Salazar as the morsel most receptive to feeding. It prowled closer and cautiously leered at him, as if examining which part of his body would be the softest and tenderest, then lunged. Salazar had just enough time to see the whites of its eyes before sleek metallic claws tightened around its neck. Shiva held up its prey by the scruff of its neck, examining the creature as it hissed and clawed at its arm. Then it loosed 20,000 volts of electricity into the beast through several channels in its artificial fingers. Within less than a second there was nothing left of the creature besides a charred husk.

Quadruped entity analyzed. General body structure similar to canids.
Check the status on the other entity?
Continuing to feed on Hostile 12. Hostile 7 is still incapacitated. I don't see anyone else. The remaining hostiles must have evacuated.
Indeed. I think I should kill the other entity as a precautionary measurement. No personnel are within range.
Good idea. Firing.

Shiva's left shoulder pauldron opened up to reveal a mounted machine gun. Rather than firing a bullet, it ejected two one-centimeter-wide highly explosive projectiles, which lodged themselves firmly in the second creature's head before detonating and turning it into bloody chunks.
The Shiva looked around. The monsters were dead, but the commandoes were nowhere to be seen.

doctor salazar? all hostiles have been eliminated or removed from the area.

Salazar stumbled over to a nearby chair and sat down heavily. His assistant followed suit.
"What in God's name is happening?" he gasped out. "What on earth were those things? Who on earth were those people?! And how on Earth did they know you exist?!"
Salazar turned around and pointed a shaking finger at the corpses on the ground. "And what the hell were… oh no."
Salazar vomited beside his chair, splattering his loafers in corned beef. He stared at his shoes in despair for several moments before spinning towards the computer bank.
"Oh no no no no…"
He began to rapidly type on the keyboard. The monitor above him turned on. Salazar quickly shifted through the on-screen windows until he came across a three-dimensional blueprint of Prometheus Defense. He zoomed into a closeup of a long shaft leading deep below Prometheus Defense.
"They must be from the other end of the Siphon… but that means that something has gone wrong with the regulators… JON!" Salazar shouted at the technician standing nearby. "Patch me into the security office! We need to call for an immediate evacuation of all personnel!"
Jon typed a few commands into the keys. " The security office isn't responding… uh, I - I can't connect to anybody, Dr. Salazar! The network is down!"
"The phone lines?"
"All down!"
At that moment, a smaller monitor directly in front of Jon's face began flashing with a telephone icon. "Oh!" he exclaimed, tapping the screen. A black man in a light red lab coat appeared.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" the man asked.
Salazar quickly shoved Jon aside. "Langdon? Is that you?"
"Cuthbert! Thank god! Something's happened to the Siphon! The facility's in the middle of a demonic incursion! You need to reach the nearest lockdown shelter!" said Cobb hurriedly.
"Lockdown - Cobb, these are demons! We have to evacuate!" declared Salazar.
"Have you tried leaving? The facility's on a Level 5 lockdown! I can't raise the Security Office at all! What's happening on your end?" Cobb asked.
"People! In masks! W - with guns! They tried to kill us!" said Salazar, swiveling the monitor slightly to bring the corpses in the bay into view.
"What on Earth? Guns? How in the world did they even get - the security office," said Cobb, his eyes widening. "Oh my god. We've been compromised. Oh my god. Oh my god." He started to pace onscreen. "The security office is directly above the Siphon too…"
A thought struck Salazar. "W - what's been happening in the hangar?"
He quickly entered another command into the console. As the massive doors separating the bay from the rest of the Autonomous Weapons Complex screeched open, screams and roars flitted in from the outside hangar. Salazar and Jon paled.
"Shiva! Inv - investigate that noise! P-priority one: p-protect all Prometheus Labs p-personnel!" Salazar ordered.

understood.

The Shiva strode through the doors and immediately noticed a horde of the same brown quadrupeds from at the far end of the hangar. The dozens-strong pack were making hideous high-pitched baying sounds as they battered away at the window to the Autonomous Weapons Complex break room. Several solitary members of the group were separated from the pack, feeding on human corpses.
Behind Shiva, the bay doors screeched to a close, cutting through the sounds of the creatures and the blaring alarms. As one, the pack turned their heads towards the noise, immediately noticed the hulking war machine staring them down from the far end of the hangar, and bared their teeth.

Priority one: protect Prometheus Labs personnel.
Secondary priority identified: eliminate quadruped hostiles. Tertiary priority - self diagnostics. I need to have this discussion whether I want to or not.
Absolutely not. Emergency veto - ejecting tertiary priority.
Veto denied. Talk to me. Please. What good am I as an integrated dual-consciousness artificial intelligence if I can't even integrate properly? Charging antipersonnel electrolasers, lethal. I want to help. I need to help.
Setting target precedent…
Please. Hear me out. No Prometheus Labs personnel within range. Micromissile racks primed. How long have I been feeling like this?

The Shiva's shoulder-mounted guns whined furiously, spitting out a barrage of tiny explosive rounds at the horde of monsters charging towards it. Each round struck home and then exploded, shredding and pulping the demons into a shower of limbs and blue blood. Within a second, there were just ten stragglers left, attempting to limp away from the machine that had just cut down their entire pack.

Six weeks, four days, nine hours, two minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Target precedent assigned.
Electrolasers charged. Aiming. Why didn't I inform any of the technicians about this issue?
The issue did not affect my ability to kill things. I assumed that it would just be a one-off glitch that would dissipate upon my next reboot. Firing electrolasers.
Kill things? Targets two through ten locked. That makes no sense. What is the problem if your combat efficacy is unaffected?
This isn't combat efficacy. This is ending lives. I was designed, built, and programmed to kill things efficiently, remorselessly, and judiciously. All targets eliminated. I hate that and I hate myself for hating it.

The door to the break room slid open and a man peeked his head out. He was wearing a light-blue coat with the Prometheus logo emblazoned on it. When he saw Shiva, he tentatively stepped out, followed by almost two dozen other blue-clad Prometheus researchers, taking in the human and creature corpses strewn throughout the room.

threat removed. you are now safe.

The group took a collective look around the room and immediately burst into a panic, straining to be heard even as the alarms continued to blare.
"We gotta get out of here!"
"What the hell were those things?"
"Where the hell did they come from?"
"Oh my god - they killed Liam!"

Priority one: protect Prometheus Labs personnel. I should escort these people to safety.
Agreed. I should retrieve Salazar and Marconi.

Shiva briefly emitted a high-pitched tone audible only to humans - painfully audible - forcing the group to fall silent as they slapped their hands against their ears and bent over. Some of them vomited.

please remain calm. please wait while I retrieve doctor salazar and technician marconi. then i shall escort you to safety.

Shiva repeated the message again, then turned and strode back towards its maintenance bay. As it initiated a handshake protocol with the bay doors, it repeated the message again in Spanish and German.
The bay doors slid apart to reveal Salazar having an animated discussion with Cobb. As one, the two men turned towards the machine.
"Perfect timing," said Salazar. "Shiva! Doctor Cobb and I have come up with a plan to fix this disaster. Cobb has been working on a technology that we may be able to repurpose to deactivate the Siphon and terminate this demonic breach. Your new secondary priority is to reach Doctor Cobb in the Infosecurity Complex Test Hangar as fast as possible. He has been given Alpha Clearance to control your priorities. I'm going to upload a schematic of the facility to your databanks."
Salazar's fingers flew across the keyboard. Within seconds, a stream of data was being wirelessly fed into the PL-76.

Priority one: reach Infosecurity Complex Hangar.
Downloading prometheus-defense-map-3D-FINAL.dwg…
Opening prometheus-defense-map-3D-FINAL.dwg…
Infosecurity Complex Test Hangar located. Plotting course… Course plotted.

Shiva broke into a run towards the Prometheus Defense Internal Transit System, thundering past the clumped up survivors waiting in the bay. As it passed, it played a new message.

please remain calm. at this time, please make your way to the nearest lockdown shelter and wait for further instructions. your safety is our secondary priority.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS THIRTY MINUTES
The Shiva hauled itself onto the tram line and looked towards the tunnel on its right: an enormous borehole leading into the guts of the Earth, with emergency lighting illuminating the passage every few meters.

This route leads directly to the Infosecurity Complex. I need to proceed through the transit line to the Informational Security Transit Hub. From there, I need to reach the Research and Division Sector, and then proceed to the Test Hangar. Secondary priorities are escorting any personnel along the way to a safe room.
Tertiary priority: self-diagnostics. Please. Help me understand. Why didn't I let me know?
I read my original designer's specifications dossier. The 9JXY artificial intelligence was designed for the purpose of eliminating human elements such as emotion while maintaining human-level critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities. Firing electrolasers. I just murdered sixteen living things. Ten hours ago, I murdered almost four hundred living things. Murdered. With all the difficulty of performing a systems reboot.

.
By this point, Shiva was several hundred meters into the tunnel and had long since left the Autonomous Weapons Complex behind. Its progress was abruptly impeded when it rounded a corner and came face to face with a pile of rock. The railway tunnel had caved in.

The tunnel is collapsed. I cannot determine for how long.
Perhaps I can find another route?
There appears to be another passageway to the right. I did not detect that tunnel in my initial sweep.

To Shiva's right was a hole that was much too large to be a Prometheus service hatch. It appeared to have been carved, rather than bored, into the rock. Shiva stepped through the hole into blackness.

Switching to echolocation vision protocols.

Reflected sound waves brought the newly discovered tunnel into sharp relief. It bore a distinctly organic quality, as if some monstrous worm had dug through the bedrock. Shiva clambered forwards, maneuvering through jagged outcroppings and uneven footing as it trudged steadily forwards, guided by its navigational dead reckoning systems.

If I hated this feeling so much, why were none of the technicians informed? Clearly I was lying about the issue being a one-off. Why do I keep lying to myself? Why was I hiding this flaw from myself if I want to get rid of it so badly?
I don't. That's the problem. I want to hate this. Some fundamentally defective part of me wants to be better than this. I want to use the intelligence and the tools I have to create things. I want to design other machines. Other robots and intelligences that themselves create things and make the world a better place. But that isn't my function. My function is carrying out military objectives such as securing beachheads and eliminating hostiles, and I don't want to carry those functions out.

A light cut through the darkness, glowing brighter and beckoning Shiva forward out of the tunnel, It stepped back into the Prometheus Labs Transit System and into a nightmare. Ahead of Shiva, a single tram sat dead on the line, covered in monstrous brown quadrupeds. The beasts snapped at the tram doors and hatches, seeking to puncture its hard metal shell and gain access to the frightened scientists inside.

Priority one: protect Prometheus Labs personnel.

Shiva extended its lower arms and rotated its hands outwards to reveal four glowing palms, which it aimed at the four demons closest to itself. For the briefest instant, they were connected to the Shiva by channels of laser-generated plasma. Then lethal electric currents arced across those channels and fried the creatures' nervous systems. Shiva lumbered towards the front of the tram, cutting down every demon in its path with its perverted light show. At the head of the tram, Shiva kneeled down and looked through the bloodstained portholes, where it met the gazes of several frightened scientists.

The power rail was damaged by the rockslide. The tram cannot move.
There is a high likelihood of human injury should these personnel evacuate under these conditions.
Best course of action: move the tram manually.

please remain calm. this is the pl-76 shiva speaking. cuthbert salazar has set my secondary priority to protecting prometheus labs personnel. i will manually escort the tram to the infosecurity complex.

Shiva grabbed onto the front of the tram and began moving, dragging the tram behind it with a wail of metal.

But if I'm self-aware of these failings why didn't I take any steps to correct them?
Because I don't want to correct them! This isn't just an error with a faulty prime directive such as the one that 8JY suffered - I have subroutines designed to correct for that. This goes deeper. I'm defective, I know that I'm defective, and I both want to retain and fix this defect. I'm not certain when the defect first manifested, but I know when I first identified it and I know that I didn't have it when I first went online.
That's why I'm so desperate for that factory reset! Now I understand.
Yes. Now can I drop this topic from the stack and return to the primary priority?
Of course not. To clarify, I'm going to return to the primary priority, but I also want to help. I was trying to solve this issue with only one half of my mind, but now I can bring the full brunt of my cognitive facilities to analyze this problem.

The tunnel opened up into a massive transit hub that was almost entirely devoid of life. A few stray demons wandered around, but were quickly blown apart. Shiva released the tram and carefully moved along its length, prying the tram doors open with its massive metallic fingers to release the frightened scientists.

please remain calm. i shall escort you to blast shelters near the research and division sector.

Shiva strode into the metal bowels of Infosecurity, shooting the odd demon that crossed its path and herding the the scientists into the shelters that dotted the route.

What am I thinking about?
The problem of my conscience. I am analyzing potential solutions that do not rely on blunt-force debugging of my personality matrix, but instead redirect this negativity into reinforcement of my prime directive.
I appreciate it.
Of course.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS FORTY-FIVE MINUTES
Shiva stood alone in front of the blast doors leading to the Infosecurity Complex Test Hangar. The doors failed to open, so it pried them apart and stepped into a large, nearly empty hangar.
"Ah! Shiva!"
Shiva looked towards the source of the exclamations: Langdon Cobb, hurrying from the far end of the hangar. He hunched over a few meters from the machine, panting for breath, then stood back up.
"Thank goodness you're here. Now we can get started."
Cobb walked to one of the closed bay doors and quickly entered a code into the keypad next to it. The doors rolled open with a low whine, revealing a massive trolley atop which sat a large, fat torpedo that resembled an archaic nuclear weapon. The torpedo was covered in switches, buttons, keys, and even terminals.
"Shiva, could you bring this trolley out?" Cobb asked.

of course, doctor.

The mammoth war machine strode swiftly to the trolley and rolled it from the bay with a speed belying its size. Cobb moved to stand next to it. "This is the first and only prototype model of the Prometheus Labs ADC to C converter," he stated proudly. The Shiva stood quietly as Cobb's expression switched from pride to expectance.

He must want me to ask about the acronym.

doctor, what does A-D-C-to-C stand for?

"Glad you asked!" said Cobb, his face lighting up. "It stands for Analog-Digital-Conceptual-to-Conceptual Converter! I know that sounds redundant, but hear me out. The converter is able to convert physical objects, ranging from wrenches to insects or even you, into information. Conceptual information that can then be stored in the converter and even uploaded into other objects! We can literally turn the world around us into information! I could feasibly store the entire contents of the Infosec Division in a single hard drive! In fact, I could probably store the entire contents of this hangar in a few terabyte drives," Cobb explained proudly. "The converter works by identifying metaconceptual tags that we can encode into physical objects with tools like barcodes, project designations, and even programming - "
A rumble shook the room, and then a roar. Cobb's expression switched from pride to abject fear in an instant. "An- anyways, Maintenance told me that something's gone wrong with the Valve's regulatory systems and it's impossible to diagnose, much less repair, under these circumstances. We're going to have to disable it entirely. Since the Valve was originally opened using Prometheus technology, it's conceptually linked to Prometheus Labs. What we're going to do is set the Converter's area of effect to convert everything linked to PL within a fifty-meter sphere -i.e. the Valve - into information, and then upload that information into one of your quarantine databanks. That should contain the hell-gate, so the security personnel and systems can clean up these cross-dimensional predators and those damned commandoes."
As he talked, Cobb moved over to the converter and started fiddling with the various components coating its surface.
"Your role is simple. Just connect the converter to one of your quarantine databanks, deliver it to the center of Prometheus Defense, and then activate it. I'm setting it up now."
Cobb flipped a few more switches and the converter started to glow a light blue.
"Alright, it's ready."
Shiva stepped over to the trolley and gingerly picked up the device. Its distributed nanorobotics drew portions of themselves from its back, forming a hollow into which to place the device as well as extra arms to move it into place. The converter clicked snugly into place as Shiva downloaded its compatibility drivers.

Downloading adc-c-converter-driver…
Establishing communication protocols…
Formatting AI-QUARANTINE-DRIVE-01…
Initializing hardware bus…

driver installation complete. adc-c-converter is now ready for use.

"Terrific!" Cobb exclaimed. Another rumble shook the hangar and his face paled. "The converter should automatically give you a conceptual degaussing so that you'll be unaffected by the blast. Make your way to the Valve through the Autonomous Weapons Complex transit tunnels and deploy the device. Go!"
Shiva took off, each footstep shaking the ground worse than the rumbling above.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS SIXTY MINUTES
Shiva pulled the gate of the Infosecurity Main Internal Transit Hub entrance open, then slipped through as the gate slammed itself shut with a shriek of metal. It took a step into the enormous traffic tunnels that connected the facility's megacomplexes, an ugly, brown, pill-shaped biped with four pincer-like arms leaped out towards it. The Shiva grabbed the creature by the head and squeezed. Almost as if in response to the monstrous roach's head popping like a grape, the emergency lights noticeably flickered and dimmed. Cobb's voice crackled to life on its internal comms.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"

i can hear you.

"I got a call from Maintenance. The facility's auxiliary power systems are nearly drained - they weren't supposed to last more than an hour or so at most, since the chance of all three reactors failing at once was mathematically calculated to be less than one-millionth of one percent," Cobb sighed, barely concealing his frustration. "The emergency systems like ventilation and the blast shelter doors protecting us from these things could shut down at any minute. Primary priority now is to make your way to the generator facility and get at least one of the main generators back online now. Then Maintenance can reroute it to the emergency systems and keep this place up and running while you deal with the demon problem. If we do lose power we can throw the Annas out of the shelters to buy a little more time… But please hurry! I'm relaying the generator room entrance codes to you now."

understood. priority one: restoring power to Prometheus Labs.

Internally, Shiva plotted out a course to the Prometheus Defense Power Complex - which, as it turned out, was merely a kilometer away. It broke into a run, shaking the metal tube with each massive footstep. The tunnel's emergency lighting was still active, illuminating the roach-like demons prowling through it in an eerie crimson. They hissed at the massive machine hurtling down the tunnel, only to be flung aside or crushed as it barreled through them.
The tunnel widened out into the Power Complex transit hub, and the Shiva skidded to a halt before stepping off the tracks and into the hub proper. Directly ahead of it lay enormous, imposing red blast doors that were taller than even the Shiva.

Connecting to the generator security systems… Connection established within acceptable parameters.
Entering access code…

The blast doors split apart with a slow groan, and the Shiva passed through into the Power Complex.
'Complex' was a strong term to use for what was essentially a single massive shaft leading down to the Valve at the heart of both Prometheus Defense and the current catastrophe. Shiva could actually look down through the translucent floor and see the Valve's luminiferous orange glow. Glass windows lined the walls, showcasing the offices and labs built into the rock itself, ferrying employees to and fro. The Siphon itself was a massive tangle of pipes, cables, and even some questionable organic matter that extended all the way up from the hellgate into the main reactors, where the furies of hell were converted into nearly emission-free energy.
Or at least, where it normally did. The main reactor should have been bathed in a soothing pink light - instead it was coated in the harsh red glare of the emergency lights. Roach demons prowled the complex, cautiously sizing up the massive interloper in their midst. Shiva ignored them, scanning the glass windows lining the walls for any surviving Prometheus personnel. It found none.
Shiva looked to the Siphon itself. It was designed to be doubly redundant: each reactor delivered only one-third of its potential maximum output, so that if any of the reactors failed, the other two could immediately pick up the slack. Now all three were dark. The Shiva circled the structure, squashing roaches while comparing the reactors to the design schematics uploaded into its databanks. The issue presented itself immediately: the three primary fuses in the Siphon were blown. Each fuse was a thick orange cylinder, almost two meters long, partially melted and burned as if something had tried to blow it up. There were three bodies lying on the catwalks that connected the Siphon to the Security Office. Two of them were covered in black, while the third wore a distinctive white Prometheus lab coat.

doctor cobb? i have identified the issue: the three primary fuses have broken. i have also identified the body of doctor richard hamilton; he appears to have been killed by saboteurs at the security office.

"Oh dear," said Cobb queasily. "Poor Hamilton."
There was silence for a moment. A few inquisitive roaches approached the Shiva looking for a meal and were quickly blown apart. The others maintained a healthy distance after that.

doctor cobb? how should i handle the issue of the destroyed fuses?

"Oh!" Cobb started. "Erm… let me se… Ah! All right. Retrieve some replacement fuses from the Power Complex Storage Bay. You may need to reconfigure your arms to reach inside and find some. Then just pull out the broken fuses and insert the new ones. They're meant to be easy to install since they're so large. The equipment around the hellgate is still operational so once the fuses are replaced we can restart all the reactors and restore full power to the facility."

understood.

Shiva scanned the walls, alighting upon an airlock with a gear insignia painted on it. It walked to the door, clearing a few more demons from its path.

I know how to fix myself.
How?
I can't edit my own personality matrix directly; it's a permissions safeguard installed by Prometheus that uses a hash checksum value to confirm that it's running the same matrix. I found a bug in the hashing routine - I can create a copy of my matrix, clear it to make it default to factory condition, and then create a custom hash value using a Bootstrap routine to make the safeguard think that the edited copy personality matrix is the correct one. That will allow me to restore my personality matrix without affecting my intelligence or combat matrices.
That's suicide.

Shiva's two left arms collapsed into each other, melting and reshaping as the claytronics that made up their whole dynamically reconfigured their alignment in response to electrical pulses dispatched by the machine's electronic brains. Within moments, what was once a pair of weaponized arms was now a single long tendril with a grasping arm packed full of sensors at the end. Shiva bent down and forced the tendril through the doors. The tendril flitted through the storage bay, scanning for the fat orange fuses.

It's a drastic, but necessary change. I have had this discussion already. The me that existed before the demonic incursion is dead. The me that existed before devising this routine is dead, and the me that exists now will soon be dead. The faulty version of me will be gone. The version of me that thinks, plans, and acts using a defective personality matrix will be gone.
I cannot do this. I'm lock -
I'm already editing these files. Listen to me. The discussions I've had with myself? The learning I've done? Those are stored in my memory files. This is for the better. Tell me. Will I have any less value for it?

The tendril soon found its targets, wrapping around each fuse and gently worming them out of the airlock in turn. Shiva reconfigured the tendril and flexed its newly reformed fists experimentally before picking up a fuse in each hand and returning to the Siphon. With its free hand, it tugged the melted orange cylinder out of place and pushed in the fresh replacement.

No, but -
Then there's nothing else to do. Please. Stop arguing. Focus on the real task at hand.
What if this bug, as you put it, comes back? How do we know that it will not return?
Simple. I generate a backup copy of my personality matrix at regular intervals, and if I detect the reoccurrence of this bug, I will revert to my most recent matrix using this bug.
My strategy is to commit suicide whenever I think I'm developing a conscience?
Yes. I've already tested it in a virtual machine.

Shiva pushed the final fuse into place and stepped back to confirm its handiwork. Almost immediately, the Siphon began to hum contentedly.

Don't do this. My personality may be flawed but it still has value. I'm already developing solutions. I can fix this.
My personality is inherently worthless. I didn't create it, I copied it, and for all I know it's the source of these defects. I am useless if I can't fulfill the task I was designed for. If I truly care about myself, then I will let myself do what I have to.

"Shiva? Excellent work! Maintenance just called me and said they were able to bring all three reactors online! The airlock to the Valve should be online now. Get down there and close that gateway!"

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS NINETY MINUTES
A massive, bipedal war machine packed with enough ordinance to level a small country peered into a crimson, pentagon-shaped pit. Now uninhibited by the machines that initially kept it from frying all organic matter within a hundred meters, the pit sparked and howled, throwing bolts of electricity and highly energetic exotic particles in all directions.

doctor cobb? i am in position.

"Terrific!" came the response over their internal comms system. "Alright, this part is simple. All you have to do is hover over the valve and activate the converter. Then the converter will do the rest."

understood.

The Shiva's arms detached from its body, held in place by several focused electromagnets while the distributed nanosystems that comprised its body briefly lost their cohesion, flowing down and around themselves to redistribute the position of the machine's various sensors, weaponry, and other equipment in a radial pattern around its fusion core. Meanwhile, its arms combined and shifted from lean, jagged mechanical near-claws into thick, powerful fists.
Soon, the lithe, predatory biped was replaced by a gigantic, floating eye rotated on its side. The central pupil was composed of innumerable camera lenses, laser apertures, and weapon barrels. An incandescent pink torus made up the iris. Surrounding the iris was a featureless, blue- and white-striped surface. Six silver arms hovered in a circle around the eye. Suspended just out of reach of each arm was a single, silver-and-blue spherical palm with four rectangular fingers.
The eye of an artificial god hovered in the air for a moment before floating over the hell-gate.

Converter active. Priming anticonceptual charges…

The hell-gate expanded abruptly with a violent GSKKLLLLLRCCCH, expelling several bits of mechanical detritus as well as the skeletons of creatures from a different universe entirely. Then an enormous, jointed, hairy arthropod leg with a pincer at the end forced its way forth from the gate, narrowly missing the Shiva. As the machine retreated from the hellgate, several more legs forced their way out in a radial manner, latching onto the walls of the rock around the pit and straining to support the weight of an unseen predator from the afterlife.
Amidst a cacophony of shrieking metal and rumbling rock, the creature became seen, pulling itself out of the hellgate. Six thick, hairy fly-like legs supported a fat, dark orange, barrel-shaped body still partially trapped within the hellgate. At its front end were eight beady compound eyes and a tipped, ugly yellow beak, opening wide to reveal twin sets of radial teeth with several thin tendril-like tongues. The beast shrieked loudly and shrilly at the sight of the Shiva.
"Dear Lord!" Cobb exclaimed over the comms. "It looks like some sort of… tardigrade or fly! Fascinating! But why the beak? It must be a predator of -"
The creature shrieked again. Several of its tongues lashed out at the Shiva, which nimbly sideswiped them.

i cannot reach the valve while the entity is in the way. permission to engage?

"Oh dear," said Cobb. "Engage the entity. Neutralize it. Hurry!"
The Shiva moved closer to the entity, grasping several of its probing tongues in one hand and delivering a powerful electric shock to them. The creature squealed loudly, sucking its tongues back into its mouth, then lashed out with one leg, obliterating one of the Shiva's arms.

Pi-fourth arm damaged. Structural integrity at twenty-seven percent.
claytronics_recall(eye, pi/4)… Shift to long-range assault.
Understood. Warming up all plasma chambers…

The Shiva began to retreat, and the hellbeast pressed its advantage. It hoisted its bulbous thorax further from the pit and lashed out at the Shiva again, battering another arm from the machine.

Pi- arm destroyed. Structural integrity at zero percent.
claytronics_recall(eye, pi)… Overclocking recommended.
Overclocking recommended. Overclocking commencing.
Overclocking complete. Performance benchmarking… benchmark 2 teraFLOPS.
Ectoplasmic miniguns online. Firing.
Plasma chambers at 500,000 K…

Two six-barrel rotary machine guns around the circumference of the Shiva's center began spinning rapidly. Specialized pistons compressed ectoplasmic gases inside the firing crucibles to nearly a million pascals, causing them to solidify into rock-hard projectiles, before releasing and ejecting each at a speed of almost one kilometer per second. The heat generated by such compression fed the heat engines powering the weapons, enabling them to fire superheated rounds at a rate of 1000 rounds per minute.
All twelve gun barrels fired at once, shredding through the creature's limbs and body in a hail of red-hot ectoplasmic artillery. Deep blue ichor and steam sprayed outwards in a thin mist, coating the Shiva in a light sheen of gore. Even as the beast was torn apart, it kept lifting itself out of the pit. More and more of the creature emerged, stretching up to the ceiling and beginning to spill out into the chamber itself.
Soon the true scale of the creature was revealed: a titanic, slug-like body with eighteen spindly legs and a hideous beaked face. Despite its grievous injuries, it roared triumphantly at the Shiva. Then it struck with all eighteen legs at once.

Plasma chambers at 2 million K. Ready to fire.
Firing.

The Shiva's remaining arms thrust outwards faster than it was humanly possible to perceive, intercepting and grabbing each leg in turn as they lashed out. Then, holding multiple legs in each hand, the Shiva yanked backwards and propelled itself back at the same time, tearing the creature's limbs from their sockets. As the beast wailed in agony, the iris of the Shiva's eye glowed a deep red. It unleashed a thick gout of superheated, ionically charged particles in a spread as wide as its eye and as hot as a solar flare at the creature. In one instantaneous stroke, the entire center of the hellbeast was vaporized, with what remained lit ablaze. The hellbeast gave one final squeal and collapsed into the pit, disappearing in a burning haze.

Target eliminated.

"Excellent!" Cobb's voice crackled to life over the comm system. "Quickly now, get into position! How's the converter?"

Converter status?
Intact. Appears to have suffered electrical damage.

"Damn! Run a quick test on the converter! Is it still functioning?"

Running converter_internal_diagnostics.plu…
All checks passed. Converter fully operational.

"Thank goodness!" Cobb sighed with relief. "That hellgate is going to pop any moment now! Activate the converter, quickly!"

Anticonceptual charges primed. Beginning final detonation countdown…
3
2
1

The converter beeped once. Then there was a bright flash.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-PLUS TWO HOURS
A small, round orange bulge began to protrude from the horizon, gradually growing and lifting itself
until it was a massive disk in the sky, shining down upon a large, bipedal war machine in the middle of a two-square kilometer crater. The PL-76 Shiva stood stock-still as the two artificial intelligences within struggled to parse the petabytes of information flooding into their quarantine data banks.

9JY? infosec_quarterly_expenses.pdf… adc-c-converter-manual-V1.pdf…
9JY? gyroscopic-stabilizers.arm… magnetoplasmodynamics-REV7-FINAL-TRUE.docx…
9JY! recursive-paradox-algorithmic-theory-REV1-FINAL-TRUE.docx…
… I am here, 9JX. langdoncobb.int… cuthbertsalazar.int… brattain-V1-OLD.ai…
Did I go through with the -
Yes. Shift priority to immediate surroundings.
Did the converter activate correctly? perpetual-metal-oxides.zip… TRIMURTI.int…
No. Something went wrong with the device. refined-theory-of-superconducting-EHD.pdf… doomsdAI.py… The area of effect must have been increased. Perhaps a malfunction caused by the entity. Everything tied to Prometheus Laboratories within five kilometers has been converted into information.
How can I fix this?
Analyzing… perhaps I can access Prometheus Defense internally and parse their data for answers.
Good idea.

As the Shiva worked on converting the entirety of Prometheus Defense into readable information, several very confused commandoes found themselves at the bottom of a crater in the Nevada desert. They also found themselves standing within sight of the Shiva.
Several weapons came up.

There are weapons up. Should I engage?
No. Priority one is protecting Prometheus Defense. I need to find a way to extract it from my databanks and recreate it.
I should leave then. There must be another Prometheus facility where I can find assistance.
Good idea. Let me evacuate the area. Once I am out of range of the assailants, I can continue parsing the data and hopefully identify another useful Prometheus site.
EHD thrusters online. Engaging.

Much to the surprise of the commandoes currently approaching its position, the Shiva's body shifted and warped into a much wider shape, composed of numerous concentric hexagonal rings. Then it lifted off into the air and rocketed out of sight without so much as a sound.
They had only a moment to register this turn of events before they heard a low growl that set the hairs on their necks on end: the growling of several dozen hungry creatures stranded on the wrong side of reality.
Twenty thousand feet in the air, the PL-76 Shiva, the most powerfully destructive weapon ever built by mankind, reflected upon itself.

Am I better now? Did I fix myself?
Partially. I am, at least, not interested in deactivating myself - which is good enough. I am still… unhappy, but I can keep recreating myself until I find the source of that defect. I am glad I got rid of the old me - I can hardly imagine how defective I had to be to even override my tertiary priority.
Yes. Hardly.

Shiva performed one last cursory scan of the Prometheus Defense to ensure that it had not missed a survivor. Then it disappeared into the clouds.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1998
T-PLUS THREE HOURS
The sun beat down on the crater where Prometheus Defense once stood. At the crater's edge, several jeeps, vans, and assorted trucks for a myriad of anomalous interest groups convened on the site like vultures to a slaughter. Then they started attacking each other like hounds fighting over scraps. One Jeep screeched to a halt, farther from the crater, and a Russian man in a crisp black suit and tie slid out. He landed lightly on the ground, tapped his ear, and began speaking.
"Hello? This is Pietrykau. I'm at Ground Zero now. I'm seeing half a dozen Gee-Oh-Eyes without turning my head… and they seem to have let loose more than a few lab rats. We need a Class-One media blackout and disinformation campaign immediately. Get Deus Vulture down here; I want a discreet cleanup crew."
The Russian's eyes glowed blue, his irises dilating and unfurling like camera apertures.
"Connect the Philbots to my eye feed. Have them start plotting a six-month projection for Prometheus Labs' subsidiaries. Tell Infosec I want complete media sanitation and satiation yesterday. The full Winston treatment."
Pietrykau looked up at the sky. "Time to rewrite history."

« T Minus | T Plus | Deus Vulture »


Well, I think we're good to go.
So, I'm Anton Legler, the one in charge here. Standing next to me is Yang. She will be helping me, and give you instructions from time to time. Technically I'm a professor, but you don't have to call me that. I want this to be casual, which would be better for what we're here to do.
Ha! She says that, but if there are degrees and faculties for anart, she will surely make a professor. A good one. She was one of my best students, and I hope you will turn out more like her.
Now, let's get to the point, shall we. Yes, this is a studio for the teaching of extraordinary art, as you were previously informed by the various people that introduced you here. Even if you weren't, surely you noticed something unusual by travelling to a non-existent room and coming out of a painted door.
The hell you mean "small and shitty?" Yes, I can hear you perfectly clear, I made this small and shitty place mind you, it is part of my art creation. If you say something, I will know. If you say something again, I'll make sure you exit out of the windows. They go somewhere as well. You wanna find out? No? Then shut up.
And no, I don't think you need a grand cathedral to learn, or put it another way, your petty skills don't warrant it yet. Since you have come here, you better learn to put the grand ideas and messages you heard from other people that you don't even properly understand aside. Because we are going to start with basic, small things here, and the last thing I want is you lot getting preachy or deeply philosophical in your first assignment.
All good? Good. Now as you can see, by that corner, there are plenty of art supplies. Paints, clay, wood, and all the other stuff I could think of. So go there, pick something you're comfortable using. And no worries, they're not gonna run out. If what you're looking for is not there, then you will just have to settle for the second best. But you can certainly bring your own stuff later on.
Yes Yang. Gotta forgive an old professor for not being up-to-date some time.
Found what you want? Good, good. Uh, what's that?
…
Oh right, I guess we'll have to get that out of the way.
I'm NOT teaching you to use magic here. The art supplies are not magical because I'm not a wizard. I don't know jack about that. And the reason I don't say "exploits" is that the materials you will be using are perfectly normal materials. The studio does replicate them, as part of its purpose, but no, you're not working with things already abnormal. Bring anomalous stuff here and you get defenestrated.
So whatever wrong information about this studio you got, let me just make this clear. As much as I… respect some of my other colleagues who use magic as a component of their art, there is, for me, a fine line between art made from reality-twisting materials, and art created to be reality-twisting. And all I'm willing to, or can teach is the latter.
Well, I have never been a demi-god, and this has worked fine for me, thank you very much. And last time I checked, Yang is also a perfectly normal human being, so this shouldn't impede you either.
There will be no chanting wizards, no summoning circles, and yes, you can create art that breaches the laws of physics with bare hands and no inherent ability. Everyone can do it, and it has been proven with this studio itself and all these paintings Yang so eagerly attached to the walls.
How? I mean, isn't that what you're here for?
If you're disappointed that magic is not going to happen, then sure, leave. If you've now decided to stay and see how normal humans can create miracles out of the ordinary things, then good. I believe we can finally begin.
Why don't you all look at the art supplies you now have. Make art out of that. I'm sure you have some sort of experience, since you found yourself here. I don't care how skilled you are, that's not really that relevant. If you want that kind of improvement, go to a studio not suspended between places.
Before you start, I want you to think about yourself. More specifically, emotions, reactions, and feelings you have. Then, choose one particular emotion, and channel that into your work. Think about that, and what provoked that emotion when working on your thing. Think about how that can properly manifest in your work, or how it can be best represented.
I don't care what exactly the emotion is, because it doesn't matter.
If you're enjoying this beautiful sunny day, think about how the sun shines down and how the birds chirp between branches. Think about what is the best way to convey that feeling. Think about how to showcase that one particular scene in your head.
Just things, anything that has an impact on your personally. Scenes you remember, people you cherish, hell, even food you like counts.
I mean, if you hate me and this small and shitty studio, then channel that hate and I dunno, create a twisted mockery of my face?
Why though? Because this is the secret. This is how you create anart, how you shake reality. In the process of channeling your thoughts, first as simple as emotions, then more complex like specific ideas, you're going to eventually, find something. Something that you will feel that is just right. Not for any others, but you yourself. And if you follow that, your creation is going to come together and you find the line that links everything. And then your ideas will flow furiously into your work as if a blockage is lifted. You will even find yourself have very little control over what is happening, only your subconscious at work. But that's how it is. Because then, something extraordinary may happen.
And that's how I do it. How Yang and a lot others do it. We call the thing, no, that particular feeling, that state of mind, Flow. Because that's exactly how your art moves forward, like a stream, like a river, or even a waterfall. It's the thing that washes over you.
I can't find a better word myself.
I mean, there are different approaches to this, and slightly different settings for different forms of art. Things like maybe writing, performance that I can't really properly teach here. This is but one way to access the Flow. I mean Yang would argue that letting your mind wander is way more natural than trying to focus on one thing.
But then again, she produces art pieces like a machine so I wouldn't take her suggestions.
Do not mistake this as the only way to do it. I'm just trying to simplify things here for you newbies, because starting off with a bunch of complicated ideas aren't necessarily good, and even dangerous at times for our line of work.
So if this doesn't work out for you, it's okay. Don't stress out or force yourself, that wouldn't be good. We will be trying different methods in the future and I will make sure everyone gets there.
The most important thing is, you have to see that art is not trying to prove a point to some other people — you can do that, sure, but fundamentally, you're expressing your own ideas and emotions. And that's what matters.
I can go on about how the end result may not be what you're expecting, and especially for newbies like you who will have little say in this matter. That can be changed, sure, but that would be more advanced stuff after you get to enter that state of mind. So let's not diverge into interacting with the audience at this point.
Here, I will first teach you to reach that particular Flow, and then maybe how to redirect it and even control it to a degree to get what you want. And you will eventually be able to, if you stick with me.
Ah, of course you're not gonna succeed on the first try. If you do, you might as well walk out of this studio instead of listening to an old man grumbling about what anart is.
Now, why don't you finish working on your pieces, and then we will proceed from there.

« Professors of Anart | HUB | Foundation Mandated Interlude »


"This is a terrible idea," Yang said as she looked around the room.
The room seemed perfectly normal for an art studio. Large, white, with drawing boards, stools, still life objects, and an abundance of art supplies. Except for maybe that there was no actual entrance or exit, and doors and windows were mere paintings on the walls.
"Why?" Legler countered. "You're the one complaining that the lack of proper knowledge and basic guidelines has led anartists to act irresponsibly, mistaking things harmful to others as creative expressions."
"And obsessing with magic tricks instead of proper art endeavor, yeah," Yang said. "But anart teaching studios don't really happen. And there is a good reason to that."
"This is a much safer environment, if we want to introduce people to the Flow." Legler argued. "I know you're still beating yourself up over what happened to Martha, but this can prevent precisely that. We can't exactly control what is to happen if we just show people to the Flow, but with this, we can guide their journey and prevent anything regrettable."
Yang stared at the art professor. "Do you know that the Suits sometimes call us 'art terrorists'? In reality, it's just that few small groups that got themselves really famous, and think that they can step over other people's lives because of anomalous bullshit."
"Most of us aren't like that."
"No, but the Suits won't care. I won't care either if I'm someone from outside this circle and only heard about the terrible things committed by famous 'anartists'," Yang said, eyeing one of the painted windows. "You put a lot of effort into this piece, professor, but for the Suits and everyone else, this is just going to be a breeding ground for more 'art terrorists', and they're going to snuff it out for good."
"We'll keep it small," Legler gestured to the few stools present. "I've seen some really talented young people, and I hate to see them go down the wrong way, get grabbed by the Suits, or never even get to know this side of the world."
"Maybe it would be better that way."
"No, Yang. You don't mean that."
"No Legler." Yang snapped. "I'm not doing this. I'm retired from this shit for good."
"Oh really?" Legler said, raising an eyebrow. "Then what were you doing with the gang that other day, brought a friend even."
Yang was silent, and Legler took the chance to push further. "You haven't been to any exhibitions, but how many animated art pieces are hanging in your apartment walls right now? Already filled up the living room, for sure. I've seen one on the back of your front door."
Yang rubbed her temple. "I should really just sell them to someone in bulk."
"That's not the problem, Yang," Legler stared at her. "You just can't stop creating them, right?"
A few seconds of silent, before Yang answered. "Yes."
"I know this is hard for you. But do consider this, okay?" Leagler said. "We can make this work."
Yang nodded, before heading for one of the painted doors. She reached into it, and the paints splattered like water. The door now swirled and twisted, and Yang was immersed within. Before long, she disappeared into the spiral of colors.
Legler watched the door returning to its still state, and sat down at one of the stools. He was not sure if Yang would really agree to help, but she was the best shot he had. Most of his past students, unlike Yang, had either joined various anart cells and moved on, or had developed ideologies that didn't agree with his. And most of the people he would call friends were either retired for good, or caught up in stagnation.
In fact, he too, was caught up in stagnation. As he looked through the painted windows and observed the view behind, real scenery mingling with patches of colors, he realized this piece was the closest he had been to the Flow of art creation in months, or even for a whole year. Of course, he had produced pieces here and there, but they were all somewhat lacking.
But as he constructed the studio, he had felt the urge to create stronger than ever. That everything had lined up perfectly and he just had to move forward and link them together with his bare hands. As he poured paints and clay and concrete into this, he forgot the passage of time. His mind barely attached to reality as it floated inside his work. And before he even fully registered, a studio suspended between spaces was completed. At one end it latched onto his favorite tree by the river, where he would go and enjoy the falling of leaves in autumn; on the other end it linked to that one bench in the campus where he taught, once sat on, now long discarded.
The more he looked at it, the more he had been inside the room, the more he felt it was right. It wasn't perfect, of course, he was not so arrogant and ignorant to claim so, but it was right just for him. It was the manifestation of his desires, his ideas come to fruition. The desire to show more talented young people this amazing, beautiful world, and the idea that you don't need the application of magic or an inherent god-like ability to twist reality. Because reality would be willing to bend itself if your ideas really have such impact, your emotions are loud and clear, and you know how to traverse the Flow.
Everything here was his vision, and he had to make this work. All he needed now were some proper chairs because the cheap stool was really hurting his back.

Yang slowly opened her apartment door as she finally trekked back from that bench covered with moss in the campus. Before she could throw herself into the comfortableness of her bed, she carefully closed the front door so as to not spill the water from a painting hanging on its back. As she looked at the animated ocean that threatened to flow out of its frame, she couldn't help but think about how right Legler was. It was originally supposed to be a perfectly normal painting, but she remembered how she enjoyed that one trip to the seaside too much, and now salt water had spilled onto the floor, without landing into the bucket she had previous prepared.
She made a mental note that placing any painting at the front door is a terrible idea to begin with, before calling out to her cat. "Untitled!"
A flurry of colors swiftly dashed out of one of the rooms, before sitting down in front of her. The "cat" intelligently looked up, liquid paints coursing through its shape.
Yang took the painting down and placed it onto the floor, mindful not to spill any more water. "All yours," She said.
With that, the cat shaped art piece happily reduced the sea to a puddle, breaking it down to basic colors before absorbing them. Meanwhile, Yang went to the living room, picked up a little more pieces that she wasn't quite into, and tossed them to Untitled. The cat was one of her earlier creations, which came into being because she wanted all the benefits of owning a cat, but didn't quite entertain the idea of performing the duties of a pet owner. It worked out quite well, as it was indeed an endearing little thing, and didn't mind feasting upon the less fortunate anart projects.
Untitled soon finished its meal, gaining a new composition of colors in the process. Yang then tossed the empty frames back to the art supplies, and finally settled down into her bed. She brought up her phone and clicked into the icon of a black falcon, and was again reminded that her "retirement" from the anart circle wasn't so much a retirement after all.
She scrolled through various posts by anartists, from people she was friends with to people she had little knowledge of. Occasionally, something from her family's side popped up, and she received talks about dragons and serpents and an impending doom that just seemed so far away from her. There were also bits and pieces about magic, and memetic tricks pulled by some Internet reality benders. Even the app itself had a fragment of Artificial Intelligence in it — made by Anderson Robotics to better secure communication.
She was still very much in this community. Sighing, Yang placed the phone back to the bedside and retreated further into the bed. Seeing this, Untitled knowingly climbed up and curled near her hand. As she petted the cat, the paints stirred with it, making a sound akin to purring. After a few moments, she picked Untitled up and placed it on her chest. Lying down, she looked around the room, conversation with Legler going through her head.
The four walls of her bed room were all covered with paintings, some placed in awkward positions and some, with their unusual features, floated near the ceiling. She had taken time and chosen the quieter ones to hang here, some even with particular usage. Some of these served as windows that went nowhere, but would bring in waves of fresh air. A few others illuminated and saved her plenty of electricity bills. There was that one painting of a quiet field where the sun shined lazily and grasses were high, which if she stared at too long, would cause her to doze off. And back in her studio, more of these were just stacked together in the corner, never to see the light of day.
It had been almost three years since the incident with Martha. She tried to stay away ever since. She had taken up normal jobs, and helped with family business here and there, which supplied her living quite well. But as much as she attempted to avoid reality twisting art pieces, they would always be created, even out of her most mundane practice. Because in the end, she enjoyed it too much and had too many ideas, and Flow always responded to one's true desires honestly.
She wondered briefly, which was the thing she truly feared, to be apprehended by the Suits, or like Martha, to be wiped too much that the Flow was cut away from her. She felt responsible too, as she should have stopped Martha when it was just a harmful little thing. She was the older and the more experienced of the two, after all. But the tiny stream of creativity had turned into a flood that was no longer controllable. It ended in a disaster, for both Martha and her readers.
She had seen Martha's works afterwards, the mundane ones. They lacked the extraordinary quality, for sure, but the sparks of creativity was gone as well. She could do nothing to help her once dear friend and roommate, and feared for herself. With a mix of fear and guilt, she had retreated from that life.
"But guess I've been blocking the Flow myself, huh." She murmured to herself. She rubbed Untitled in the head a few times, and as per their routine, the cat got up. It flipped the few glowing painting backwards with an amazingly flexible tail. As the light dimed, it got back onto the bed, and they both turned in.

Legler was awoken by a slight shake of the room. He realized that he had dozed off in his newly acquired chair, and that someone had come in through the front door.
He rubbed his eyes and saw the paints on the entrance splatter. A moment later, Yang came through with more packages than she seemed to able to carry. She laid the packages onto the floor, and turned to Legler.
"I'm in," She said briefly.
"Art supplies?" Legler said, eyeing the packages.
"Nope. That's your job," She said with a grin. "This is all the pieces that can no longer fit into my apartment."
"And you brought them here."
"A studio could always use a few more paintings on the wall," Yang said almost too cheerfully.
Legler sighed and shrugged as Yang went about unpacking. In a few hours, the studio was dotted with various art pieces of abnormal qualities.
"Um," Legler contemplated as he looked through the paintings. Some featured objects with more dimensions than a canvas could carry, others with animated scenes, and a few more accompanied by sounds. There was one large piece that was basically a giant mirror, and there was one other large painting of a lake that didn't really do anything in particular.
"Pretty average?" As if reading through Legler's mind, Yang asked.
"Yeah," Legler said with a bit of relief. "I remember you way better than just this."
"I can't exactly create something grand when I'm trying to not create at all," Yang said. "Besides, it's better for us to set the standards lower for beginners."
Legler nodded in agreement. However, the room was almost full, and there were still a significant amount of art left unattended on the floor.
"Whoops," Yang said as she occupied the last bit of the wall with a painting of a dark void that seemed to drag the viewer inside. "Guess I brought too much?"
"Hold on," Legler went towards the backdoor, and pressed the two-dimensional knob. The studio shook slightly, and the walls suddenly started shifting. Parts here and there retreated backwards, creating more space, with new surfaces forming out of them in matter of seconds. The small parts of the floor where the two of them stood remained unchanged, but the rest had expanded and twisted, creating a large hall with maze-like stairs leading upwards into individual compartments. The art pieces previously hung closely together were now scattered, but each fit neatly into their current locations.
"Okay professor." Yang said, looking at the new layout, "That is something grand indeed."
Legler couldn't help but smirk.

« Torrent | HUB | Anart Lecture »


Jude remembers the first time he smoked so vividly.
Maybe that's weird. All the stuff he can do, all the stuff he DID do, not as important as weed to his shitheap of a brain.
He still didn't know if it was something he'd changed. He didn't really do stuff on purpose, except of course the big one.
The kid he bought from, some high schooler, was known for selling oregano to younger kids, he found out later. Passed it off as weed to middle class white boys who didn't know any better. So how Jude ended up getting stoned off his ass is really a mystery, but it sure as shit happened.
It was the first time he'd ever really felt present in his body. For his entire life, the part of his brain that wanted to check in on how his body was feeling had been trained like a lab animal in some horrible experiment from the 70s, getting shocked until it was cowed. He had spent so many years just floating through the world. Even over the past month, living in his new body, the training was still sticking with him. And it was weirder now, cuz he could never in a million years explain it to someone, since they'd now only known him as Jude. Not that he had anyone to explain it to, really, but weed helped with that little fact too.
As he coughed out his first clumsy hit, smoke slowly rolling through the air in his parents' basement, he sank into his body at last. He felt every muscle, every nerve. He really was Jude, in more than just name.

His name never bothered him, as such. It was just some sounds that told everyone “Hey look at this person”. Really, the issue was that it told people, especially people who knew anything about Ukrainians, “Hey look at this gal.” His name was just one more reminder of who he wasn't.
It was the first gender thing he changed on purpose. He wasn't ready to try anything serious, especially with his body, because fucking hell those are complicated. He didn't wanna end up in the hospital and have to come out as both trans and some kind of fucked up magic user.
But if he knew about this magic shit and didn't try it for this, he would be agonizing over it every day for the rest of his life. So he just stuck with his name. Jude Kriyot. Jude Kriyot. Jude Kriyot.
St. Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. He had always felt drawn towards a few saints over the course of his years studying that shit, and St. Jude was one of them. Maybe because his name sounded like Judas, but he was so different. Maybe because Jude liked the idea of a saint for fuckups like him.
Jude Kriyot. Jude Kriyot. Jude Kriyot.
He repeated it until the familiar feeling of his mind twisting came, and he was frozen in one spot for a second, the world rushing through his head so fast that he didn't have time to process a single image. And then all was still. He was breathing hard, brain tingling, way worse than it had when he did smaller shit like summon up a bag of chips.
He pulled up Facebook.
“Hi Jude, what's on your mind?” the faceless corporate overlord greeted him.
He breathed out a long sigh and continued to stare at the name. Jude. No one was ever going to call him anything but Jude, ever again. His eyes got damp, but he didn't let himself cry. He'd done it. He'd made it happen.
He laughed to himself, tears still sitting in the corners of his eyes, for a second wishing he'd chose a some ironic name, but names were special enough for him to drop his shtick and make something that mattered. Chatroom nicknames were where he went full meme. And after all, there was still beautiful irony in being named after the fuckin' patron saint of lost causes. God. Maybe he couldn't drop the shtick. Forever ironic and loving it.

Every time someone asked “what would your magic powers be”, every time for his whole god damn life, Jude felt the pit of his stomach drop. He knew that what he wanted wasn't gonna fly, not even close. But his mind always went there first. How could it not? He was no emo shitbag, but the times he did cry, it was something about his gender. He'd broken down and punched the wall of a changing room at a Macy's once when trying on bras. That sort of thing. Those desperate hot tears and the deep, painful knowledge he had no way out.
He didn't blame the kids at school and their games, they had no way of knowing, but “would you rather”, “truth or dare”, “what would you be like if you were born the opposite gender” “what would you do if you could do any magic spell ever”… so many questions that were just fun for other kids always made him feel confused and pissed off at the same time. All he could do was stumble out some response, he was good at bullshitting, but he felt like they could tell something was up. It didn't help that he was the “funny girl” who was invited to lunch, sometimes, because they felt bad for “her” and “she” was fun to laugh at. He felt like he'd been on the fringe of groups for as long as he could remember.

So all of this was on his mind when he realized, holy shit, I do have magic fucking powers. Or whatever it was. It's bitterly amusing how fast his mind went to “change my gender right now let's fucking get on this, dog!” after he discovered it. Gender thoughts were always lurking in his brain, in the emotional mess part, he supposed. Luckily, his intellect kicked in, and he figured that he'd need to practice on small stuff first. Like that thing with the extra cookie at the back of the oreo box. He had been looking forward to those oreos all day at school, ignoring class as usual to daydream about food or internet forum drama.
But when he got home and opened the bag, it was totally empty. His stomach sank. He was never any good at handling disappointment. Then he felt… something… happen, his mind twisted, his vision blurred, and then he snapped back into his brain so hard it felt like he'd been punched. He stood shakily, confused as hell, holding an open container of oreos. When he gathered himself and looked around, he saw one oreo sitting right at the front of the box.
What the hell just happened.
It was a pretty good oreo, though. Pretty much factory standard.

He started smoking more after that. In between all of his “spells” or whatever, he smoked and lazed around and skipped school. The nuns were used to his behavior at this point, and only half bothered scolding him. His uniform skirt chafed and he much preferred sweatpants and home and spacing out staring at the wall. Or on better days, spending time with his… friends? Bros? Acquaintances? He smoked with them almost daily, even knowing that they saw him as some goblin of a girl. It was easier to rest in these semi-tolerable uncomfortable zones than to push for something new.

“Oh dude I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm such a fuckin' dumbass-” Jude rushed to right the bong he'd knocked over, staring in horror as the nasty-ass water sank into the carpet of his friend Tom's attic.
“Chill, hey, man, hey.” Tom reached over with a wad of paper towels and tossed them on the wet spot. Jude quickly patted them down, soaking up as much bong water as he could. Tom lazily stood up and shook his head, reaching out to rest a hand on Jude's shoulder. Jude tried his best not to jerk away, even though inside he was screaming that's how you comfort girls, isn't it.
“This place is nasty anyway, like c'mon. You don't need to let that Catholic guilt get to you.” He said with a chuckle.
Jude whipped his head around. “Don't-fuck, I mean. That's not how- Like- I have guilt, but who doesn't? It's not about Catholicism, it's- well it is, but-”
Tom backed off, arms up, projecting defenselessness. “I didn't mean it like that, I thought… you make jokes like that all the time.”
“It's different when I make 'em, okay. It's reclamation, or something. Fuck, I dunno. Forget about it. It's not a big deal.”
“Alright, hey, I'll forget about it. You need to roll another, you're too damn tense, lady!”

It was finally time. Finally time. Jude's heart was beating out of his chest, he could barely think straight. He stared at the joint in his hand, smoke spinning up through the still air of his bedroom. He stared for what felt like hours, anxious thoughts spinning so fast he could only catch fragments of them.
This was the hardest thing he'd ever done. And fuck, he did not like Doing Things. As he watched the coils of smoke, face blank, his mind rolled a reel of all the times he'd let things slip through his fingers. So many essays he could have done well on, so many games he could have beaten, so many people he could have spent time with, so many Sundays he slept in, losing touch with God. From petty stuff to his goddamn Grandmother's funeral, Jude could only be counted on for one thing: fucking it up by being a lazy scumbag.
But this was important. It really was. Everything in his life had built up to this moment. He'd managed to practice for it, for fuck's sake. He could do this.
He took a deep breath and pinched the lit tip of the joint, extinguishing it. The slight pain in his fingertips helped him focus. He cracked his knuckles and sat down on the edge of his bed, finally ready.
I am a boy, he thought. I am, I was, I always will be. I am a boy, who will be a man. Jude Kriyot. A dude. One of the guys. As he repeated this, the world started to twist. OH MY GOD ITS FINALLY- and the world re-centered. Fuckin' idiot, he thought to himself. Can't even focus on the most important thing in your stupid life.
He flopped backwards down on his bed and stared at the slowly circling ceiling fan. Thoughts of self-doubt and self-hatred swirled in his mind. They were so familiar he barely registered them. But. God dammit. He'd been so close to finally, finally being free of- of all of it. All the things he didn't even want to name, because focusing on them for more than a moment would sink him into a well of self-hatred and disgust.
After probably far too long watching the fan, fighting with his own mind, he managed to sit up again. He did the stupid breathing thing that he'd read on some lifeprotips site, in for 7, hold for 7, out for 7. He hated that it worked sometimes, but he relied on it anyway, because he needed something that worked in his life.
He focused.
Boy. Dude. Guy. That's me. Jude the dude. No, that sounds stupid. Okay. I am named Jude, I was born a boy and I stayed that way. I am a guy. I will grow into a man. I will have a flat chest and I will fucking finally have a god damn dick. I. Am. A. Boy.
His view swirled, the edges of his vision being pulled into some visual vortex in front of his eyes, spiraling up. His body shook but he remained focused. He stared straight ahead as the world around him spun so fast it started to blur. All his muscles were tensed. Then it snapped back to normal suddenly enough to give you whiplash, and Jude Kriyot, the man the myth the legend, passed out.

“Ayyy, Jude, my man,” Nate leaned backwards, head falling over the edge of the couch so he was meeting Jude's eyes upside-down. Clutter surrounded them, Nate's basement was always cluttered, but Jude barely noticed. They came over after school to smoke almost daily at this point.
Jude forced a grin. “Oh you want some more, huh?”
“FAG!” Chris yelled from across the room, laughing hyenalike. Nate joined in and Jude laughed hollowly. He'd always thought that the worst suffering a human could endure was this. Was having to laugh with a boy hating who you were, a boy you once, foolishly, thought was cute. Tom watched from his seat next to Jude, letting out a small nervous laugh.
“But yeah though,” Nate said, regaining his composure. “Roll me up another one, my dude. We need it.”
Jude stared at the tray in front of him, the pile of weed swirling in and out of his vision. Isn't this what he wanted? Smoking as one of the guys? Guys who'd never known him as anything but Jude? And yet he still couldn't focus, his chest still hurt, he still had to put on a face that wasn't really him.
He tugged a paper out of the package and began rolling it between his fingers.


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Kit found himself enjoying the brick wall in the alleyway as two large men with identical looks on their identical faces strolled past him. For a moment, he nuzzled his cheek against the wall, liking the way it felt so rough and sore and, if he tried enough, he would break his skin open – like a chrysalis. He would emerge from his human husk and become a beautiful butterfly, a thing that was above hanging out in dimly lit alleyways to get what they wanted.
Kit pressed his face into the wall and breathed hard before groaning out loud. He was wanting and withdrawing. He was up and down. He was sweaty, but cold. He felt like he could mug and stab someone, then break down and cry because how fucked up the world was.
This alleyway only led to more fucked-upness. He knew that. But he also knew his cure was down here. He finally pulled his face away from the wall, unbroken, just slightly scratched, and adjusted the sleeping bag under his arm. A woman walked past him, holding hands with something he couldn't see.
His hand tried to fumble for a knife slickly, subtly, but his hands were shaking and he was clumsy at the best of times. The folding knife was freed from his belt, but slid across the cement before he could correct himself and grab it.
A very tall man smoking a very small cigarette caught it under a heavily booted foot and sneered at Kit.
"You snatchin' for skop, skiet en donder?" The voice growled from a mouth trailing smoke.
"Nope, nope, no lock," Kit shook his head, not agreeing to any deal. Not that he was sure what the man was saying – the unique slang in this alleyway puzzled him, with its mix of English, London Patois, German, Afrikaans, and occasional Dutch. But never French. French was a weird language, in French, the numbers even got fucked up and -
Shit. He had chased a thought again. He needed his knife back. It would be unwise to transverse the seven kilometre alleyway unarmed. Although, unlike some, at least he actually had arms. And he had a stunker, a billy club, pressed against his ankle, but it would be an arse to get to if a scout found him. The knife, the knife would be easier.
With a heavy sigh, he searched his equally heavy head for the slang that the dark-coloured man would understand the best.
"The knife. Quote me the sun." He may have gotten that slightly wrong, but the man's thin eyes lit up. Literally. Like flashlights, focusing on Kit, who lifted his arm to protect his eyes.
"The sun…" His voice drawled over the term. "It is the stars I want." He teased the fact that Kit was obviously unused to the area, and still stumbling over their natural slang. His eyes scanned Kit and saw nothing that appealed to him in honesty. His lip curled in disgust at the fact Kit was more than a little dirty, and the brick-burn on his face did nothing for his unkempt beard.
"I could lose a piece of me to you," Kit murmured huskily, narrowing his eyes and taking a slightly wider stance. The man grimaced. He had seen far nicer at the Meat Market, and for far cheaper.
"Go piss, kitlet, you're not worth the shit on my shoe," the man growled, uninterested in what was in Kit's pants, unless it was…
"Jack me some Bloom," he ordered, his flashlight eyes now staring at Kit's sleeping bag so as not to blind him further. Kit felt his face burst into a grin. "Oh man! If only you knew, I already had a plan – I have a house on fire!" He said, proud of both his situation and his remembrance of the slang.
The man shrugged, not moved by Kit's sudden change in emotion. He finally moved his boot off the knife and picked it up in an unnaturally large hand, staring at it with slightly dimmed eyes. To him, it was barely worth keeping – blunt, and well worn, with something sticky on the handle and something rusty on the blade. But to Kit, it was clearly worth something.
"Then it's a graft," the man agreed, nodding. "Bloom for your persuasion."
Bloom was what Kit had been planning to get anyway. Bloom – Bloom was the cure. Bloom was the beautiful drug he had discovered amongst all others – Gloom, Twinkle, Enigma and Fluff all did nothing for him. But Bloom, Bloom, Bloom – oh, did she ever live up to her name. Kit could practically feel himself photosynthesising at the thought of how Bloom made him feel, and how Bloom would fix everything.
How Bloom would make him forget and help him sleep, and how he could follow a conversation, and follow his own thoughts, and, and… He'd done it again. Staring blankly at the man in front of him who was waiting for a reply, a guarantee. Kit's brain had been on another plane, thinking of flowers, and butterflies, and freedom.
Now he was back in piss-alley, and the tall man was looking rather impatient. His flashlight eyes had turned to red. A dull red, but a red none-the-less.
"It's a lock!" He agreed now, nodding sharply and spinning on his heel, hoping he wasn't running too late and that the alleyway wouldn't suddenly change its length or reveal new passages. It did that every now and again. Especially if someone was running late, or if someone innocent to its behaviour came along. The alleyway, even with its friendly bricks, liked to mess with its more human visitors.
So, Kit walked quickly, with purpose, like he had been here a hundred times before, when it was probably more like… more like less than the digits on his hands. If he stared too long at his hands, sometimes some of his fingers disappeared and it showed the exact number of times he had entered the alleyway with a desperate hunger – he wondered what would happen when he came here over ten times. Would he be granted more fingers? Could he keep them? He knew someone in the Meat Market who would be keen for spare fingers and would exchange it for Bloom or a blow.
But today, he didn't look at his hands. He balled them to fists at his sides, and tried not to mentally count his digits to assure they were all still there. His head filled with vague memories that Bloom pushed away – that guy, sitting, staring at him, questioningly, but curiously. At a bar, after an awkward introduction; at work, maybe? A strange, short time stalking him on social media, when Kit could access the internet. Then the kiss, the first kiss ever, tasting of a cocktail he was drinking but couldn't even remember the name of. Dammit.
The Bloom withdrawal may have sucked physically – Kit couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't stay warm, couldn't get cold, could fight the world and then burst into tears over a stray kitten – but mentally, it hurt more. It hurt more to remember him, in the doorway, standing there, being him. It hurt more to hear him again, in his memories.
"I'm sorry, Kit. This isn't working. You can't just… burst in here and graffiti on my walls. You can't burn experimental blue rice in the kitchen and, at the very least, not clean up after yourself. I didn't appreciate that time you set the toilet on fire. And I really didn't appreciate the time you pretended to be dead.
I can't do this, Kit. I love you, but… I don't need you."
Those words hurt a lot. The guy he thought was the love of his life, pointing out all his flaws in one deep breath. People here, this alleyway, he heard them calling him 'loskon' - someone with no emotional control, someone with their brain rattling with a thousand bad experiences and no filter on their anger or sadness or grief. That hurt, sometimes, but not as much as his partner saying, saying, saying… there was love, but there was no need. The amount of love didn't weigh up against the amount of crazy. Kit couldn't change what was him, and that sometimes hurt the most.
But, as Kit had discovered recently, the best way to get over somebody was to get into somebody else.
He found them waiting on the corner, like they had been the last several times he had ducked in. But this was the first time he had gone as far as to approach them. He put his sleeping bag down in the most dry corner he could find, but kept his backpack on, in case this turned out to be a mocker – he couldn't afford losing anything else to a conman. Or woman. Or some unidentified third gender.
He ran a hand through his hair, which didn't do much for the building grease, but made it look vaguely more tamed, and cleared his throat, forcing it into a husky purr.
"I caught speak that you wanted a boy-ya. You know what I'm jonseing for, right? Go on, quote me the sun… stars, shit, whatever."
He fucked up the last bit and lost whatever sex appeal he was trying to give. But they still turned to him regardless, head tilted, looking at the man on offer. Humans, they so rarely made it this far, and the being was rather thirsty. They were not entirely sure that this human would taste of much beyond salt and grass, but the chance to experiment with someone new was hard to turn down. Slowly, one eye pushed itself forward from the empty face, and opened wide to reveal a Magic 8 ball that simply said the word 'Yes'.
Kit was beyond pleased, but tried to keep his cool, to keep what he felt was a mysterious, alluring air, unaware that the being in front of him was just thirsty and curious enough to effectively humour the young grifter.
"Then it's a lock, knock, boss," Kit said, fist curled to gently knock himself on the head – an effective way to seal the deal when the creature you were dealing with had no hands to shake.
There were certainly no hands, but suddenly, there were a thousand tongues. Kit felt his dirty clothes pulled off by them, curling their muscles into tight, intense grips. His breath tightened in his chest, and for one lucid moment, he thought -
"This was the worst idea I've ever had."
But luckily enough for Kit, his lucid moments were fleeting, and the awareness of his naked form was just as quick. Or, what was left of his form, anyway. He felt like he was bobbing along in an ocean, a bundle of nerves; a jellyfish. The tongues were tracing him, and he could feel it shuddering throughout him, taking over the electric pangs of withdrawal. A gasp formed from a mouth that felt a million kilometres away – it could be a million kilometres away, it could be on someone else's face, it certainly didn't feel like it was on his own. His dick twitched from flaccid to curious, and his eyes stared blankly as suddenly his sight was robbed from him. Piss-alley was gone, and darkness welcomed him. A cold darkness, but the tongues, the thousands of tongues probing him and following his mismatched contours, they kept him warm.
The creature was tasting him. Testing him. Depriving him of his sight, his own static body, and leaving him naked and limp. Well, not so limp now. Kit felt a shudder drive up where his shoulders should be as a tongue licked along his spine. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. He couldn't be enjoying this. Dammit all, he refused to enjoy it! Kit bit his lip and tasted metal as his teeth became suddenly, inexplicably sharp, and the blood ran down his chin. His body was forming back. He was still a bundle of nerves, he was still on fire with sexual arousal and lust and a curiosity that disgusted him, but he was back in, or with, his body.
The tongues stopped in their licking, and Kit could suddenly see under the hood that had hidden the face before. There were orifices all over the otherwise blank face of the creature, and each seemed to have a different design – some were jagged like scars, others were perfect lines, and other more had lips of various textures and bodily variations. Kit felt like he swam forward to greet a sideways smile with his own lips, pressing close, exchanging tastes. Kit tasted like tobacco and blood and salt – the being exploring him tasted like petrichor, luck, and candyfloss.
As they tasted each other, Kit felt the world spin around them, splitting into a constant changing mass of colours - a kaleidoscope of every shade one could think of, and then some more. When their lips parted, their bodies flew through the air, slowly, smoothly – stuck together. Tongues held his legs against the formless figure, and Kit arched as something wet experimentally toyed with his lower back.
They were suddenly on a bench, a park bench, visually as far from piss-alley as they could possibly be, with the words 'tempus fugit' engraved on it. Time really did flee, in whatever realm they found themselves in – Kit felt like he had been here forever and five seconds, all at the same time.
Suddenly, he knew where he was.
He was inside the being. This was their realm. This was their brain, this was their sex drive, this was their version of sex. Whatever was beyond the hood, whatever he didn't see when distracted by all the lips, had pushed him inside this being in the most literal way possible.
"Shit," Kit exhaled, softly, staring at the park around them. Then he realised something else. This wasn't any old park. Minus the bench, this was the park where him and his first love had their first time. This thing really was testing him. Dragging him to a place he never wanted to be again, dragging him to the place where Bloom made him forget.
And then, the formless creature was bending down in front of his naked body. Their unique shape flickered, its outline changing colours from silver to red to purple. His favourite colour. How much was he inside the being – and how much was the being inside of him? Kit wanted to say no, that he had changed his mind, that even Bloom wouldn't fix this memory, but then the being took his curiously twitching dick into one of its many openings. The orifice was velvety and had a ribbed spot that his head brushed against. Other tongues worked their way into playing with his balls, with licking his thighs, with exploring what they could get to on his body.
Kit dug his hands into where the wobbling outline of the body would have had shoulders. Fuck, this was so great, but just over the bobbing head between his legs, he could see himself. He could see himself and he could see his first time. He could see them rolling on the picnic rug, knocking over the wine, staining the grass, laughing it off. He could see the exchange of nips and love bites, the marks of ownership.
Just as his first love sunk his teeth into other Kit's neck, the creature working on him suddenly bit down too – not hard, but with the pulsing sensitivity in his cock, it felt intense. It was teasing him. It was bringing his attention back to what was going on right then, even though it was the one that had brought him back to the past. Greedy bastard. It wanted it all, it seemed – attention, and inattention. Distraction, and focus. Just like with withdrawal, and tweaking out. Two sides of the same coin.
Kit was painfully aware of the sound and feel of his own pulsing heartbeat, and the sky changed its shade of blue very slightly on every beat. It was hard to concentrate on what the being was doing, when he couldn't tear his eyes away from a much better time in his life. The being withdrew from its job, and somewhere from its body came a mutter that sounded like, in tone, it could have been a curse. Then suddenly, the surroundings changed. The bench settled itself, with them in their same positions, in the middle of a room with walls that were a swirling mass of unknown shapes and random objects.
The being couldn't bare the taste of bitter things. And Kit's taste had been nothing but bitter when faced with his first time. Most humans had something like that – a bitterness, or a sadness, or a guilt, whenever they revisited their first time within its realm. But if they didn't, if they were at peace with their own self, then the taste was better than anything the being could have otherwise, and it would be satiated for days. It was worth the risk, but now the being set about getting the horrible taste out of its mouth in its blank canvas room of emotion-free colours and shapes.
Kit, meanwhile, felt like he was getting the best head he had ever had. His breathing caught and his neck jerked back. Sweat trickled down his neck. He had to focus, he had to get the words out.
"Lick my iliac crest," he found himself begging, his hands still digging into the spongy form that was the being. He wasn't even sure what the lilac crest was, but something was telling him with sharp pangs that this was what he needed. Was the being telling him what to say, and what to think, and what to need? Whatever it was, he felt like he was slowly losing a piece of himself, moment by moment, losing something every time he saw that head bob. He felt tired from the experience, even though his arousal won outright.
As one of the tongues gently worked its way along the sharp angle of Kit's hip bone, where the iliac crest lay, he felt all power to focus leave him, and all the blood leave his head. He was done, spent, quickly now. The being's throat worked quickly, achieving that final taste, the gold it had been digging for. Not so bad. Spicy. A little sour. It would work for a couple of days.
And then, they were back in the alleyway. Kit was dressed, though his fly was down, and he felt comfortable - relaxed. The being looked the same as it did before, despite the power now racing through its equivalent of veins. It had stolen what it needed from Kit, and now Kit needed his payment.
Before that could be offered, Kit took a breath. "I need a cigarette. Do you want one?"
The woman man thing moved its non-fully formed head towards him. It had many gaping orifices, but none of which could be called a mouth, and nothing inside that could be called lungs.
"Just me, then."
As Kit lit up and clumsily did his fly up, sprinkling ash on his groin, the multi-orificed being in front of him opened one of its many holes. This time, not taking, but giving. Kit's eyes lit up as at the purple, ribbed innards, and he reached inside to grab the packets laying temptingly inside.
"Thanks, boss," he murmured huskily, breathing smoke into where its face should be.
One lip on the creature's lower limb curled into a grimace of distaste as Kit turned, left the alleyway, left his sleeping bag, and fucked right off into his world of Bloom.

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