Hello, my name is Alice, and I believe in giants. Old Ms. Susan says it's an overactive imagination, so does Mr. Scott, but they knew the same things I did once. As they did with the giants, before something took away their belief in the impossible. You see, I am not important or special. I cannot get good grades in math like John, run fast like Sarah, or be popular like the Sconce teens, but I am the only one in this town who knows that giants once roamed these hills.
———————
Since I've known myself as a person, the giants have always been here. Mr. Scott, an old hunter, keeps a plaster cast of a massive footprint he found while exploring the woods outside town. He keeps it out for people all around to come and speculate what may have left it. The giants must have even been here before he was born, because the elders of the town tell me stories, even when they were little, of colossal figures striding across the plains under the summer moonlight. Before I even saw them for the first time, I had grown used to their humongous footsteps lulling me to sleep as I lie in bed.
I remember that first experience like it was yesterday. One night, a giant got fairly close to our farm to observe my father's cattle, and caused quite a ruckus that woke me from my sleep. As I peered out my bedroom window, I saw the titanic figure for the first time. My curiosity got the best of me, so I grabbed my trusty binoculars and shimmied out of bed. Then I climbed over the old sill and onto the porch to get a closer look at the beast.
The grass was wet from dew as I ran down towards the pasture where the cows were currently enjoying the cool night air, unaware of the quietly watching giant. As I approached the fence, I was alarmed by the startled moo of a cow, scared half to death as the large figure had gently plucked it from the field. The sorry bovine flailed its legs wildly, as the giant curiously observed it. Against my better judgement, I leaped out from my position by the fence and shouted. “Hey! Put that down!” I yelped, as loud as a 17 year old girl could. The giant's ears perked up as it looked in my direction, and it slowly lowered the terrified cow to the ground, which dashed off to join its family in the barn.
It was now that I realized what my actions may have caused. But my fears were quickly calmed as the gigantic creature stalked forward and sank to its knees, looking almost sorry for what it had done. It was beautiful, in a lonely sort of way, huge and human-like. But I was amazed to see it had pointy ears and hair all over! It sniffed me, and let out a trembling vocalization. “Hello small creature,” it rumbled, ears sagging down so it looked as pitiful as could be. “Have I displeased you?”.
Taken aback by the giant's grasp of language, I stumbled and looked for words. "You can talk?"
The giant raised an eyebrow. "Of course I can, I have a mouth."
I was scared but also fascinated. The creature didn't seem like it wanted to hurt me, it looked almost as intrigued by me as I was by it. I wanted to learn more about it, so I tried thinking of topics to discuss. But nothing came to mind as those big and friendly eyes stared at me, until the creature spoke up and pointed at my binoculars.
"What is that called, and what does it do?" it asked.
"Oh, these? They're called binoculars. They let me see things that are far away." That gave me an idea for a topic, so I put on the binoculars and looked the creature over. "For example, I can see that there is something between your teeth!"
The beast went wide-eyed, and uprooted an entire tree from the ground to use as a toothpick. The sound of roots being pulled free from soil were very loud and startled several birds into flying away. I thought the beast might wake up my parents if it kept causing so much destruction, so I jumped and shouted with all my might.
"NO! STOP!"
The creature almost immediately put the tree down and apologized. I sighed, trying to think of how to deal with this incredible situation. That was when another idea hit me.
"What is your name?"
"It's Bogart! What is yours, little one?"
"I'm Alice. Do you like learning new things, Bogart?"
"Sure do! Even more when it's about humans. You are so tiny but you make so many big things!"
"OK then. Would you like me to show you all the cool things around here?"
"That sounds like fun! But your legs are so much smaller than mine, it would take forever."
"That is where you are wrong. Let me climb onto your shoulder, and I'll use my binoculars to show you the cool things!"
Bogart smiled from ear to ear, and knelt before me with his open palm. Each of his fingers was twice as tall as me and much wider, but there was a lot of hair to hold onto. I held back a scream as I was lifted high into the air and placed on his shoulder, giving me a big view of the farm.
"Alright, Bogart. Where do you wanna go first?" I asked, as we headed off into the night.
This was the first of many adventures I had with Bogart, and one of the most memorable. I showed him the old well, the barn, and the outskirts of town too! He said that he had never been this close to a human settlement before, and that it felt “a good kind of strange” to be interacting with a human itself. I made sure to warn him that not all humans would understand him, and that he should be extra careful when dealing with others. I'm afraid he did not understand, as he acted confused at the thought of a human being different then me.
We had just passed Mr. Rizkamp's farm when I heard a rooster crow, and I was so shocked that I nearly fell off of Bogarts gigantic shoulder. “It's almost morning, I have to get home!” I gasped, and explained to Bogart the necessity of staying on my parents good side. It took some convincing, but in no time at all we were bounding across the pastures behind my house. I said my farewells, promised that we would meet again the same time next week. The giant knelt down, leaving me level with my bedroom window. I hopped in, and turned to see the massive figure walking off towards the rising sun.
———————
It was after many more meetings with Bogart, that I learned more about his friends and family. He said he had been around for thousands of years, but was unaware if giants and humans measured the time the same way. He also mentioned that his earliest memory was being born “from a boulder, on a moor, surrounded by his friends”. I even met some of these “friends” as well! Many were even bigger then Bogart, and had names that were difficult to pronounce. The young ones would have wonderful conversations about the plants they eat, or the rocks they would play with, while the older ones would carefully investigate my claims of human culture and habits.
It was on a fateful day in April, I believe, when everything changed. It was already a strange day, as helicopters had been buzzing around the town all morning. One of the neighbors had mentioned something about the Illuminati, or some other secret organization, but nobody payed him much attention. Now you see, I had plans to sneak off after lunch to meet with Bogart behind the old barn, but to my surprise, he neglected to show up. This was very out of character for him, as he had always shown himself to be incredibly punctual. I grew fearful that something bad had happened, and I ran immediately to Old Susan, who was the oldest member of the city council. She was known as a little crazy, as she had always shared stories of her encounters with “massive beasts” when she was young. As I showed up on her doorstep, I knocked urgently, and she slowly opened the door.
Susan was wise, even beyond her advanced years, but barely able to walk without her cane. She was very happy to see me, inviting me in for some milk and cookies. As I sat down on her lavish couch, I asked her forwardly, “Ms. Susan, do you know all those stories you told me and the other kids about giants?”
She looked at me with confusion and a hint of concern. "What are you talking about, Alice? I don't remember ever doing that. Are you sure you're not thinking of some book you read as a child?"
I frowned in disappointment and confusion as well. "But…Ms. Susan, they were some of your favorite stories. Kids from all over town would come to your house to hear them."
"Sweetie, kids barely visit me anymore. I think you're just daydreaming too much. Why, I might be old, but I know I'd remember something like that."
I put the cookies and milk down and breathed in and out with difficulty. "Ms. Susan, if this is a prank, it's not funny."
The elderly lady was shocked. "It feels more like you're the one trying to pull a prank on me. What happened? This isn't like you at all."
"What happened? I just lost my best friend! And you are saying you never heard of him! How could you!"
Susan gasped. "Alice! Please listen to yourself. You need to calm down! Have you been eating and sleeping right? You could be getting a fever. That can make people have strange thoughts."
I began tearing up and just barely held back my sorrow and anger. "I'm sorry, Ms. Susan. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. But…something horrible might have happened, and I need to make sure it's not too late."
I left and ran toward the house of Scott, who had a cast of a giant's footprint as one of his most famous possessions. When I arrived and knocked desperately on his door, I was greeted with a smile and the same concern of Ms. Susan.
"Heya Alice. Why the long face? Ya startled me with that knocking. Did something serious happen?"
I asked him through strained breath if he still had that cast of the footprint. He raised an eyebrow like I was going crazy. "What makes ya think I have anything like that? All I really have to show are animal heads mounted above my fireplace."
I panicked and started pulling at my hair in frustration. "Hey kid, don't be like that. What's gotten into ya? Have ya been watching too much TV or something? Ya should be more responsible, ya know. Too much TV is bad for the brain."
That was the last straw for me. The only remaining person in this town who could help had also forgotten everything. I kicked at the dirt as I cried my eyes out and ran away, shouting Bogart's name.
I never found him. I still walk the pastures near my house some days, searching for something, an uprooted tree, or maybe even a large footprint. It's been no use. Everyone who I've spoken to since has insisted I forget about it all. I tried, I really did. I focused on my studies, on my other friendships and my plans for the future. Everything seemed so small in comparison to the wonder I had known. Everyday from morning to night felt empty. But worst of all was that constant fear that something horrible happened to Bogart, the kindest and most understanding friend I ever met. I would cry myself to sleep. I never felt like smiling. Life lost its spark.
But one night while asleep, I found myself dreaming of my friend. I could not see him, only hear his voice through the dark and foggy woods. The more I ran, the more distant his voice would get. He told me to stop running after him many times, but only after tripping and falling into the mud did I listen. His last words were quite clear as the fog parted and revealed a crystalline lake under the sun:
"Don't worry about me. Please continue on your own. Be strong, like I know you can."
I do know that Bogart would want me to be happy, so I will keep honoring him by sharing my story with others. Something took the giants away, I don't know who, or what, but I do know this; as long as somebody remembers them, they will never truly be gone. So I will ask one thing…
Do you believe in giants?


Introduction

Native to
Russia

Region
Minusinsk Hollow, Tyva Republic

Ethnicity
20 Yeniseian Ämärang, 14 Sayan Ämärang, 13 Altay Ämärang (2009 census)1

Language family
Uralic

Early forms
Old Adytite, Dark-L Dialect

Dialects
Upper Yeniseian, Late Adytite (Light-L Dialect), Sayan, Northern and Southern Altaic

Writing System
Traditional Sarkic and Mongolian scripts, Latin, Cyrillic

The actual name of the Adytite language as given by its native speakers in Southern Siberia, the Upper Yenisei and the Sayan mountains is Ämärangnä,2 the Ämärang, otherwise known as the Yenisei river, being the historical homeland of the Adytite speakers. The natives have also called it Nälmäsäk or Nälkänä, Holy tongue and Tongue of Nälkä respectively.
The language is only used for religious ritual3 and very few actually converse in it, those who do doing so in private since the language is secret. The only outsiders who know of it are the Foundation anthropologists that spent time amongst the Ket shamans who speak it. The language has not changed much in the last three thousand five hundred years due to the strict methods by which the shamans preserve the orally transmitted Sarkist scriptures. Learners are required to pronounce each syllable correctly.
The populations which speak Ämärangnä consist entirely of Ket people and individuals with mixed ancestry who are direct descendants of the Okunev Culture's people. Half of the latter's ancestry is Yeniseian, made evident by the very frequent presence of the Q1 Y-chromosomal haplogroup subclade, and the other half is Uralic, characterized by the haplogroup N1c-. The Okunev culture was a united conglomerate of Yeniseian speaking Siberians who had migrated south from the taiga, and Ämärangnä speaking Siberians who had, in all actuality, migrated from the Liao Civilization, the homeland of pre-Proto-Uralic. These two populations had peaceful relations with one another and possessed two similar cultures. When the warlike, Aryan Adronovo culture, aka the Daeva, began moving increasingly eastwards, as far the Upper Yenisei, tensions grew. Many Okunev were enslaved, and eventually a revolt was perpetuated by Karcist Ion.4 The uprising pushed back the Indo-Iranians and thus began the Karasuk Culture.
Adytite is a unique language, being split-ergative with agglutinative and (compositional) polysynthetic features. It is extremely idiomatic, with speakers sometimes preferring to use idioms and comparisons over stative verbs when describing a noun. It has also attracted the curiosity of linguistics because of its verb serialization, virtual lack of a case system.5
Adytite Sound Changes
Adytite was an agglutinative Uralic language spoken in the Bronze Age around modern day Western Siberia, and can be regarded as an early offshoot of Proto-Uralic which developed around and was influenced by both Proto-Samoyedic, the Tungusic, and the Yeniseian languages, thus it shares many sound changes with the former. Adytite is thus related to Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian. The innovations from Proto-Uralic proper are:

Pervasive vowel harmony.
Syncope, loss of unstressed vowels especially in compound words.
Merging of *ï, /ɯ/, and *u to /ɯ/, written as u.
PU *x > *ø
Final /Vw/ > /u/
/a/ > /e/ in the environment of /j/
Loss of intervocalic /j/.
/ɬ/ > /l/, in the more eastern Sayan dialect it became /ɮ/ in the middle of words but merged with /s/.
PU /ɬʲ/ as well as PU *l in medial positions > /j/
The geminate consonants of Proto-Uralic appear in Adytite as consonant clusters of nasal + stop. PU *lappe, flat, > laba; *koppV, lung, > kombo, *kokka, hook, protruding edge, > konko. There are however exceptions, and /kk/ may appear as a plain/k/.
A loss of nasals in the clusters *Nš, *Nč, *Nć, *Nś, Nľ, Nr, and Nl.
*ś and *š merge to /s/. A new š develops only later as an allophone of /sj/, which itself developed from syncope.
Loss of palatalization as a secondary feature.
*ć and *č merge to /ts/.
∅ → /ŋ/ word-initially (a Samoyedic idiosyncrasy).

Note that there is some evidence that Adytite descends not from Proto-Uralic proper, but from an earlier form of the proto-language. This is because of forms like Valksaran supposedly from PU walke-śarna, saran seems more like a pre-syncope stage of the word *śarna, which has theoretically lost the /a/ in the second syllable thereby creating the consonant cluster /rn/. Another example would be lüjekütakeŋ, which under the normal theory comes from *lülV + *kütke- + *ŋ. But again, kütake have added an extra vowel between /t/ and /k/.
Phonology
Vowels

Front
Back

Close
i /i/, ü /y/
u /ɯ/

Mid
e /e/
o /o/

Open
ä /æ/
a /ɑ/

Consonants

Bilabial
Alveolar
Palatal
Velar

Nasal
m /m/
n /n/

ŋ /ŋ/

Plosive and Affricate
p /p/
t /t/

k /k/

Affricate

ts /t̠͡s/

Sibilant

s /s/

Fricative
v /v/

Lateral

l /l/

Trill

r /r/

Semivowel

j /j/

The stops and sibilants were voiced in between vowels.

Dialects
There were many distinct dialects of Adytite, the most recognized being the Dark-L and Light-L dialects respectively, spoken somewhat to the east of the Yenisei. The first is distinguished by the sound change of /l/ in the coda to /ɫ/, further changing to /o/. The Light-L dialect didn't share this innovation. Some parts of the Valkzaron seem to have been composed by speakers of both dialects, as the phrase Valksaran (“bright words”) is Light-L, the Dark-L equivalent being voksaran. The Light-L dialect ended up changing /l/ in the coda to /j/, thus Valksaran became Vajksaran.
/ɬ/ and /ɬʲ/ > /ɮ/ occurred in the Sayan dialect in the middle of words but merged with /s/ initially. Here the nasal vowels we're preserved, which were the result of a loss of nasals in the clusters *Nš, *Nč, *Nć, *Nś, Nľ, Nr, and Nl. The Sayan dialect borrowed many words from Yeniseian, and /u/ became unrounded.
The Upper Yeniseian dialect strengthened /v/ to /b/, /j/ to /dʲ/, /r/ to /d/ word initially, and /ŋ/ to /g/, gaining voiced stops. This dialect effectively eliminates most consonant clusters, /lC/ to /uC/, /rC/ to /dVC/, ect. It also gained a new /x/ from clusters of /ɫj/ and /kj/. In cases where a /u/ developed from a former /ɫ/ and was preceded /u/, an intervening /w/ emerged which later became another source of /b/. Diphthongs like /ue/ became /we/ and then /əbe/.
Both the Northern and Southern Altai dialects have shortened final /ŋV/ to /ŋ/. They have the following sound changes.

/v/ > /b/
init. /ŋV/ > /Vŋ/
Proto-Uralic /oj/ > /ü/
/æ/ > /e/

Vocabulary
Adytite has a great deal of borrowings from Deva (Indo-European) dialects and the Tungusic languages. However, the majority of its vocabulary is directly derived from Proto-Uralic.

Old Adytite
Late Adytite
Proto Uralic
English Meaning

koja
koja
*kolja
evil spirit, demon

vasa
važ
*wanša
old, ancient

juma
juma
*juma
sky god, deity

ŋorok
norok
*arV + diminutive suffix -kka
butcher, ripper

soone
sone
*sōne
sinew, vein, scroll

koratsa
karadz
*korvV
to scrape, engrave, tattoo

saran
saran
*śarna
incantation, word, speech

nälikä
nälkä
*ńä(x)li + ka
hunger, lust

kulo
kulo
*kOlV
(intestinal) worm

ŋalka
najka
*alka
end (front or back), beginning; to begin

kalma
kajma
*kalma
corpse; grave

lüjekütake
lükütaka
*lülV + *kütke- + *ŋ (literally Pray for strength/bond
prayer for strength

Valksaran (underlying valke-saran)
vajksaran
*walkV + *śarna
shining words

katsa
kadz
*kaća
young, unmarried man

koe
koi
*koje
man, person

komi
komi
*kojmV
man, person

minä
min
*mińä
daughter-in-law, young woman

nae
nai
*naje
woman, wife; to marry

niŋä
niŋ
niŋä
woman, wife; to marry

nüta
nüta
*nojta
sorcerer, shaman, priestess; to conjure

ŋura
nura
*urV
man, male

merätä
märäd
*mertä
man, person

nisu
nizu
*nisV
woman

matse
madz
*mańćV
man, person

ŋono
non
*onV
big, much

änä
än
*enä
big, large, much, many

ere
ere
*erV
big, large, much, many; old

ütsi
ütsi
*üčV
big; thick (ücik, dick)

tsatsa
tsa
*čančV ~ *čačV
to walk, step, go

ilma
ilma
*ilma
sky, weather, god

jaka
jag
*jakka
to go, reach

jum
jum
*jomV
to go

tsaba
tsab
*ćappV
to hit, chop

tsaŋa
tsaŋg
*čaŋV-
to hit

kao
kau
*kajo
to touch, hit

sinta
sin
*sitta
shit, dung

luli
luli
*lewlV
breath; soul

süve
süb
*sewe
to eat

üra
üra
*ürV
to drink

juui
juui
*juxi
to drink

kunsi
kunsi
*kunsi
to urinate, urine

jukusi
juksi
*jokse
to copulate

nusuka
nuska
*nuska
to sneeze

ŋola
nol
*oɬa
to sleep, lie down

Borrowings

Old Adytite
Late Adytite
Daevite (Indo-Iranian)
English

sak
sak
sak-
holy, sacred

tavas
tavas
dajwas
god, sky

jampa
jamb
jamb
to copulate

akaras
karas
agras
field, pasturage

paraca
paradz
pracha
to pray, ask

ankis
ang
agnis
God of Fire

taca
tadz
dajcha
to take, trade, to give

satus
satus
sadus
successful, accomplished, rich man

akarama
akaram
akarma
celibacy

sukanta
sukand
skanda
ascension6, to rise

Pronunciation Guide for Noobies
Vowels

I is pronounced like the long ''ee'' sound in feet, never like the short ''i'' in sit.

Ü is pronounced like the ü in Mandarin Chinese and Turkish. It is an ''ee'' sound, but with rounded lips as if someone was saying ''ew''.

E as in bet.

O as in boat.

U as pronounced like the long ''oo'' in food, never like the short ''u'' in but.

Ä as in cat.

A as in father, never like the ''a'' in fate.

Note: Double spelling indicate a longer duration, but nevertheless a short vowel and its long equivalent are the same vowel. For instance, ''aa'' is pronounced as in father, but slightly longer.
Consonants

J is a ''y'' sound as in year, and is never pronounced like the ''j'' in judge.

C is pronounced like the ''ts'' in cats.

R is like the Spanish trilled r.

Tip: Adytite is an Uralic language, which means that the stops (p, t, c, and k) are not aspirated like the ones in English. In English stops are normally accompanied by a burst of airflow.
For example put your hand to your mouth while saying pie, and then say spy. The former is pronounced with aspiration, the latter isn't. Using the guide, try to pronounce Adytite stops like the latter, never the former. In the middle of words, the stops may be voiced like English b, d, j, and g, but since most Uralic languages don't distinguish between voiced and voiceless, it shouldn't make a difference.
Grammar
Nouns
Adytite nouns had fourteen noun cases and three numbers, singular, dual and plural. Grammatical gender was not recognized and no Uralic language does so even today. Noun articles were unknown.
The plural marker of nouns was -t in final position and -j- in non-final position, as seen in Finnish. The dual marker was-k-.
The cases were:

direct case (no suffix)
oblique/lative case -m
ablative/partitive case -ta / -tä

The following idioms are used for the comparative, X kala, Y cüŋkä7, or X Y-m kaŋ kava8. The combination of the adverb over with all makes for the superlative.
Adpositions
Adytite uses postpositions rather than prepositions, so instead of saying I went to Japan, one would say, I Japan-to go. Interestingly, Adytite sometimes employs verbs and serial verb-constructions instead of adpositions, with see-penetrate instead of see through (there is no word for through), and give instead of for.
Adjectives
Adjectives are not distinguished from verbs, and Adytite doesn't possess very many of them. Since Adytite is an extremely idiomatic language, comparisons are often used instead. For example-

Tom is strong - Tom na kucu, Tom na kucu cilaki uree, Tom na kucu sivike uree (lit. Tom has strength, Tom has strength resembling the biceps of a bear, or resembling a bear.)

I like flowers - mi curumut rem käjä ŋäcäm (lit. I flowers color blood love).

Verbs
The verb was inflected for tense, aspect (*-va indicated "nonpast", *-ka indicated "perfect nonpast; imperative", *-ja indicated "past") and mood (*-ne indicated "conditional-potential").
Adytite verbs attest to the archaic age of the language, with several grammatical innovations apparent in the oldest texts that could not have arisen over a short period of time. Adytite verbs has features typical of a compositional polysynthetic language, with verb-serialization and noun incorporation playing a role in grammar. Examples of verb serialization are-

I see through the lies of the Deva - Mi Tüstaatan selutam van soole (lit. I the Deva's lies see-penetrate)

We'll climb over the mountain - Man kalam kaŋ kava (lit. We mountain climb-rise)

We shot him and he died - Man sam lam veje (lit We him shoot-kill)

The person endings are-

Subjective
Objective

1sg
-m
-ma

2sg
-t
-ta

3sg
-ø
-a

1du. exc
-mankätikä
-mankätikää

2du
-tan
tana

3du
-ki
-kja

1du. incl
-man
-mana

1pl exc.
-mankun(a)
-mankunaa

2pl
-tat
-tata

3pl
-t
-ta

1pl incl.
-mat
-mata

Space

kü-

Reflexive

isea, icea

Reciprocal

totää

The "space" prefix can be translated as "an area, place, space close to smth" as in kücaŋa, "s/he almost hit (it)". This is an affixal polysynthetic feature in that an original adverb meaning close has become a verbal affix. A verb prefixed with kü- and suffixed with an Inanimate Object Suffix would specify what type of object one came close to hitting.
Reduplication of the initial syllable forms the habitual aspect, and reduplication of the whole word forms a kind of intensive aspect with habitual overtones. Lengthening the initial vowel and then reduplicating it forms the Continuous with an optional suffix, -nü-j-e-kura9. Ekura is a verb meaning not finish used in serial verb constructions as an equivalent of the Continuative aspect10. The progressive is marked by -na.
Another kind of Continuative aspect, the one in sentences like, The economy's been rough but I'm still makin' it, is expressed by the verb ekujuna11. Kuju12 would express the Terminative.
The Defective, another example of verb-serialization, is expressed by the verb kümäjü13
The adverb pile14 marks the durative, kava15 the Protractive, kü16 the Intentional, and ekarama17 the Accidental.
The future tense was marked by words like soon or not now, as well as serial verb constructions like Mi caca süve18.
Inanimate Object Suffixes

Suffix
Explanation
Examples

-peŋe
Roundish Object
bottle, ball, boot, head, ect.

-japa
Flat Object
blanket, coat, sack of groceries, table, ect.

-cupa
Slender Flexible Object
rope, mittens, socks, pile of fried onions, etc.

-taŋke
Slender Stiff Object
arrow, bracelet, skillet, saw, etc.

-musi
Mushy Matter
ice cream, mud, slumped-over drunken person, etc.

-kanta
Buden, load
backpack, bundle, sack, saddle, etc.

Syntax
The dominating word order in Adytite is SOV, similar to other Samoyedic languages. However, Adytite is considered to exhibit more freedom in word order than other languages of its areal group.
Adytite is strictly left-branching like Japanese and Turkish, with relative clauses coming first in a sentence and the main verb always coming last. Postpositions are used instead of prepositions, and adjectives are treated as stative verbs, thus coming after the noun they describe.
Alignment
Adytite is an Active-Stative language, also commonly called a split intransitive language, which means the sole argument ("subject") of an intransitive clause (often symbolized as S) is sometimes marked in the same way as an agent of a transitive verb (that is, like a subject such as "I" or "she" in English) but other times in the same way as a direct object (such as "me" or "her" in English).
The case or agreement of the intransitive argument (S) depends on the degree of volition, or control over the verbal action exercised by the participant. For example, if one tripped and fell, an Adytite speaker would say "I fell." To say "fell-me" (subjective ending) or "fell I" would mean that the person had done it on purpose, such as taking a fall in boxing.
The subject of a stative verb is grammatically grouped together with the object of a transitive verb, which is quite natural, since both the stative subject and the transitive object are affected by the action of the verb (i.e. are semantically undergoers or "patients"). This means that the subject of verbs like sleep, become hungry and lust are placed before the verb and optionally given the oblique case marker, -m.
Sample Texts (with different dialects)
Soone Ültü
ültü mi vjema, ütü mi bədʲema
mi sülä ŋemu kuŋ uree, mi tüle gemu kug uree
ŋämän cuca, gemen susa
mäcä siŋa, mese tiga
num murun, num murun
ŋum salu, gum talu
ŋum suem, gum təbem
üe küce, üe küse
suem küce, təbem küse
käjä ŋuŋa, kedʲe guga
raŋa uree, daga uree
lujuma me, ludʲuma me
mimin ün näm, mimin ün nem
ŋul ŋul säsäjä, gubu gubu sesedʲe
mi suunam, mi suunam

Footnotes
1. This census doesn't include the Ket and Ämärang shamans who use the language during rituals, singing and readings from the Valksaran.
2. Which in Old Adytite is ämä, mother, + raŋa, river, + -nälmä, tongue.
3. Only forty seven people, twenty of whom live along the banks of the Upper Yenisei and the other twenty seven living in the Sayan Mountains and Altai Republic, grew up speaking it as their first language.
4. From Proto-Yeniseian Xeːy-Xaŋ meaning breaker of ropes, and by extension, destroyer of bondage. Xeːy-Xaŋ was borrowed into Old Adytite as Eejaaŋ or Jaaŋ.
5. Even in its earliest stage, well attested in writing, Adytite lacks an elaborate case system. It uses postpositions which correspond to the case endings in languages like Finnish. It has been theorized that Adytite descends from an earlier stage of Proto-Uralic, before the postpositions had become case endings.
6. Ascension was probably the main goal of followers of Daevite religion, ascension beyond worldly desires and bonds being the highest good.
7. X is a mountain, Y is a hill
8. X rises over Y
9. now-prothetic j-NEG-finish.
10. Lamna ekura mi, I'm not finished shooting, or I'm still shooting.
11. Not stopping
12. Stop
13. A combination of the verb to touch and a proximal objective prefix meaning a space close to smth.
14. long
15. to rise
16. close
17. not want
18. I'm going out to eat, lit. I go eat.


An old man sat at his desk. The beeping and buzzing of the lab in the adjoining room produced a repetitive tune. He looked at the pictures on his desk. A melancholy smile crept on his lips.
"Hey, Jake."
The man looked up. A colleague stood in the doorway.
"You wanted me to swing by. What's up?"
"Afternoon, Roland," the man replied. "Go ahead and close the door."
He waited for his colleague to take a seat.
"How's Lyssa?"
"Can't complain," his colleague chuckled. "How about you? Kate? The kids?"
"Fine, as always," the man said.
The two men paused. The beeping and buzzing of the adjoining lab filled the gap.
"So. What's up?" his colleague eventually asked.
The man sighed and looked once more over the pictures on his desk.
Family. Old friends.
"Do you think after I'm gone, someone will still mention me?" the man asked. "Like, twenty years from now, they'll say 'Conwell sure had a solid lab. A lot of great publications came out of there' or something?"
His colleague raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Sure. You've done some solid work."
The man looked at his colleague and sighed. Then tilted his head.
"I mean, I don't know," his colleague continued. "A lot of great stuff gets swept under the rug here, absorbed into bigger projects, or just forgotten under a pile of more noteworthy publications. If we wanted to be rock stars, the Foundation wasn't an ideal employer."
The man nodded.
"I think it's time," he finally said.
"Time?"
"Time."
His colleague frowned and looked down at the floor in thought.
"I guess I've got to at least ask why."
The man looked around. His chair made a few revolutions.
"There is just not a lot here for me anymore." The man shrugged.
"Bullshit. I know for a fact you're constantly publishing. Synth orders come in all the time."
The man shook his head.
"That's not what I meant."
"Christ, Jake, what the hell did you mean then?"
"Look around you, Roland. Everyone's left."
The man counted on his fingers.
"Zach. Ed. Jean. Dan. Rose. Hell, even Adileh and Arvind went their own ways. This was never about the fame, Roland. This was always about the people I worked with. They made the job tolerable. Enjoyable, even. And they helped me through a lot of tough spots."
His colleague closed his eyes and nodded.
"I'm still here though," he said in a low voice. "I'll notice if you leave."
"That's part of what makes this so hard."
His colleague's lips briefly curved up.
"What the hell will you even do once you're gone? Golf?"
"I don't know. Spend more time with Kate. Spend more time with Zach and Carrie. Maybe there is more for me to do here. Maybe not. But it's time to put a signature on the damn thing and walk away before my wheels spin too much."
The man then stood and offered a handshake. His colleague accepted.
"You're a good man, Roland," he said. "The best friend I ever had. Promise me you'll look after the place."
"I can't imagine anyone will do more damage to it than you did," his colleague chuckled.
A final pause.
"You're shit at goodbyes, you know that."
"Kate's said as much. Maybe that's something I can work on."


Stories are a thing of great power. What is history if not a type of story, told by those who prevailed? What power is there in knowing nothing of where your people began? Our memories are long, our history longer, our grudges longest. Relations with other races have been tumultuous, and many of them wish harm upon us. You must know where we came from to understand where we are, and where we may go. So I will tell you, children, of how it was that we came to be sequestered in this arboreal prison.
Perhaps it would be best to start at the beginning, with the Sister Queens.
Once upon a time, when the children of the woods were a wing-shroud that blanketed this and every world, there were two sisters. One sister was a queen of warmth and sunlight. Her gentle touch sprouted life from even the most desiccated soil, making spring out of even the deepest of snows. In her true form, she dwarfed the size of many mountains, her tree-strewn arms stretching out and enveloping them in cooling shade. The Summer Queen was a Titan, and it was this trait that became her Name.
The other was a cold, fearsome beauty with devastation in her footsteps. Where she walked, the ground became withered and parched. Her touch brought sweet oblivion to those who defied the laws, and no fire was warm enough to melt her frozen heart. The Winter Queen was a creature of ice and fell magic, fearsome and terrible and magnificent. We are forbidden to say her Name, as that basic right was stolen from us by the Ones-Who-Secure. She was the mother of none, though we once considered ourselves her Children.
When times were good, the queen whose name we cannot say provided us with a veritable circus of amusement. Her magical key, blue as the bluest cornflower, would open a door to hunting grounds thick with mist where we would hunt the purple brush-grinners to their lairs and bring home their carcasses to use in feasts or keep as trophies. The Moon-Named-Virgin was the greatest of hunters. It was she who brought to the Court of Summer a complete specimen with barely a scratch on its mauve hide and both golden sight-jewels intact. Her Queen made its bones as the mountains, her sister made its blood as ice, and it remained a trophy for many years.
Then came the darkness in the form of the Children of the Night; horrible little creatures, hairy and ragged, stalking around thinking they were our equals. When we found them they were little more than apes in the woods playing with their toys. Their “leave-vers” and “pull-ease” were adorable but quite impractical when compared to real power. We took them in, educated them, elevated them to the level of their betters, something for which they should have been grateful.
They approached another inferior race with a proposal: build a structure, a prison, and fill it with such creatures as they abhorred. What was it to us if a few of the hairy beasts fell prey to the false voices from the forest? It is known that death comes on swift feet to those who heed their calls, and only fools would goad it into chasing them. We cannot, will not, be held responsible for their mistakes.
Hm? Say again? Well, they overthrew us by cheating, of course. They couldn't have done it fairly. Their justice was served, as one of our people, He-Who-Grew-Ten-Thousand-Flowers, was able to repay our annihilation with a trick of his own. We showed them how to use the tools, but it was the humans that did it. They took the credit, turned the weapons first on the Children then on themselves. They have long since forgotten, but not us, not the Children of She-Who-Once-Was-Named.
What's that? No, it was a sensible question. You may try to say her Name. You may try to say our Name. You will fail. It was a monstrous act from the Children of the Sun that robbed her of that most basic identity. We tried to warn them of that which mass-produced nightmares, and were rewarded with the most terrible thing that can be done. The crimes committed by the Children of the Night, though beyond grave, were as childish pranks before this. Incarceration, in time, can be forgiven. Genocide, with more time, can be forgotten. The Names of the dead and missing still exist to mourn.
Stealing the Name of She-Who-Became-As-Vapor had an effect that even the most sagacious of us did not expect: when Those-Who-Must-Contain took her Name, they took our Name as well. The humans continue to mock us to this day, as they, who are not bound by our rules, are able to use the Name of our Queen with impunity. Thus, we became the Children of the Nameless Queen.
It is this that makes our interactions with They-Who-Swore-To-Protect of paramount importance. Names have power, and without them, we remain trapped in this gilded cage. A Name, any Name, even a borrowed one, means we will be whole enough to leave. This is why we must interact with those who drove us to this place, and why they must replace us here. We take their Names, and thereby take their place outside. Then, and only then, can we be free.
— The woman in the red dress


1

The Bowels of History

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The intestine of history leads to the bowels of history.
When matter is impacted, surgical tools are used to physically remove matter. Time doesn't exist. The annals of time are a gastrointestinal tract. A long history of digestion; Absorbing nutrients from matter, slowly, and most of the time unimpeded. A short history of decay; Matter is excreted and waits to again be consumed. This is the true nature of our world, and before reading this it is important to entertain the idea that time does not exist. This text refers to meat and spacetime one in the same.
There is only matter and this body (which is matter itself) which consumes and creates it. The mind of history, the heart of history, the lungs, tongue, pits, groin. Time is meat. Time is a body, but more importantly time is a system which can be diseased, and which can die but cannot be born since it is already alive. We all share this body, and pass through it as we rot. This body is God, or simply truth itself, and it rots as well.
At the end of time rest the bowels of history.
—
Numbers.
Gerald Peterson, 42, lives in a flat on the lower east side of Chicago, with his dog, a pekignese by the name of "Dart", and his cat, which he chose not to name. It is an outside cat. They all share the same intestine, and essentially sit on the same toilet.
Gertrude Sullivan, 93, lives in a condo by the water in Sarasota. She lives alone, and is visited morning, noon, and dinner by her caretaker. They eat together.
Jackie Silver, 17, lives at a Hopi reservation in Arizona, in a mobile home with their mother, father, and grandparents. They take a mixture of apple vinegar, coconut milk, and cayenne pepper in the morning in place of coffee, which they believe is not healthy.
Trenton Shaw, a surname which was not his but one he adopted in honor of his grandmother, is 20, and rents a room in Santa Cruz. He works at the vegan pizza restaurant next to the pier. He likes a girl there. Sometimes he imagines what life would be like, living with her. He imagines she likes him too, because he is so attractive.
Harold Avery passed away last night, (just this past night) peacefully in his sleep. He is survived by his mother and father, who will not try again.
Terry and Rebecca, each 27, live in Trona, California. Terry works at the chemical plant, near the spires where they filmed he original Planet of the Apes. Rebecca's family lived in Trona for four generations. They had been trying to concieve for four years. Their relationship is strained.
Glass, as he was known by his subordinates, is 43 years old and works as a psychiatrist at a facility in western Pennsylvania. The facility contains a girl. She could potentially cause human extinction if Glass does not do his job well. He has learned not to care.
"Bob" is 3 Sol cycles old and lives on a dead, dark planet orbiting a black hole. Bob eats metals, and absorbs moisture from rocks. He eats others of his species in times of desperation. It doesn't like to talk. The black hole they are orbiting has been around for as long as life has existed on their small planet.
Tess, 24, lives in an alternate universe that is in every way identical to ours. Tess can see the flesh of time all around her. Tess experiences daytime hallucinations. As she walks to work at the call center she runs her hand along Time's length. If she presses hard enough she can feel pressure in her abdomen. If she runs a knife along the Intestine she can see Bob through the wound, peacefully foraging for rocks. If she does this again, she will most likely die.
Miranda, 19, is an immortal who contains a dragon which eats the Earth, and regurgitates the Earth. Quetzacoatl regurgitates Earth, and Earth is shaped like itself twenty years prior. The dragon essentially uses the same toilet as Gerald's feral cat.
—
Travelling forward and backward through time, charcuterie.
Meat can be made to resemble the future. The future and past are words used to describe the way something looks. Time is a synonym for meat. Spacetime and gravity are special types of meat: Jackfruit. The mesh, the quantum lining, the outer dermis, is thin like breakfast sausage, lamb intestine. Mathematics, numbers, ways we count or measure things, abstract thoughts, are a soft and airy meat, chiccarones.
The universe is cannabalistic. Our universe, all universes, feed on themselves until there is nothing left, like a man stranded on a mountain, corpses and rocks.
Time travel is ultimately possible, if you have the tools. In order to visit the paleozoic, you need to build it. You can be the dinosaur. You need to sculpt rocks and meat. Or you could reach through the lining and cut through the knot of intestines. This must be done responsibly, and requires talent. But more feasible is altering the time lines of your person.
How does one do this? Well, You take a knife and… I… cut.
—
Revelations.
Gerald has learned a lot about meat. Gerald removes his shirt and lays down on his back, on the bed. Gerald has a lot of fat covering the space between his subdermal skin layer and his intestine. Gerald is three hundred and nine pounds, five feet and seven inches tall. Gerald grabs a scalpel and begins to dig. Gerald is numb to pain. Gerald injected himself beforehand. He works at the animal shelter, and has access to a numbing agent. They will notice it is missing, but it will not matter because Gerald will be dead.
Gertrude Sullivan and her caretaker have learned a lot about meat. Gertrude is not interested in the way things were before, but her Caretaker, Judy, is. Gertrude offers to operate on Judy, but Judy isn't sure it will be safe. Gertrude suggests a small incision, but Judy ultimately declines. Judy is sure that she will die. She is right, of course.
Jackie Silver has taught their girlfriend about time. Jackie learned this from a stranger. Jackie says that they should become future together, or at least see if there is any point. Jackie lays back on their girlfriend Brook's bed. Brook takes Jackie's shirt off and makes an incision above Jackie's stomach.
Trenton Shaw has reached his intestine. With morbid fascination he runs his fingers along the exposed length. Trenton makes an incision, and sticks a finger inside. Trenton feels soft, strained breathing on his finger. Trenton is a fast learner, and was already reading at age 8.
Terry and Rebecca…
Rewind.
Miranda raps her fingers and flips through a book. "Mr. Glass" She taps on the reinforced window in her cell. "I am hungry, please. I know it is not noon but I am hungry already."
-
The past moves closer with every incision, every blunt penetration or sloppy cut. I am still writing this, but my legs and wrists are covered in sharp red lines, which will not heal properly, and I was born just this past thursday, and my mother is about to give birth, and I am staring back up at the midwife with a razor in my hand, and I am passing through punctured latex, and with every cut on the walls of time, the past moves nearer to me. Eventually the past moves past us; This is not meant to be understood.
The body vomits, and events precede their cause. I cease to exist.
—
Terry and Rebecca walk together, shaped like themselves ten years prior. They are their alternates, which were pulled from out of their bellies. Terry places a hand on Rebecca's stomach where an incision was made, and unmade, reopened, and closed again. They walk past Terry's mother, by the park in Trona, the one where you can see the stalagmites. Her mother faints upon seeing her young and bleeding son. Terry and Rebecca are renditioned the next day by a squad of men in black windowless vans. They are taken to a facility in west Pennsylvania where they speak with
Dr. Glass, a psychiatrist, but also the director of a site that handles humanoid anomalous phenomenon. In turns, they speak to glass nervously behind a one sided mirror. Glass lies to them. He asks them what happened. Glass is unimpressed and indifferent, he orders one of them moved to another secure facility for testing. Terry never sees Rebecca again. Glass sips white tea and clicks on a video. In the video,
Bob signals to Rain that he has found food. He clicks his incisors together excitedly. Bob knows that Rain will not understand, but he knows no signal to convey Time. The white ring of the black hole shimmers dimly. Rain approaches Bob with her head lowered. Bob taps four legs in a rhythmic fasion, he moves back and forth. Rain bares her incisors at Bob.
Tess digs into her stomach and finds extraterrestrial arachnids in her spacetime.

2

The Annals of Time

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To realize the truth of time, there will be a massive play of preceding events, retrocausal reality, actors with changed shapes and roles, history happening all at once. Time and space. If you cut yourself open, listen, because what I'm saying is the truth. If you cut yourself open, if you, you, do it the right way, you can go to a place where time does not exist, the bowels where mouths eat and vomit all at once, much like flies do.
It is simple really. You cut a hole in yourself, then crawl inside, much the same way I do. I can feel the future like it was yesterday.
—
Tess cuts again, and I see that
The universe is completely full. All of the knots have been opened with a scalpel, they have bled together. The mesh has torn open and all universe and dimension are one. There are no empty spaces, no holes, only bodies. There is ancient man, naked, pressed up against a colony of transhumans, sandwiched between a cluster of rebar concrete slag, something, and so on and it is endless with every scene of history, all at once.
Glass peers at this strange scene through the end of a wire camera, which is travelling through Terry's small intestine. Glass doesn't know what to make of this, so he calls one of his colleagues. The phone rings at the office of Dr. Mayreder.
"Hey, Virgil," says Glass, a smile slowly forms on his face. "I have a problem with one of the files. Yes. It's your kind of thing." Glass laughs. "I have a problem with it." He spins around in his chair. There is an anomaly with similiar qualities to this one. He thinks he may have a lead. They go through some beauracratic motions and then talk about their favorite show for fourteen minutes. He is wasting his time.
—
Tess precedes her Grandmother after the final cut. Her great grandfather's first birthday is last Thursday. The past is ahead of her but she remains. Her belly is sutured expertly. She runs to her grandfather and tells him it's her, but his alzheimers gets the better of him, or I simply don't remember. Tess doesn't understand, so she cuts again. She props up her head and he is, to her surprise, making pizza in Santa Cruz. She feels his hands proof the dough. She crawls out of his person while he is in a place where no one can see me.
I do not remember if I am Tess or her grandfather, or if we are all the same body taking different shapes. I think the truth may be the latter.
—
Glass slams an open palm on the table. "This is nonsense!" He shouts. "Send it to someone else. I'm not qualified in this area."
The proctologist operating on Terry turns to Glass. His lips and eyes widen.
"Well it's obvious what's going on here, isn't it? A space time anomaly. It does seem dense on the surface, but the intestine simply leads to another point in space, a wormhole, and time does not exist." The man inhales deeply. "This man, Terry, has toxic shock syndrome."
"The intestine. Time, absolutely what," Glass crosses his arms and looks again at the man angrily. He never recalled seeing me at the site before. "Security!"
I stab myself in the torso, then crawl inside. I vanish. I pucker my lips between a floating crevice of floating fats. "I am shaped like I was never here."
—
I tunnel through the guts of the earth, then slash through the outer dermis in an empty space that looks like Tess. I surface for breath. I remove my grinder from meat space and listen to myself play a sausage song.
The intestine is a form of worm,
And thems just be the breaks.
If you get your teeth all photon small,
You could chew the poor things like steaks.
If I had a softer space to land,
I wouldn't get the shakes…
But If time is meat and meat is space,
I don't think that will take.
My body aches.
I emerge through the tunnel, bursting out of Tess two years prior. I do not realize I am in a crowded shopping mall, browsing hats. I clumsily stretch myself out of my torso, snapping the ribs outward with a wet crunch. The clerk opens her mouth, catching some blood, and she screams silently for a few brief moments. I wipe offal from my bangs. I am embarrassed. I apologize to the Tess corpse. I turn to the fear frozen woman. I think of all of the people I have crawled out of by this point. But there is no point. I may have always been doing it.
"Hello, my name is Trenton, and I've learned a lot about meat."
I scan the lines of her face and I remember this cashier as an older woman. I've never been her before. Maybe her body has an answer. My eyes crawl over her form with the interest of a veteran addict. If you've done this once you've always done it.
I look around the plaza and see myself burst out of three other bodies in the food court. I look at myselves with frustration and understanding. We have always done it. There are other me crawling in. We are sliding in and out of holes. I crawl back into Tess to make a U-Turn, but suddenly I explode out of my head, and so on, like Russian dolls, or Chinese snakes. Finally the milliipede stops. I catch my breath.
—
I explode out of a pterodactyl, I explode out of a stone head on easter island, I explode out of a godhead, a photon, I explode out of a limited edition Ted Williams San Diegro Padres baseball card. I take a breath, and I look around to see that I have been doing this for a very long time. I look down from a primordial volcano and I spot dozens of my own glassy eyes. We don't show any emotion, this has become routine. I watch as these fools endlessly multiply.
"Stop," I shout down the mountain. They call back to me.
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
"Stop!"
They call back to me infinitely.
The volcano errupts. The earth quakes. The noise buffets the mountain. I crawl into myself before the shape of the sound is too loud. I decide to find a place and time shaped like this never happened.
The mesh is falling apart.
I hurry past scabs of terraced skyscrapers, bugs, next to me we are all hurrying, hopefully not to the same space, I think with brief lucidity about the nature of the universe, and if this is what is supposed to happen, and I hurry past more breathing windows and I see void space and screaming television static, I hurry past things I cannot know or cannot describe, I see all of this through the lining of the meat, I hurry until the path ends, and the roof and walls have all ruptured and everything falls together.
I look around at myself all around me. I cannot move.
I multiply, but there is no room.


Nathan can't remember his own face.
It's been altered so many times that his reflection is a stranger. He knows from early photographs what he's supposed to look like, but no longer self-identifies with the image.
And so it makes little difference to him when the Sothists cut it off…
"I'm gonna kill you," he says.
At least, that's what he intended to say. It's difficult to speak without lips, and what comes out instead is a garbled mess.
His torturer smiles indulgently and then goes to work on the nose. Nathan wonders whether or not he's gotten his point across before coherent thought is hijacked by a starburst of pain. He manages to choke back the scream but can't help thrashing and twisting his head side-to-side, body fighting to get away. But he's strapped to the chair tight, there's no escape, and his erratic movements cause the knife to slip on the backstroke. The blade shudders as it lodges in the shelf that is his exposed cheekbone.
They've already lopped off his ears; carved away the stubbled flesh along chin and jawline. But the nose… the nose is the worst. Raw nerves sizzle and howl, and far, far away on some distant shore Nathan is asking himself if it's too late to take up Zen meditation.
He feels every single goddamn tooth of that serrated blade as it saws back and forth.
Finally the tip of the nose is severed. His torturer holds it up for him to see, a cartilaginous wedge pinched between taloned thumb and forefinger. I've got your nose! I've got your nose! Nathan ignores this grisly version of the child's game and focuses on her knuckles. They're the size of walnuts.
She tilts her head back and makes a show of gobbling up the chunk of meat that used to be attached to his face. Each bite is drawn out, exaggerated — drool sheets from her mouth. Nathan remains unimpressed. It's the same display as all the other pieces she's removed and he's grown bored of the act. She needs to get some new material.
She's seven feet tall and has a head like a rotten jack-o-lantern. Her smile stretches even wider, bristling with chisel-teeth. She's not all human, that much is obvious, but Nathan doesn't think she's all Prime, either. There's interbreeding among the species somewhere in her family tree.
When she leans in to gloat Nathan's ready for it. He spits a mouthful of blood he's been saving and hits her right-smack in the mug. Bull's-eye. She snarls, winds up and backhands him. It's like getting hit with a bulldozer, but after peaking his pain level has already plateaued, and it might as well be a lover's caress. The blow rocks him, sends his center of gravity reeling and then tips it over. He goes for a ride — along with the chair — crashing to the ground.
Restrained, he's unable to use his arms to break his fall. His head rebounds off the floor. A fresh gash opens up along his scalp.
Stupid bastard, Nathan scolds himself. His clotting factors are already working overtime and can't afford anymore wounds. A natural would've bled out hours ago. He shouldn't have provoked her like that.
He shakes his head to try and clear it and figure a way out of his current situation. The Prime aren't susceptible to incantations. There're no Words of Power he knows that he can use against them, thaumaturgy isn't his area of expertise, and she hasn't revealed her true name. Physically they're mortal, but they've confiscated all of his weapons and stripped him naked.
The chair he's trussed to is made out of wrought-iron. For the past hour he's been unsuccessfully trying to break it. If it was simple wood he could probably do it. With the metal the most he can manage is to bend two of the slats and create a slight separation where the back is welded to the armrests. He's worried his wrists to the bone trying to slip out of the shackles.
Initiating hypocapnia in prep for apnea, a voice in his head says.
It's the Director, communicating via the microscopic phone installed in Nathan's cranium.
WHAT THE FUCK GOOD IS THAT GOING TO DO? Nathan may not be able to talk, but there's nothing wrong with his mental texting.
A Foundation Mobile Task Force is currently en route and will be on scene in less than five minutes. Begin hyperventilating. That will assist in decreasing the levels of carbon dioxide in your blood, allowing for more oxygen to avoid hypoxia.
SO WHAT IF THE FOUNDATION IS COMING? THAT SOUNDS LIKE BAD NEWS.
We're going to turn them into your rescue team. Commencing protocol Waiting Room.
It takes Nathan a few seconds to remember the code-name. The tactic was hypothetical and as far as he is aware has never been attempted in the field.
NO! WAIT! WAIT!
But it's too late. The Director has locked Nathan out of his HUD and access to the phone. His body — including key involuntary functions such as respiration and heart rate — has been usurped.
He is suffocating surrounded by air.
It's going to be all right, Nathan.
NO ITS NOT YOURFUCKINKILLNGME.
Yes. I'll see you on the other side.
STOP PLEASTOP.
He gasps, chest hitching. His lungs refuse to process a breath. A pair of filthy, callused feet park themselves inches from his face. It looks like they'd take size twenty shoes, and then Nathan recalls the Prime. He looks up to find her towering over him, head cocked to the side like a dog confused by this turn of events. In his panic Nathan tries to motion for help but has forgotten that his arms are still handcuffed behind the chair.
Relax Nathan. It's going to be okay. I'm right here with you.
His body writhes uncontrollably. It feels like he's dying, and that's because he is, of course. It takes over two minutes for him to black out.
The last thing he sees before falling unconscious is the Prime reaching down to grab him, and he thinks again: Walnuts. The bitch's knuckles look just like walnuts.

1

five… six…
An electrical charge jumpstarts Nathan's heart. According to the count it's not the first, but it is the first to ascend him back to the living. His spine arches with each fibrillation and he wakes with a jerk, greedily sucking air. The inhalation starts him coughing. All of his muscles are bunched, contracted into stone slabs. He still can't move his arms although the shackles are gone. By the time a scintilla of reasoning has been restored he realizes that he can't see. His brain has been deprived of oxygen so long that it's caused him to go blind.
There you are. Thought we lost you for a moment.
COCKSUCKER.
Relax. The Waiting Room procedure has gone off without a hitch. You can't see because the Foundation has cleared the area and declared you dead.
Is that a chuckle Nathan hears on the other end of the line? Is the Director even capable of laughter?
YOU KILLED ME, Nathan texts.
Well…
HOW LONG WAS I OUT?
Under ten minutes.
Nathan leaves it at that. He's sealed within some sort of rubberized plastic. He locates a zipper seam in the material and tears it open, squirming through the hole on knees and elbows.
He emerges reborn from a black womb. It's a body bag. The fuckers had sealed him up in a body bag. That was why he couldn't see.
A dizzy spell makes him light-headed as he stands. He braces himself against the wall and waits for it to pass. After the motes fade he notices the Prime: she's on the floor, a bag over her head, wrists and ankles bound by a chain. The links of the chain appear to be made from tongues of fire. They scorch and blacken her skin wherever they make contact. Curls of smoke rise upward.
He crouches down and pulls the bag off her head. She snarls, lips peeled back from razor incisors. Their eyes meet.
Nathan places a finger to his mouth. "Shhh," he whispers.
What're you doing? We don't have time to indulge in revenge.
I DO.
He says to the Prime softly, "I told you I was gonna kill you."
It's impossible to know whether the creature tied up beneath Nathan understands him or not. She might be deaf and dumb. Poor girl. Nathan would've felt bad for her if it wasn't for the sadism she'd showed him. She seemed too stupid to be cruel.
The Foundation would be back shortly to retrieve her — as well as him — and her breed isn't exotic enough to warrant a containment cell. She's not exactly on the endangered anomalous list. No, she'll be experimented on until she expires. It's better this way. A kindness, really.
He pets her head, smoothing the tangles of greasy hair. It seems to calm her.
He's careful not to touch the burning chain as he wraps his hands around her tree-trunk throat and squeezes.

2

His "in" with the cultists had been a man by the name of Robert Keats. Apparently — from what little Nathan is able to piece together — Keats had lost a substantial sum of money betting on horses. The Director had purchased his marker and given him two options: either vouch for Nathan to the Sothians or die.
Keats had picked the former.
In the end, same as at the racetrack, his choice had turned out to be the wrong one. While otherwise preoccupied getting his face cut off, Nathan had heard Keats's screams echoing nearby. Eventually the screams dissolved into a wet gurgle.
There were no more screams after that.
Out the torture chamber, Nathan steps into a dim corridor. He's underground, can tell that much just from the quality of the air. Naked light bulbs are strung along crumbling mortar walls at interval, islands of light separated by shadow. Large patches of mortar have calved away like ice, revealing loam and root systems.
There's a door neighboring the one he's just exited. He pokes his head inside it and isn't surprised to find Keats lying in a pool of blood. His throat has been slit, but he's still wearing clothes.
Nathan never will unearth exactly how the cultists found out about him. Were they just acting on their gut, on intuitive suspicion? Did they break Keats before he died? They hadn't bothered interrogating Nathan, there were no questions asked while they tortured him, and certainly no answers were proferred from either side, and so he has no clue if they actually had evidence as to his true identity.
He strips Keats, helps himself to the pants and shirt — they're too small for him, he can't even get the pants buttoned and the sleeves of the shirt only reach halfway down his forearms, but despite the stains it's less conspicuous than running around in the nude. The shoes, on the other hand, are a lost cause and he promptly abandons trying to slide his feet inside. He'd need industrial lubricant to get the job done.
Go. Now.
Following the Director's instructions, Nathan weaves his way through narrow tunnels and passageways. The acoustics are terrible; noise bounces every which way, overlapping, waves rippling and crashing into themselves. More than once Nathan spins around, convinced an MTF soldier is creeping up on him from behind, only to find no one there.
Blood streams in his eyes and he swipes it away. Damn scalp wound. Nothing bleeds like the scalp.
Left.
He passes through an intersection, two branching paths blocked by Foundation members in combat exoskeletons. But their backs are turned and they don't hear him sneak by. Nathan is light and fleet — this is what he's been designed for.
Ahead, flashlight beams bob in the dim corridor. Someone says, "Hey, I've got movement. Fifteen meters."
Left again.
A length of whip snaps out of an adjacent room and into the corridor. It crackles with green electricity and spews foam. The end of the cord misses Nathan by inches as it breaks the sound barrier. He lopes over it, his hair bristling with static energy. The scent of ozone is strong.
An explosion further down the passage accompanied by a strobe of light. To Nathan's trained ears it sounds like a fragmentation grenade. Debris patters on dirt flooring.
Right. Up the stairs.
He takes the steps four at a time. Muffled voices buzz a landing or two above. The Director isn't quite enemies with the Foundation, not yet anyway — that won't come for another year — more like competitors whose paths occasionally cross. The Director can't match the Foundation in terms of funding or personnel, and so his purview has always been smaller and more focused, with weighted attention placed on maneuverability and evasion rather than head-on engagement.
Nathan is on a need-to-know basis, and the Director is notoriously close-lipped about such things, but if rumors were to be believed, all agents that had gone up against the Foundation had lost, either due to violent skirmishes or from suicide contingent upon capture.
Nathan doesn't want to get caught, doesn't want to bite down on his rear molar and release the poison capsule. He wants to do whatever it takes to avoid the Foundation. Luck has already favored him with the first roll of the dice and he doesn't want to double-down with his life.
Through here.
He shoulders open a rusted door and stumbles into a subway tunnel. He makes for lights down one end. A rat flees ahead of him, skirting the rail. As he approaches he sees that it's a platform. Commuters mill near its edge, waiting for the next inbound green-line train. Few acknowledge his presence as he hauls himself up onto the platform; most are too busy playing on their phones. He snatches an air filtration mask off a man wearing a baseball cap. Mr. Red Sox tries to swat him away and then catches a good look at Nathan's disfigured, ground hamburger face — pink tissue, notched bone and darker sinew. He holds his hands up and backpedals, deciding that he doesn't want any part of Nathan.
Nathan slips the mask on, concealing his butchered face. He moves through the turnstile, bounds up another flight of stairs, and then he's out, on Commonwealth Avenue. It's an overcast December day in Boston, the temperature mild, hovering in the mid-sixties.
He hooks left onto Mass Ave and disappears in the sea of pedestrians.

3

He plays the video recording from his optic nerve in his heads-up-display while wading through the crowd, a sort of picture-in-picture. He may have been dead for ten minutes, but his eyes had been open and the phone in his head captured what had occurred during that time span.
After her confusion at Nathan's distress the Prime continues to go about her business. It's difficult to see, she's mostly out of frame, but easy enough to fill in the blanks. The microphone in Nathan's Eustachian tube picks up the moist smacking sound of knife introduced to flesh.
A few minutes into the footage the door is kicked in and a member of the Foundation task force stalks into view. The Prime spins and hisses, her clawed-hands splayed. The soldier is ready, he's young and his reflexes are quick. He raises something that looks like a crossbow and fires a bola projectile. A squeal and the Prime exits the camera stage-left.
"We're clear! She's down."
"Clear!"
"Jesus… what'd they do to him? What're you thinking Oscar? Just another vic?"
"Yeah," Oscar replies. "Gotta be another vic. If it's a new initiation rite their numbers are going to get even smaller. Unchain him, get him off that chair."
Oscar makes a cameo, entering the feed, which then sways. Nathan presumes he's feeling for a pulse, moving his head to probe his neck.
"This one's gone too."
There's not much else to see, especially after they zip him up in the body bag.
Nathan already knows how the movie ends. He switches the recording off as the Director navigates him through Back Bay, down Dartmouth Street.

4

The surgeon is old but her hands are steady. Nathan sits in the study of her brownstone off Dartmouth Street. She applies a local anesthetic to his face and then goes about cleaning it, washing out the wounds with a syringe of saline.
She's a connection of the Director, retired from general practice but still employed illegally if anyone needs a face swap or vocal chord scrub.
And if they can afford the exorbitant rates she charges.
"Well," she says, inspecting his skull through the spectacles perched on the brink of her nose. "I guess you've saved me a step."

This is kind of a standalone prequel to: Kids with Guns


I walked down a rusted staircase to a hallway ending at a metal door. The flickering ceiling lights illuminated its small keyhole. It was quiet, except for the sound of dripping water and the distant sounds of machines far upstairs. As my spindly limbs carried my grey frail body to the door, I searched with my three-clawed hands around my blood-stained leather bag. In it I searched for my set of keys. When I finally found the key ring, I rattled through them to find the correct one. Finally, I open the metal door into my dirty laboratory to find company.
In the far right corner of the lab, in a large cage, was a young nude man whose mouth was sewn shut. He stiffened with fright as I set my leather bag loudly on the operating table that sat in the center of the lab. I sniffed the air and caught wind of the man's scent. He smelled of Armenian origin. I stretch out one of the arms on my back to hit a set of light switches to see much better. The man then panicked as he gazed upon my fully illuminated body. I then went to the left of the room where a monitor hung on the wall along with an intercom and a chute. The chute had a letter in it, which I grabbed to read.

Good evening, Dr. Hamgullet
Starting from today, you are no longer going to be working on further production of new products. Instead, management requests you help create a better work force. The weak flesh of men already have their limits, and we want to achieve further than the maximum capacity. Currently, you have been provided with one test subject at the moment. Later today or tomorrow, we will have more subjects from the breeding pits for you.
Good luck, for we here at The Factory want results as usual.

I crumbled the paper, and tossed it into an empty bucket. I searched in my leather bag, and pulled out my equipment to begin my tedious work. I then went to the cage to grab the man as he cowered into a corner with tears streaming down his face. I lopped him onto the operating table and quickly tied the thick leather straps as I held him down. He tried to scream but that clearly caused him pain. It pulled his stitches, and blood began to ooze a little. It made him cry more and start struggling so I smacked him on the side of the head, which knocked him out. Finally, it was just silence and my craft.
I grabbed a set of long rusty scissors with one hand while another I held a drill. With elegance, I began drilling a hole into the front of the head as I cut the stitches along with bits of his lips. Another hand reached for a long scalpel that I used to begin cutting open the chest. Once I completed the hole in the head, I picked up a pump, which I connected to the hole and began pumping diesel. Next, I extracted the organs and placed them in a bucket, which would be sent to the Meat Processing sector.
I went and grabbed a large box containing mechanical parts from a corner among other stacked boxes, and brought it to the operating table. I picked up a small engine and analyzed it. A machine heart. Just what a sufficient worker needs…
Hours later, I had made crude replication of the human heart that nested in the chest cavity. I attached an antenna also onto the head through the hole so it may receive commands.
It was the first steps of progress, and after all that work I felt hungry. Luckily, it was about to be lunch break. I searched in my leather bag, and took out a brown lunch bag. Then, I went to the staff cafeteria and hoped to get there first before anyone.

I stood silently in the empty cafeteria with my lunch bag in between my claws. I gazed back and forth at the rows of tables. I chose to sit at a table at the far corner.
Once seated, I opened my lunch bag and pulled out its contents. First, I took out a neatly wrapped sandwich that contained ham, pork, and polar bear liver with some tomatoes. Next, I pulled out a fresh green apple (rotten ones didn't taste as good), and a can of carbonized Fun-Lover blood, one of my brilliant products.
As I unwrapped my sandwich, fellow employees began to enter the cafeteria. Some brought their own lunches while others got trays to be served by the cafeteria staff. I then took my first bite and stared downed. Everyone was getting seated while I sat alone. I hoped to remain undisturbed until I noticed in the corner of my eye a group of five approach ever so closer to me. Four of them were very small while the fifth was large and imposing, about three feet taller than me. I managed to get a better look at the four small ones, and saw they were gremlins.
"Mind if we sit here?" asked one of them softly as they sat regardless. The large one sits besides me while the other four sat across. Their presence began to make me feel uncomfortable.
"We don't see many of you R&D boys around these parts. I must say, you guys do excellent work for the company," the gremlin directly across from me said with a large toothy grin, "You especially. Dr. Hamgullet, right? I'm Jared. On my left is Graham and…"
How I badly wished for that frog-skinned gremlin to shut up. Its whiny voice was annoying. If it weren't for how good gremlins were with machines, The Factory wouldn't have mind me if I gauged out its amber eyes.
"…That big guy," the gremlin continued enthusiastically "is Oleg. He doesn't talk much."
I remained silent while I continued to eat my ruined meal. I badly wanted to enjoy it in peace without disturbance. I should have eaten in the lab.
"So I heard humans are going to be replaced…" said one of them in a curious tone. "You know anything about it?"
I said nothing. They were inferior as humans, and not worthy of an answer from me casually. They sounded like curious human children! Disgusting.
"Why?" they asked. Then, Oleg spoke to respond to their question. He had a thick Russian accent.
"Humans very weak. Break easily." The giant said while he took a bite of something and chewed loudly.
"Hmm, so Dr. Hamgullet, how-" the gremlin said before I interrupted.
I rose from the table and took my trash to the trash can. I finished eating, and I wanted to be back to the lab with my work. I needed to send it out. As I moved away, the gremlin spoke out to me, "See ya later then! Have a good day!"
Hmph.

We have received your prototype, Dr. Hamgullet. It is quite interesting, but it is…lacking. What good is a machine heart without a machine mind to guide it? We want it to be mindless, yes, but not to the point where it cannot not perform orders sufficiently. Correct this.
You have four new subjects, and a box of fresh material from the Crucible.

I scratched my head and looked at the cage to see the new subjects. One was a girl while the other three were boys. They huddled naked and sobbed quietly. I went to the cage and grabbed one of the boys. He frantically tried to escape my grasp as I placed him on the table. I grabbed a saw, and started to open his skull. I had work to do on the brain.
The boy kept screaming until I reached the brain. Next, I grabbed the sides and yanked the top of the skull off. I analyzed the then-exposed brain and got an idea. With my scalpel, I carved onto it an ancient symbol from a forgotten time that meant obedience, submissiveness, and elegance. Then, I placed it back into the head. To keep it in place, I placed a dirty glass dome over it that I glued. I turn the body over, and slowly moved my claws along the spine. The brain stem needed improvement too. After a tedious hour, I lined it with tesla coils connected to a battery where the kidney was. An outlet was also drilled in the head to connect it to the spine also.
Yet something felt lacking still as I finished installing the machine heart. I then turned to the caged girl and boys. They were staring at the opposite direction at a wall to avoid the sight of my creation. Once again, I went to them and grabbed another of the boys who desperately kicked at me. One arm of mine held him by the throat, and carried him near the operating table. After a brief moment of thought, I grabbed a device heavily resembling a chainsaw and turned it on. The boy had a stream of tears flow down his red checks as he tried to kick after hearing the machine buzz and whir. I proceeded to cut off his arms and legs with the chainsaw. As I did that, the boy and girl in the cage screamed in horror. My creation needed more limbs to accomplish greater tasks at once.
The blood dripped onto the floor as the life in the boy faded away. I snapped his neck and placed it besides the operating table on the floor. I took out my sowing kit, and dug through the box of new materials. I found me some ball-and-socket joints with other pieces of metal. I began to modify the severed arms with the ball-and-socket joints to allow for various rotation and movement. I then attached them to my creation along with the severed legs. It didn't felt enough so I turn once more to the two remaining subjects…

There was so much stitching up it made me work up a small appetite. I didn't pack any lunch this time so in hand I carried a tray, and went to be served food by the cafeteria staff. They looked human, but their bodies were disproportionate in various ways and they lacked a face. The one that served me a slop of minced maggots (never had enough salt on them) was tall, and one arm was longer than the other. It wore a cap, and a yellow and black stripped shirt with a slightly dirty apron. A silly looking thing.
I sat at another empty corner, but then I realized that the gremlin and its colleagues would sit where I am at. So I got up and proceeded to the exit with the tray. As I moved to the exit, I quickly noticed a sign warning not to take trays outside of the cafeteria under penalty of deduction in pay.
Why? I thought at that moment. I turned around and sat back at the table. I simply had to eat quickly until I was full, and so I did in a calm fashion. I then saw in the corner of my eye the gremlins and Oleg. I was halfway finished, but already full. To avoid them, I rose quickly, and at a slow pace, I moved to the exit. On the way was the tray return slot.
I was spared from their presence.

Good morning, Dr. Hamgullet.
The latest iteration you have delivered to us is astounding and sufficient. A marvelous improvement indeed.
Although, there is an issue concerning resource. It is too costly to attempt to mass produce this design. It be a waste of too many human subjects just to make each. Less is more. Regardless, we have it working in Sub Level 12 of the China facility.
Also, you have received three new subjects. Good luck.

I look up to the cage to only see two males within. Where was the third?
I went to the wall the monitor was at and pressed a switch. The screen came to life in a green tinge, and displayed the logo of The Factory. I pressed another button, and checked the memo logs for anything recent of a possible runaway. Nope, nothing.
I shambled to the intercom and spoke into it to make a report of it to the Manager. Unintelligible garbles, which I understood, responded and assured me they would be found. As I waited, it was the time for me to work once again.
As before, I forged the machine heart, and carved the symbols on the brain. For minutes, I stared off, pondering what do I do next. Finally, I had an idea.
I grabbed some ball-and-socket joints, and modified the arms like I did previously. I then proceeded to pick up my saw, and removed the hands to replace them with brass versions. They were also designed to be detachable to replace them in the event of damages that may occur or to switch them for a tool, such as a torch or drill. It was brilliant.
As I worked, a loud knock on the metal door disrupted my concentration. I went to answer it and was greeted by the Manager. He held a small bruised and bloodied boy by the arm with a tendril. Behind them was two members of security that stood silently with cattle rods by their side. They appeared as any ordinary human except they had no face. It was plain and smooth, but would open up to reveal a toothy maw if one tried to resist them. Nonetheless, they simply stood there silently as the Manager spoke to me.
The Manager informed me that he found the boy at the staff kitchen, and that he apologizes for any damages to him. The Manager described him as "feisty" and needed discipline. The Manager then lets go of the boy, and glided away with the two faceless members of security following behind. I grabbed the boy, and dragged him to the others locked in the cage. Shame, I hate damaged goods, but I could find some use, perhaps.
Back to the operating table, I stared at my creation. I felt it was finally ready.

Good morning, Dr. Hamgullet.
We are quite satisfied with your latest iteration. We request you provide instructions so we may begin mass production. For your efforts, you will receive an increase in pay.
The current working men of The Factory will become sufficient and profitable. Their old selves are officially obsolete.
Congratulations, Dr. Hamgullet. Now get back to work.


Previous: The Great Gig in the Sky

A thick coat of morning mist drifts across the pond's surface, lazily stretching its way from one shore to the other. The rising sunlight blazes through it, casting everything in a gentle, tangerine glow. It looks like the world is on fire — slowly, quietly burning to ash.
It's beautiful. There's even ducks and shit.
Alex can see the pond from a window in the kitchen, where she's helping Al with the dishes. She hasn't washed dishes in… well, she's not sure she's ever washed dishes, before. It feels good. Like she's doing something useful. Something that isn't violent, illegal, or both.
She's starting to warm up to Al. The old man is clearly not being completely honest with them, but then again — who would be? Besides, he's taken this whole "kids on the run from a sinister organization" thing in stride. He hasn't asked any questions. Not even about Seph. People always freak out over Seph, but he hardly seems to care.
Speaking of which — something moves under the pond's surface. One duck flails and thrashes, violently flapping its wings. A tentacle snaps up, hooks around its throat, and yanks it under. Bubbles swell up. Several dozen blood-stained feathers soon follow. The other ducks give the spot a wide berth.
"Uh — " Alex sets the plate she's been scrubbing for the past two minutes down. "Sorry about that. I'll talk to — "
"Don't worry about it." The old man is grinning. "Those asshole ducks ate my strawberry bush. Serves them fucking right."
That tugs a smile out of her. She reaches for another plate. "Thank you. For letting us stay here. You didn't have to."
"You sure about that?" he replies, finishing with his own dish after only one swipe of the sponge and a brief rinse. It clinks as he sets it in the drying rack, thick suds clinging to its side. "I saw that look in your eyes, last night. Would you have left if I'd told you to piss off?"
Alex feels a reflexive surge of anger. She bites back on a sharp retort. Then, she reaches for the plate he set in the drying rack to give it a proper scrubbing. As she cleans it, she thinks over his question. Her brows mash together in thought, grinding like cogs in an adding machine solving for X.
"I… don't know," she finally admits. Her voice drops to a shameful mutter: "Probably not. Sorry."
"Eh. Your friend was hurt. You were cold, hungry, and desperate. You'd do whatever it took to look after your own. I get it. Respect it, even." He sets down another plate, barely scrubbed and still covered in suds. "Lord knows I'm not one to talk. Bill comes due to us all in the end."
Another spike of irritation stabs through her. She finishes up the dish she's working on, then plucks up the next one he's 'cleaned'. "Well, I've done some messed up stuff, too," she says, scrubbing faster. "And it wasn't always for someone else. Sometimes I did it because I was angry, or — " Why is she telling him this? " — just because I wanted to hurt someone."
"Yeah, I know how that goes," he tells her. "But you just gotta take it one day at a time, y'know? Think of it like a daily resolution. 'Lord, I swear today I won't do half as much fucked up shit as I did yesterday, amen'. And hey — so far, so good, yeah? You haven't fucked anything up since you got here." Again, he swipes the sponge over a plate, passes it beneath the running faucet, then puts it in the rack. Alex scowls and hurries to finish her plate so she can re-wash that one, too.
"I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that." She huffs with frustration, struggling to catch up. "I can't just 'reset' everything whenever I feel like it. All the bad stuff I did — it still happened. I still did it. I'm still that person."
"That's true." He stops to rinse off his hands. "You're still the person who did all those shitty things. You'll always be that person. But that's never all you are. You get to be a lot of other things, too. For example," he adds, stepping away from the sink and drying his hands with a towel. "Today, you're the person who washed all my dishes for me."
Alex finishes with the last dish, glances at the empty sink, then glowers at him. The old man winks and tosses the towel back on the counter. "I'm gonna go grab some firewood. Help yourself to the liquor cabinet if you and your friends want some. Just stay away from the Rémy Martin."
"You know I'm fifteen, right?"
"Got it," he says, not missing a beat. "Forget the liquor. Wine coolers are in the fridge."
Alex rolls her eyes. She doesn't know what the fuck a Rémy Martin is, but she's drinking all of it.

"Your move," Sunny announces, leaning back into the makeshift cot they made up for him on the living room floor. Machine-Head inspects the sheet of paper besides the cot, pondering options. After some thought, it carefully erases the crudely drawn 'B' from the right side, then sketches it into a new position: C5.
Sunny has his cheek face perched against his fist. He plucks the eraser up, wipes away one of his pawns ('P'), then resketches it at B4 — directly in the path of Machine-Head's bishop. "So, who am I playing against right now?"
Machine-Head considers, then redraws another pawn at C3. It threatens Sunny's bishop. "Same person you've played every other time. The one who always beats you." It's teasing him. Just a little.
"Oh," Sunny replies, teasing right back: "The cute one, then?"
Machine-Head's sienna cheeks grow warm and dark.
Sunny erases his bishop. He places it at A5, retreating. "How many of you are there in your head?" He nibbles at the scar on his bottom lip. "Uh — is it okay if I ask stuff like that?"
"It's okay, yeah," it quickly replies. "And there's a lot of us. Dozens, usually. Some come and go, others stick around." Machine-Head erases the king and rook, performing a castle. "I'm one of the ones who stuck."
Sunny advances another pawn one space to D6. "How do you all, uh — share control?"
"We vote on a lot of things. Some of us can just seize control, though. Sometimes, we'll just let one of us do stuff for a while." Machine-Head draws its pawn on D4, threatening the bishop again. "We all can do different things — it's kind of complicated."
"And none of you have names?"
"No. Well — I don't think so, no."
He chomps on his bottom lip again, then retreats his bishop to B6. "Can't you just… give yourselves names?"
Machine-Head snaps up; its eyes are wide and shocked. "No! I mean, no, I don't — it doesn't work like that. We — " It looks from the left to the right, then drops its voice lower — as if sharing a salacious rumor. "We can't name ourselves."
Sunny thinks about this for a while. Then, he asks: "Well, can I name you?"

The liquor cabinet is crammed tight with a surprising amount of expensive-looking booze. More than half of it is stuff Alex doesn't even recognize (the fuck is 'vermouth'?). Still, it doesn't take her long to find the Rémy Martin. It's an amber-gold fluid in a flat, disk-shaped bottle with corrugated edges. She plucks the bottle up, then works on twisting the stopper off. It finally comes free with a satisfying pwip.
Whew — smells strong. Well, there's some soda in the fridge. It's been a while since she's had rum-and-coke. She gets up and makes her way to the kitchen, open bottle in hand.
The refrigerator door makes a soft rattle when she opens it. She snatches the half-finished bottle of soda out from the top shelf, tucks it under her arm, and turns. Alex gets two steps away before she realizes she didn't hear the door shut behind her. She looks back.
The door is shut.
Huh. She frowns, shakes her head, and heads over to the kitchen counter. As she sets the plastic soda bottle down, Alex notices that it lands without making a thump.
Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth. Nothing emerges.
Alex rushes out of the kitchen, running to find her friends. As she does, the bottle of Rémy Martin falls from her hands and strikes the kitchen floor — shattering in absolute silence.

"How about…" Sunny chews on his bottom lip, thinking. "Rook?"
"Rook?" Machine-Head tilts its head. Its fierce blush continues unabated. "You're going to name me after a chess-piece?"
"It's a bird, too," Sunny replies, crossing his arms defensively. "Kind of like a raven." His arms uncross; the defensiveness immediately evaporates. "But I mean, if you don't like it, I can pick another one — "
Rook is fine. Rook. My name is Rook, Machine-Head — no, Rook — says. Except the words don't come out right. Nothing comes out, in fact. They — he? — is trying to speak, but there's no sound. Rook crumples his brows, and tries again: Nope. Nothing.
Sunny looks puzzled. His lips move. Again, nothing. He lifts his hands and signs to Rook, lifting his eyebrows to make it a question: HEAR ME?
Rook shakes his head. He raises his hands to sign back, but before he does, realization hits him. His eyes go wide.
Sound suppressors. Myrmidon. Quietus.
Sunny just realized it, too. He signs: FIND OTHERS.
Rook is already on his feet, reaching to pull Sunny up with him. By the time they're standing, the cabin's front door has vanished in a silent roar of smoke and flame.

The Stryker MEV (Medical Evacuation Vehicle) is an armored eight-wheeled monstrosity built to approach, stabilize, and extract the injured from a battlefield. It is over sixteen tons of high-end military hardware with a chassis that can weather sustained heavy machine gun fire, light RPGs, and even the occasional IED. It has an internal fire suppression system, functional medical bay (for up to six patients), and — in this model's case — a beryllium bronze mesh that insulates it from electromagnetic and psychometric penetration.
Sergeant Randall Harker is seated at its comm station, watching one of several monitors. The sweltering heat has prompted him to remove his combat armor — exposing a harsh, masculine geometry. On one muscular arm, he bares a tattoo that reads: 'DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR'. On the other: 'AUT INVENIAM VIAM AUT FACIAM'. This last phrase is Latin, and translates as: 'I shall find a way or make one'.
He presses a button. "Command to Echo-One. Report, over."
There is a brief pause, then a voice: "Echo-One to Command. Suppressors are in position near the duck pond. Quietus has breached the hot-zone. Over."
"Command to Echo-One, roger. Priority is capture of target-delta; capture or terminate others at your discretion. Command out."

Each member in Quietus wears full-body ballistic armor soaked in a shear thickening fluid that responds to sudden pressure with a dramatic increase in viscosity. They communicate via a constructed non-verbal language that combines visual cues, hand gestures, and vibrating pads embedded beneath the kevlar plating. Every member is trained in a highly specialized type of kinetoglyphs — a form of weaponized sign language. Every member is also deaf.
A brilliant topaz light engulfs Sunny. He stands in front of Machine-Head!Rook with his arms spread wide. Two members of Quietus are at the door, rifles pointed at the teenager. Tongues of flame lash out from the muzzles of their guns. The scene is eerily silent.
The bullets deflect off Sunny's projected 'spirit'. Meanwhile, Rook tries to think. He doesn't have much in the way of abilities. And there's no time to find another occupant, or submit a resolution — he needs to act right now.
One of the soldiers drops his gun and makes a complicated series of hand signs. Kinetoglyph. Rook wraps his arms around Sunny's back, closes his eyes, and wishes that they were anywhere else.
And just like that — they are.
It takes both of them a moment to adjust. They're at the door, standing right next to one of the soldiers. They're facing the interior of the cabin. The soldier that was making the complicated hand gestures is standing where they were. He's also getting hit by multiple shots from his companion, who only now just noticed they switched places.
Okay. This is new.
Sunny's concentration wavers. The projection flickers out. As the soldier they swapped places with goes down, the one they're standing next to swings. The butt of his rifle connects with Sunny's forehead; Rook can't hear it, but he can feel the impact through Sunny's hip. They both go crashing back to the floor.
The soldier lifts his rifle and takes aim at Sunny's head.

Sergeant Harker leans back in the chair, continuing to observe. He understands that by leaving the fate of three of the four teenagers at Quietus' discretion is effectively signing three death warrants. He has a child of his own. Thirteen, as of this May. Not an easy call to make.
But the alternative? Expose those under his command to heightened danger. That's the choice: risk putting three young but violent anomalies in the ground, or risk justifying himself to yet another grieving family. And when he thinks about his old job with the Foundation — when he remembers the faces of those who suffered because he had to prioritize containment over his people's safety? No, it's not an easy call. But it's not a hard one, either.
He presses the button. "Echo-One, this is Command. Update?"
"Command, this is Echo-One, Quietus is commencing secondary breach on the north end, near the pond. Over."
"Understood, Echo-One. Out."
He ought to check in on Echo-Two and Echo-Three. He reaches for the button, and —
— wait. Near the what?

An instant before the Quietus soldier fires, a noiseless column of hot white lightning tears out from the dining room and strikes him in the chest. He stumbles back, dazed — wisps of smoke rise up from his body-armor. It must have been somehow modified to redirect high voltages into the ground with minimal damage to the wearer. At least his gun has been reduced to smoldering slag.
Machine-Head!Rook twists his head to the left. Alex stands just inside the dining room, her arms extended forward. Her face is twisted with rage. Behind her, another Quietus soldier has just entered the kitchen. His rifle is pointed at her head. Rook signs to warn her, but she's not looking.
Two tentacles rush out from behind him, hooking around the muzzle of his rifle and his throat. Both are violently pulled back. The gun fires, arching up and narrowly missing Alex's head. Bullets silently tear through the ceiling.
Seph's usual blue skin is now a bright, florid red. His body has swelled with moisture and muscle. His eyes are jet-black, and his mouth full of jagged, razor-sharp teeth. He buries them into the soldier's partially covered throat, gouging out chunks of armor and flesh. A streak of scarlet splatters across the kitchen. The soldier mutely screams, flailing as more tentacles coil around his arms and legs.
The soldier struck by lightning is recovering, his hands moving into another series of kinetoglyphs. Alex rushes forward. Bolt after bolt lashes out to meet him in the chest. He stumbles back, but he's about to finish the kinetoglyph —
— and the soldier who was shot earlier is getting back up, his rifle trained on Alex —
— and two more soldiers are stepping in from the back of the kitchen, rifles opening fire on Seph —
— and Rook closes his eyes, holds the unconscious Sunny tight, and prays that maybe —

Sergeant Harker frantically flips through the pages of the mission briefing. Two words are seared in his mind.
You hear a lot of talk when you first join the Foundation. Old-timers like to tell tall-tales to anyone who's green and willing to listen. Helps fend off boredom and complacency. Most of them are a load of horse-shit, but there's one or two that have a smattering of truth about them.
Right now, one in particular has him worried. It's a story about a place the Foundation designated as an anomaly just to keep everyone away. Its containment procedures were intended to make it into a sort of 'unofficial' vacation spot for Foundation veterans. Seasoned personnel could request a temporary transfer there to get away from it all. Later stories described it becoming a home for retired agents.
He tears out the page describing the region. He searches for the two words that he doesn't want to see. When he finds them, their presence ignites a burning sense of dread that swells deep down in the pit of his bowels.
'Duck Pond'.
Shit.

— just maybe — everything will be —
— be —
— all… right?
Rook opens his eyes. The room is silent, and now it has also become quite still.
Sunny is awake. He's sitting up and rubbing his bruised forehead. Alex is trembling, staring at the rifle pointed at her face. The bullet that would have killed her hovers three inches from her left eye. Seph emerges from the kitchen, slowly shrinking as his color fades to blue. Blood drips from his chin.
Quietus is not moving. Some were stopped as they fired their guns. Others, as they charged forward. All of them are frozen in place.
Rook realizes that he can hear Seph's footsteps. He can hear everyone, in fact. He can even hear the thumping of his own heart. The suppression field is no longer in effect.
The others seem to realize it, too. But none of them dare to speak — as if they're afraid that doing so might break this spell.
Together, they creep past the soldiers and make their way outside. Time has stopped everywhere. Dozens of soldiers are locked into position, rushing forward or maintaining the perimeter. A flock of birds is frozen mid-flight overhead. The pond's surface is motionless, resembling a bumpy, distorted field of glass.
In the middle of it all — sitting right there besides the dirt road that leads up to the cabin — there is an old, beat-up 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. A post-it note has been attached to the driver's side window. It reads:

FULL TANK BUT BUSTED AC. KEYS UNDER SEAT. YOU GOT TWENTY MINUTES TILL THIS WEARS OFF.
GOOD LUCK
- AL

Alex plucks the note off the glass, crumples it into her fist, and pops the door open. "I'll drive."

END OF A-SIDE

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