Lemmy helped as best he could to guide the others to a spare chair in the office of his garage. It wasn't much of an office, just a partitioned off area less cluttered with parts and more so with papers. He didn't normally have visitors, save for Ashas assistant Cerise when she brought him fresh clothes. He picked up the numerous folders filled with his new designs that were sitting on a rolling metal stool and put them on his desk.

He'd been struck with a bit of genius lately, or at least a bit more than normal. While he was sure he had made a breakthrough, he hadn't tested it yet. He hadn't had time what with all of Ashas assignments. He hadn't had the space because he'd probably need to be at least five square miles from the closest living thing. For now it would have to wait until he'd gotten all of this straightened out.

"The fuck did you do this time?! You had better not have hurt her kid or that orange shit won't be able to save you from me!" Aldon bellowed, letting Parker slide off of his shoulder before immediately turning on Harvel. He grabbed him by the collar, bringing them nearly eye to eye.

"Aldon. Aldon! Calm down. I think she's going to be fine. She's just dazed." Yiddek explained, putting a finger over the old man's shoulder. Harvel held his breath. Aldons face was only an inch or so from his own. At this distance he'd probably be able to taste the inside of the pilot's lungs.

"She'd fuckin better be! I'll cut him into pieces 'n toss 'em into space if she's not. That's my little girl you sewer rat." Aldon growled, struggling against Yiddeks iron-like grasp.

"Aldon, you don't need to do that. I'm alright, I think." Parker said, rubbing her temples. Her head ached as if it had been beaten in with a hammer. She had a slightly distant look in her eyes as she looked past her uncle at Harvel.

"You sure? I like him, but I'll gut him if you say the word." Aldon stated, not bothering to turn around. He hadn't broken eye contact with Harvel for the last minute and a half. Harvel felt as if the air itself was getting heavy.

"I don't need you to gut him. I need you to stop shouting so my head will stop pounding." Parker answered, pulling herself up into a sitting position against Lemmys desk. Harvel hadn't hurt her, or hadn't tried to at least. Part of what she'd seen was the last hour of Harvels life from his eyes. They hadn't been very enjoyable, or intentional for that matter.

Harvel tried not to take Aldons threats too personally. He'd known him for a little longer than five hours. He'd also called Parker his little girl. That was something his dad would have said about Dibbuk. Something any real father would have.

"I'm sorry, Aldon. I didn't mean to hurt her. I-I didn't mean for any of this to happen." Harvel said, a wave of guilt washing over him. He felt his chest tighten. Aldons expression softened a bit as he let Harvel go.

"Look, kid." He said, reaching up to put a hand on the side of Harvels head. He pulled his hand away and held up the oozing green substance in front of Harvels face. A strip of skin hung limply off of Aldons pinky.

"This. Whatever the fuck this is, is not normal. I don't know if it's killing you, and no offense, but I don't care either way. I've seen a lot of people die of infections. I don't want my niece to be one of 'em." He finished, letting the weight of his hand rest on Harvels chest.

There was a moment of somber silence as Harvel nodded in understanding. Yiddek let go of Aldons shoulder and turned to tend to Parker. She was past him before he had even noticed she wasn't sitting down.

"How are you still conscious? Are you starting to get used to it? All of the information, I mean.I felt it for a bit. Felt like a thousand years all wrapped up in a single moment." Parker asked, grabbing Harvels head and turning it from side to side. Harvel kept his eyes lined up with hers.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't touch my face if I were-" He started to say just as Parker pulled her hand away, trailing a few strands of his flesh. Harvel clicked his teeth a few times, listening to the much louder sound they now made. Parker smiled guiltily.

"Well, we kind of match now at least. I'll warn you, you'll have to tilt your head when you eat soup from now on. I had to before your brother patched me up. You've been taking good care of your molars." Parker said, with a rather detached tone of voice. She was gingerly inspecting the side of his face.

"I think some of me may have rubbed off on you. Try to think human thoughts." Harvel commented, pulling his face away from her curious hands. He tried to do it when none of her fingers were hooked around the new hole in his cheek.

"I think you may be right. I can feel so much more of the air around me. Can you taste your shoes?" She asked, swishing her fingers around in the space between them. Harvel focused on what was happening in front of him instead of the near infinite number of things that weren't.

"Yes, if I want to, but I don't and believe me you don't either. Hopefully this wears off. Try to breathe." Harvel said, gently placing his hands around her palms and leading her back over to the stool. Parker chuckled.

"Heh, you taste like iron." Parker commented as she flopped down onto the seat.

"Yeah, well, you taste like lilacs... and rust." Harvel said back, embarrassment causing a bit of green ooze to flow from the hole in his cheek. He couldn't tell if it was the smell of her, or the various oils and solvents in the shop, but he was starting to feel a bit light headed. And short of breath.

"You two bonding over being gross is nice and all, but we're cutting off the contract here. Plus, someone owes us a bit of money for a burned out AV." Aldon commented, looking both annoyed and impatient. He gave Lemmy a bit of side eye as he opened his phone and began putting together different sums.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope the original amount will be enough." Yiddek said, a tinge of hopeful optimism in his voice. The old pilot sucked on his teeth as he chewed on the thought.

"Well... Maybe an extra few creds for cab fare wouldn't be-" He started, before a swift kick from Parker cut him off. After he'd taken a moment to gingerly grasp the side of his leg he straightened back up and continued.

"I think we'll be fine now that I think about it. Cabs are cheap this time of night." He finished, hiding a guilty smile from his niece. Parker relaxed a bit before preparing to say what she was about to.

"They are, and it'll be cheaper alone. Now that the contract is closed I have the rest of the night off, right?" She asked, pulling out her phone and checking the time.

"Uh, yeah I guess. What are you getting at?" Aldon asked, seeming both tired and confused. He shook his head and went back to calculating. Parker looked at Harvel.

"We need to go down, right? To get to your sister." She asked him, knowing the answer already. Harvels face lit up. He'd almost resigned himself to doing it alone if he had to. He wheezed a bit from the excitement.

"Parker, she's supposed to be down there. It's their job." Yiddek explained, pinching the bridge of his snout in frustration.

"Doctor Valez, I know you think he's losing brain function, and I think you might be right." She tried to avoid Harvels look of incredulity. "But, just listen for a moment. I've seen what he means, in his thoughts, or memories. She's in danger. Not just work. Whatever this thing is that is infecting him is trying to get to her as well." She pleaded, trying to sound as sincere as she could about the circumstances.

"You sure? You saw this, all of it? When you two touched?" Yiddek asked, grave understanding beginning to take hold. Parker nodded slowly. Yiddek sat cross legged on the concrete, leaving him only a few feet taller than the rest of the group.

"Dicky. We need to go down. I need to go down. Something is calling me there. Maybe Bukky is just bait. Maybe this thing just wants me to get to it so it can turn on me, but it doesn't matter. It's willing to kill her to make it happen. We gotta go and we gotta get down there fast." Harvel said, sitting down back to back with his brother. His vision was beginning to get blurry, all 365 degrees of it.

"You think Bukky would be okay with that? Getting her out even if it means leaving you down there?" Yiddek asked. He knew she wouldn't be, but that wasn't quite how his brother worked.

"She'll live." Harvel answered, tilting his head up towards the ceiling. He wasn't looking at it. He was too busy trying to feel out where his sister was in the depths of the ground. It was almost like phantom limb syndrome.

"You wont." Yiddek commented, a quiver starting to form in his voice. He wasn't ready to lose either of his siblings, but he knew which one was going to no matter how things turned out.

"Yiddek. It's been getting harder to breathe over the last few minutes. I think my lungs are getting smaller. I don't know how long I've got. So, either I die up here and she dies down there, or I die down there, and she gets to live. I know which I'm going to choose." Harvel wheezed, letting the majority of his weight rest on Yiddeks back. He was beginning to feel extremely tired. Perhaps the lack of oxygen wasn't quite enough for his overtaxed brain any more.

"Aldon, I'm going after their sister with them. I'll see you whenever I get home." Parker said, smiling to herself. This felt right.

"You what?!" Aldon shouted, looking up from the bill he was preparing for Lemmy. Yiddek leaned towards Parker.

"You know you don't have t-"

"Yes. Yes I do. Now that I've gotten my head back in order, I know I have to." She interrupted. Aldon moved to interject but she waved him off.

"I know I saw her down there, but that's just one moment. Who I saw in his memories is a good person, a good sister. We haven't done much lately to help good people, Aldon." She said, shooting her uncle a scathing look. It had all been trust funders and bankers for the last nine months.

They used to take the wealthy for all they had so they could pay the bills, while they helped the people who couldn't pay theirs on the cheap. They'd tracked down gang dens and drug houses, pulling out any unfortunate soul left behind by the world. They'd helped countless people in the last few years, and built a reputation to fund it.

And then there had been the incident. They were there to pull this kid out of the hands of traffickers and get him home. Some drugged up cooker with an improvised vaporization weapon popped out of the basement door. Weapons like that weren't just banned from Boris-Valka, they were banned from all warfare in this or any system. They didn't leave anything behind to repair. And it had barely clipped her face.

The bills had piled up after the surgeries. Doctor Valez had taken most of the brunt as far as the procedures were concerned, but medications and materials didn't come cheap. Within a few months it was back to chasing money like Aldon used to when he'd started out.

She hated it. Aldon hated it. After a while she'd begun to hate herself for dragging him down alongside her. She could barely stand to look in the mirror. When she did, she was only reminded of the mistake that had stopped them from helping the people that really needed it.

The only way she'd dealt with it was by focusing on the violence. It made her feel like she was the same person she'd been before it had all gone down the tubes. When the bullets were pounding into the hull, and the buildings were flying past her, all of the rest of it fell away. No questions, no answers, just lights in the night for her to take aim at.

Then tonight came along. A chance to help out someone who had done much more than help her. Aldon had charged Yiddek the normal rate, even with her protests. She hadn't quite forgiven him for that yet. Good thing she could set her own price when she was on her own time.

"So, seeing as I'm off the clock I'm thinking of doing some volunteer work. Like I used to." She decided, her headache slipping away. She knew he meant well, but his protective side had gotten a little out of hand after the incident. Yiddek looked over at her.

"We certainly appreciate it." He said, extending his claw out for a shake. She ignored it and attempted to fit her arms around Yiddeks massive reptilian shoulders.

"You saved my face. Hell, you saved my life. I can't just call it a day when your family is in danger. That's why we took this job in the first place right?" She said, pulling away. Aldon grumbled to himself a bit before sliding his phone back into his pocket.

"Fine then! Have it your way. Guess if I'm gonna let you walk into that ant infested hole, I'm not gonna let you do it alone. But, there's one problem we haven't really considered. How we're going to get down there. At least, without having to walk for days on end. Any suggestions mister mildew? You're the expert." Aldon asked, crossing his arms in sarcastic superiority. Harvel didn't make a sound.

"Harvel?" Parker asked, leaning around Yiddek to see what could be keeping him so uncharacteristically reticent. Yiddek shifted around to try and look over his shoulder. Harvels body slumped onto the floor, the all too familiar green ooze now flowing freely from his eye sockets.

"Harvel? Harvel! What are you sleeping for? You need to-" Yiddek said, pulling his brother upright. His voice slowly drifted away as realization dawned. He held his ear to Harvels chest for a few moments, then knowingly cradled his brother against his chest.

Harvels eyes, tinted green from the ooze, stared lifelessly out into the garage. He didn't breathe, he didn't blink, nor twitch. Nothing more remained of Harvel Gillis but his body.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

'Oh, No. Not again. I'm not doing the thing with the dying again. With the ball of fungus and the loud music. And if I have to listen to the loud music, can it be stuff I like? Is that too much to ask?' Harvel thought, watching as his brother held his corpse. Things felt different this time. There wasn't any music, or a voice, or anything really.

Looking at his body he could tell that he wasn't almost dead, or nearly dead, or playing dead. His brain had shut off. The neurons had gone dark. He'd finally run out of oxygen.

He'd felt the space in his lungs getting smaller and smaller. He hadn't thought much about it. He'd known it might kill him. Some less than human part of him had decided that he didn't care. There were more important things to do. People to save that weren't already doomed.

Now that he was standing here watching his brother come to understand that he was gone, all he wanted to do was not be. Not be dead. Not be watching. Not be so callous as to have not said goodbye.

But then, why was he still here? Was he a soul? A spirit? Maybe, but he still sensed the world the same as he had.

The torrent of smells, tastes and eldritch knowledge hadn't gone away. It hadn't lessened in intensity. In fact it was just the opposite. The torrent was expanding, but now he could process all of it as if it were truly meant to be there.

He felt an odd sense of shifting gravity as he watched Yiddek carry his body over to a work bench. He could practically feel the wood against the back of his head as he laid him flat across it. If he could still feel, maybe it was just his human brain that had died. He could swear he was still in there. If he could just...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The group of four sat in somber, uncomfortable silence. Parker, Aldon, and Lemmy all looked at Yiddek who was sitting on the concrete facing away from his brothers body. He rubbed his eyes and clasped his claws together.

“I don't… I don't know what I'm going to tell our parents. He was just here a few minutes ago. I didn’t realize it had… I didn’t realize.” Yiddek murmured, continuing to rub his eyes furiously.

He’d lost patients before. But no matter how attached he had been it was never like this. Never so surreal. Never so empty. He didn’t know what to do now.

“We still have to go after your sister. At least, I still think we should. It’s what he would have wanted .” Parker said, pulling herself together. She hadn’t known Harvel long, but the peek into his mind had been very telling. He'd kept going, even when he knew it would get him killed. He’d just been lucky up until this point.

“I don’t even know where to look for her. He knew where she was! All I know is that she’s in the sewers. Hell even if we knew where she was he was the only one who knew how to get there.” Yiddek explained, shrugging his shoulders in resignation. Harvel had truly been the only one of them who’d known what was going on. Lemmy coughed.

“About that last bit. I may have a way to get there quickly, but I have to warn you it might not work correctly. We’ll need coordinates, but if we can get them then I might be able to help you get your sister back.” Lemmy explained, quickly grabbing a few tools from his work bench and hurrying out into the garage.

Aldon and Parker followed him, leaving Yiddek behind with Harvels body. Lemmy shuffled away from them, hands overflowing with tools, over to a large covered bulk in the corner. He practically dropped the tools onto a cart and grabbed a corner of the tarp.

“Do you mind? It gets caught on the other side if I do it all at once by myself. Takes forever to get it right again.” He said, gesturing in the pairs general direction. Parker grabbed the opposite corner and began pulling the tarp towards the front. When the tarp was free Lemmy excitedly presented his creation.

“It’s a, uh, boat.” Aldon pointed out, feigning interest. Parker nodded in unimpressed agreement.

It was, in fact, a boat. Not a particularly large one either. More of a dinghy with a hat. Aldon had to admit though, he'd never seen one with a hull that gave off mist and looked like it was nearly see-through.

“Well, yes it is, but it’s much more than that. It’s a very special boat. I call it a trip boat.” Lemmy explained, exasperation showing on his face. Aldon and Parker both crossed their arms in unified skepticism.

“And why would that be? The big lazer looking thing on the front?” Parker asked, leaning on one of the struts holding the vessel aloft. She could tell it had never been in the water, though it didn't look as if it was meant to be.

“Yes! Yes! The big lazer thing! So, that is actually one of many different things that are very special about this boat. The first is the hull! It's made of a two micron thin hyperconductive alloy, that is constantly cooled to negative ninety degrees Celsius!” Lemmy yelled, pulling himself onto the boat and pointing at various parts of the craft.

“And that will?” Aldon asked, giving the hull a swift tap with his boot. Lemmy deflated a bit.

“That, Aldon will allow us to use the big lazer thing to project a magnetic field that will lock the hyperconductive alloy in space. Then we use the other big laser thing to create a small singularity and pull apart the strands of reality. Then we slide on through between and come out where we please, like a cat through an iron fence.” He explained, leaning over the side of the trip boat. There was a moment of contemplation regarding the implications of such a device.

“Well, fuck me then. You’re gonna put me out of a job.” Aldon said, pulling up a shop stool and staring at the future of locomotion as he knew it. Lemmy shook his head.

“I doubt it. You have no idea how expensive the materials are. With the money I spent on enough hyperconductive alloy to transport the whole boat I could have bought a large freighter.“ Lemmy said, embarrassed at the thought of how much he'd spent getting this little independent project going. Aldon relaxed a bit at the prospect of a still intact career.

"Have you ever actually done all of that shit before? You know, all at once. Successfully." Parker asked, holding her hand a few centimeters away from the hull. After a few seconds the cold had already reached the bones in her fingers. Lemmy lost a bit of his zeal at the words.

"Uh, no. I haven't. But I'm pretty sure I figured out the rest of it about three minutes ago." He said, a grin spreading across his face.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yiddek stared at his tablet, the data folder for his brother open. It was laid out the same as all of his other patient files. There was a box labeled “Current status:” with his cursor blinking inside. He placed his finger on the D and watched it fill up with multiples of the letter. He couldn't bring himself to spell out the rest of the word.

There was a polished steel sheet backing the wall in front of him. He looked at the reflection of Harvels body, almost hoping he would see it move. He looked back at his tablet. As he deleted all but one of the Ds, and his finger hovered over the e, he heard an odd cracking sound.

Yiddek looked around, expecting to see Lemmy doing something mechanically inclined. He was alone. He looked at the reflection again. Harvel hadn't moved. He glanced back down at his tablet and before he could start again Yiddek heard the sound once again.

It was a deeper, soggy type of cracking this time. Like mud covered sticks being broken up for a desperate fire. Yiddek looked up at the reflection again. Fingers, slender and knobbly, were wriggling out of his brother's silhouette.

Yiddek turned, eyes wide in unfathomable horror as the cracking and snapping grew louder and louder. The hand, dripping in blood and green ooze, forced its way out of Harvels chest. His ribs splayed outwards towards the ceiling, the hand purposefully grabbing them and prying them out of the way.

The sickening cracking noise continued, as Harvels skull seemed to cave in and retract partially into his neck. Yiddek instinctively grabbed a thick steel break-over bar and waited with it at the ready. His stomach churning with disgust and grief, he set his sights on the creature now making its way out of Harvels corpse.

A head, only identifiable as such due to the sunken, pore-like eyes and nose, popped out from between the ribs. It looked like a mushroom, an uneven, knobbly cap cresting high above its eyes. It placed its hands on the sides of the table and laboriously pulled its legs out and onto the table. Yiddek tried to steady himself in spite of the squelching sounds it made.

The creature inspected itself for a moment, moving its limbs about in front of it. It seemed amused at first, flicking the blood off of its spindly fingers. It looked at its hands in confusion, rubbing the digits together. Noticing it was distracted, his moment had come. Yiddek wasn’t going to let whatever the fuck it was get away with killing his brother, or anyone else.

The bar sailed into the creature's head, burying itself into the cap with a barely audible “poomf!” sound. The problem was that it stayed there. Try as he might, Yiddek could barely wiggle the bar, let alone pull it free. The fungus didn’t seem phased. Its cap had immediately reformed over the bar once it was embedded.

Yiddek prepared himself for the inevitable assimilation headed his way, but nothing happened. The mushroom still seemed to be preoccupied with flicking the blood off of its hands. After a moment it seemed to notice something was off.

Yiddek held his breath as the creature raised its hands and began feeling around its head. It found the bar, and immediately began to show signs of panic. It turned to look behind it, effortlessly yanking the bar and Yiddek along with it. Now face to face with a rather annoyed looking mushroom, Yiddek nearly froze.

“Sorry.” Yiddek squeaked, gulping. The eyes bored into his, wrath emanating from their near infinite depths. It hastily plunged its free hand into the soup of blood and ooze it was sitting in and leaned forwards. It found a clean spot of bench, and began to write furiously.

“What the hell did you-” the creature paused to slosh its fingers around in Harvels guts again, “do that for?!” It wrote, punctuating the action by pointing at the words aggressively. The handwriting looked oddly familiar.

“Um, I uh… What?”