Unipsi, lovely entity

chapter 63: 608

Done with their lunch Idra didn’t oppose to Scilla’s orders and soon they were in the truck loaded with food supplies for their journey. While Scilla loaded the truck Idra changed her body. 3 horns appeared on her head. 2 on the upper part of the forehead and one in the middle of the head. From around her nose wide geometrical flat pieces of metal came forward and started moving almost as if they were breathing. The horns were not a repellent element but those strange facial sensors surely were unsettling to look at. Unfortunately it was the only way they had to locate the generator.

Their first day of driving was filled with tension. Idra only spoke to give directions and every attempt to make even the smallest conversation was always shut down bad. Clearly she had different plans. Their journey was pure hell for Scilla. The worst of all was taking care of Idra without freeing her. Not even 3 hours in and Idra demanded to stop and be freed.

“it’s just been 3 hours what do you need?”

“I need to go pick up some flowers, so free me”

“no, there are no flowers underground”

They were both ignorant. Scilla couldn’t understand what Idra was asking for and at the same time Idra didn’t know that Leans didn’t have a bladder.

“are you a fucking moron? Stop the car and free me, or at least move my hand on the front”

“stop bitching about made up shit, at least make it believable”

“BELIEVABLE! I NEED TO FUCKING PEE!”

“why didn’t you said it immediately!”

“I fucking did, stupid cunt!”

“you spoke about flowers!”

“cause it’s embarrassing”

“why?”

so far they had been shouting but now Idra recollected herself.

“I need to pee. So unless you want me to pee all over the car and maybe you stop it. Bring me the biggest box inside the survival package. Move my hands on the front and get back into the fucking car”

“see I can understand better if you explain it to me”

“as if you have never peed in your life”

“matter of fact I didn’t.”

“save your stupid ass…”

“my species doesn’t have a bladder. I can’t pee”

“oh”

“still I will not let you out alone”

“WHAT! What kind of pervert want to watch a girl pee? If you humiliate me like that I’ll let us both die here”

“I’m not a pervert” that was a lie. If it was 511 Scilla would have let her pee all over her.

“yeah sure.”

“I’m not. What would stop you from running way?”

“big genius just tie my body with a knot on my back. Can’t reach it. Then you can block the rope with the car doors. And just to be clear the only one whose insufferable here is you!”

“me? The one constantly complaining is you!. By the way good idea”

They were having 2 conversation at once. One were they where yelling and one where they were well behaved.

“it’s my fucking home! you have intruded and kidnapped me!. Yeah I know it’s a good idea.”

“I already said that I’m sorry but there are no other ways, and you know that!. Me and 511 started the same way… I mean my 511”

“I’m not 511.”

“what, but…”

“nope! Let me pee in peace and I’ll tell you”

“ok”

Scilla stopped the car and followed Idra’s idea. She tied her up with the “emergency” rope in a way that she couldn’t reach for it as long as her hands were in front and blocked together. She gave her the biggest box and let her disappear behind the back of the car. Eventually she returned to the passenger seat 4 minutes later. They resume traveling immediately after.

“is it a long process?”

“what?” replied Idra.

“peeing. My Idra used to take about the same time”

“no it’s fast. The only pain is to dry off once finished”

“… I don’t want to know more. So… if not 511 who are you?”

“she for sure was not just 511. Our technical code name is surely longer. Mine is Idra 608 IS-98-ULm Weeping Sky (Idra-608 ibridosperimentale-98-umano-Leermorfo Weeping sky). Which stands for experimental hybrid number 98 of Human and Leermorf. But if you cut away those who died you get that I’m Idra 511 Weeping Sky. Who knows how many more sisters were never built successfully before your Idra”

Silence, a reflective one. 511 was always secretive of her personal file, so that must have been the reason.

“so…”

“to avoid confusion when speaking of the previous me, just call her 511 and me 608, after all I prefer 608”

“why so many deaths?”

“why should I tell you?”

“isn’t it obvious that I know a lot about your… limited group of people?”

“but I gain nothing”

“ok one question for each”

“fair enough. I don’t know. Some of the death are linked to the cambers where we are assembled. Some are defective and some grew defective. Yet from my knowledge those makes up only about 25% of the deaths. There are several that actually got to the birth yet they died almost immediately after. They decompose on the spot”

“what the fuck?… I would ask for more, but we have a deal. However I will add that I know that all others Ideas died at 25. You are the only one that should have recently became 27”

Idra 608 was surprised, but she wanted answers more than ever.

“what are your intentions with me? I’m not 511, I’ll never be her.”

“I’ll count this out. I… I know that she is gone. I just can’t let her go. I took you because I saw that you got the rope. I wanted to see her more. Not let her fade away…”

“pull over”

Scilla obliged and stopped the vehicle.

“I won’t tell you how to grief. We all have our ways. She is dead. She will never come back. I can’t be her. Can’t become her. Even if you could give me her memories I would not become her. Our brains are different, our bodies. What we experienced changed us.”

Scilla was on the verge of crying.

“I know all of it… I realised it soon… yet you are so much alike… but even this… speaking about pain. She was not able to process it… nor understand it. I… I wanted to live my whole life with her… I was making plans… thinking about our future… together. She was the only one I found and will remain the only one. I just don’t know what to do… it all happened so fast. One moment happy travelling. The next one she is consumed by her Whispers and when I woke up I was here. I was hallucinating and I followed them. Visions of a past that I believe I should not know about. Then I was using the HBE and found you. The only one uncorrupted… I’m sorry… I think I duplicated you and brought you here.”

When she looked up, Idra had her mouth open is shock. She grabbed Scilla by her shirt and confused asked.

“How?”

“I don’t know how it happened. I just saw you…”

“no! How did you even survive the activation? How are you... unchanged? then what else changed?”

A lot had changed. Fortunately for Scilla, 608 knew a lot more about the HBE than 511. She knew of the overlapping “possibility”. What she didn’t know was how it worked and somehow seemed alive. Hard to explain the intricacy of the HBE yet it’s also simple, almost banal. It alters your own universe or reality by interacting with others. It tries to follow your desires by looking of them elsewhere and connecting the universes. However it hardly succeed at it. The undesired effects outweighed all positives. Scilla’s activation was more accurate than the Founder’s one, thanks to her irrational desire to see Iris again. Yet it could be considered a failure. She didn’t received what she was looking for. She got a different Idra as hers was already dead. However what she didn’t know was that she also duplicated herself into 608 reality. That however was only the smallest side effect. The activation altered Weeping Sky partially overlapping both 511 and 608 home worlds and so their homes with them.

“I… I just touched it…”

Horror and confusion were all across Idra’s face.

“I… don’t understand. Yet I do… I mean not why you live, but I understand why this place is different from my home, yet so similar. You copied me, my home and brought us here.”

Idra let her go and started talking to herself, maybe not entirely herself but still mostly to herself.

“I see. So 511 death must have triggered an emergency shut down as nobody would have been able to monitor the reactors. Then you got into and fucked up reality. It also explains why you were able to walk around this place. You are a lucky motherfucker.”

Scilla could only watch and nod from time to time.

“still it’s hard to believe that 511 would fall in love with another woman. That goes against our protocols and nature.”

“I’m… I’m not a girl…”

Idra that had returned to sit in the middle of her seat immediately jumped back trying to put as much space as possible between them.

“what do you mean? You have enormous tits and well look like a buffed woman”

“thanks, nature gave me a lot. But I also possess male organs...”

“why? What kind of abomination are you?”

“it may sound strange to you, but my species had 3 sexes. Female, male and Femari. Compared to Humans we are inverted. So Woman are bigger and stronger, yet less prone to thinking. Males are way smaller but smarter. Yet they are rare, almost impossible. This is dues to a virus on our home planet that increased our survival probability by creating us. A mix between both and an average point between strength and intellect.”

“oh… so you are a hermaphrodite?”

“yep”

“that’s peculiar. Well at least it explains a bit”

“so your question?”

“you don’t look to good to answer”

“I feel like shit. I just want to cry, but I promised and so I’ll keep it”

“that’s a good trait to have. Then are there others like me?”

“sort of. No Leermorfs, only Humans mixed with Morfians called Esterians. I don’t know much about them, but Esterians lives. They have their nation somewhere but I never been there. 511 never brought me there. I know that they are a powerful nation and have a lot of planets. Not much more”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“it’s ok. But I think you should really try to think about your situation and maybe get some sleep”

As those word left Idra’s mouth Scilla noticed a feint scent in the air. But it was too late. Idra 608 was a lot different from 511. She was organic and so her organic competence was far more extensive than 511’s, yet she also inherited the organic issues like forgetting of her weaker capabilities. It was during her calmer talk with Scilla that she remember that the collar didn’t prevent her from spreading mind controlling molecules. It took some minutes to find a working one, but now Scilla was going to submit to her.

It didn’t took much before Scilla “decide” that she could thrust Idra and to sleep leaving Idra’s hand tied together but in front of her.

Cold, hard. That was not the seat she was in when she fell asleep. Scilla immediately got alerted yet once she opened her eyes she could barely see. Red lights near the ground lit up a place she didn’t recognize.

“what the fuck!”

“I guess you really can’t see”

Idra’s hair started to glow and now she could see Idra standing in front of her about 3 meters away. Her had cut the rope and had a steel club in her hands.

Scilla scared for her life jumped up and prepared for a fist fight.

“hey chill out. I’m not going to beat the shit out of you. This is FOR you”

Idra tossed the club to Scilla that grabbed it in confusion. Her head was pulsing as a side effect of basically being drugged with a narcotic.

“how did you do it? I’m immune to your control shit. Where are we? Why the bat? What is happening?”

“is this your chilling out?”

“it’s not funny”

“if you say so.”

Idra turned off her hair and disappeared in the darkness for few seconds. Scilla heard something moving then a click. Light coming from the car headlights. She could now see that they were inside a storage with wooden crates around. Idra dismounted from the car and closed the door.

“surprise!”

“I'm not understanding.”

“yeah I think your face and the grip on the bat says the same. So long story short I remembered that I could try to control your mind. Kinda my fault but you know it’s been 9 years since I spoke to someone or interacted with something that didn’t want to kill me…”

“this doesn’t help”

“I know cock sucker. I was still explaining. Being with you is fun. No clue if you are totally fucked up in the head or not, but trying to oppose me. ME! Ah… it’s refreshing. Your resistance is also something new. Still I appreciate your honesty and I bet we could be really funny friends. So considering that you are feeling down I decided to bring you here to smash things. 506 loved to smash things when sad so I supposed it could work”

Scilla relaxed. Idra didn’t look aggressive nor it seemed that she intended to trick her more.

“so you drugged me…”

“yes”

“freed yourself…”

“no”

Scilla frown for a moment.

“drove while tied up? Really”

“it’s not my fault you did a good job removing all pointy objects”

“thanks”

“k”

“and then once here you freed yourself and set this up for me”

“yep but it is unfinished. I wanted to pull out something to scatter around to let you dissipate more heat, rage and energy”

“why?”

“I told you just before. I was having fun.”

“what now?”

“you don’t want to rage?”

“I do but…”

“no buts. Hehe butts... I mean just break things. Nothing of value here. I’ll wait outside”

Then without a care in the world she turned around and walked away from Scilla. Alone with the club in hand she unleashed all her rage, frustration, pain and sorrow. She destroyed and destroyed screaming all her feeling in the storage. Once her fury ended and only her shouts were echoing back, she decided to go look for Idra. She left the room from one of the 2 entrances, the one Idra had walked to before. Outside the usual endlessly dark tunnels. At a first glance she didn’t spot Idra until she walked some meters into the tunnel and spotted a small dim yellow light around the corner opposite to the entrance. She approached the corner carefully until she saw Idra sitting just behind with her back against the wall reading a book.

“so you know what a book is” said Scilla.

Idra was not startled.

“this is not a book. Books are long files of words”

“exactly as the one you have in hands. It’s just printed”

“hard to believe it is. Look at how the pages are kept together”

Idra pushed toward Scilla the book that however had nothing special except the quality. It surely was a rare piece as it was printed on thick paper with an integrated highly decorated bookmark.

“see what I mean? This thing is old and 3D printing fabric is not easy. Plus I think it’s some kind of encrypted document”

Scilla was even more confused. The book was not encrypted but it was just written in the shared language.

“you said it was…?”

“encrypted”

“you know this is just the shared language. You know the one we are speaking?”

Idra retrieved her hands with the book and turned around.

“you don’t know how to read. Am I right?”

“I… I know how… it’s just not my language… it’s hard to learn if nobody teaches you”

“wanna learn?”

Idra turned immediately back, her eyes were shining with excitement. She loved to learn just like 511.

“you would?”

“why… why not? I can teach you the alphabet and then we can read it together so you understand the sounds”

Idra pushed again the book toward Scilla.

“well not now. How about every evening? Before sleeping… if it makes sense as I can’t tell if it’s day or night...”

“it’s day” replied Idra immediately.

“how do you know?”

“I found a new emergency terminal and I counted from then.”

“well then how about we resume our search. Don’t want to die here”

said Scilla extending her right hand to help Idra get up.

“sure.” Idra accepted the helping hand.

Finally after their constant fights their journey resumed. This time as friends even if not said out loud. Their first day of travel was mostly calm, maybe a bit awkward yet functional. Idra conveyed her needs without strange wording while Scilla for once listened to her. As the first day ended and they parked the car Idra spoke.

“so… will you read for me after dinner?”

“I said so…”

they heated up their second dish from the emergency kit and while eating Idra asked

“how do you feel?”

Scilla was surprised in a pleasant way.

“worried about me?”

“naaahh. Just making sure you don’t drive us into a wall” replied Idra smiling.

“better, and worse I guess.”

“I would say that maybe you need space from me. You know I look, sound and probably smell like your 511. but I can’t walk away.”

“yeah. But I doubt I would feel better alone in this… just how big is this place?”

“if things didn’t change too much it should be about 270km x 300km with an average of 11 levels of 10 meters each.”

Shock. It was a place bigger than capital cities combined and if spread on just one level bigger than countries.

“Why the fucking is it so immense? No shit you don’t know your home”

“see told you. It’s hard to know something so big. Especially when you live in a special isolated sector”

“you were isolated from the rest?”

“yes” Idra’s expression soured.

“sorry for asking. I…”

“no it’s cool. It is just a long story. A story not meant for strangers”

“I guess I should speak more about me as I know a bunch about you. Or at least about 511”

“could be useful but seeing that we both had just finished eating I would prefer to learn how to read”

putting aside the empty canisters of food, both of them moved to the back seats. This way they could get close to each other allowing both to read. Without any more delays Scilla first explained the shared alphabet and then started to read slowly. Being focused on the book prevented her from thinking about the physical contact with Idra that was leaning on her left side. The book she was reading was clearly a fairy tale of some sort.

The first chapter spoke mostly of an enchanting land were people lived in symbiosis with the forests around. It spoke of the never well identified forest dwellers. Creatures of magic and harmony yet elusive to mankind. Mankind description was at best lacking, at worst intentionally misleading. For sure those were humans, but it could be easily seen as a generic humanoid as if the tale was mean to be adapted. The forest dwellers kept the balance between the ever growing forest and humanity. They guided lost people back to civilization, they let them gather the fruits of nature and they allowed them to hunt invasive species. At the same time however the forest dwellers were enemies of humanity. They would prey on those who harmed the forest. They would lure the unworthy deep into the forest to let them starve to death. They were the arbiters of the region, balancing all species. Even Humans. Yet humanity didn’t appreciated being stopped from exploiting all they could. The chapter ended with one human assaulting and killing a forest dweller.

Guess this is some long fairly tale. Why do they have them?

Scilla closed the book and immediately Idra asked.

“why?”

“why what?”

“why are you stopping?”

“well we got to the end of the chapter.”

“ancora (again / more)”

“what?”

“more. Please. Read more. I liked it”

“it’s late, and I’m tired. We should just go to sleep. Tomorrow you will try to read a bit on your own and we will read a new chapter after dinner. Ok?”

Idra pouted like a child.

She is more childish and more feminine in her behavior. I kinda like it, at least she is not insulting me all the time.

“ok, but it’s a promise. So if you break it I’ll break your spine”

Never mind. I take it all back.

“I won’t break any promise. I usually don’t”

“did you break one?”

“not really. At least no voluntarily”

Idra didn’t reply. They moved back to the front seats and reclined them to be more comfortable.

“are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the back?” asked Scilla.

“yeah. This will be fine.” then Idra took off her shoes and curled up on her seat facing the door.

Scilla, surprised on how fast Idra took position to sleep, got off the car, went to the back and returned with a pile of 6 square flat pillows. She took them before their journey as she believed that Idra was going to complain for not having any form of cover.

“Idra?”

“yes?”

“do you want a pillow?”

Idra turned on herself and smiled widely.

“are those for me?”

“I suppose so. 511 didn’t like to sleep without a blanket, but I couldn’t found one so…”

“they are perfect thank you”

Idra took 2 of them and started to place them over herself to cover up. There were visible gaps in her pillow blanket.

“want another one?”

“you are bigger. You need more to cover your body”

Scilla smiled. She was feeling a strange warm sensation. 608 when not enraged was surely pleasant to be around and more thoughtful.

“I don’t need any. You can have them all”

“are you sure?” Idra’s eyes conveyed excitement but also uncertainty.

“yep. I grabbed them for you”

without more exchanged Idra took the rest and disappeared below the pillow fort she built on the seat.

“thank you Scilla. Goodnight”

“goodnight”

Scilla usually slept on her back and she tried to do so. She look at the car roof lights before turning them off. A surreal darkness filled the car. There was nothing at all. They had parked in a small zone where even the emergency lights had either gave up or run out of power. It was unsettling as she had never experience such emptiness, yet something kept her mind sane. The rhythmic and slow breaths of Idra just beside her. In contrast to her, 608 was in her element. Empty unkempt endless tunnels that divided an underground structure in cells. A place so big that even if all the Idra ever produced were alive, it would took weeks if not months to even meet one.

Am I finally safe? Is 608… still Iris? Can I really thrust her? Should I really try to sleep… this distant echoes of metal settling in are terrifying. What if I brought here something else? What if we are not alone… I don’t have a weapon. Will 608 protect me… can she do anything other than emitting light from her hair and getting horns? Now that I think about it… where the fuck is my power suit? I’m sure I was in it.

With a constant stream of thoughts, fatigue overcome Scilla that fall asleep to be awaken abruptly some hours later by Idra screaming.

“NO!”

The car was overflowing with light yet Scilla could see Idra that had jumped forward and had her arms extended onward as if she wanted to caught something. Scilla extender her hand to reach for Idra that twitched in fear and hit the car pillar with her head.

“ounh!”

“are you alright?”

Idra stared at Scilla.

“I’m good. I’m good. Thanks…”

“doesn’t look…”

“did I scare you?”

“yep. Nightmares?”

“what else?”

“no idea, maybe it was a normal dream till you fell down a stair”

“I wish it was. Guess I won’t be sleeping. Do you mind if I… keep my hair glowing a bit so I could read”

“It’s fine for me. I’ll just face the door. If you want to talk…”

“I don’t.”

“ok”

“goodnight Scilla”

“thank. Good reading”

Soon Scilla was back to sleep while beside her Idra was slowly reading the first chapter of the book by herself.