Chapter Fifteen: Vague Misperception — Part 3

Transitive Memory: Part 1

Outside of his detention center, Jonathan could smell death, decay, could feel suffering as it ended, point-by-point, with the ending of a life. Nearby he could smell Susan, who was observing him, taking notes of his transition. His body temperature was rising to dangerous levels, and he could feel his skin beginning to blister. The systemic parasite that had possessed him so long that that there was no longer a sense of him and it was dying, and in response was creating caustic boils all over his body, its strategy two pronged and pointless.

The painful boils would force him to instinctively seek out dark, damp terrain. The boils would also give the bacteria a chance to spread to others. In this case however, even the simplest organism on Antans would have little difficulty in destroying the bacteria. It was, for all points and purposes, already dead, as its host was already rejecting it, and there were no new hosts for it to infect. Because it would soon be extinct, the parasite had been classed as benign. Despite this, the entire detention facility was kept sterile, and Jonathan would not be allowed to leave until all traces of the parasite were gone from his body.

Jonathan jumped as a drone flew through the beams, bringing with it a bowl of water. Another drone, an irregular shape, began lancing the boils with a razor sharp, needle thin scalpel. The second probe began to hum vigorously, and when a needle as long as his forearm extended from the probe, Jonathan swatted it away. The probe sent an ultraviolet laser past his left ear, and Jonathan cowered in the corner while the probe launched a needle straight into his chest, piercing failing skin, distraught muscle, and brittle cartilage so it could unload its contents into an unwilling heart. Jonathan nearly fainted from the pain, and soon found his head throbbing. Jonathan’s memories of self were already faded. Any residual memory he had seemed to be tied to language.

Susan explained to him the behavior of the drone. “The drone has just pumped adrenaline into your heart. It will increase your blood pressure by forty percent, temporarily speeding the rate at which your body cleanses itself of toxins.”

At the moment, Jonathan really couldn’t understand her. He caught certain words, and the courtesy of her tone. The drones were unfamiliar, and he didn’t trust them as they cut at him. His memories had faded back into darkness. He instinctively swatted at them as they worked around him, but if he got too out of hand, some unknown, powerful force that he sensed must come from Susan would restrain his entire body, hold him tightly until they finished their work. He shouted something incomprehensible at one of the drones, and it paused, as if considering.

The drone hummed indignantly, then swirled around him, helping the other drone at its boil lancing operations. Hot needles pierced his skin, reaching vital organs with life sustaining fluids. His heart rate increased rapidly to almost normal, and his head continued to pulsate with pain as his veins throbbed with new life and pressure. His skin regained its color, an amber tan that was both healthy and appealing, at least where the boils didn’t distort it to an angry, puss-filled mass of proud flesh. Within a few days his hair fell out in patches, then grew back in. It changed to a dark Colombian red, the color of cranberry and black tea intermixed. His eyes turned green, then darkened to a sultry gold, his lips regained their human color. He didn’t succumb to delirium, as had others, possibly because there were no memories to be rattled. Instead, Jonathan spent much of his time staring dully at Susan, vicious anger his only emotion.

“In a few days, Jonathan, you’ll be a member of my tribe.” Susan said, smiling kindly. “I am honestly quite surprised you survived, all things considered.”

“I hear voices in my head. Don’t call me Jonathan, call me Jonathan.” Jonathan, sounded almost rudely insistent, even though he made no sense.

“Why would you want to be called Jonathan?” Susan played along, not knowing what else to do, since she knew that the only knowledge in this man’s head had been put there by the Symbiont.

“I have reasons.” Jonathan said, adding, after some consideration. “I’m strong enough to pass through the light now.”

“You’re a member of my tribe now. Do you want freedom?” Susan asked gently

“I should kill you.” Jonathan grabbed his head, struggling with the voices within, and another memory, a distant one that should not have survived, lost focus, faded away.

Susan stuck her tongue out at him, looking childish. “You know, Jonathan, if we got in a real fight say, while eating lunch together, I’d put you in a shallow grave and still have time to finish the soup. Not that there is a fixed meal time, but I think you understand me.”

“Are you really so sure of yourself?”

“Uh-huh.” Susan said as she nodded, then leaned back lazily. “A three hundred year home court advantage is nothing to laugh at.”

“It’s time for me to kill you.” Jonathan jumped forward, slamming against a rock hard force field, the thought of it now less a memory and more like hard wiring.

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready to leave your cage. If you go into the general populace with the attitude you have now, you’ll be slaughtered in a matter of minutes. There are others far less patient than myself who are also far more inclined to dislike you.”

Susan signaled at the air. The drone hovered back into view. “Sit still and we’ll finish treating those boils.” Within a few hours not even blotches would remain to remind Jonathan he’d been sick.

Jonathan, as he insisted on being called, even when somebody called him by name, was growing more and more confident in his abilities. He tested Susan’s strengths and weaknesses, finding no edge to break. Part of him still wanted to kill her, and there was nothing inside him to question why. Not yet, anyway. Even so, that part of him was growing a little lethargic where murder was concerned. Susan stayed with him until the symbiont was fully a part of him, until he was beyond the threat of dying, though he assumed it was because he posed a a lethal threat to those around him.

As his ears developed the holes of an adult, and the symbiont calmed down, settling into newly healed cells, vanquishing the parasite that had been tormenting him before, Jonathan began to feel the strength of his new form. His head no longer hurt, and his intense craving for meat and blood was long forgotten. His heart rate dropped back down to a normal level for his new body, and he flexed his joints, which, for the first time in many centuries, no longer hurt from constant exposure to the biting cold of cryostorage. He flexed his fingers and toes, surprised that he could actually feel them. The sensation of touch was something he had not experienced since he’d exposed himself to the vector that had so changed his body and his life. He had no memories of these things, really. The sensations, while new to him, felt somehow nostalgic, though he could not remember why.

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