CHAP 15: Observation

We went to the kitchen, and I started cooking for us while Bea and Anita talked about shapeshifting, with Anita pinpointing the fox form as very comfortable. I put the plates on the table. I heard someone take a bite, most probably Anita.

"Chewing is strange."

"Oh yes, this is going to be your first meal as a human, isn't it?"

"Correct, I'm too used to simply getting the nutrients and the flavor. How can you all live with such work to eat?"

"We don't think about it and don't have the benefit of eating without chewing. You can't miss what you never had."

"That's true."

"I like chewing! It's fun!"

"See? Some even like it."

"The little fox has a simple mind, however."

"Are you calling me dumb?"

"No, I'm calling you cute."

"Ah, okay!"

"So, what do you want to do today, Anita?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I assume you have things you want to do with your human body?"

"There are some things I definitely want to do~."

"I'll see what I can do about your wishes, but there must be something else?"

"I'd like to go for a walk in the village."

"We can go, then. I have some things to discuss with Heisenberg as well."

We finished eating and left the table. Anita gave me my coat and fixed my collar, Bea then "snuggled"(n sei a palavra) herself around my neck, and we set off to the village. 

"Should I hide my appearance?"

"I don't know, are you eye-catching?"

"Obviously."

"At least don't use the maid dress."

"Already did that. Won't you use Bea's eyes to look at your lifelong partner?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

I connected my vision to Bea's, who was already looking at Anita, and I must say, she was beautiful, as one would expect from a shapeshifter who knew their preferences, the shadow of the coat she was wearing over her head generated a nice bit of contrast with her grey irises that seemed to shine, the size of every part of her visage was perfect, so much so it gave her an otherworldly feel, accentuated by the silvery hair, definitely based on my own.

Her body followed the trend, shapely, but not asymmetric, with no excess and no lack anywhere, the skin looked sickly, probably because of the nature of the fungus. The only way of accurately describing it would be unnaturally beautiful, like a sculpture with no human errors, the literal definition of beauty, achieved to please me.

"I must say I'm flattered."

I couldn't help but say.

"Why?"

"You worked so hard just to look pretty for me."

She blushed, interestingly enough, it seemed to be black, making a beautiful contrast with her pale skin.

"You can't just compliment a lady like that and not expect her to fall for you."

"I'm pretty sure that's not how that works."

"It is when the lady is already head over heels for you."

"Maybe."

I went over and hugged her waist, disconnecting from Bea's vision, and we continued walking forward.

"I'd appreciate you even if you weren't as beautiful, but this is definitely a good bonus."

"I share the sentiment."

The rest of the travel was quiet until we reached the village.

"Mr. Gray! Who's this woman?"

"My partner."

"Oh, Mr. Heisenberg isn't going to be happy he's being replaced!"

"He surely won't, but I'll appease him."

"I'm sure you will. I've been hearing rumors about some factory, is that true?"

"Yes. The first factory of my company will open here."

"That's good, that's good. Well, it was nice talking to you, Mr. Gray, but I have to go back to my crops, those seeds I bought from you sure grow fast, I almost can't keep up."

"One of my caravans will pass through here to buy them from you Monday, I believe."

"Sooner than before?"

"Yes, I've finally managed to map out the routes fully, so things are going to stabilize. A caravan will pass through here every two weeks, or at least that's the plan."

"Very good news for me, or I'll start drowning in potatoes."

I laughed a bit.

"We call that suffering from success, my friend. I'll let you go back to your crops now. Goodbye and good day."

"A very nice day for you too!"

As we passed through the streets, this kind of conversation repeated itself, with almost all villagers suffering from the same problem. We finally reached Heisenberg's lands.

"I still don't understand why you chose to make a factory here of all places."

"Mostly because it was easy, and there was the chance to make a mine as well. Also, I have a suspicion something is going to happen in this village."

"Why is that?"

"I'll tell you later."

I knocked on the door of the house.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

I heard the door being unlocked, the amount of security always made me curious, but I didn't ask Ludwig what he was running from.

"Oh. Honey, it's Gray!"

"Gray? I'm coming!"

"Both of you, enter, please."

We did as she said.

"Did you two already have breakfast?"

"Yes, Emma, you don't need to bother."

"It won't be a bother. I'll brew some more coffee."

"Gray, my friend! Ah, you're accompanied by someone other than Alice?"

"Yes, this is Anita, a business partner who came to visit me."

"I see, nice to meet you, Anita. Gray must've told you about me already, I'm Ludwig."

"Nice to meet you too, Ludwig, Gray has told me you're a very skilled craftsman."

"Now did he?"

"I did, and I wasn't lying. How's the construction going?"

"Going as planned. We'll need some dynamite for the mine, though."

"Are you planning on blowing up the entire village, Ludwig?"

"It's needed, Anna, you wouldn't understand."

"It just sounds like you like blowing things up and want Gray to pay for it."

I laughed a bit.

"How much do you need, Ludwig?"

"Don't indulge him!"

"Five hundred sticks. The rock is harder than expected, so we need to break it with some explosives."

"Right, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks."

We talked as I sipped on some coffee. I wonder if the coffee seeds I made are selling, they are being sold on the caravan with no need for a contract since I can just buy land now that I'm making money. Sadly, my sales are bound to go down as more and more people buy them, as one of their features is that you only need to buy them one time and they reproduce themselves without fail forever, at least theoretically.

Their purpose is fulfilled, however, since my plan was never to make a living out by selling seeds, but to get enough money so I can make my company become the most viable way of transporting produce from one place to another, and from there, I'll get into technology and pharmaceuticals, then push my weight around when the first World War is happening and start making weapons.

If my previsions are correct, my company will hold enough economic power to subjugate a small country by the 30s. If I can strike some deals with the big two in the Cold War, I'll have a big enough standing in the world where I can do pretty much anything that isn't directly launching a nuke at a nation. I took one last sip of my coffee, appreciating the wonders of capitalism.

"By the speed the boys are working at, the factory is going to be finished in one year, if you can provide the dynamite, the mine is going to be finished before that."

"Right. I'm sure I can get my hands into some explosives, and I'll send a demolition expert as well to make sure you don't cave yourself in."

"Don't you trust me, partner?"

"With explosives? Not one bit."

"He's right, Ludwig, let the professionals take care of this."

"I'm a professional!"

"With a hammer, not with explosives."

He sighed after what his wife said.

"I'll compromise, just this once."

"The prettiest part of an explosion is watching it, my friend, trust me on this one. If you really want, one stick won't make a difference if we throw it into an open space."

"Gray, don't indulge his fantasies!"

"Indulging a little bit doesn't hurt, Emma."

Ludwig came over and hugged me.

"I won't forget the favor you've done me."

"You better. The talk was good while it lasted, but we must get going."

"You're not staying over for lunch?"

"Sadly, I can't. I was supposed to get back to work quickly but ended up getting too lost in the conversation. Anita and I have some planning to do back at home."

"Work always calls. Well, it was nice talking with you two, and it was nice to meet Miss Anita."

"Likewise, Mr. and Mrs. Heisenberg, thank you for your cordiality."

"It was nothing, you're one of Gray's friends, so you're one of our friends."

"I'll contact some people to see if I can get your dynamite, Ludwig, and thanks for the coffee, Emma, we're going now."

We left their house.

"Conversation is a strange form of communication."

"But you talked with me all the time."

"That was different. Having to move your mouth and make sounds feels, I don't know, wrong."

"You'll get used to it. Considering this body was 'born' yesterday, and this is the first time you're being human per se, I'd say you're pretty good at being one, or at least pretending to be one."

"That's to be expected, I learned from the best, after all."

"Best at which one of the two?"

"Why make a question if you already know the answer?"

"Because I wanted to confirm if we were on the same wavelength."

"Of course we are, my Adam."

"Good. So where are we going now, my Eve?"

"Weren't we going back home?"

"If you want to stay at the village, we could."

"No need, let's go. I want to train shapeshifting."

"Me too."

Bea whispered in my ear.

"Then let's go."

We reached our home, and life went slowly for three more months, with my days consisting of training Bea and Anita in shapeshifting, looking for the mother core, and teaching Anita to cook since she wanted to be the 'perfect wife' for me, her words, not mine. Today, I'd finally found the mother core, which from the rough outline I could see, was in a very bad state. I need to move there to override the protection the mother core put in place.

And that's what we are currently doing. I've been preparing to do something I've theorized, which is a way of effectively traveling at the speed of light, or more accurately, of thought, I created a perfect copy of myself at the mother core, and I am going to 'transfer' my consciousness in that body. I am currently reorganizing the fungus to create a sublayer where my thoughts won't be scattered, and I don't chip away at my 'soul' every time I do this, if you could it that.

I've made one of these 'thought railways' for both me and Bea, I'm not one hundred percent sure there's any risk in simply utilizing the fungus, but it's better to be safe than sorry. After they were done, I did some tests and finally transported myself to the mother core, the transference was very strange as if I had blacked out for a moment, and woken up in another place, which reminded me a bit of one of the times I drank too much. 

Anita soon appeared beside me, and came over, putting her head on my shoulder, I hugged her waist and we went to the central core, and put our hands on it. The security behind this one was greater than that of the memory core, so we had to work a bit to get through it, but nothing too excessive. When we got through, I felt as if the world had lit up, the fungus suddenly becoming bright, allowing me to actually see it, not just feel it, and the size of the fungus expanded through the addition of the remnant of the once superorganism.

I'd discovered not only where were the other cores, but also some important information about what the fungus seemed to have been working on before it was infected, from what I gathered, it seemed to be the peak of its own evolution, full integration with Earth, becoming one with the planet, which was very useful, even in its incomplete status. There was also the structural and genetic information of some 'soldiers', and more materials, which could always be useful.

I focused on collecting all of the cores before I continued working on what the mother core was doing, the storage core was on the east of Polony, relatively close to where the fungus had already grown, so I focused on getting to it and using whatever remaining the energy it had to grow to the other ones.

"Integration with the planet. So that's my next step."

"I wanted to get all the other cores before we started working on that, but if you want to start now, you're free to do so, Anita."

"No need. I agree that we need to find the other cores before doing that since I think I'll need to update the fungus organization before I do this 'integration'."

"Right. So, while the fungus expands to the storage core, why don't we work on this 'soldier' thing, there are some interesting ideas there."

"Sure."

We traveled back to the village, with me still not used to the feeling of traveling this way. Once I had jolted back on my body, I noticed that even here the fungus seemed to be somewhat brighter, which I could still not understand the reason why, maybe Anita had noticed as well. Talking about her, she had appeared beside me, so I sat down on the couch.

"How was it? Was the mother core really big?"

"It felt like a big blob."

"It was big, but I'm sure it had been bigger before it was infected by the virus."

"I want to grow big like that!"

"I'm pretty sure you can, little fox, I just don't think it would be very cost-effective."

"Let her dream. Talking about big blobs of white, did the fungus become bright for you as well, Anita?"

"What do you mean?"

"Bright, emitting some light?"

"The fungus is not bright at all."

"Don't you see it like I do?"

"The fungus looks the same as it ever did."

"Close your eyes."

"All I see is black."

"Strange, after we connected to the mother core, the fungus suddenly became bright in my vision, I thought it was something you had seen as well."

"If I did, I'd have commented. Maybe it's related to your strange blindness."

"Which would mean it's related to hell as well, which is a dead end."

"Maybe you should try accessing it once again, something could have changed."

"Later."

After this, we started discussing the "soldier", or at least that's what the fungus called its little battle drones. Their design was interesting, they seemed to be specifically designed to hunt one type of animal, of course, the one that was going to be the most useful for me was the human one. If I had to explain what it looked like, I would say a praying mantis mixed with a Hercules beetle, it seemed the fungus had made a being specialized to deal with medieval knights, probably because they were the biggest threat humans had to offer during the time the fungus was working.

The structure could work as a kind of walking tank, the four feet could make it very stable when shooting, and the 'armor' would make it a very durable asset, I just need to give it a gun, maybe two, even four, and reinforce the legs, maybe give another pair in order to allow it to maintain their ground even when being attacked. I did a rough schematic in my mind and we started going over the drones made to fight against the other animals, seeing if we could integrate something from their designs into our own.

We managed to find another way to make our human bodies physically stronger, and some insight into biological 'architecture', which is always good, especially since we now have a selection of upgraded structures we can use with this new knowledge, and so, we started working on the 'soldier' again. I made the 'guns', which worked like the radula of a cone snail, and, using the mantis shrimp as a basis, she modified the arms with the blades, allowing the drone to attack very fast, then we started working on the armor and the new legs.

Copying the hydraulic system of spider legs, we made the new legs for the soldier, and put everything together, completing the battle drone. We needed to run some tests, but we decided to do this later, prioritizing making our bodies stronger. The change was on the weaving of the muscles, tightening them and allowing for a higher muscle density, and the addition of what I could only describe as a subdermal armor, which would make it even harder for me to be hurt, only blunt attacks still being somewhat effective.

This took around two hours, with Bea having gone to sleep while we worked. 

"So, now that you are out of excuses, are you going to continue stalling?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"What I mean is that you're reluctant to enter hell once again."

"By now, it's been ten years since the last time, I can't be sure I won't be hurt again."

"But hell is your only lead on this mystery."

I sighed.

"I know, I know. But the last time I entered, I ended up losing part of my lungs, who knows what will happen now that I'm fully connected to the fungus."

"Are you worried... For me?"

"Not exactly, but you could say so."

She stayed silent, then put her hand on my chest and transferred herself into my body.

(We'll go together, then.)

"Bold of you to assume that can happen."

(It doesn't hurt to try.)

I relented, and put my head on her body's lap, trying to doze off. It took some time since I wasn't particularly tired, but I did find myself back at the white plain, the stars seemed to be slightly brighter, but nothing too drastically different. I got up and started walking through the snow that somehow felt softer and easier to traverse, I consider this change to be a good sign, even if a bit strange, in fact, the whole place seemed to have become more welcoming.

After some time walking, I found the blizzard and entered it, and as I looked at the big ball of light, I had an instinctual feeling that it looked satisfied, or as satisfied as this thing, whatever it is, could be. The combination of the light and the passing shards of ice put me into a trance, and I felt what I could only describe as pure energy pass through me, before I was back into the darkness of the outside.

(So, was anything different in there?)

"The blizzard was happy, and it seems the rest of hell agreed with it."

(Your brain activity was accelerated as before, and you were in there for around five seconds.)

"Anything energy-related?"

(Energy? Not anything I could capture. Why?)

"The blizzard, or whatever it is, made some type of energy pass through me."

(I didn't have any scanners for that, sorry. There could've been some subtle fluctuations.)

"No worries, it's not like we have anything to go off from in regard to whatever happens in hell, so we couldn't have predicted there could be energy fluctuations."

(While being with you this way is good, can you connect me to my body again?)

"You can pass through the mycelium."

(And what's the fun in that?)

"Good point."

I put my left hand on her chest, and she got back into her own body, immediately putting both of her hands over mine, not allowing me to pull back my hand.

"Why don't we stay in this position for some time."

"I knew I should have put my hand on your arm."

"Then why didn't you?"

I put the sleeping fox in the corner of the sofa and pulled Anita closer to me.

"Because I wanted this to happen."

She giggled.

"My master is very daring, what if I rejected your advances?"

"Then you wouldn't be a good maid, now would you?"

"And you would've punished me. Damn, missed a chance."

"Well then, why don't we go to the bedroom, my little maid?"

"If the master wills it."

She interlaced her finger with mine, and we got up, moving to the bedroom. As we entered, Anita stopped in her tracks.

"How? How is this possible?"

"What?"

"It's impossible for someone to pass through both of us without us noticing. Am I hallucinating?"

"I don't think that's possible unless the energy from the blizzard affected you. What are you seeing?"

She stopped holding my hand, and I followed the sounds of her steps until she stopped in front of where I knew the desk was, and then she came back to me.

"There's a Walkman and a message."

"Walkman? Is there a cassette on it?"

"Yes. It reads 'The man who sold the world'."

This is very bad, very, very bad. Another person who can travel through 'worlds' found me? Was this the energy released by the blizzard?

"No fucking way. Impossible."

"The message reads 'Found you, Worldkiller.' The 'w' is capitalized, strangely, the other line is 'Don't disappoint me now.'"

Someone found me? And they gave me a Walkman? With the exact same tape from when I died? Is it the one I actually had? It's pretty obvious they know who I was since they called me a world killer, but why is the 'w' capitalized? Is it some kind of classification? Or a title? Anita said she didn't feel anything different, and I can't be sure this happened after the energy was released by the blizzard, even if I could assume that to be the case. There seems to be no intent in hurting me, at least, which is a silver lining.

"Any ideas?"

"None. Is there anything else that could be a clue?"

"The handwriting is very precise."

"So either whoever or whatever wrote this is very used to writing things fast, or they had time to write it. Not particularly useful, but it's something."

"I'll focus on making the railgun."

"Good. I'll work on the soldiers."

I'll try not to disappoint you, being who's watching me.