CHAP 20: A Change Of Perspective

The sea proved worthy of research when we found a retrovirus around the Kermadec Trench. It seems the abyssal fish's DNA mixed with the virus's RNA and made it so the infected organism slowly showed symptoms and got their biology modified to be adapted to a high-pressure environment, while also making life on the surface torture, as a silver lining, the virus cannot infect anything but some species of fish native to the region and the transformation is not fast enough to harm the fish in any way.

The effects of the infection are almost redundant, even though most infections are redundant when you have something like the fungus, however, this virus can prove to be useful when used in addition to the flower virus. I also believe I should start naming them before I find more of those types of viruses and things get confusing.

AERv and HPRv. Simple and effective, let's go with that.

I was currently in the captain's cabin, sailing to the Mariana Trench with Bea as my eyes, Anita was down at the lab, working on the theory of AERv being the virus that infected the fungus, sadly, we didn't have samples, but we did have part of its RNA preserved in the memories of the fungus.

"So, have you figured it out, little fox?"

"Not yet. They're just so strange."

"It doesn't help you eat the fish each time we ask you to analyze it."

"Who told them to be so tasty?"

"The same one who told them to be better swimmers than arctic foxes."

"Was it you?"

"I wish. The answer depends on your religion, or lack thereof, Bea."

"And what do you think?"

"Before, I would've simply responded no one designed life. But now? I think there's no absolute correct answer, no one may have done it in this timeline, but what about others? It remains to be seen."

"When we find whoever did, I promise I'll bite them hard."

"Why?"

"Because they must be the tastiest thing!"

"Ha! Bea, the god-eater. A very mighty title, little fox."

"I'm very mighty, after all."

"Prove it, turn into a fish."

She closed her eyes.

"Not right now, dummy."

"Oh, sorry."

"It's alright."

We kept making small talk as I used the fungus on the seabed to guide me to the Mariana Trench. After quite a long time, we were finally floating above it, and I used the fungus to hold the boat in place. I disconnected my eyes from Bea's.

"We've arrived."

"Finally, I was getting tired of the black. How do you endure it?"

"I had a lot of time to get used to it."

She kept silent.

"Anyways, let's go to the lab."

"Let's."

I opened the door, descended the stairs, and entered the lab.

"Figured out anything?"

"That you should keep samples from everything. I've tried infecting the fungus with it to no avail."

"Have you compared their genome?"

"There is some overlap. But it's not enough to conclude anything."

"Have you devolved the fungus to simulate the conditions?"

"Yes, I'm currently letting nature figure it out."

"Hmm, this means we have time."

"Correct. I assume we've reached the Mariana Trench?"

"You assume correctly. On that note, wanna go for a deep dive?"

"You want to go down there yourself?"

"Yes, using drones is not even close to entertaining, and as this is a honeymoon, we should enjoy ourselves, right?"

"Enduring unbearable amounts of pressure isn't what I would call enjoyable."

"How unimaginative, Anita. We'd be the first surface dwellers to explore the true depths of the deepest point on Earth, during the First World War, nonetheless."

"What's the real reason for all of this interest?"

I sighed.

"You're no fun. Fine, I have a theory that needs a particularly hostile environment. I could also try swimming in a lava pool."

"Care to elaborate on what your theory entails?"

"I've been pondering on what Death told me. Specifically, on the fact the blizzard emitted absurd amounts of energy when I 'died'."

"So you want to know the threshold for this release of energy?"

"That is part of the question, yes. But what I truly want is to observe the reaction of the blizzard should it get 'agitated', since everything points to it being, at least to some extent, alive."

"And what if it lets out the energy again? Maybe Death can't cover that up."

"I've got the instinct it won't."

"So we're going off of instinct? I don't think this is a good idea."

I stayed silent.

"So you agree with me."

I sighed, and she got closer to me.

"Not everything can be under our control, Gray."

"That irks me to no end."

She hugged me.

"I concur, but that's a fact we can't change."

I hugged her back.

"Thanks, Anita. Restlessness will be the death of me."

"No problems."

I broke off our hug.

"Well, then, dear wife, should we make ourselves comfortable and watch the stars?"

"How romantic of you to offer that, dear husband. I shall take you up on that offer."

We left the lab and went to the top deck, where I laid down on the sun lounger, and Anita snuggled on top of me, I put my arms around my waist, and my hands landed on Bea's hand.

"May I?"

"You may."

I tried connecting to one of her eyes, but I couldn't. In fact, It felt like there was nothing there at all.

"Hmm, interesting."

"It didn't work?"

"No. In retrospect, this was always quite a strange ability, but considering the other crazy stuff, I took it for granted."

"You can see in the so-called Dream, right? Maybe it's related to that, somehow."

"Death did say something about my 'magical circuits' being damaged. But he didn't elaborate."

"So your blindness is magical?"

"I guess. But that doesn't explain the vision transferring, if anything, it makes it even more peculiar."

The little fox yawned.

"But now isn't the time to discuss such things, we should relax, after all."

I pulled out my cigarette pack, took a smoke for myself, and put it back into my pocket.

"Won't even offer a lady one?"

She whispered in my ear, pulled out the pack from my pocket, then put it back in, one less cigarette, I assume.

"Smoking is bad for you."

I whispered back.

"You're one to say."

"I've seen the consequences."

"Yet you still smoke."

"The definition of a vice. Light me?"

I felt a fly land at the tip of my smoke, and then it incinerated. I pulled in the smoke.

"How creative, how showy. I like it. Want me to return the favor?"

"Please."

I did the same thing as her.

"Yep, I definitely like it."

We stayed embraced there, she fell asleep, and I ended up smoking the whole pack. Hmm, maybe I should take bartending as a hobby, when I was 13 I dreamed of opening a bar, seeing the mafia reuniting and commemorating when an operation went well is one of the best memories I've got of my teenage years, other than finally getting to shoot that fucking excuse of a yakuza that gave me my Y chromosomes.

Reminiscing about when I was younger, I entered a trance-like state and ended up back in the dream.

Hm, at least I get to see the stars. Death said something about them actually being souls, but does that mean a bunch of people are stuck in this limbo? It was an unfortunate fate, for sure. But who knows, maybe this is better than wherever they would go, hell, maybe they wouldn't even go anywhere, and just kind of evaporate.

"Souls, huh?"

How exactly does that even work? Are those actually people, or something else entirely? They're supposedly the ones responsible for keeping the dream stable even when I'm not inside, does that mean that mask has a soul inside of it? Do the souls act as batteries? An interesting prospect, even though it's a bit morbid.

Since I'm already here, I can try playing around with customizing the place. I sat down.

Let's start with something simple. I tried willing a stick into existence, discovering willing something into existence is actually quite strange. No result. Maybe it's like creating something with the fungus?

I tried passing the structural information of a stick into the ground, and "telling" it to create it for me, to no avail.

Hm.

How did I make that mask? Maybe it's related to emotions?

If that was the case, I would've created something during my first stay here. I'd like to test this theory, but it isn't something I'd define as "easily replicable".

This should be second nature to Dreamwalkers, the way Death talked about it. But this reportedly isn't a normal Dream, so I can't be sure of anything.

When I created the mask, I didn't realize I entered this place. I closed my eyes, and instead of imagining the stick just started existing, I acted as if it always was there, that I was simply picking it up from the ground.

"Huh, it worked."

I analyzed the stick, and it certainly looked like the real deal, though that isn't exactly hard for a stick. So it isn't about willing something into existence, but always believing it was there?

I tried doing just that, without picking the stick up, but when I opened my eyes, there was nothing there.

I closed my eyes once again, imagined a rock was always in front of me, and put my hand on it.

I opened my eyes and it was there.

So I need to touch it?

I cried a stick directly into the air in front of me and touched it. It didn't fall.

I did this again but imagined the stick was in front of me and was affected by gravity. It fell.

I tried pushing the other stick, and it stopped directly where I left it. I dropped the stick I was holding, and it stayed in place.

I imagined a stick that was affected by the Moon's gravity, pushed it slightly, and watched as it slowly moved away.

I made an intangible stick and passed my hand through where it was. Opening my eyes, I could see it. So it isn't touch.

I made another rock and just opened my eyes. So the real trick is believing it's there.

You shouldn't be skeptical when you're in a dream, noted.

I closed my eyes and believed there was nothing there. They disappeared, so it's not necessarily about believing in the thing, but believing that your belief will work?

Don't try and make sense of logic when in a dream, noted.

I believed there was a house thirty meters in front of me, and there it was. I closed my eyes again and believed I was inside the house, opening my eyes, and I was there.

I tried believing I had wings, but it didn't work. It's hard to believe something changed about yourself this way.

I tried believing the fungus was in the dream, but it didn't work. I tried believing there was a live rabbit in front of me, nothing. The dead rabbit worked, however.

So I can't create living beings? That's fair, since if I created a living being, how exactly would the rules work for them? Would they count as an extension of me, or would they be soulless?

Maybe that isn't a rule, and I didn't learn how to believe well enough, as strange of an ability that is.

Anyway, I closed my eyes and believed I was in front of the blizzard, the sudden noise giving me a slight jolt.

I'm pretty sure the blizzard changes every time I see it, but I can't discern what exactly changes. I entered the snowstorm, laid on my back, and appreciated the light show.

As I returned to the darkness, I enjoyed the sound of the waves as I sent swarms of the aquatic research drones we'd designed back at the Kermadec Trench into the depths. It turns out that simple autonomous behavior and research-focused drones don't mix very well, which meant I had to circumvent the problem of them being dumb little fish by taking control of them myself, at least this works as training for parallel processing and controlling multiple bodies.

This is by no means a final solution, however, so when we're back on land, I'll focus on programming more intelligent "artificial intelligences", we do have the one who's responsible for running the corporations, but it is more of a very advanced computer than an actual intelligent being.

Anita could be used as a basis, but part of why she hasn't overpowered me and locked me up in a cage where she can love me forever, or something along those lines, is that the fungus has outgrown both of us.

Technically speaking, the whole fungus is both of our brains combined, but in actuality, the 'us' part is minuscule in comparison to the ginormous size of the fungus, which means even if we wanted to, we can't control all of it at once, leading to a great part of it acting autonomously and simply existing until we will it to do something, in human body terms, we could move two fingers simultaneously, but not the whole hand, much less the rest of the body.

Previously, I just believed this to be how it is since I had no precedent to go off from, but now, I suspect this is in some way or form related to the existence of the soul. Maybe Anita's soul is like a human's, considering she was formed from my memories, more or less, and this makes it not fit into the body of the fungus.

Maybe she doesn't even have a soul?

These types of questions really make me want to call Death just so he can give me an answer, but it's best not to be hasty since the best way to find answers is to have all the questions already in hand.

On another note, high pressure and no light give birth to very alien creatures, though I can't see them, the research drone can surround an organism and make a very accurate scan of its shape, while also probing for any strange substance and biological mechanisms, it then retreats onto the fungus and delivers the full data, since it can't be sent through the wireless connection. We were working on the upload speed of large amounts of information before we set sail, but there's still room for improvement.

The best part of this type of hands-on approach is that you can recognize problems you normally wouldn't in controlled tests, so this little honeymoon has inadvertently made us realize the shortcomings of our systems we'll need to iron out back at home.

Time passed as I thoroughly categorized the species in the Trench, adding to a rapidly expanding database.  This, of course, took a very long time, and I noticed the change in Anita's breathing pattern, meaning she's woken up. I spoke to her in a whisper.

"Good morning."

"Very good, I should use you as a bed more often."

"Don't you always do that when you sleep?"

"Yes, but I don't sleep often enough. I should profit from the fact my husband can't sleep, shouldn't I?"

"And why does the fact I can't sleep matter in that case?"

"Because it means I can be sure you'll protect me."

"Damn, where did you learn to flatter someone like that?"

"Are you fishing for a compliment?"

"Maybe."

As I turned to her, she quickly kissed my lips.

"There."

"You really learned from the best."

"I sure did."

She slowly got off from me, laying Bea onto my stomach. I heard her let out a pleased yawn, probably from stretching. I put the little fox on my shoulders and got up, her tail surrounding my neck instinctively to maintain stability as I walked to the kitchen. As I sat on the counter chair, I propped one of my elbows against the countertop and supported my chin with my hand.

"I think I should pick up cooking as my new hobby."

"Oh, why is that?"

"It's a universally useful skill. The fastest way to a person's heart is through their stomach, or between their fourth and fifth ribs, but that's another matter completely."

"But why the sudden interest in it?"

"I'm thinking about settling down and opening a bar, and what's a bar without good alcohol and good food?"

"A tiny ambition when compared with 'world domination'."

"I've accomplished that already, haven't I? I've reached the end of the line already, now the only thing I can do is enjoy my stay and appreciate the view."

"Hmm~, if you want to open a bar, I can be your little waitress, and then you can call me into your office and punish me for doing a bad job~."

"I've yet to discover where the hell you've got all this horniness from."

"I haven't said anything sexual, though~. Aren't you the horny one for thinking of such a thing?"

"Touché."

We kept up with this small talk while she cooked. She'd made simple bacon and egg, with a cup of freshly ground-up coffee, she always brews it quite well, something she learned directly from my memories since coffee and making drinks were basically the only food-related skills I put some work into refining, turns out addiction can be a great motivator for improving.

Bea had woken up after smelling the food, so we all chatted as we ate breakfast.

"I wanna test if I can shapeshift into a fish!"

"Sure, we can go for a swim today."

"Talking about swimming, I've noticed you've sent the drones down there already."

"I did, but there's still about half to go, it's going to take quite a long time to catalog everything."

"If I help you, it's probably going to take less time. We can do so while Bea plays around in the water."

"Agreed. Well then, we can't swim with those clothes, can we?"

Changing clothes is very easy when they're made of organic tissue you can remodel with a thought, so I'd changed into swimming trunks in a blink. I connected my vision to Bea's to look at Anita, and as always, she looked perfect, as expected of a shapeshifter. Her black bikini contrasted nicely with her white-silver pallet, arousing curiosity in what hid behind the darkness, while also accentuating her more delicate features.

"Do I look pretty?"

"Always."

"You look pretty handsome yourself."

"Of course you'd say that, you sculpted it."

"You were always handsome, though?"

"Even when I looked like an almost dead elder?"

"Your mind was beautiful, the only difference is that now the outside matches the inside once again."

"It seems the disciple has surpassed the master in the art of flattery."

"I'm being honest."

"I know, and that makes me very happy."

She came over and hugged me, filling Bea's vision with silver.

"Can we swim already? I'm pretty sure I figured this transformation thing out."

She asked while using her paw to move Anita's hair aside.

"Sure thing."

I disconnected my vision from the little fox's, and then we went to the deck and dropped into the water. Normally speaking, none of us could swim since our density was too high for us to float, so we had to disperse some of our mass before entering if we wanted to maintain our normal forms and remain mobile.

Bea had been trying to shapeshift for some time now, and I and Anita had been giving her some advice, though I must admit, we couldn't teach her anything else, since this was all on her understanding of her own body.

"I did it, I did it!"

"You did indeed, congratulations, little fox."

"Congratulations."

"Yay!"

The little fox, now a little fish, started swimming rapidly around us.

"How does it feel, Bea?"

"Strange and funny! But I don't care, since I managed to do it!"

"Good, keep training, try changing your shape around slowly."

"Will do!"

As the little fox swam around. Me and Anita started working on the drones, mapping the trench deeper and deeper.

The deeper the drones got, the stranger and stranger things got, even stranger than what we'd found back in my world/time, I remember that by 2032 they'd gotten a glimpse at what was believed to be most of the species that lived on the Mariana Trench, and they weren't even close to the sheer monsters I was finding.

Some of the beings I found on Kermadec could be excused as byproducts of the effects of HPRv, but I've not found anything like that here, at least not yet, I have also found some strange organisms on the surface as well, which made me realize that it isn't simply because beings like the fungus, the AERv, and the HPRv had caused strange effects on the biosphere, but that biology is simply weird in this world.

Sure, most of those organisms still abide by the rules, and they could theoretically be replicated back in my world, but, the fact is, here, they aren't biologically engineered but instead came to be naturally, and they're abundant enough not to be considered statical improbabilities, but part of the rules themselves.

I hadn't really considered this before, since I accepted this world as a kind of extension of my past world, but the fact is, this is another world completely, and as such, the rules aren't necessarily the same, I've been looking at this as a part of this world when I should've been looking at it as an outlier.

The rules I thought to be absolute turned out to be not rules, but the limitations of a specific system, and now I've changed the system, and the limitations changed accordingly. This world isn't that different from mine, but that won't always be the case, which means my knowledge isn't as universally applicable as I thought it to be.

The frog in the well. The chained man looking at the shadows on the cave walls. I've been limiting myself to the comfort of my experience, and I haven't even realized it. It seems I'm a worse information broker than I thought, I've got the chance to get a whole new set of knowledge and I've been basically ignoring it.

How refreshing.