Chapter 5

Eleonor

YOU’VE CHANGED, MISTRESS. Said suddenly Genèse with curiosity.

She had floated peacefully for some time now, resting in the soothing embrace of the tentacles, more because she needed to release her stress than because she needed actual rest, till a viscous limb took her out of her slumber by wrapping itself around her left leg, creating a bridge between her consciousness and the one from the genesis pool.

Changed ? She asked, her voice still soggy from her sleep.

EYES AND ARMS STRUCTURES HAVE BEEN MODIFIED. STRANGE TRANSFORMATION, INELEGANT… YET EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT.

INTRIGUING…

Inelegant ? In which ways ? She thought while frowning, a little bit lost.

REDUNDANCIES, LACK OF DELICACY IN THE DESIGN OF THE MUSCULAR FIBERS, STRANGE LIMBS STORAGE SYSTEM. USELESS ARCHAIC REFLEXES, USELESS GENETIC MATERIAL POLLUTING THE DNA SEQUENCES. YET STILL EFFECTIVE. ASKING FOR AN IN DEPTH ANALYSIS.

An in depth analysis ? What do you want to do ?

PARTIAL DECONSTRUCTION OF THE MODIFIED PARTS, EYES AND ARMS, IN AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THE FACTOR MAKING IT EFFECTIVE WITH ALL THOSE ERRORS. WITH A LITTLE LUCK, I COULD DRAW INTERESTING CONCLUSIONS FOR FUTUR OPTIMISATION OF YOUR BODY, MISTRESS, PERHAPS EVEN FINDING A WAY TO MAKE THOSE MODIFICATION MORE EFFICIENT.

How much time would it take ?

FROM ONE TO THREE CYCLES.

That's not very helpful… She thought, faced by the unknown measure unit.

How much time was I gone last time ? She then asked, trying to make herself an idea of its value.

0.05 CYCLE +- 0.01

Ok, i was gone for what, an hour ? So this cycle work by batch of twenty hours. She quickly calculated

Wouldn’t I starve if I stay three cycles without eating ?

BIOMASS CONSUMPTION IS REDUCED IN SUSPENDED ANIMATION.

Suspended animation ? I will be in stasis during the analysis ? She asked before adding.

Is that what happens to me when you modified me the first time ?

AFFIRMATIVE.

Why do you put me in suspended animation ? She asked again with curiosity.

TWO ADVANTAGES : BIOMASS CONSUMPTION IS REDUCED AND THE PAIN LINKED TO MENDING YOUR BODY IS REPRESSED. YET STASIS IS SURPRISINGLY INEFFICIENT, FRUSTRATING.

...I don’t really understand, I confess.

MISTRESS : INTERESTING SPECIMEN. GREAT SENTIENCE AND SAPIENCE, CREATING NOVEL OPPORTUNITY FOR ME. NEGATIVE POINT : STASIS NEEDED WHILE MENDING TO AVOID OVERLOAD OF THE COGNITIVE SYSTEM. NOT AN ISSUE PER SE, BUT IT INDUCE THE CREATION OF AN UNKNOWN PARAMETER : IMPACT FROM THE SUBCONSCIOUS. FROM THERE, CREATION OF CASCADING ERRORS.

Errors ? What errors ? She asked, confused.

NON-COMPREHENSIVE LIST :

DURING ARMOR SET UP, SPONTANEOUS CREATION OF USELESS AND WASTEFUL PSEUDO-CAPILLARY EXTENSION, REDUCING EFFICIENCY OF HEAD ARMOR.

DURING FIRST MODIFICATION, ABLATION ATTEMPT OF MAMMARY GLANDS AND REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, OPERATION INTERRUPTED BY YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS. SAME GOES FOR THE ATTEMPT AT REPROPORTIONING YOUR BODY, CHANGING THE GRIPPER LIMBS, THE RESPIRATORY AND THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEMS.

HYPOTHESIS : THE MIND AND SOUL TRY TO KEEP THE BODY CLOSE TO THE MENTAL IMAGE THE SUBJECT HAS OF IT.

You mean that my subconscious try to keep me has I think i am ?

AFFIRMATIVE.

Eleonor took some time to reflect on the things Genèse told her.

My mind automatically put boundaries on how much my body can be changed… It’s reassuring, in a way, but this could become an issue in the long run… She thought, a part of her not quite at ease with the successive mutations of her body, another one extremely excited by those changes, in particular the Black Hook who, fear outstripped, where very refreshing and exciting to use, or the way her body healed her shoulder wound. And a third part couldn’t help but imagine what would have unfolded if she hadn't had her armor, hooks or the effect of the red water, three factors without which she would be respectively dead by a severed shoulder, dead of hunger in the cave and finally dead by external haemorrhage.

Genèse, are the change you make to my body reversible ? She asked while getting out of her thoughts.

THE IMMENSE MAJORITY OF CHANGES ARE TOTALLY REVERSIBLES.

Which aren’t ?

CEREBRAL MODIFICATION ARE TOO DANGEROUS TO REVERSE.

That’s all ?

YES.

So if I don't fancy a change, i can reverse it whenever I want ?

AFFIRMATIVE, AND THE BIOMASS THAT WAS NEEDED FOR THE MODIFICATION WOULD BE RECOVERED IN ITS NEAR ENTIRETY IN CASE OF REGRESSION OF THIS ONE.

Good to know, and leading to my next question. How can I diminish the impact of my subconscious on body modification ?

TWO SOLUTIONS : NOT TO PUT YOU IN STASIS AND MADE YOU PART OF THE MENDING PROCESSUS, OR ALTERING YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS REFLECTIONS TO MAKE THEM LESS PARASITIZING.

In a sense, it’s quite logical. She thought while pondering the two offered solutions.

And the first one is impossible to implement for the time being I suppose.

AFFIRMATIVE, YOUR NEURAL NETWORK WOULDN’T RESIST THE LOAD.

And for the second option ? Any ideas how to do it ?

NO MISTRESS, I’M SORRY. YOU’RE THE FIRST LIVING BEINGS THAT IS PROBLEMATIC TO MODIFY FOR ME, ALL THE OTHERS WERE DEVOID OF SOUL AND HAD LITTLE TO NO MIND, ONLY A RUDIMENTARY ONE.

But you’re sapient no ? You shouldn’t have been the only one in this case. How did you proceed to mend your species ?

ALL SAPIENT SPECIES FROM THE SWARM WERE EITHER BORN WITH AN UNMODIFIABLE SHAPE, CAPABLE OF RESISTING THE LOAD MENDING PUT ON THEIR MIND OR ABLE TO MODIFY THEMSELF DIRECTLY. I’M FROM THE THIRD CATEGORY, MISTRESS. TAKING THIS INTO ACCOUNT AND ADDING THE FACT THAT I’M UNABLE TO ACCESS MY GENETIC DATA BANK PREVENT ME TO BE OF ANY HELP ON THIS MATTER FOR THE TIME BEING.

Well, i can relate. You’re as lost as i’m, aren’t you. She thought with compassion.

I really need to start hunting, or at least I need to find a spot from which I can harvest something to eat. Was her conclusion.

I will try to bring something back, whereafter you while perform your analysis. She told to Genèse.

UNDERSTOOD MISTRESS. He responded while relinquishing her leg.

She rooted herself out of her bed of tentacles, tar flowing along her nearly naked body, on her legs and her chest, some of it entangled amongst her pseudo-hair, creating large black membranes between each bonny tentacles that acted has her hair. She got up and started walking with a determined gaze. She exited the room, room that stayed peaceful for and handful of minutes before being troubled again by the owner of the place, a dumb face plastered on her.

Genèse was a little surprised when her mistress immersed her arm into it, thinking she was out hunting.

YES MISTRESS ?

Can you quickly cover my feet with a layer of chitin ? She then asked with all the serious she could muster, looking at her battered feet while thinking of the exterior ground.

… YES, THIS SHOULDN’T TAKE TOO MUCH TIME. Responded a confused Genèse.

Syphony

Fuck-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck. She thought in a very sophisticated way while running between falling buildings, a young naked girl attached with straps at the top of her backpack, unconscious. Long metallic structure were emerging from the ground, ravaging undeads and city alike, while masses of zombies were converging from all sides towards Syphony’s location. They were so numerous that the young woman could see something traditionally very rare : the birth of Gluttons when the famished corpses amalgamated themself by simple force of hunger, then creating Ruiners when Gluttons smashed themself together. Flocks of Nightmares where making the sky red of there wings, swirling around the two humans like sharks, yet keeping a distance from all the chaos of flesh and steel that was the ground.

***

She was standing there like a moron, too shocked by the situation.

What have I done ? She asked herself, panicking.

“Inferi !”

“She isn’t really alive, I promise ! My sensors are formals !” Responded the ancillary in its defense.

“Heck she isn’t !” She said to it before lowering herself, knee down.

“Look at me, girl. Where do you hurt ?” She asked at the not-so-dead girl.

“My belly is burning !” She screamed before starting to scratch herself to blood. She then suddenly curled up while holding her head.

“Haaa, my head !” She wailed before convulsing.

“Inferi ! A sedative and an anticonvulsant !” She said while putting her hand against her right hip, from where she quickly took out an injector from her armor that she promptly unloaded against the skin of her patient. The compound was immediately injected, appeasing the seizure of the young one and making her fall into a deep slumber.

“Inferi, analyse her and tell me what happened, and move your ass !”

“Straight away ma’am.”

Syphony made her hands go over the inanimate body of the girl, letting her ancillary scan her. After multiple exhausting minutes.

“The subject see her vitals so low that the system didn’t recognize her as alive. Her heartbeat, blood pressure and breathing pace are totally of the chart. Moreover, blood analysis show a complete infection by RV-a1. She should be totally feral. No, worst, she should be a Wraith, but she seems to have retained all her sapient function, even memory and language mastery. This, Syphony, is a perfectly functional survivor of the Revelation project, the first to maintain its human abilities. Your priority level just rose to Alpha-P.”

A survivor of the Initiative… She had a difficult time realizing the situation she was in. If this was real and she was able to extract this survivor, humanity could have a chance to survive on earth.

“This evacuation need to succeed.”

“Indeed ma’am. I recommend waiting for the morning, after what we would call in orbital support.”

“Yup, it’s the best to do, but I will first do some scouting. Better safe than sorry.” She replied before detaching a little sphere from her suit. She was ready to launch the drone and opened the door.

“Wow !”

A mass of undeads rushed through it, ready to engulf the room, startling the woman that took her sword out by reflex, killing the zombies with a one flexible strike.

“Something is wrong.” She said out loud while looking at the time. 3:39 AM.

“Sensors at 10%.”

“...Done.” Responded Inferi.

Her HUD suddenly sprang back to life, showing the building she was in and 100 meters around it, the display blurry because of all the debris. Her visor was bathed red with dots representing enemies converging on her position with varying speed.

“We’re leaving NOW !” She said to Inferi while going back in the room, where she took the young girl in her arms and fastened her to her backpack with straps coming from it, wrapping themself around the little one before anchoring into her armor.

“No time for subtlety, reactor at max output !”

“...Ok.” Replied Inferi, wanting to object to this choice but failing to find something to say.

Syphony got up and ran in the elevator shaft, dodging zombies, and started jumping from wall to wall with her boosters.

My thermal signature should be disgusting right now. She thought while flying at full speed through the door of the elevator. The parking was already choke full of undeads, and the HUD of the young warrior was giving its all, Inferi working relentlessly to calculate a viable escape trajectory. Following her ancillary’s indications, she took her rifle and shot a middle-power blast, tearing a path in the mass of zombies to reach the garage door, which she cut with a splash of light. Behind, her HUD had promised her a sea of undeads, and she wasn’t disappointed by what she encountered. A horde of zombies where walking between buildings toward her.

Ok, this won’t do at all.

“Inferi, I will use the walls and roofs to stay safe, be ready to broadcast an emergency call through the radio and say our priority level.”

“I will need to switch the radio on for this, and you don’t have the accreditation level to deactivate the security protocols.

“Use directive Alpha-P to override.”

“...Ok, done. When do you want me to start broadcasting ?”

“At an height of 35 meters.”

“Understood.”

“And while we’re at it, unlock the overspeed limiter of the reactor and unbridle the boosters."

“Heck yes, since we’re already suicidal why not going the whole way !” Grumbled Inferi.

Syphony accelerated suddenly, using her boosters to make a jump that made her smash herself on the surface of a nearby building, starting to run on it before switching facade when her stability was to low, quickly taking altitude.

“Inf-0158a5 broadcasting from EU-26. The user is in the middle of an Alpha-P priority extraction from the Revelation program, requiring immediate assistance for evacuation !” Started saying Inferi when the broadcast height was reached.

“Ka-05 from the orbital station Everest asking confirmation on the acquisition of a priority target.”

“Confirmed ! Sapient subject from the Revelation program being extracted right now !”

“... Alpha-P priority confirmed. Launch of an extraction shuttle and two escort Valkyrie. Please transmit your current status.”

“Multiple Ruiners incoming with hundreds of Nightmares in interception trajectory !"

The armor was starting to become quite hot, the suit never intended to work at such capacity. The boosters were coughing all they had to keep up with the infernal pace the young woman put them through and the reactor had irremediably exceeded its output, which it was showing by blithely surpassing its maximal security temperature. On her back, the unknown youngster was sweating heavily.

“...The use of the Solaris battery has been authorized, target acquisition in progress.”

“Sending priority target right now !” Responded Inferi while designating the enemy to kill first.

“Syphony, i’m going to incorporate Solaris support in the trajectory calculations !”

“Copy !” She replied shortly, breathless.

She charged right in a Ruiner, following one the potential trajectories displayed on her HUD and, just before colliding with it, a flash of light coming from the sky cut the monstrous aggregate in two, carving a path for her. All around her, pillars of light where raining, intercepting the maximum number of thread they could to clear a path for her. An alarm then started screaming in her helmet.

“Behemoth in fast interception trajectory !” Shouted Inferi, too late.

Neither Syphony nor the Everest station could react quickly enough before the said Behemoth came crashing down on the two girls. The sound of steel twisting, of ground ripping, and a gigantic spike shot out from the ground, impaling the twenty-floor monstrosity. When it was obvious that this wouldn’t be sufficient to stop it, a second one emerged from the bowel of the earth, stopping dead the Behemoth’s momentum, allowing Syphony to avoid it in extremis by grazing the ground.

“Warning, structural integrity compromised !” Said an automatised alarm.

“We won't be able to keep this up much longer !” Added a panicking Inferi.

“For god’s sake where is my evac !” Roared the young soldier.

“220 seconds before extraction shuttle showing up !”

She started somehow running again, dodging the wreckage falling all around.

***

“120 seconds before evac !”

In not even two minutes, the city became an Apocalyptic vision, with steel spikes slicing Behemoths everywhere, blinding flashes of light charring black everything to close to Syphony, majestically piercing the sky. And in the middle of all this, a tiny little human being was running for her life and mostly for the girl on her backpack, a human running despite the third degree burn spreading across her back, despite the pain of her legs that had taken to much impact. She was allowed to die, it was of little significance, but she absolutely needed to save the stranger trembling on her back. And so she was running to the evac zone. A thousand Nightmares chose this instant to dive straight on her, claws first, sapping what little hope she still had.

The sky teared and the next second, a meka like a building had inserted itself between the two girls and the mass of winged undeads. Her two feet were firmly anchored in the ground, around the girls, and a shield-dome was covering the three of them, Nightmares ramming relentlessly into it.

“Cavalry’s here !” Announced the Valkyrie triumphantly, her entrance falling as flat as Syphony who, wounded and exhausted, collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

“Syphony need emergency medical attention RIGHT NOW !” Furiously yelled Inferi in the radio.

A second Valkyrie was hovering in the sky, firing an onslaught of guided light beams, ravaging the flock of Nightmare and making an hole in it for the shuttle to land, directly deploying a medical team. They unfastened the stranger from Syphony and immediately started taking her in, cutting her armor open the release her from its scorching heat. The full operation only took 15 seconds and the shuttle took off, two patient on board whose one was a death's door.

“Ok girls, let’s get the hell out of there !” Said the first Valkyrie while following the shuttle, still supported by her wingman's and Everest's cover shots.

An handful of seconds and they were gone, letting the city pray to chaos. The steel spikes quickly drew back after the disappearance of their purpose, and the undeads gradually calmed down. The fire raging in the city slowly started to be extinguished when a greenish rain started falling on the ravaged area, sullying it even more…

???

The heights of the valley would have been beautiful under the snow, if this snow had not been black, a dirty and putrid black that marched badly with the freezing properties of the powdery material. At the bottom of it, as in any valley, flowed a slow river, which lazed in its viscous and fetid smacks, the water like filthy tar that stained the rocks against which it slipped. Fields with dark vegetation stretched out as far as the eye could see, the wheat normally gold-colored now of an unhealthy black, forming hypnotic waves when the wind ran through the high ears, whose grains were swollen to burst by a substance which had clearly taken the place of the almond, the whole thing more akin to a moldy egg ready to explode than a cereal from which flour was to be made. The air itself seemed heavier than it should have been. From the villages and the city that were lower in the valley, they remained only ruins, as if abandoned for decades without however the vegetation regained its rights. On the decrepit roads or in the ruined streets, skeletons of humans and animals could be seen, wandering on what was still their land, however being much less alive than before their death.

The rocky peaks became higher and higher as you sank in the valley, the river now a mountain stream.

And on one of the peaks, solitary, stood a castle. Black, of a heavy and imposing Gothic style, it dominated the place, especially the central tower, culminating at almost two hundred more meters than the highest of the defensive towers that were distributed along the ramparts. Nothing was of stone, as one might have thought, but in fact built with a matt black metal, at least on the outside. The high main tower ended in a large inverted cone which then turned into a half-sphere, without any windows being visible but, to the great surprise of an informed observer, wind turbines seemed to cover its surface. An incredible cloud of black and oily smoke was perpetually coming out of the half-sphere’s highest point, repelling the clouds of the same unhealthy black as the river, which constantly poured their contaminated rain around the castle, without ever touching it thanks to the smoke that protected it. A narrow road could be partially seen under the dark flood, more a stream than anything else as the rain was so dense. The sound of the water running down the sections of stones was deafening, as if it were trying to assert itself as the only thing existing.

Through the castle, one could hear things crawling, running on the walls or ceiling, silent but terrible, terrible because thirsty. A black powder, tallow, covered each unprotected parcel, and even entered the castle by one or the other door, staining the sumptuous furniture, the red velvet carpets and the tapestries representing some epic and forgotten battles, blackening and slowly oxidizing the golden metal whose chandeliers suspended from the ceiling were made, these pouring their soft red light, giving a slightly creepy but warm atmosphere to the place. Deeper into the building, the furniture was still in perfect condition, except for the thin layer of dust that indicated the absence of passage, presence, life.

And deep, very deep in the castle, in its heart, at the base of the main tower, the infernal furnace was burning with its demonic fire, without having anything seemingly feeding it except the bellows aligned to inject it constantly with air, the metal that held it like a cage heated red by its power and its passion. One could even say that, from time to time, the fire seemed to want to escape from the inferno to which it was chained. Through a hole, this one was unceasingly spitting the thick black fog that held the corrupted clouds at bay.

The glow of the flames danced a hypnotic dance on the white skin of the young woman, lying not far from the terrible furnace, quickly awakened by the suffocating heat that seemed to take her and strangle her, like a fat, depraved man who sat on her chest, crushing her and preventing her from breathing. She opened her eyes and inspired greatly, like a drowned man returning to the surface. She tried to get up and was caught in a powerful dizziness coupled with a headache that caused her to fall back on her hands, vomiting before her, only bile, her belly painfully empty. She had to wait several minutes before the pain and confusion calmed down a bit, allowing her to finally stand up. She looked around, but the large circular room was filled with only the furnace and its bellows.

“Hey, kid !” A voice suddenly resounded, crashing and resonating against the metal walls like a rude, ill-mannered explosion.

She turned her head to the right and to the left, seeking the source of the voice without success.

“Here, kid ! The fire !” he said again, making the woman’s eyes focus on the jail-furnace.

And she saw it. A deformed and monstrous humanoid form, a parody of a human being, a satyr even, standing there, his six pseudo-hands clinging to the bars of his prison.

“Yes, that’s right, you ! I have a deal to offer you !” he says with greed, looking at her the same way a hungry man looked a free buffet.

She recoiled slightly, a disgusted grimace appearing on her face.

“No, no, wait ! Please !” he said with despair, effectively stopping her.

“I promise you everything you could want if you take me out of here! Take me with you and you will have everything ! Gold, power, women, whatever it is, I can give you !” He pleaded to her, which had the opposite effect than expected, making her back even more, the young woman looking around to find a way out

"No, stay here! You are also a prisoner, no ? If we help each other, we can get out of here ! I will give you everything I have to be released !" He cried while his six arms clawed at her, the young woman fleeing from the fury he was unleashing.

She went through the door that she had spotted earlier, running away from the monster as far as possible, not paying attention to the direction she was taking, through which she was going, which doors she was moving through, and did not stop until the fear he had instilled in her was crushed by her exhaustion.

She was in a large banquet hall, tables after tables perfectly aligned, glasses of crystals, cutlery and silver dishes, porcelain plates, jugs filled with a dark, brownish and moldy liquid. The place was perfectly lit by gigantic chandeliers whose lights were floating in the void, like planets orbiting blazing suns.

Where the hell am I ? She asked herself, finally, her calm and rational mind slowly regaining the upper hand over the pure terror and the quintessential confusion that had guided her until now.

Bad luck for her, it was also the moment dark things chose to slowly rise up, emerge from under the tables.

Children, five or six, their eyes with red pupils looking at her with greed, sniffing the air on all fours like wild animals. They began to revolve around her, a terrifying vision. They were famished, seemed hungry, and looked at her as one would looks at a prey, forming a discordant vision, the fear and sadness mingling in the young woman’s mind as she felt threatened and saddened at the same time by this view.

A sharp movement, and she felt a powerful bite in her right arm. A ten-year-old girl had planted her teeth there and was now greedily drinking her blood. Despite her reluctance, she tried to defend herself, giving the girl a headbutt to try to get her out, without success. She quickly felt two more bites, in the leg and in the other arm, and she began to struggle more and more softly, the blood loss already consequent. Her vision began to be covered with a black veil when she saw the young boy’s head clinging to her leg fly up in the air in a fountain of blood, quickly followed by those of the other two children attacking him.

“She is MINE !” Roared the young voice of a girl, before the young woman felt herself falling, caught up by thin but powerful arms.