NETALINK - TIMELINE #9836112475

(Timeline Tuesday #195)

Netalinks are strange, symbiotic creatures from a distant timeline who have developed a close relationship with certain humans on our reality, specifically humans in the world of international business and negotiations. The species is small, approximately the size and shape of and old telephone receiver Their bodies are light blue in coloration, and this hue gets darker on the long, slender appendage that sprouts from their body. At the end of this tendril is a small, hard prong. Where the phone’s speakers would usually lie, a netalink projects a cluster of writhing, wriggling tentacles.

Netalinks are not particularly strong of quick creatures, crawling around on their tentacle patches if they need to move from place to place. They feed on electrical current, hunting for an energy source and then sticking their prong into the electrical path. This tends to drain power quickly, and can often trigger circuit breakers, making wild netalinks incredibly annoying creatures to deal with.

However, this species thrives in a way that makes some humans want to keep them around. Netalinks possess a powerful psychic energy, constantly connected to other netalinks across the globe or scattered over various timelines. Humans can harness this energy by putting a netalink against their head, like a phone, and allowing the squirming mass of tentacles to enter their ear and mouth. Once this connection is made, a human can freely communicate with anyone else who is also tapped into a netalink, even if they are in another reality. Netalink communication is much more advanced than standard human interaction, with each mind connected through feelings, sensations, and some kind of ultimate inner truth. Business deals made over netalink are notoriously fair, and are carried out without words in a matter of seconds.

Despite their rarity, working netalinks are constantly fed their diet of electricity and well cared for as a trade for the psychic services they provide.