Book 3, Chapter 1

“I’m nervous,” I admitted, putting my Accord in park.

“Why?” Asked Alice. “It’s Ida.”

I grunted and climbed out of the tiny sedan. I opened the trunk and dropped the Webley in the hidden compartment. Alice joined me after grabbing her sign from the backseat, leaving her chain in the trunk as well. I’ve never gone to pick someone up from the airport before and wasn’t sure if we’d have to go through security. Alice wasn’t sure either, so we’re leaving behind our armaments.

“I mean, it’s one thing to flirt over FaceTime or Discord chats,” I began as I closed the trunk. “It’s different meeting her in person. We haven’t been in the same room in over a year.”

“It’ll be fine,” Alice said, slapping my shoulder. “She was already flirting with you after barely knowing you for a few days.”

I grunted again and began walking to the arrivals terminal. I pulled out my new phone and checked her flight information. “She landed a few minutes ago,” I told her. “So, five to ten minutes for the plane to pull into the airport, another five to ten for her to disembark, another five to make to baggage claim and then however long it takes for her bags to make it there.”

“Sounds right,” Alice said.

I stopped and asked an airport employee where we could wait and got directions, which led us to a room on the other side of security. Through the opening of the automatic doors, we could see Baggage Claim and I felt some of the anxiety I was feeling bleed away.

Only to be replaced a few moments later as the wait started to get to me.

“Will you fucking relax?” Alice asked, not unkindly.

I realized I’d been fidgeting like mad. I took a deep breath and did my best to calm down. Alice was looking at me with mild concern. “Dude, you weren’t this nervous when you had to fight those pirates.”

“Yes I was,” I corrected. “I’m just more used to violence.” My voice had gone flat with the second statement.

Alice winced. “I noticed you weren’t surprised when your dad took a swing at you.”

“Only that it took him that long,” I muttered.

“...Wanna talk about it?” Alice asked softly.

I glanced around. There were a couple of people waiting with us, but no one was paying too much attention. “Nothing much to tell, really,” I said.

“When you said you came from an abusive home, I don’t think I… really understood what you meant,” Alice said in the same soft tone.

I sighed. “If he doesn’t get his way, he becomes violent. If something isn’t the way he expects, he corrects it violently. He expected me to be a manly man who manly mans and instead got a nerd who loves to read and find secrets.

“Luckily Conner was more predisposed to ‘correct’ pursuits and received a lot less of his attention,” I unclenched my fists. I had felt my nails beginning to dig into my skin. “But the first time Conner ‘disappointed’ the old man I made sure I was his main focus from that point onward. If he was too tired from beating me, he wouldn’t focus on him and Mom.”

“Jesus,” Alice muttered.

I shook my head like a dog shaking water off. “But that doesn’t matter anymore,” I said with more emotion. “After I find Conner, I’ll find him a better place to live that’s out of the old man’s reach and explain to the old fucker, in no uncertain terms that if he so much as thinks a negative thought at us I’ll give him a heart attack so mom can collect the insurance.”

I saw in my peripheral vision Alice giving me a wide-eyed stare. “I have a feeling that wasn’t metaphorical.”

“Different application of a spell I found to render fat,” I admitted. “Change the target, effect the organ instead of adipose, lower the ‘wattage.’ Instead of melting fat, strains the heart. Keep it up for a half hour and bam, dead dad.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

“I don’t think you should do that,” Alice began slowly. “You… already worry about yourself. However justified, I think ki—“she paused and looked around. “I think taking that step would probably do more harm to you than help your family. Maybe just get a restraining order?”

I turned and looked at her incredulously. Before I knew what was going on, I felt laughter bubble up and force its way out of me. Deep, chest-compressing laughter overcame me, forcing me to double over and place both hands on my knees to keep from falling to the floor. The laughter had a helpless quality to it that I’m sure was gathering a lot of attention. Alice shifted her sign to one hand and placed a hand on my back, rubbing it back and forth.

I hadn’t seen what the sign said until that moment when it briefly faced me as she moved it. It read “Looking to pick up 1 cute French Girl” with “French Girl” being the biggest part of the sign. Seeing it triggered another wave of helpless laughter that made me fall on my ass.

It took some time to calm down, and by that point, I was red-faced and panting with little hiccuping moans as I clutched my sides. I was sitting, hunched over and breathing hard with little tremors of laughter bubbling up.

“You are,” I paused to giggle. “One hundred percent right. Also, that sign is great. You do realize that most of the ladies on that flight will be French?”

“Yes,” Alice said with a mixture of concern and amusement. “But only one will see the sign, turn bright red, and walk over to us.”

I took several deep breaths in a row to try and kill the lingering glee. “I—“ another deep breath as I felt a laugh bubble up. “I don’t think she’ll be that embarrassed,” I said, finally leaning back enough to catch her eye. “She’s a badass undercover cop with a six-pack you can grate cheese on. Have you seen her Instagram?”

“Oh my God, her Instagram,” Alice said with a grin. “I thought my workout posts were full of thirsty idiots but hers are on another level. But to your previous statement, I disagree. Whenever you compliment her she gets all flustered and changes the subject. I’m betting you standing by the sign will light her up like Rudolph’s nose.”

I pulled out my phone and checked Ida’s flight info again, but found nothing had updated. “I think she’s still on the tarmac.”

“Wouldn’t be an airport if you didn’t have to wait,” Alice said. She looked around, shrugged, and plopped down next to me.

We sat in companionable silence, our knees touching, for a good five minutes. I sighed and hung my head. “Sorry for going all… nega-Colm for a second there. With Conner missing and what Perry told us, I’m—I’m—“

“Don’t worry about it,” Alice interrupted, patting my knee. “We all have our dark moments. I will say, however, that this is a prime example of why you need to visit more often or move down here. I can’t pull you out of your ass if I’m not around to do so.”

I huffed a laugh and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Please feel free to de—de-assify? De-ass? To Unass my head? There’s a joke in there somewhere but I can’t find it. Anyway, feel free to do that.”

“Like you could stop me,” Alice said.

Alice spent the next thirty minutes distracting me, talking about her brothers, pulling up memes on her phone, and pretty much keeping my mind occupied.

“It’s none-pizza with left beef,” Alice said, showing me her phone.

“Yeah? And?” I asked with a frown.

“Read the meme!” She insisted.

I read it, my frown staying in place. “Funny?”

“There’s something wrong with your humor,” Alice said. “This is a classic meme that is universally liked.”

“Maybe I haven’t accumulated enough brain rot,” I countered. As I did, I noticed through the automatic doors that the baggage claim things were moving. What are they called? Was it just called conveyors?

“What? You’re on the internet just as much as I am,” Alice said, noticing where I was looking and sighing in relief. “Finally.”

We both stood, Alice put away her phone and held her sign in both hands. “Yeah, but I listen to podcasts and look for estate sales. You’re apparently on Reddit all the time,” I countered, straitening my shirt and pants.

“Birdsforscale soothes me,” Alice said.

“Eh?”

“It’s a subreddit for art of giant landscapes or cities with some birds on it to give it perspective,” Alice explained. “It’s really pretty.”

We talked a bit more about her favorite subreddits before she cut off and held her sign as high as she could. I looked toward the baggage claim and instantly spotted Ida, dragging a big suitcase and carrying a jacket under her other arm. Her eyes landed on Alice, read the sign, and instantly blushed.

“Pay up,” Alice said.

“I never agreed to a bet,” I said, smiling wide at Ida’s reaction.

Ida drew near and stood with a hip cocked, a small smile on her face that looked quite lovely with her rosy cheeks. “Has the position been filled? I fear I am not cute enough.”

Alice snorted loudly and nearly tackled Ida in a hug. “Bullshit,” she said as she lifted the smaller woman off the ground, who made an indignant squawk as she was spun around. “You’re the cutest!”

Ida started saying something in French. Something about “stupid Amazon woman” and a bunch of grumbling I didn’t catch. I’d been boning up on my French with whatever free time I had but it would still be a long time before I’d be fluent enough to hold a conversation.

Alice planted Ida back on her feet, grabbed her bag, and started walking away before either Ida or I could react. “I’ll put this in the car!”

Suddenly I was paralyzed. Without Alice to act as a buffer, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to act with Ida. Ida seemed similarly flat-footed, watching me as passengers passed us on the way out of the airport.

“It’s good—“

“I’ve missed—“

We both started at the same time. I returned her grin, waving for her to go first.

“I—I know this probably isn’t the best time, with what’s going on,” Ida said. “But I’ve been thinking about this meetup and… and how it’d go and I—Should I wait?”

As she asked the last she took a step closer until she was almost looking directly up at me.

Okay, I know I’m thick at times, but even I can read the situation.

I put a hand on her hip, and when her grin got wider, went ahead and put the other one on the back of her head. “I’ve been thinking about that kiss on the island every night.”

Ida’s hands were on my chest, idly running her nails over me in slow, repeated curls. “I wish I’d done more—mph!”

I cut her off with a kiss.

This is the third time you’ve gone over this memory. It’s as done as it’s going to be! WE NEED TO GO!

***

I opened my eyes to my cell, irritated with the Other Me for interrupting my dream.

While he was technically correct, that particular memory felt important and I wanted to make sure it was as it should be before I made my escape. That memory… It was part of the first “bunch” that were taken from me, and that particular one has a strong significance.

Losing it had affected me more than I had known at the time. At that moment, when I kissed Ida, I had an emotional breakthrough. Ida had known everything going on with me, knew my struggles with powers and my fears of losing my humanity, and kissed me anyway.

I had a lesser version of that breakthrough later in the week at the motel, but it was severely undercut by the loss and confusion of having my memories altered.

Stop with this introspection shit. If we don’t leave this place in the next hour I swear to God I will find a way to destroy the continent, even as diminished as I am.

I rolled my eyes at Other Me and stretched my back for the first time in years. My spine popped like a series of firecrackers going off and I let out a low groan of “hurts so good,” as my brother would say. At the same time, I focused on the tendril I had been growing for the last six months. It was one of my tentacles, growing out of the flat of my left butt cheek. The trick to growing it had taken a long time to figure out, as I had to be able to detach it for periods of time and reconnect it to resume its growth.

Six months of slow, monotonous growth while I pretended to stare off into space, or listen to Jeremy talk about League of Legends. Six months of avoiding the many protections placed around me. Six months of burrowing through reinforced concrete and a substance I was 95% sure didn’t exist elsewhere on the planet. Six months of crawling through what I estimated to be three miles of material.

Just to poke through the floor and touch Jeremy’s ankle.

I dumped the memories I had prepared in that one instant, as I stretched further, throwing my arms and legs out and craning my head back. As I did, I grabbed my powers and forced my body into a more humanoid shape. I was still taller than normal, and my skin refused to change color without taking significant concentration, but at least I didn’t look like a low-rent Violator from Spawn.

I leaned back, extending a claw to cut a strip of cloth from my bedding to make an impromptu belt for my now very baggy pants. I then cut the hems off so they wouldn’t trip me in the coming moments; even if my plan went off without a hitch (which I did not expect), I was about to do a lot of running.

The lights dimmed as Jeremy began to operate off his new memories. This was the trickiest part. I had just dumped several years of an incredibly boring job into his head, establishing a routine he followed and never deviated from. From his perspective, I had been executed several years ago, and he had been assigned to this position permanently to keep an eye on the ambient energy that resulted from my death.

If he was following the routine I had set for him, he was playing a phone game with on hand while he absently sent commands into his console to step down security and extend the bridge so he could take his daily readings of my cell.

There were several potential hurdles to this stage of the plan; the first being that I misjudged how strong Jeremy’s mind and mental protections were. Even if my new memory powers grew from the blueprint of an incredibly powerful memory being, I was still a novice when it came to manipulating them in other people. The only other practice I’ve had was with Alice, and there had been a butt-puckering moment when her defenses almost destroyed my working. I’d had to scramble to avoid them and slip through without destroying them, as the prison detection web set up around me would have noticed and vaporized my ass.

The second hurdle would be if Jeremy just glanced at his monitor and noticed there was someone in the cell for the first time in five years (from his perspective). I was sitting in a spot that was partially obscured by the shower, and I was much smaller than I was moments ago, but the cell was designed so that there was no privacy from any angle. When I had remade enough of my mind to realize how horrible that was, I had a moment of outrage before I realized it didn’t really matter if they saw me naked. It was a gross violation of personal privacy, but they didn’t see me as human—which was to my benefit, as it helped me maintain my deception.

...And, if I'm being honest, I’m not sure I disagree with them anymore.

The third hurdle was that this might be one of the days when Jeremy’s superiors stopped by. Unlike the memories I had manufactured, Jeremy was closely monitored, along with the guards who covered the other shifts. They had regular mental screenings and psychic evaluations to make sure their minds had not been tampered with. Sometimes they were scheduled, but often they were random.

I had picked Jeremy simply because he was the most friendly, which was unfortunate for him. The other guards never spoke to me, so it was much harder for me to create memories that would be believable.

Poor Jeremy, however, talked about almost every aspect of his life. I knew more about Jeremy than I do about Alice and Ida, at this point. Which is kind of sad. I knew more about my jailer than about my closest friends.

But it was something I was going to correct as soon as I was free.

My anxious thoughts ground to a halt as the bridge began to extend. I let out a breath of relief but otherwise held still. I was sitting so I was partially obscured by the shower, but it was just a few pipes and a stand that served as a towel rack.

The bridge connected with my platform with a smooth-sounding thud. A moment later, I heard footsteps. I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. When Jeremy was halfway across the bridge, I stood, snapping the off tendril, and rushed across.

I almost flew off the platform. I had just remade my body to be as close as I could make it to how it was during my fight with the Waker, and apparently, that meant I was fast. I sprouted several tentacles and grabbed the sides of the bridge to keep myself from flying off the side. Before they could grab anything, however, I bounced off the invisible walls of the bridge.

Oh! They had magic guard rails. That’s neat.

Now that I wasn’t pretending to be dumb, I let my magical senses unfold from my mind. If this facility was a boat, my magical senses were water rushing out from a large hole, gradually—though not slowly—filling up the vessel. Alarms began to sing across the entire facility.

Jeremy finally noticed a black and tan blur approach and let out half of a startled scream before I scooped him up in my tentacles. A few strides later we were approaching the first security door, which was slamming toward the ground with powered servos aided by gravity. I slid forward on one knee and got my hand under it. There was a loud crash that shook the walls, the sound of tearing metal that I assumed was stripping gears, and a slight grunt from me as I stopped it from hitting the ground.

I was tempted to try and lift it with just one hand, but my only audience was Jeremy at the moment, and I doubted he was in any state of mind to appreciate the show of strength. I set my feet in a better position, got my other hand under the door, and lifted. The door resisted for a moment before there was a great crash coming from behind the walls. All the resistance behind the door disappeared and I merely had to deal with its thousand-plus pounds of weight. I hefted it up and moved myself and Jeremy to the other side before letting it drop with a clang.

I walked over to Jeremy’s booth and into it, Jeremy had left the door open by long pseudo-habit. I pulled him over and dropped him into his chair.

“Hey, Jeremy,” I said as I squatted and extended a finger to the thread-thick tendril poking out of the floor. I began to reabsorb it into my body. I don’t think I needed to, strictly, but I didn’t want to leave anything of myself behind in case they could track me with it. “You’re probably, understandably confused right now.”

“Y-y-you died!” Jeremy breathed.

I shook my head. “Nah, I tricked ya,” I said, rolling my shoulders. “I just made you think I was dead. The memories will begin to degrade after a few days and they’ll just be like a weird dream and, I’m like, ninety percent sure they won’t do any lasting harm. The other ten percent might be some weird habits left over from the memories I shoved in your noggin.”

The alarms were getting louder. I could feel dozens upon dozens of security spells and defenses activating, as well as many… beings? That’s a new sense. Huh. I felt people now. And boy were they all moving around in a tizzy.

Man, absorbing a few miles of tendril took a while. “Anyway, no hard feelings, yeah? You’ll get out of Emerald one day. But, also, find another hobby. Spending that much time in League can’t be healthy for you. I’m not saying give it up! But like, split your time. Maybe knitting. Or cave diving. Or talking to real, human people, and not weirdo monsters like me. Get a dog, maybe.”

Jeremy seemed to have forgotten his fear and was now in shocked astonishment. That’s fine, as my finger was slurping up the last of the tendril-like the final piece of spaghetti.

Finally! Free of that boring fucking room!

I agreed with Other Me. Perhaps the hardest part of pretending to be a dumb monster was the boredom. Also, strangely, not being able to complain. I like to think under normal circumstances I don’t do much complaining, but holy shit, when you can’t complain yet have adequate reason to? That’s its own special torture.

I strapped Jeremy to his chair with parts of myself I dubbed “lashes” on the spot. They were created mostly from inert magical matter and parts of myself that I severed fundamentally from my being so they couldn’t be used to track me. I didn’t think to use the same process on the tendril before I started making it, otherwise, I might have tried to use the new process instead. I don’t think it would have worked without further research, however, as lashes became inert a few seconds after creation and I needed to be able to work through the tendril. Oh well.

But hey! Now I’m a low-rent Spider-man! I pressed my middle and ring finger into my palm and shot lashes from my wrist, finished tying Jeremy to the chair with a spray of black stuff that wasn’t exactly webbing and was definitely not tendrils. The sight of my hand gave me pause, however. The black skin, the claws.

I’m probably closer to Venom.

I don’t know how I feel about that, so I’m not going to think about it.

Jeremy was screaming as his legs, arms, and torso were effectively glued with a fast-acting, if flexible resin to the chair. I paused as I stood from my squat. I hope the lashes are safe to use on skin. I peeled some off of his hand, which didn’t seem to be irritated other than losing a few hairs. Whelp, nothing for it.

“Someone will be by soon to cut you free, I’m sure,” I said with a wave and turned to leave the booth, toward the other security door. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope for both our sakes that we never meet again!” I called over my shoulder.

The second security door had closed at the exact same time as the first one, which made it harder to deal with. The bottom of the door was in a recessed lip in the ground that was almost flush with the door itself, and I’d bet a million dollars that once it was down there were further mechanisms holding it in place than there were when it was in motion.

I squatted and tried to dig my claws into the metal, but all they did was scratch it. Whelp, nothing for it. With a low exhale, dozens of tendrils sprang from my fingers, wrists, and forearms and squirmed into the tight space under the door. I felt them spread out under the door and reach around to the other side, and once they had a good enough “grip” I heaved.

There came a deep thud followed by a groan of metal from behind the walls as whatever mechanism held the door in place resisted me. I strained against it for another few breaths before I acknowledged that I was not strong enough to move the door.

Not without my magic, anyway.

I had… I had not been avoiding using my magic, exactly, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about how it’d react. I had to remake my understanding of magic as well as my other memories. If I was wrong—things could go badly.

Just do it! I want to see the sky!

I let out a grumbling sigh and let my magic loose.

If my magical senses had filled the boat like a fast leak, my magic exploding out of me was like a tidal wave. The door was ripped from my grip and sent crashing into the ceiling…

Where it stayed.

The sounds coming from behind the walls sounded a lot like one of those Looney Tunes where a character fell down the stairs, only much louder. I winced.

The guards on the other side of the door were caught by surprise, so it took them a second or two to open fire.