Synthefic

I'm not entirely sure how/why I was on the train (that previous part of the dream is fairly blurry - something to do with superhero fights?), but I had definitely snuck aboard.

I hid from the officials for a time, strolling casually through the nearly empty train. But this train, and the land beneath it, were the property of a certain [company? nation?]. The same which owned the dormant biotech transformation within me. (Again, I'm not sure how it got there - just that I'd carried it so long I'd forgotten it existed.)

An old poem:

Fahrenheit 451 The lilies grew in darkness, Flowers feeding on flowers, Never returning to the Earth.

Few missed the taste of sunshine, Because most never knew light, Only ashes.

And a new one:

At home I see something on the floor Fading flesh-pink and grey-white And my first thought is - "What died to leave its gore so twisted about tiny bones"

Among her refuse (the unneeded, the discarded, and the never-to-be used) It is a place for little deaths

The unknowable carcass is old and dry to be so bright I get the broom for there is nothing else to do A delicate crunch as it is swept Its shape at last revealed

At home, I dream I am concealed within a metal shell. My bones are hollow, I have no face. I am incomplete. Who builds a biomech that rusts?

And once again I leave for college, that first true taste of freedom.

In the dorms, I dream again. I am shirtless, wearing my form as though born to this different body. Narrow wings etched into my skin. I have to hide my eyes, inhumanly frightening in their transformation. I am solid, I am real.

In one, I find a long-forgotten god.

"I will know you," it whispers, "and I will change you."

I hid the change, hid the pain.

"You have been tricked," said the others in the ruins. "You do not know what you are doing."

"No," I replied, "I didn't know I wanted this until it was offered. I know exactly what I am becoming."

They were never truly my people. My home lay on the distant world from which the god had come. And so I left, taking a fragment of it with me.

Where there’s magic and shapeshifters and prophecy, but also spaceships and genetic engineering and clones. Where worldbuilding varies from “in the 5th century, the Knights Aurora sealed the tears in time against warlocks both native and foreign” to “in the 25th century humanity invented their first faster-than-light drive and joined the galactic alliance.” Where when you hear the distinctive sharp crack of an energy blast you’re not sure whether it’s a wizard’s lightning or a plasma blaster.

There’s something so … wondrous about seeing humanity through both the mysterious and logical. Seeing a world where mystic traditions evolve side-by-side with the scientific method so that a paper about advanced physics and a paper about arcane sigils for calling into the higher dimensions are one and the same.

There’s just something alluring and incredible to me about the mingling of fathomless mystery and the slow progress of understanding the whole of the natural world. (I’m especially fond of the “secretly a space colony” fantasy/sci fi setting where magic has become dominant over the long centuries, and science is still recovering from that first fall.)

This happened a while ago, so I’m pretty well over it. I should note that I live in the US. I’ve been tempted to try the bus system again since, but I *know* it’s a bad idea (and there’s really no reason for me to go further than I can walk).

I had something to do in the city at a particular time today. It is a small/medium city with several colleges. I, not owning or having access to a car, would have to walk or take the bus.

It would take close to an hour if I chose to walk, and there was no guarantee that there would be sidewalks along the whole route. In the parts that did have sidewalks, they might be in poor repair or far too close to the road. I might have to jaywalk several times, and many intersections lack pedestrian crossing signals. Some have a traffic pattern that precludes crossing them at all. Having gone out into the city in a similar manner a few times before, I accepted these risks and decided to walk.

Then, this morning, I realized that I could take the bus. Because I am a college student, I can ride the bus for free. So, about an hour before I needed to leave, I looked up how to get there by bus on Google Maps. Google claimed that the route would be a scant fifteen percent faster (my own calculation, using their data) by bus than by foot, but it was faster and ought to be safer - no need to jaywalk when I could use the road. It is at this point that I should note Google Maps is notoriously ineffective in my city - it will get you where you wish to go (probably), but the route is by no means efficient, well-marked, or appropriate. Google Maps also struggles to pinpoint the location of a particular phone using GPS. Do you see, now, my folly? I trusted Google Maps, and set out at such an hour that I would arrive at my destination in time.

And again, there is the issue of the bus. I arrived at the first stop a few minutes early, and noted it to be entirely unmarked. It was on the corner of a fairly busy intersection, and the sidewalk had scarcely enough room for two people to stand on it at once. The first bus that came by was not mine, and I directed the driver onward with a nod. The second, I boarded. I was to take it 5 stops, and then walk a short distance to board another. The bus took two stops after I boarded, picking up and dropping off a few more people. Then, it continued to the bus depot - this turn of events was foreseen neither by Google nor myself. At the depot, all disembarked for a few moments while the bus was sanitized. Here, there was precious little signage - no clearly marked office or directory, and each parked bus blocked my view of the others (so that I would later be unable to discern the numbers upon them when needed). I was not courageous enough myself to ask the bus driver if the bus I had left would take me to the next stop, so I enlisted the help of a fellow passenger. She talked with the driver briefly, but seemed to gain no answer. Still, I once again boarded the bus. All of us there waited and watched as the other buses left the depot, our driver nowhere to be seen. Eventually, a driver boarded and the longest leg of my journey began.

An automated message began to speak as we left the depot: “welcome to route 9,” it began. Surely, I thought, this was still route 7? The former driver had at least said that much! I watched my map in mounting dread as the treacherous bus took me farther from where I needed to be. I checked the time, I checked the route. It held little comfort, and scarcely more answers - my map was displaying erroneous information, and was not allowing me to find all the answers I sought. And so I waited, and rode the bus far past where I had gotten on, knowing that at least it would go back to the depot, and I could remedy my error there. But too late! Due to these errors, I would be an hour late, and that I could not abide. At last, I once again reached the depot. Stepping away from the crowds smoking and waiting on their own buses, I called to cancel that business which I had in the city. There were people all around - smoking, talking, waiting, driving by in cars and blasting loud music. I could barely hear the call, but we managed to arrange matters appropriately. With all these people, I thought, it seems rather like a party.

And then, feeling defeated and near-sickened by nerves, I had only to get back to college and my dorm. Having no other choice, I again looked to Google Maps to plan my route. It directed me to find a certain bus which would be arriving or leaving (it did not say) in short order. I looked about, peering at each number and then cautiously crossing to the next platform. The bus was absent, so I waited to see if it would come. The buses left, and not long after, my map informed me that the bus I sought was among them. I resolved to wait a while - if no suitable bus came, I could walk back. Then, to my delight, mere minutes after I had made my choice, came a bus I recognized - the specially marked bus which went between the colleges! Timorously, I approached it and was soon seated. Google Maps, with a bit of coaxing, showed my new route home. I was the only passenger, so when I pulled the stop cord too early the driver let me off at the very next intersection. I did not correct her, and it turned out to be one I recognized - close to my classes and my dorm. I walked the few minutes back, and resolved not to take the bus without careful planning - and never when I needed to be somewhere in particular at a certain time.

The promotional material makes it look like a bad horror movie where some idiot tries Schrodinger's famous cat in a box experiment - only to get a radioactive zombie cat who wreaks havoc.

The actual movie is more like reverse John Wick: a cat going apeshit on terrorists who killed his owner. It's a bit like Die Hard, too: a lone combatant trapped in a building with terrorists, cleverly doing everything he can to stop them.

Schrodinger is a retired lab cat at a nuclear research laboratory. He's genetically engineered to glow green in the presence of radiation (brighter when there's more), and is remarkably smart. Schrodinger knows what death is. When he sees his owner get shot by the terrorists, he pauses for a moment and then lets loose a howl like a warning siren. And then the carnage begins.

Long post below the cut - I'm not going to write further, feel free to expand on this.

During the zombie apocalypse:

They take advantage of their resistance to the virus to deliver supplies around rural Australia. However, they end up with a zombie arm due to repeated high exposure.

After:

The world has recovered, they've moved back to the US & changed their look to avoid recognition. The green has faded, but they've still got bite scars on their arm. They've adopted a kitten and work from home as a small business owner. I was going for a more feminine look here, but I think they, like me, focus on function over fashion.

And both:

"Why are you green?!" "Chloroplasts - wait, I'm green? ... Oops? That's ... not a good sign."

“I’m the fuel.”

“What’s up with the punch?” they asked, pointing at a flickering bowl of pinkish liquid.

They were promptly ignored as the alarms went off. Again. A surprising number of stop-staves appeared from somewhere within fancy clothes as the partygoers rushed towards the large gate at one end of the hall.

“You’d think,” Face from accounting muttered, “that being the fucking time police meant we wouldn’t have to deal with shit at parties.”

The swarm of time agents met a horde of something dark and chitinous emerging from the gate. The two crowds mixed violently, like a rather angry lava lamp.

“It’s the VeFirth from third!” someone yelled, their voice echoing over the PA.

The insect-like aliens poured from the main gate, pushing the time agents back towards the buffet tables. VeFirth hopped over their frozen hivemates, tiny wings sparkling in their brief glides. Strident beeps cut through the noise as errant stop-staves were nullified.

“I thought we had a peace treaty with the VeFirth after Francesca the Short yote their leader into the sun?” They mused, almost managing to look nonchalant from their position between two tables.

“Look at Francesca the fucking railgun over here,” Face teased as xe kept trying to push forward into the fight. “Someone likes Hu’s Fables a bit too much.”

“Someone has to appreciate the classics,” they replied.

The horde of VeFirth seemed endless, barely slowing as frozen bodies formed a barricade around the gate. A few of the small aliens were hurled across the room as unarmed agents duplicated Francesca’s legendary feat. The aliens were rather light (being mostly chitin exoskeleton), so it was the fact that Francesca yeeted their leader that made the incident into a legend.

“Aw yeah, come and get some!” Face crowed, smacking VeFirth with an apparently modified clipboard.

As the tide of VeFirth got close to halfway through the hall, they decided they should join the fight. They were considering their options as the table to their left crashed, a struggling mass of VeFirth clawing their way towards them.

In a truly heroic nope moment, they grabbed the punch bowl and smashed it over the nearest VeFirth’s greenish antenna. A few VeFirth started flickering just like the punch had, alternating between reaching towards them and sprawled out on the floor.

“Ooh, the intern is crazy!” Face exclaimed as they sent a VeFirth hurtling back towards the gate.

“I wanted to try that punch,” they growled, reaching over the flickering VeFirth to break a leg off the downed table.

“Me too!” said the one VeFirth that had avoided the punch bowl.

The intern stared. The VeFirth stared. Face somehow dangled from a decorative column.

“Ah!” they realized aloud. “The first thanksgiving! If you stop fighting, you can have some punch.”

The VeFirth looked somewhat dejectedly at the fizzing puddle on the floor.

“We’ll make more,” they said.

They were apparently not the only one to remember the VeFirth’s love of food, and small patches of calm began to form in the chaos.

“You’re hired,” someone in a very fancy-looking suit said as they pied a struggling VeFirth. “Now go make more punch.”

Sundrop Punch 2L Sundrop (original flavor) 1 box Welch’s juicefuls island splash (6 oz.) 4 large red popsicles or freeze pops (I used budget saver cherry-pineapple)

I do not know why we were driven from our lands and again driven from our place of refuge. Surely, not all of us deserved to die. I, being young, could certainly have done nothing worthy of such retribution. I scarcely knew why we were hurried onto boats - a hasty fleet, made of whatever vessels were nearby when the evacuation started.

We cast off from shore in a crowded little rowboat, the pale sands and dense, bright forests beginning to fade from sight behind the fleet. There were few adults with us, and they shouted “row, row, we must make haste!” So we rowed, and others hoisted sails. It seemed to me that we moved faster and faster, rushing away from the lands that had once been our home.

And then the first of the sentinels appeared among the trees. Even at such a distance, we could see them looming tall and silent and menacing, spears set like flagpoles among the trees. There was such stillness about them, and silence, and we all crouched low in the boats with fear. Then there were more, and more, standing so still on every shore as though they had always been there and would always be, until I couldn’t see those thick trees through the new forest of spears.

Nothing dared break that silence; even the waves made no sound. They simply stood, watching, making a silent threat: we must leave our lands and never return. So we did, rowing out far into the ocean until we could no longer see the land (but we could not escape the silent gaze of the sentinels). 

Then we reached our destination, at first a wall of water obscuring the horizon. The fleet sailed on, struggling to the top of that frozen wave, and there was a whirlpool beneath. Those leading urged us still onward, down into the depths of the whirlpool. My little rowboat plunged towards it, and I clung to the wood of the sides as though there was nothing else in the world.

Our boat dipped ever downward, scarcely turning the spiral once before plunging through the chilly depths - and out again. These shores seemed much like those we had left - pale, fine sand, shallow sparkling sea, the tangled mesh of many trees - but smaller, somehow. The whirlpool here was nothing more than a gentle stirring in the calm waters.

There was a single large building standing apart from the forest, an imposing square of unpainted concrete almost entirely unlike the tree-covered buildings of home. Our fleet pulled up to the beaches here, and we filed through the building. It was big and echoey, and cold of those things that gave a place the character of home. It was a scientific outpost hastily converted into housing for us, a refuge of last resort. We were the only ones here, they told us, and there would be no more coming.

I think they knew even then that this respite would not last. The boats were pulled apart and used as building materials. We were tested and taught until each of us could swim and find our way using precious little but the sky and live off whatever we could hunt and find in the forests of this small world. Some, I among them, were chosen to one day scout into our old lands. Some were chosen to continue our culture and our science, in the hopes that we could do more than simply survive.

I do not know how long we prepared in that little world beneath the sea, but it must have been years at least. Years not long enough, I think, before the sentinels came again. Again they stood, tall and solemn and sudden and still, spears planted in the ground and pointing towards the sky. Again, we made hasty flight - but not all of us, only those chosen as scouts.

On swift-made rafts barely large enough to float, we fled again through the whirlpool. Scouts turned colonists, we scattered for distant shores. These lands which were once our home had changed: the sea was thick with plants, tall green spears grew thick among the trees, the pale sands were mixed with seaweed and debris.

When I reached shore, the sun was sinking in a long, slow plunge into the sea. Silt and seaweed clung to my legs as I waded ashore, and I thought that something scurrying through the murky water brushed past my foot. I dragged the raft to shore and looked up to the darkening sky. 

I would need shelter for the night, but I could use nothing which showed what I was. So I took the raft, tore apart its bindings, and scattered the branches across the shore and sea. I crouched down upon the damp sand and dug, carefully packing the sand, until I had a burrow barely large enough to curl up in. There, I slept the night.

In the cold light of morning, I considered my options. I saw no sentinels, but that guaranteed nothing. The sea was strange to me: murky, and full of things that clung and crawled. The forest perhaps less so, but I would have to cross a thicket of those green spears to see. Perhaps I glimpsed one of our old buildings still standing among the trees. In the meantime, I turned to the sky and to the sand. I was only a few days’ journey from the whirlpool, not that I could go back through. The sand was damp, watered from some fresh source below, and rich with small insects, flecks of chitin, smashed shells, and other organic debris. All was still quieter than what I had known, but the soft chirping of insects and lap of waves replaced that terrible still silence.

Through much of the day, I explored the beach thus. I would not need to venture into the sea or through the spear thicket for some time. Again, the shadows grew thicker as the sun began to sink beneath the waves. This time, there came a bird, and I dove into my burrow quickly enough to be buried in the soft sand.

“Hello, hello, what’s this?” it called.

There was a soft plop as it landed and began treading a circle nearby in the sand.

“Hmm … good spot, nice-nice,” it trilled. “A neighbor, even. Hi-hi, are you there?”

I held still and silent, pondering my choices. Then, I stood up from the sand.

“Oh!” chirped the bird, “Please do not eat me!”

“I’m not going to eat you.” 

I dusted myself off and began to dig my burrow again. We held an uneasy peace that night and for much of the next day. The bird went out a short way into the sea to fish, and I was trying to decide whether I should step past those green spears and into the forest. The sun was just beginning to reach for the sea when I heard a startled chirp from the bird. 

A small flock of birds was approaching. I ran back and hid in my burrow, hopefully soon enough to avoid the notice of the others. The birds landed in the shallows near shore. They chattered amongst themselves, exchanging hellos, until:

“What’s this? What’s this? Such a curious burrow,” called one from nearby. “Hello-hello?”

I stayed still and quiet, curled as tightly as possible under the soft sand.

“Hmm, there’s definitely someone there,” chirped another. “Come out, come out, let us see you!”

I could hear them walking around above, darting to and fro near the edges of my burrow. More sand fell, trickling into the gaps between my limbs.

“Come out, come now!” one of the birds called in a sterner voice.

Again, with trepidation, I stood up from the sand. A bird, feathers fluffed with what could be aggression, stood face-to-face with me. A low, hissing growl emerged from its throat, and it seized me by the hem with a swift snatch. Though few, the birds seemed to fill the whole beach with their bristling rage.

“Your kind has been absent from our shores for a thousand years,” one spat. “The sentinels themselves are long gone, but these are your lands no longer.”

I hung motionless in the bird’s grasp as the speaker stalked closer, jerking its head and tearing at the sand in fury.

“You are not welcome on our shores. Your kind have no place here, and will never again. Go back wherever you have hidden, flee to yet more distant shores, I care not - but begone!”

The bird tossed me into the sea, and the flock glared from shore as I swam away. Once again, the shores that held my home faded to a disruption of the horizon. This time, I was alone. No boat, nowhere close enough to swim to on my own. I could only hope the others had met with better luck, but I knew they would not.

And there were those we had left behind in that small world, our refuge of last resort. I was sure they had been driven out by the sentinels as we had been driven out of this world. That left us all with the same predicament: there was nowhere left to go.

We were driven away and away again until we reached the final edge of land. None of us could be strong enough to resist another advance, and so we would finally be driven out of existence itself. Gone, pushed into ever smaller and more remote places until finally we were driven off the edge of life, and for what?

“standing as straight and still as a puppet“

“They stood as steady as cast-metal tripods, long cylindrical weapons braced by their shoulders and an arm along their length.“ (They’re guns, but the narrator doesn’t know what a gun is yet)

“The others didn’t notice, checking their weapons with mechanical order. The quiet was sinister - although there was still background noise, the Scaucans made as little sound as a corpse in the wind.“ (Yeah, that probably sounded better at the time …)

“Glow building in the weapons’ hollow depths to be released in a bolt of energy. It was a lot, still, and the little veins in my fingers and face began to overflow as excess brightlife turned to heat.“ (brightlife = magic, pretty much exactly what it sounds like - glowing life energy)

“Welcome to the future, everyone you knew is dead-” *sad piccolo noises*