His body hit the floor of the cave like a marionette with severed strings.
Kaelen felt the convulsions from the inside, an awful feeling of full-body static, unrelated to pain, but rather the sensation of two independent nervous systems fighting for dominance.
His muscles tightened and contracted at the command of no man, his new jaw clenching hard enough to crack a bone within.
“Neural integration in progress,” Nix said, offhandedly, as if the violent seizure was nothing more than an ordinary software mishap.
” I recommend you do not resist the process.
You will find yourself losing the fight.”
Not quite a battle plan, but still, not the worst idea he’d heard all week.
The convulsions stopped with the suddenness with which they’d begun, and Kaelen stood, or rather, his body stood for him, his personal will catching up with appendages that had been in constant motion since the day he was born.
A group of four stared him down, weapons half-raised, all breathing shallow.
[Ding!
Vessel Assimilation Progress:91%] [ Warning: Residual ocular discoloration detected.
Iris color: unstable.]
He sensed it before the realization crossed their eyes, a subtle sensation of cooling, a faint film of cyan staining the lenses of his new human eyes, like ink slowly seeping through water.
One second more of this and the whole operation would be wasted on a cave and a wolf.
Say something.
Anything human.
‘…ow.’
Kaelen winced, trying to sound vaguely familiar in the high, slightly unnerved tones of his current body, and inwardly damned actors everywhere for having to put themselves through this.
That was the sound of a man, the sound of a human who remembered how it felt to have one.
‘…that thing’s blood is acidic.
Got some in my eyes.’
There was silence, for the span of a heartbeat.
Then, one of the warriors, an attractive, sharp jawed youth with his dark hair tied back in a ponytail, the only one to this point who hadn’t lowered his weapon, took a step closer.
‘Corin.
Your eyes just turned cyan.
That’s not acid.’
Right.
And here she was, his personal reminder.
The first of many, no doubt, to be catalogued in the mental database that was slowly filling up since the day of his awakening.
Kaelen noted her name, Talia, as he noted the rest, the second in command, judging by the lack of hesitation in her voice as she spoke over him.
‘Trick of the torchlight, ‘ he said, forcing his new face into the same lazy, half-smirk that Corin’s trademark expression seemed to be.
‘You’ve been in this dungeon too long, Tal.
You’re seeing monsters.’
Talia’s bow did not come down.
“Heart rate elevated in observer.”
‘Suspicion: 68% and rising.
Recommendation: immediate action or immediate exit.”
No pressure.
Kaelen turned his back on her, the most uncomfortable thing he’d done all day, and crouched over the wolf’s corpse, pretending that nothing else in the world mattered more than looting his vessel properly.
“Grab the core,” he said, his voice as bored as he could make it, which, considering the roaring sensations in his blood, was actually rather impressive.
“We’ve burned enough torchlight on this Tier-1 already.
Renn’s death is not going to get any less dead if we stand here exchanging stares.”
This, at least, managed to get one of the other two to flinch, jaw tightening as he reached for the strange, pale blue orb still pulsating, if barely, at the center of the wolf’s remains.
Grief, apparently, was a more effective conversation starter than any manufactured lies.
Talia remained where she was for a few more seconds.
Then, slowly, she lowered her weapon.
“Fine,” she said, although her eyes lingered on Kaelen’s for a fraction of a second longer than the others might have.
” But you’re walking behind me the rest of the way out.
Not because I trust you.
‘Cause I want to see your back.”
I’ll take it, he thought.
Stiffly, he walked back onto his legs, the familiar sensation of two legs giving way under his weight replaced with a wholly foreign sensation of balance, of muscle control, of a hundred minuscule adjustments needed just to keep himself from falling down as he began walking.
The sensation was overwhelming.
Smells, where there should have been none, assaulted him from all sides, sounds, where there should have been none, echoed through the tunnels, and the feeling of his skin was wholly unfamiliar, the sensation of movement somehow even worse.
‘The human sensory input is overwhelming.’
‘Yes.’
‘…Also…
significantly harder to tune out.
You will either adjust or you will vomit.
Perhaps both.’
He kept his jaw set, the words of encouragement doing little to improve his mood.
His legs moved, mostly, although most of the work was being done by the muscle memory that wasn’t his, as he kept time after the man walking a few paces ahead of him, breathing in a steady, human rhythm of sorts, his own lungs working overtime to keep up with his racing heart.
Talia stayed three steps behind him the whole time, silent, watching.
They came out into the mouth of the cave just as the sun was beginning to set, and for the briefest of moments, Kaelen paused, letting himself bask in the sensation of real warmth hitting real skin.
Human.
I’m human again.
It’s close enough, not really,.
The sensation was already slipping away though, as another warning flashed across his vision.
[WARNING: SYSTEM SYNC ALERT] [Real-World Vessel Status: Critical] [Cardiac Signal: Flatlining–4 seconds and holding]
The earth did not shake, but Kaelen’s world did nevertheless, and no amount of wishing could change that.
No.
No now–
“Confirmed,” Nix said, and for once, there was no trace of mockery in his voice.
“Your original biological vessel is failing.
Life support desynchronization imminent.
You have a very limited window of opportunity to redistribute accumulated bio-energy through the anchor-point before your systems shut down completely.”
How limited, he wondered.
“Under three minutes.
You will need to be stationary, and undisturbed, in order to accomplish this.
Current environmental conditions: unsuitable.”
Kaelen’s borrowed heart, Corin’s heart, which in a few minutes would no longer be his, beat faster, faster, until he was certain Talia could hear it from three paces behind.
Three minutes.
I don’t have a cave to hide in,I don’t have privacy, I don’t have control–
“Corin.” Talia’s voice was close, close enough that Kaelen could feel her breath against the side of his neck as she spoke.
He turned, forcing his face into something that resembled calm, cool calculation, and met her gaze, only to find that she wasn’t looking at his eyes.
She was looking at his ear.
He followed her line of sight, and touched his fingertips to his ear canal, expecting to find them wet with blood.
His skin was dark, not red, and a thin line of the acrid black substance oozed from the opening, trailing down his cheekbones in two slow rivulets.
Talia did not speak.
She looked at the blood on her fingertips where she’d touched him, then back up at his face, for the first time in the cave, suspicion in her eyes was replaced with something else entirely.
Something that, for the first time in the cave, almost felt like certainty.