Mask of Humanity

Nicolai and Kleos sat in the dark and listened to the music on the radio, turned low, little more than background noise. He didn’t want to disturb anyone, because that would be impolite. His Mask agreed.

It had been a while since he’d listened to the radio, but Nicolai felt it was needed. He and the Mask had put the cage back together as well as they could, but it didn’t look like before. It had been weakened. He wasn’t sure how to fix it. Then the issue of the hole, something new and unexpected, which he had no understanding of.

‘That could’ve been bad,’ he said, quiet, voice barely rising above the music. He felt Kleos’ attention. ‘You were right. It got stronger.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure how long things can go on like this. Might be I ought to find somewhere else to spends the nights.’

‘Might be. You have reason to control yourself, here, though. Could be good for you.’

‘That’s true.’ Nicolai sighed, and eyed Kleos. The head understood him more clearly than he’d expected. ‘It could be that I only maintained control because of them.’ He frowned, disliking the idea that he was in some way relying on the others. But he would have lost himself, there, if it weren’t for the assistance of the Mask. What would have happened then? This time had been different. Something had changed, within his madness. There had been a finality in this attack. A sense that if he’d lost, he wouldn’t have just torn the others apart and then returned to himself. The way his Soul had been squirming and changing… it was deeply worrying.

‘So long as I can keep moving forward I’ll be ok,’ he murmured, not at all convinced by these words but saying them anyway. ‘Thank you, again, for your help.’

‘It’s no trouble.’ Kleos was speaking in that careful, thoughtful tone of voice again.

‘There’s something else,’ said Nicolai, struggling to speak the words. ‘There is a… there’s a hole. In the cage. With the dark. I don’t understand it, I don’t know what’s going on. Was I always like this…?’

‘What? What are you talking about?’ Kleos was peering at him, worried.

‘Have you ever heard of someone who has a hole in their Soul? A hole leading… elsewhere?’

Kleos bit its lip. ‘I haven’t. I don’t know what it could be.’

Nicolai chewed his lip. This isn’t good. He had a really bad feeling about all of this. He’d won, for now. But what of the future? The dark wasn’t easy to deal with. This all out assault had at least been easy to recognise. But the dark could work in other ways. Sneaky ways. Getting into him without him noticing. What was the hole? What was it that he had felt, pouring out from the hole and into the dark?

‘Did you hear what I said, earlier?’ came Kleos’ voice.

‘Yes.’ Nicolai made himself smile, did his best to refocus. I have to move on. I have to get stronger. That’s the only way. ‘I can practise outside of my body, you said. Will it work the same way?’

Kleos was silent.

‘Kleos?’

‘It will be harder,’ the head admitted. ‘It’s easier to move and shape Oma inside of your body, or inside of items and Symbiote you have control over. Shaping it in the air will make things more difficult.’

‘That’s fine,’ Nicolai said, smiling. ‘Challenge is good. Difficult is good. The harder the task, the more one must improve. The more they gain.’

Kleos was frowning, Nicolai felt it where his Soul Sense touched the head. ‘But, earlier…’

‘That was different. I was… denied.’ He spoke slowly, attempting to work out what the problem was, why it had caused such a reaction. ‘I saw no way forward, no matter how difficult. No choice but to stop, to put the act of improving myself aside until I could locate some method of healing, or to simply move very slowly, waiting for my body to heal naturally between each attempt. It… upset me.’ Was that right? Was that the reason? He didn’t know, but it was something to go off, at least.

‘I see,’ Kleos quirked its lip in a weird little smile. ‘I’ll try to keep you aware of possible problems, in the future.’

‘I do not consider it your fault. It is my fault, my issue. I need to manage my expectations, to not allow myself to believe something is guaranteed or a given, to not set myself up for disappointment. To be prepared and ready to control myself.’ That was one of the routes the darkness used to seize control of him, he was sure of it. He had to do better, had to be stronger. He wouldn’t lose himself. He couldn’t, because with what he had felt… he wasn’t sure that he would survive such a loss. There had been something worryingly terminal about what he’d experienced, different to how the dark had been in the past, as though he’d been drawing closer and closer to the edge of a cliff.

‘Oh? What of last time, when you struggled to complete the Soul Trap?’

Nicolai frowned, thinking back to that time. ‘I believe it was less about the Soul Trap and more about my injury, and being stuck in that room. When I am constrained and unable to move, to act, I grow unhappy. It becomes difficult to keep my… problems at bay.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain. I don’t understand what is wrong with me. It is… difficult.’ He was being unusually honest, tonight. His paranoia was frowning at the looseness of his tongue, and it identified this looseness as caused by his Mask.

‘I see.’ Kleos chuckled. ‘That makes two of us, then.’

Nicolai smiled at the head. He was pretty sure it could see him, even through the dark. Based on what he felt from its face and the movement of its eyes, it was looking right at him.

He sent his Soul Sense out on a brief trip around the area, checking on the others. He found Beth in the room with Jo, sitting watching the door, holding Jo’s rifle. She flinched when his Soul Sense brushed hers. She was terrified. He understood why.

He held his Soul Sense against hers, following her to her body when she tried to squirm away, and did his best to push his thoughts and feelings through the connection. Sorry about that. Don’t worry. I took care of things. You are in no danger.

He felt that she understood the message, but she didn’t move. Clearly she wasn’t convinced. He pulled away, leaving her to guard her sister from him. The emotions his Mask fed into him were: guilty and upset and ashamed, but at the same time, proud and pleased. An odd mixing, but gradually the guilt rose to precedence. He found his thoughts spinning in circles. I should fix this. Or is it fine? What can I do? At least I beat the dark. I don’t… Nicolai shook his head, frowning, and identified many of these thoughts as being generated by the emotions his Mask plugged into him. He reached up and twisted the Mask slightly, disrupting the connection, and the emotions became muted.

He still wanted to be more human. To experience it for himself. But right now, being human was getting in the way.

‘Unfortunate,’ he murmured.

‘What?’

‘Beth, the girl who integrated her Seed, witnessed what happened.’

‘Will she make trouble?’

‘She cannot.’ Nicolai shook his head. ‘Not with our contract. But I worry it will hinder our ability to work together.’ His frown grew, the Mask writhing as it worked to settle itself better on his face.

‘A problem for tomorrow, I think.’

‘You’re right.’ Nicolai let out a slow breath. He allowed the music to move through his mind and relax him, relax his Mask. ‘I’ll try this.’

He found his Node was almost entirely drained. The Oma he’d used had not returned to him, it had been lost after he’d failed. He grasped an Oma crystal and sucked it dry over a few seconds, refilling his stores. He kept his hand in the bag, fingers touching on many crystals, ready to absorb their energy, whilst his other hand rose before him, palm up.

Nicolai drew the fresh Oma from his Node and it wound its way through his bloodvessels, pooled within his palm, then floated up. It gave off a faint light, a pale blue glow, as it formed a misty cloud on his palm. Even outside of his body it was still his Oma and it moved as his Soul Sense directed.

He formed it into a strand, watching and feeling, his hand flexing, fingers moving, as though doing so were helping. Oddly, it did actually seem to help. His Soul was in his fingers, and as such moving them helped him to manipulate his Soul Sense, which in turn manipulated the Oma.

The cloud pressed tight around the strand, denser and denser, and the strand began to writhe and struggle against his mental grip.

It reached maximum density, and once more he twisted it around itself to form a disk, growing it bit by bit. Once more, he ran out of strand, and his Node was empty.

Remaining tightly focused on holding the strands and the disk in place, Nicolai pulled on the Oma in the bag.

It moved in a sluggish stream through his body, dragged towards his Node. Upon arriving it poured into the centre and was stamped with his mark, moving easily then as it re-emerged, under his control.

Nicolai sent it out through his working arm, and a fresh cloud of Oma emerged from his palm, congealing around the curved, glowing disk. He let out a puff of air, and worked to form a new strand.

‘Hmmm,’ there came a noise from the side, from Kleos, vaguely disapproving, as though the head wanted to say something but wasn’t sure whether doing so was wise.

Nicolai couldn’t disrupt his focus to ask what it was so he kept going. The difficulty of the task continued to grow as he found himself forced to split his focus, holding the disk tight while also focusing on forging the new strand.

Bit by bit, he got it done. Nicolai set the new strand atop the old, and began to loop it around, gradually curving it, forming the bottom of a sphere.

Even as he did so, he could see the problem. There was an imperfection at the join, where new strand met old. A flaw. Every time he looked at it, it rubbed at him, irritated him. It was no good. It was wrong. It was a failure. With a flick of his fingers and a shove from his Soul Sense he cast the little forming sphere away from him.

It flew across the room and let out a pop like a tiny firecracker as it detonated and the Oma within it spilled out, rapidly disappearing. Nicolai’s Soul Sense chased after it, tugging the Oma back towards him. It was fading faster than when he’d released the gloves shield, seeming unstable after the process it had endured, but he managed to get some back and breathed it in.

‘No good,’ said Nicolai.

‘No good,’ Kleos agreed. ‘You were doing it wrong. It needs to be one whole, uninterrupted process. You form the strand even as you weave it into the shape of the sphere. You kept pausing, here and there, as you pulled out fresh Oma and formed a new strand. That will cause imperfections in the Node.’

‘Do everything at once,’ Nicolai said slowly. That wouldn’t be easy. He let out a slow breath. ‘Okay.’

###

Five hours later found Nicolai sat in exactly the same position. Above his palm floated a sphere of Oma missing its top, glistening with light. He carefully layered a strand of glowing Oma on, gradually closing the gap. Within the sphere there was a thick cloud of his Oma pushing on the walls from the inside, supporting them, even as another cloud of Oma surrounded it, doing the same from outside.

From his palm flowed a constant stream of Oma, growing tighter and denser as it became the strand.

His other hand was buried in a bag that had once bulged with crystals but now held a bare few, and through his body moved a continuous stream of energy. Oma drawn from crystals, twisting through him to his Node, exiting out the other side, then out through his far arm to be woven into the sphere.

Nicolai’s mind was empty of any thought. His entire being was focused on the process. His Soul Sense surged, forming a tight funnel around his palm and the glowing sphere, all of it drawn in to aid, none to spare for keeping track of those around him. Over time he’d began to use it more and more, barely aware of what he was doing, an almost instinctual act as he got more and more used to manipulating the Oma outside his body.

He had failed four times in the past five hours. Each attempt had lasted longer, gone further. His focus had grown tighter each time and was now sharp enough to draw blood.

For the first time in over an hour, a thought unrelated to the task moved through his mind. I’m almost there, came his first thought. His fingers and toes tingled with expectant joy. Shut up you fucking idiot, snarled his second thought. This is just one more attempt, that is all.

Speaking to himself had been a mistake. The strands wobbled, the whole thing seeming as though it might shift and fall apart. His focus tightened and became all consuming, bringing it back from the brink, forcing the sphere back into shape, holding it all together, and he layered the last of the strand into place.

With a mental click he felt it solidify, growing firm, the demands on his willpower and attention dwindling. A tiny glowing marble floated gently before him, pulling in the Oma around it, growing slightly more solid and real moment by moment.

‘You did it,’ said Kleos, the head grinning.

Nicolai laughed, delighted, buzzing with joy. He moved the Node around with his Soul Sense and Oma, watching it float gently about. He looked it over critically, noting a few flaws. His smile faded. If it was inside him, in his lung, then his job would be done. But as it was, it was useless to him. A symbol of what he’d learned, sure, but functionality-wise? No use. Or was it?

‘Should I destroy it? Is there anything I can do with it?’ he asked, tilting the orb, peering into it with his Soul Sense.