Chapter Text
We had an estimated 8-12 hours to determine whether or not my theory was correct.
That was the typical time it took the parasite to die after it had birthed its offspring according to Adrian.
My first idea was to find some way to try and get it the nutrients it couldn’t reach in order to extend its life...or otherwise find a way to remove it without killing it. Unfortunately it being housed in my brain made it...pretty much impossible.
Even the brief suggestion of it had Doctor-Pearl throwing a fit. They steadfastly refused to even discuss it and even started removing all of their equipment and security badge with the intent to quit their position before I could reassure them that I was NOT about to ask them to attempt brain surgery on me. That would have been difficult even for a human to do, let alone an alien whose species had brains made of crystal.
“If we have to remove the larva...I don’t want them destroyed.” I stated firmly.
Adrian waved their claws in the air, ~No no no! Of course not! Did not intend to. Simply must separate from Grace biodome. For safety!~
That made the one in my head much more relaxed...and we determined it was as good a time as any to try and get some answers.
We started, as always, with numbers.
This proved...surprisingly inconclusive.
I taught it how to do it, best I could simply talking out loud to myself. Simple math. It felt like they were listening but how did I really know how that felt? Was it real or did I just want it to be? It couldn't speak. Not in actual words anyway. It could in the memory of words only.
So, when I asked it a question to solve...it responded in memories of myself solving the same problem. Was it solving the problem or was this just mimicry? Did it actually understand the problem? Did it actually know what I was asking for? Impossible to say for certain.
We also had to know what exactly it had access to. We determined it could not access my ability to see. Which made sense since that was located in the back of my head, too far away from it. But it seemed to make up for it by accessing my short term memory.
I could ask it to show me an image I was looking at and there was about a 1 second delay before it would flash the same image back at me. The longer I focused on the image the more accurate the recollection. Enough time for the image I was seeing to enter my short term memory, be processed, and then be accessed by the parasite. So we knew it absolutely had at least sentient levels of intelligence. It could follow commands, it definitely had the capacity for emotions and memories of its own, and it could mimic.
But could it reason? Could it solve a problem without me?
These were parameters I wasn't sure either Humans or Eridians had any framework for, or if it could even be applied. How did you determine the independent mental capabilities of a creature living in another persons brain? What was it and what was me?
I felt it was possible that the larva were not sapient. Intelligent, yes. Sapient, no. That it required a sapient mind to make that leap, it couldn't do it on its own. We could test that later. What I didn't know was how much that really mattered in the end. We were testing it on a framework designed around individuals...and it could not be, and never would be, a true individual.
I was feeling...anxious. Unexpectedly so. The feeling of stress bordering on panic hit me out of the blue. I felt like I was stuck in a cage suddenly. The walls closing in on me. Memories of my first days on Erid flashed through my mind. The uncertainty of being surrounded by aliens that I had no choice but to trust were not going to torture me to death, even unintentionally.
It hit me suddenly that this being had likely only gained sapience a matter of days ago when it migrated to my brain. An entire existence ruled by animal instincts and only after making the move that traps you into a quick death do you get to understand the world around you fully.
That felt...cruel.
And here we were...wasting it all by experimenting on it. I felt, in my soul, that much as it was beyond my current full understanding...this was a person.
It didn't deserve this.
I ran a hand over my face, "Ok, stop, guys. We need to stop."
~Grace need break, question?~ Rocky asked as he gently dabbed at the cuts on my arm with a cloth. I’d reassured him that the scratches on my arm were just that. Superficial. Only one of them had gone deep enough to result in small beads of blood. It had already scabbed over but he was insistent.
"No, we just need to stop! You already explained that it won't survive the night...this is cruel. We are being cruel!"
~Must determine proper course of action for future interactions!~
"So we expect it to just die here in these walls? While we poke and prod it the entire time?? Would you have done the same to me if I couldn't be saved when I first got here? Experiment on me through my final hours just in case you have to deal with other humans later??"
Adrian gave a sad squeak and sank to the floor. They lifted one of their tablets in front of them as if they were trying to hide behind it. They still hadn’t fully recovered from my earlier emotional outburst.
"I’m sorry. I know you wouldn't have...it's ok, Adrian. I know you wouldn't have." I gave them a sympathetic look, trying to be reassuring, but still shook my head, "...but what we're doing...it's wrong. I won't do it anymore.”
I stood up suddenly, water sloshing over the side at my unexpected movements, “Unhook me from this stuff.” I said, pulling lightly at the IV line and Rocky’s claws.
Pearl gave an exasperated puff of steam through their vents, ~Not Doctor recommended. Nutrients dangerously depleted.~ They muttered but had already closed the IV pump and disconnected the line. They’d gotten used to me making less than ideal decisions around my health by now enough not to argue too hard unless I really was in danger of dying without it.
“You can put it back later. I promise. I’ll stay in bed a full eight hours even.”
~Will believe when see.~ Pearl chirped doubtfully.
“You wound me.” I shot back.
~No need Pearl do that. Grace do it enough on own.~
“Rude.” I joked as I climbed out of the tub.
~Where is Grace going, question?~ Rocky asked.
I shook my head, “Out.”
~Out where?~
“Just… OUT. Look, don’t worry, ok? I just...need time alone with it. It really doesn’t like you guys. It keeps assuming you’re going to eat me. It’s...putting me on edge.” I explained...and it was mostly true, but actually I just really wanted to do this thing...with just the two of us. Just me and it.
“I’m not going far...just on the beach. You can see me from the house. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
~Cannot see!~
“You know what I mean, Rocky! Gees.” I said, throwing my hand up in exasperation, “I love you guys, you know that. I just...really need to do this one on my own. Ok? You can come out when the sun comes up. Deal?”
Rocky huffed briefly but then held out one of his claws in a fist motion. I smirked and met the gesture with my own. Whenever humans did come here...if they ever did, they were going to be so confused by my complete erasure of the handshake. Amusing to think about.
~Deal. Rocky Adrian will wait until sun up before coming out to find Grace, but...Grace must promise to not be crazy stupid.~
I chuckled but nodded, “I promise.”
~Good good good. Rocky trust.~
“Thanks, bud.”
I left the house at a casual pace. I didn’t bother changing my clothes. They were already thoroughly soiled from being in and out of the water and dragged through sand. No reason to change just to do it all over again...potentially. Not that I intended to break any promises of course...just that the worm definitely liked being in the water.
It wasn’t fully dark just yet. Still late twilight where the sky was dark but not yet dark enough for more than a couple stars (planets) to be visible. I paused as I looked at my ocean...and realized I could see the larva much clearer in the dark. Their bodies creating small blips of lights along the edges of the waves.
Every time a wave would crest on the beach I felt that feeling of nervous anxiety that wasn’t me come and go. It looked to me like the larva were playing along the waves. Being picked up and thrown towards the shore...only to swim back into the deeper water before it actually hit the sand.
It reminded me of pictures of those beaches with all the glowing plankton as I walked down to the waters edge.
The part of me that wasn’t me...only saw the risk of them being washed up on the beach.
“It’s fine. If they were going to...they would have by now.” I said under my breath, “They’re just playing.”
’….playing.’
I stopped. It was my own voice repeated back at me in my own head...but it wasn’t me. I smiled slowly, “Yeah. It’s what kids do.”
’...what kids do.’
“Yeah...that’s...that’s you doing that, right? Are you...talking to me?”
’Talking. Yeah.’
“It’s a...little weird.”
’Little weird. Yeah.’
“Glad we agree.”
’Glad we agree.’ Then there was a brief pause.
‘I’ve been practicing.’ My own voice...from a much older memory.
I nodded, “You’re doing good!”
‘Have...good teacher.’ That was Stratt’s voice...which made my breath hitch briefly.
“O-oh...you...you can do that with anyones voice, huh? Maybe...maybe not her. Please?”
‘Apology apology apology.’ Rocky’s old voice synthesizer this time.
“It’s ok. You’re getting better at it pretty fast.”
‘Yeah. Grace?’
That got my attention, “...yes?”
I got a flash of my old white board. A freeze frame of the words I'd written on them.
'Who am I?'
"Oh. I...can't really tell you that. No one can. That's just something we all have to figure out on our own. Who do you feel you are?"
There was a very long pause where I felt nothing...and then I saw an image of a woman. A woman surrounded by children. I knew this woman...who was she?? But that was beside the point. I didn't chase the memory as I would in the past. This wasn't about me.
“A...a teacher?”
Another long pause...but I didn’t get the sense I was right...even when the image was replaced by another very similar but of me and one of my classes.
“Yes. That’s what I am. A teacher.”
’No understand word.’
“It’s someone hired to teach children. Like a caretaker but….for the mind.”
‘Caretaker…’
“Kind of a stand in for a parent.”
’PARENT!’
“Oh...is that what? A parent? That’s what you see? Did you think that was what I was?”
I got flash after flash of students faces. Every student I ever had in my career as a teacher...even ones I thought I had long forgotten...even before the Hail Mary mission.
‘My kids.’ It said, using my own voice again.
I didn’t know what to say but somehow the way it blurred the difference between my understanding of what a teacher was and what a parent was made me tear up.
I shook my head, “No. I’m not. I never was.”
I blinked my eyes and looked down. I’d walked back into the water. It wasn’t my action but it was benign enough for me to not really care. At first I saw nothing in the dark of the water...then...tiny flashes of light all around me. I was only slightly alarmed but then reassured by the fact that they were not even close to being mature enough to infect me...and they wouldn’t infect someone who was already infected. That last part wasn’t my own knowledge before...but it was now.
The fear drained out of me completely.
I dropped my hand into the water and watched several of the tiny swimming worms swim in and around my fingers. One even seemed to be hugging around my pinky. If I lifted my hand and removed it from the water it would die so quickly...but it wasn’t afraid of me at all.
’Parent.’ It reiterated.
I didn’t lift my hand and eventually the little sparkling worm went on its way, dancing in the water around me with its siblings.
“Alright...ok.” I really didn’t have it in me to protest that...maybe I didn’t want to. It was weird to think of all these little things...carrying my DNA...inherently changed by being exposed to me in ways that felt impossible.
But so many things had happened to me that one would have thought impossible.
Why not this? Why did this have to be so terrible? Why couldn’t I be happy about it? Why did I have to be afraid of this?
The dark of the night in the Dome grew brighter as the projected star field was turned on...and I saw all those little lights suddenly stopping. They were coming to the surface of the water and sticking the tips of their bodies out of the water, pointing up.
Wait...could they see the lights?
All the memories from the one in my head that weren’t borrowed from me were in black and white, textures on a field of black which I assumed was what Eridian echolocation must look like.
Had I given them the ability to sense light?
I tipped my head back to look at the stars...and a deep sense of awe filled my mind.
Like seeing the milky way for the first time without light pollution when I was a kid. Feeling like I might lose my grip on the planet and float up into it.
Giving into the feeling I slowly laid myself back to float on the surface of the water, continuing to watch the little twinkling lights that represented all the potential life in our vast universe. Instinctively my eyes found Sol as it always did. The light was still dimmed...it hadn’t yet been long enough for the light to reach Erid to tell me whether my mission had actually succeeded or not.
In six years or so...if it remained dim...I’d have to accept some very harsh truths. That somehow...I might be the only human left. The sacrificial lamb sent to die for them...somehow outliving them all.
How was that for Irony.
I hoped more than anything that it wasn’t true.
’Home?’
“Yeah...that’s where home used to be.”
’Home...us? Home?’
“Oh...yeah, I guess it could be...one day. If it survived.” That was...a thought. If they were truly adapted to Earth now...and humans, if any other humans came to Erid, how would they react to it? I’d have to make sure the Eridians did not leave it up to them fully.
The gut reaction would be to simply destroy them all. It was human nature to assume the worst of something so dramatically different from us. Especially if it was something that was invading our bodies or causing us harm...no matter how incidental it may have been.
I’d need to make sure...they’d be protected from that.
That thought brought a feeling of warmth to my thoughts. A feeling of gratitude that went beyond simple words.
“Hey...do you...want a name?” I asked around the lump in my throat.
‘Name…’
“I am called Grace...what should I call you?”
‘...I am called Grace.’
“You’re part of me, yes...but you can be called something else...if you want to.”
‘Am Grace...something else?’
“Grace...but...not Grace?”
‘Yeah.’
I thought for a moment, “...Blessing.”
------> ♫♪♬♪♩♬♪♫ <-------
Staring up at the stars stretching across the projected sky of my dome...I suddenly felt that internal sense of awe...stretching. Not out...but in. Reaching inside of my mind.
I blinked and held my eyes shut as vertigo hit me faintly, when I opened them again I wasn’t floating on top of the water anymore. I was on top of the Hail Mary again in my EVA suit, planet Adrian looming up in front of me. For a split second my heart jumped but then another blink and the space was filled with the glowing sparkling red beauty of the Petrova line. The beginnings of fear was replaced with the same awe I had felt in that moment.
And for that moment I was lost in the memory as it happened, letting myself float free in the space...Rocky’s voice asking me what I was doing, echoing in my ear, then it was as if the memory slowed...or froze around me. I looked in front of me...and...it was there.
I couldn’t see it...not like a person. Not like an actual shape within the lights...but...I knew it was there anyway. Just a presence.
“Is that...you?” I asked and reached out to that spot of empty but not empty formless space that somehow contained a being with my hand. It connected with something. It felt like a hand.
My breath caught and stuttered, eyes going wide.
It felt like a hand! An actual flesh and blood hand against mine, through the suit I wasn’t actually wearing. I could feel the fingers, spread out flat against mine where I held it up between us. I shifted my fingers slightly and wove them through that other hand I could only feel and not see. The other fingers interlaced with mine and clasped tightly.
A warm living hand of another human clasped in mine for the first time in over a decade. I’d forgotten what that was like.
‘You never forgot. Not really.’ that inner voiceless voice spoke and it made sense. That’s how this was happening at all. It wasn’t real. There was no other hand, no other human. It was pulling the sensations out of my memories and giving them back to me.
It may not have been real real...but it was real enough that my mind and body didn’t care. I let my eyes close and I felt something tight inside of me relaxing, some part of me that had been distressed for so long I’d become numb to it, unraveling and spreading through my body like a gentle warmth.
Tears were slipping down my cheeks and then the hand let me go and I was being embraced. A full body hug. The feeling was like a punch to the gut. I was breathless for a whole minute until I finally let out a sob, melting into the warmth of another body against mine with no suit getting in the way. I leaned my head forward against an invisible but somehow solid shoulder and felt long hair against my cheek. I breath in through my nose and the smell…
My eyes shot open as the lost memories spilled into my mind.
I remembered Marissa!
Actually remembered her...beyond the blurred images of the night she told me about the sun dimming. I remembered her face! I remembered her smell!
How had I forgotten Marissa!?
All the memories I had lost and thought didn’t exist at all were suddenly back...and the thought I could have ever forgotten them felt like a crime worse than anything I could have done. I had been missing an entire piece of myself this entire time and didn’t even notice!
I met Marissa in High School when I moved to my last foster home at the age of 16. I had always had trouble making friends. When you get moved around so often without your say or warning, that tends to happen. The first few times you think it’ll be fun. Pen pals! The first time they stop sending letters back you think nothing of it. Then three letters go by without answers and it sinks in. They don’t want to be your friend anymore. Maybe they never really were.
I gave up on making friends. Just always the quiet awkward new kid with his head stuck in a book. We were sat next to each other first period. Her in front and me behind.
My pencil broke. I asked her if I could borrow hers and when she turned around she saw the cover of my book, a fantasy novel based on D&D that I was used to no one knowing anything about. Stories where lonely people rejected by society found their families and became the heroes they were meant to be. People I thought if they were real could have been my friends too.
“Oh! Hey! I love those books! They’re my favorites!” She had cried, grabbing the book off of my desk and immediately began asking me which one I liked most and who my favorite characters were.
We had to be separated by the teacher half way through the hour on our very first day of school. You would have thought we’d been friends for years...not only just met for the first time. I hung out with her between periods, I walked to school early so we could spend time together in the library before first period started, I went to her place after school to play video games. I hung out with her friends too sometimes at the local mall or the theater...it didn’t matter to me that I was the only boy...or the gay label it earned me from bullies who thought that mattered to me once it became clear Marissa and I were not dating.
I had friends. That’s all I cared about.
We did consider dating once around Prom time. We were both single so it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. We had a very serious sit down together and literally listed out all the pros and cons but eventually came to the same conclusion. We were fine just being best friends. There was nothing else either of us wanted more from the other. It didn’t even hurt our friendship...nothing changed because of it at all. We even still went to Prom together. Platonically of course.
She was the one who had encouraged me to take all the schools college level science and math courses too.
“No one as smart as you should be letting it go to waste, Ry.”
“I’m not going to college, Mar. Let’s be realistic.”
“Not with that attitude you won’t. Come on! I’ll help you!”
So, I took the classes...and I got the part time job my foster family said I needed if I wanted a place to live when I turned 18...I worked my butt off. Then the day of my eighteenth birthday...I came home to find all my stuff thrown in bags on the porch...and a note on the door basically telling me to get lost.
They never hit me. Never yelled at me. They just...didn’t care about me. They couldn’t even be bothered to do it in person.
I went to the only place I could think to go.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////
Marissa was holding me in a tight hug as if she was afraid I’d scatter into a million pieces and disappear in the strong winds of the incoming summer storm. I was crying into her sweater, all my stuff, what little I had, strewn across the porch in grocery bags and my school backpack.
“I...I did everything they wanted! I-”
She held me tighter and shushed me, “It’s ok, Ryland! It’s going to be ok!”
“I have nowhere to go!”
“It’s ok, Ry, you can stay here!” She assured me but I was already shaking my head.
“I can’t do that, your parents-”
“Love you, Ryland. My parents love you, they’ll let you stay I promise! If they won’t then...I’ll just leave with you!”
I was shaking my head and trying to escape the hug now, “No! You can’t do that…”
“You’re my best friend! You’re the brother my parents never had! You’re not going anywhere I can’t go, ok? I won’t let you! So get that through that thick too smart head of yours and accept it!” Marissa had that tone in her voice that told me she’d fight a bear if she thought it might try to eat me. I couldn’t help but smile at that despite my tears. I nodded.
“Ok...ok.”
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//////////////
She was right. Her parents had no issues at all letting me move into their spare room. I even heard her father on the phone that night giving a very loud verbal thrashing to my foster parents when they thought I was sleeping. When they hung up on him Marissa’s mother had to talk him down from escalating it into something physical by going over and yelling at them in person.
Marissa was there when we went to college together. She was there when we were both in graduate school. She stayed with me for a couple weeks after I got myself fired for that whole...fiasco in Denmark and my dissertation got violently rejected. I’m pretty sure she even kept a copy of it somewhere in her own house. She thought it was brilliant. She always had my back like that.
She was the one who introduced me to the idea of teaching.
“Adults are too set in their ways. If they won’t listen to what you have to say...kids might. Kids’ll love you!” She insisted.
She was right.
She was always right.
She was my only family. The only one who believed in me with zero doubts when no one else did, not even me.
...and up until a minute ago...I thought she was practically a stranger!
Damn you, Stratt. Goddamn you…
I never even got to say goodbye...did Marissa think I volunteered and took off without even calling her?
No. She’d never buy that. Not for a second. Even when I was at my busiest on the task force I always found time to at least call her. I couldn’t always tell her everything but it was enough to just know I was still kicking. We’d made plans for when it was over. Plans to move in together somewhere warmer and bunker down to survive the twenty plus years until the probes returned.
If anyone was going to break through all the lies and red tape to find out what really happened to me...it would be her. She’d see Stratt buried for it...I had no doubts. Stratt thought I didn’t have any family to miss me. She was in for a rude awakening.
Good. I hope it haunted her for the rest of her days. I hope she never got another night of peaceful rest. Not for sending to me my death, no. That I could understand and even forgive.
What I could never forgive her for was taking my memories away at the same time.
“Thank you. Oh my god...thank you!”
The memories settled in my mind as the feeling of the hug slowly faded away. We were still floating in my memory of the Petrova line at Adrian...but I could feel what was coming. We were out of time. I swallowed around the tears.
“I’m so sorry.”
A memory of a smile, ‘It’s ok, Ry.’ it spoke in Marissa’s voice and I let out a choked sob.
“I...I won’t let anything happen to them. I promise.”
We were hugging again and I closed my eyes tight as if I could hold onto that feeling and keep it from leaving. It held me back just as strongly.
But I wasn’t that strong. No one was. We fell into the darkness together.
When I woke up...I was only me again.
~Grace?~
I blinked open my eyes, tears still streaming down my face as I was laying on my back on the sand. NO longer in the water. The stars had faded and the sky was lightening above us. Rocky and Adrian were sitting next to me, both equally fidgety with anxiety.
~Is it...gone?~ Adrian asked cautiously.
I wasn’t really sure how I knew so certainly...but I did. I nodded wordlessly. Blessing was gone.
I don’t think they really fully understood it as I rolled onto my side and bawled my eyes out but they didn’t question it. It felt like I had lost something precious...only moments after having found it. Rocky simply did his best to hug me as Adrian stroked their claws gently over my hair.