Hyperpunk Virgo 1: Dreams of Oblivion

Laughter echoed from the darkness between dreams and waking. A dark presence, amused at their suffering and struggling.

“…You’ve returned… Yet again!”; it laughed in twisted amusement, “How many times have you ended yourself now?... How many more times before you learn YOU CANNOT ESCAPE ME!!!”

-

Aodhán came back into awareness too quickly, greeted by a migraine as the darkness gave way to a world of dimly lit blurs. The only thing that was clear was the neon blue outline and pop-up window of their optical implant reactivating as their DNI-OS rebooted. But Aodhán wasn’t anywhere close to awake enough to understand whatever information was being presented to them before memories flooded their mind.

In their minds eye there were two worlds. Two branches of memory.

The one where they spent months, maybe years in the beyond. Searching for Oblivion.

And the one that was more a broken chain of memories in the real.

Of awakening drenched in sweat from a myriad of nightmares, finding themselves in a Hedonic Latex hammock and under a fur duvet instead of strapped to a surgery table or neck-deep in any of the Hell’s they knew of.

Of auditoriums saturated in the musk of WPC, late teen spirits and 30 year old seats. Tuning out and jacking in, roaming the GreyNet until the hour was up and they could leave. To ride upon a white horse along an archery trail in the forest or rowing an boat along the shores of Iceland.

Neither were significant to them. It was social white noise, before going back to the halls of the Tech Duinn they dwelled in. A Place of Power. Of Death.

To dimly lit stone corridors with walls of stone, lined with bioluminescent flowers, dusty bones and urns. Populated by Necromancers of all domains. Succorian, Eldritch, Hedonic and Elemental.

The world threatened to spin out of balance again as they remembered themselves, the haze of memories feeling like it was expanding their mind, pushing it out through their nose and eyes.

A trillion nerve endings burned and ached across their body as what was once dead screamed back to life. Their mind racing while still trying to reclaim cognizance, only comprehending panic, fear and the loud ringing in their ears for several terrifying moments as their consciousness returned to the prison of skin and tainted flesh that was their body.

A howl of agony and frustration caught on the tube down their throat, driving them to reach up with hands that’d gone numb to try and pull it out, only finding purchase with their numb right hand as they lifted their blurred left arm up and found a stump where their forearm should have been.

Splinters of memories shone through the fog. They knew their arm had died with the rest of them once. It just didn’t come back with them. It began to rot. Necrosis had spread from their annular finger and up their arm.

There were flashes of faceless Doctors and Scientists. Wearing scrubs and medical masks. Some laughing, others arguing, neither did anything about it.

Aodhán remembered a voice taunting them. Goading them to embrace the rot. To give into it. But they refused it and tore it off themself.

Gripping their own dead hand and pulling until the diseased bone popped out of its socket in their elbow, then they kept pulling- crying in agony as skin, muscle, nerves and sinew ripped apart.

Blacking out only to reawaken as someone else jacked a full-dive socket into the interface on the back of their neck, sending them screaming into the OldNet. The RedNet.

Those days were long gone. But the anger was fresh within them. A quiet rage simmering within them, having them balling their right hard enough that their blackened nails pierced through the plastic of the pipe and dug into their palm.

With purchase upon the pipe, they slowly but forcefully pulled it out, retching dryly into the dark red bathwater as they tossed the tube over the side of the bath.

They tried to get up but an eruption of pain arose in their chest and shot up into their brain.

Their legs were like jelly and their back like molasses as they slumped back against the foot of the soapstone tub. Feeling the plating of their neural implant grate against the tub. Between their shoulder blades and down along their spine.

Looking up at the tiled ceiling until their the pain subsided again, their vision clearing, their hearing returned to normal as the ringing eventually calmed but didn’t go away- becoming more an electrical white noise in the background of everything, under the trickling of water and the sequential hissing and pumping of the ventilator.

Closing and opening each eye separately they became aware that their right only perceived darkness. A cursory touch was all they needed to accept that there was nothing there.

Looking through their left eye instead they found themselves in a dimly lit bathroom, illuminated by the light of a grey overcast sky that seeped in from the windows above the tub. But Aodhán knew they were underground. They felt it through the walls, in the air, in their own bones.

The ceiling LED lights were turned off but above the mirrored cabinet perpendicular to the tub there was a florescent light, shining down revealing a message written in blood. ‘Oscail é seo’. “Open this” in Twilit, or as it was known in this realm- Gaelige.

Beneath it, Aodhán caught the glint of a blade. A black metal knife, left in the sink and still stained with their own blood.

Looking down at themselves however, they grimaced in discomfort. Not at the realisation they were still wearing black leather pants and military boots that were now saturated with blood and water. Not at the sight of an empty knife holster below their right knee that was empty- evidently cause the knife is was for was in the sink.

It was the medical plug in their chest. A needle they had plunged through into the place between their hearts, just beneath the Cordis-Crystallia. The third heart of crystal.

Pumping out of it through a pipe in the head into a siphon by the ventilation machine was a pale orange fluid. Poison. Rot. The shit within that Aodhán needed to study. Needed to understand.

They gripped the plug and the voice from the peripheral of their mind called out; “…I made certain you would feel my pain when it went in… I will make you feel it tenfold as it comes out”.

They felt something claw at their nerves, at their spine. Felt it dig into their veins and burn inside them.

They pulled out the plug without hesitation, their mind overwhelmed by an explosion of pain that threatened to break them. They screamed and continued to scream until their throat burned out. Laughter, cruel and baleful, echoed in their head, louder than any internal voice they could think with.

Aodhán knew better than to beg for it to stop, knew better than to plead with a monster for mercy.

All they could do was ignore the voice, not daring to speak a word to it. They gripped the tub and let the pain wash over them until it ceased so many unbearable minutes later.

Until, despite its unrelenting hatred and sadism, Aodháns suffering ceased amusing it.

Then they were back where they started. Half submerged in a tub, gasping for breath feeling like they had been hit by a train, but at least they didn’t have tubes in them anymore.

Nor any marks of their own actions. The centimetre wide hole under their sternum clotting as the poison in their blood engulfed the wound. The muscle and skin closed over. Leaving behind nothing. Not even a scar. Their body was denied scarring. They were denied any past the devil didn’t want them to have.

Glancing at their wrist they vaguely remembered the deep cuts they tore into themselves. 4 deep diagonal cuts that trailed blood into the water. For a moment they remembered it wrong. Remembered cutting ruins into their arm, marks of sacrificial offering to the Plague Evil. Words of rot.

It wasn’t their memory though. It wasn’t what happened.

The lack of an arm and an eye spoke as much. They wanted them gone and the monster within granted that wish. Their body was only allowed to remember what the devil wanted it to remember.

Thrashing about in agony returned feeling to what they would bluntly call their everything.

Gritting their teeth- feeling their molars nip through the insides of their cheeks where before there was an extended maw of fangs- they pushed themself up to their feet with their one good hand and stepped out of the tub. The water dripping from their being as they cautiously turned off the ventilator and set the siphon filled with orange rot atop it before slowly approaching the cabinet, mindful not to slip upon the small puddles of blood on the floor.

Approaching the mirror, they grounded themselves in the body they saw in the reflection.

A tall, gaunt being with pale skin, a head of short black hair and a single venomously green slitted eye with rings of purple and silver, mired by the dark circles under it. Their right eye socket filled in by a white sphere. A ball of some kind of polymer.

It was a body that was wrong. That felt and looked wrong. That didn’t feel like it belonged to them.

They’d seen themselves without this body. Seen their residual self-image. A being just as tall but with muscles and curves. Long haired and mawed. Breasted and whole… even if it was illusionary. A memory of themselves that no never existed. That was never given the chance to exist.

This body was a prison of flesh, their spirit was the tenant and the devil a landlord that wanted them gone so it could be turned into something else.

Resisting the urge to put their fist through the mirror, they opened it to find two upper shelves stuffed full of auto-injectors filled with two serums, one blue and one green. The bottom shelf was stuffed end to end with inhalers containing medical nanites, carrying payloads of Immuno-suppressants, anti-coagulants, nerve stimulants and steroids.

On the bottom shelf were 2 neatly arranged items. An autoinjector and a voice recorder listed respectively as 1 and 2.

Context alone had them grab the autoinjector. Feeling a familiarity as they held it in their hand and guided by their muscles, they jabbed it into the spot where the siphon needle was. Holding it in place as the needle pierced the skin and struck deep within.

“…You may silence me… But I am not of the Silence… I am of the Rot… I am Decay… I will always be watching…”; the voice from the peripheral spoke; as from that spot there emanated a coldness that spread throughout their body. A numbness that greyed the world, but silenced the voice.

They recalled being told that scopaesthesia was among the most basic forms of psychomancy. To know without knowing that one is being watched.

Aodhán didn’t know such a feeling. Only what it was like to no longer be watched.

They breathed a sigh of relief that in hindsight was somehow a mistake. Nausea overwhelmed them, making them double over as they vomited out a black bile, thick like treacle, into the sink and unto the knife.

Unbearable moments of grossness passed as they slumped down, their whole body shaking, their bones aching. They recalled being seasick once, somewhere. It felt worse than that.

“Not even back 10 minutes and I’m already wishing for death again”; Aodhán spat out, pushing themselves back onto their feet, talking but a moment to steady themselves before reaching for the digital voice recorder.

The small device had been left on. Displaying the time and date- 4:34am, February 20th 2016- and a pre-selected audio file time-stamped 201602192045. They had been away barely 8 hours, but evidently they had left a message for themself before offing themself.

Taking a deep breath, they pressed play and listened to themself, their voice sounding smoky to their own ears.

“…Hopefully you’re not around to hear this message but… in case you can’t remember everything right or something happened to the Black-Box. Here’s what you need to know. The name you were given is Aodhán Flamdwyn. When you woke up the black-box should have restored your physical memories- everything between dives going as far back as 2009 when it got added to your DNI-OS.. Think of it as an secondary temporal lobe or a memory co-processor that duplicates your memories as they are written. If you can remember what colour Réaltineris’ hair is, then you’re good to go…”

The vision of a woman around their height with electric blue hair sprang to mind with unnerving ease. Where once it may have been a distant shadow of a memory were now memories of a woman who was familiar to them. All easy-going smiles and high energy… but Aodhán could feel the sorrow within her, beneath the smile.

The word ‘Mother’ seemed linked to her… not that they understood the significance of it.

“If you can’t remember, use the Interface in the bedroom to run the Mem-Rec app. It’ll interface with the black box and help you remember things. Takes time though. And you don’t have time right now!”; the past Aodhán impressed with a more serious tone, “Before you went under you ran an experiment using Alchemical Agent 23-2. Black Honey. Aetheric Spirit with moonlace, honeysuckle and a charcoal bezoar. It’s an elixir that purges the body of both medication and poisons. You did that so while under you could siphon uncontaminated samples of Bio-Chemical EXO-682 from within yourself. The poison is what brought you back but it’s also an extension of the Demonic Parasitoid in your chest cavity. It is a lethal bio-recombinant agent. Your unique physiology has allowed you to produce antibodies and anti-toxins that neuter it to prevent it from turning you and everyone else on the planet into something out of ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’… If you can’t remember seeing that movie, its cause you haven’t. If you can, get an MRI later. Once out of your body the poison will emulsify with your blood to assimilate any and all biomass it comes in contact with to form a Plague Hellspawn. A Bloodclot. If you haven’t pulled the plug in the tub, do it now”

At that Aodhán turned to do as was suggested, only to stop and take a few steps back until their back was against the sink.

The body of bloody water had coagulated into an ooze. Swelling under the ray of false grey light as it rose into a growth of muscle and cartilage. The sound of bones breaking and meat tearing from within it.

Aodhán then reached into the sink without turning and picked up the knife. The recording continuing to play as they kept their eyes on the growing ball of gore.

“… I’m also gonna assume it’s already forming or you’re already fighting one. In which case, don’t bother using fire magic- they’re created from your Genome and you’ve already started to transmutate to resist flames. Your best bet is silver. The knife you left in the sink will do the job. You also left your Séamus-Faoláin in the armoury beside the wardrobe by the front door in the bedroom. It’s already loaded and live with silver bullets. You’ll need your prosthetic to use it properly though. It’s in the-“

Aodhán didn’t get to listen to the end of the message as the growing pustule ruptured in an explosion of gore. From it lunged beings without skin. Just dark taut muscles and hardened bones, razor sharp teeth like that of a deep-sea fish and claws that glinted like onyx in the dark.

One leapt for the ceiling, sticking to it like a reptile. The other lunged with its right arm outstretched seeking to liberate Aodháns head from their torso. Its pale white eyes bulging out of its head as it screeched in wanton bloodlust.

In spite of the pain, the weakness and exhaustion- Aodhán sidestepped to the left ducking under the claw as it came down to slice through the cabinet and marble sink.

The Hellspawn raised its head back up and turned to take another swipe at Aodhán but they had already flipped the knife into a reverse grip, swinging it back to plunge the blade through the monsters temple with such force that its point emerged out of the other side of the demonmorphs head; the guard catching against the entry wound to smash the creatures head through the cabinet.

The second Bloodclot kicked off the wall, claws out and ready to strike.

Unable to pull the knife out from within the first monsters cranium without difficulty, Aodhán dived out of the bathroom through the open door to the left of the mirror as the claws of the second Bloodclot ripped through its kin.

Aodhán didn’t have the time to familiarise themselves with their own bedroom, only acknowledging the electronic door of the bathroom made of steel panels. They had seen a touch-activated control panel within the bathroom and guessed correctly there was another on the opposite side of the door.

On landing they rolled onto their back, threw their right leg up into the air and brought it down, the heel of their boot colliding with the panel.

With a hiss, the door sealed closed within its frame. The Bloodclot charging and ramming against it but to Aodháns relief it lacked the strength to break it down. But with their memories of previous battles against these things coming to mind, they knew better then to dwell in such a feeling.

Aodhán scrambled back onto their feet as a blackened claw ripped through the metal, the Bloodclot on the other side screaming bloody murder as it frantically began tearing through.

They took a moment to look around their room. It was an adequately sized cell, with an alcove where a black rubber hammock was strung up. On the opposite side of the room was a computer rig, a collection of curved screens and skeletonised computer towers. A black and green accented hydrosuit optimised for Net-Diving laying over the top of an Interfacing chair, where numerous plugs rested in position aligned with where the interfacing nodes in Aodhan’s nape and spine were.

On the perpendicular wall was a sliding wardrobe, the open side of it filled with more pants, boots, sleeveless shirts, jackets and coats. All made from thanergic leather and lined with grey fur.

On one shelf atop a black leather tank top rested a green myoelectric bionic arm, accompanied by its socket sleeve and the black straps of a harness. But with the Bloodclot making progress tearing through the door, Aodhán doubted they could strap it on fast enough to use it.

To the right of it beside another sliding metal door was a gunmetal grey armoury.

Moving with haste, they swung it open to find the combat gear of a Fireskull Adept- aramid weave shirts and pants, a chestplate of plastic-crystal composite resembling a ribcage and reinforced knee-high boots.

Beside such gear, pointed vertically in a rack, was a Bolt-Action rifle. An old Maoilriaghain Séamus-Faoláin Vanguard Rifle.

As the Bloodclot pushed apart the metal plating and began climbing through the door. Aodhán grabbed the rifle by the fore-stock, lifted it up into the air to catch it by the lacquered ash and black-green leather grip, whirling it around as the Bloodclot moved with unnatural speed out the door, leaping much like its kin with its claws outstretched, howling in deranged blood thirst.

Aodhán aligning the sights of the century old gun with the Bloodclots neck, lunging forward to connect the muzzle of the long-gun with a point under its fleshy collarbone and fired.

The crack of the gun in the enclosed room deafened them for a moment. The rapidly subsiding ringing in their ears a good trade off to put silver through the flesh of the monster.

It fell to the floor and begun thrashing, screaming in primeval agony as it blindly swiped its claws around. Lead-antimony bullets wouldn’t have done much beside create wounds that’d close over as quickly as they were made, and maybe a numb recognition of injury. But silver? Eldritch silver? It could make them learn what pain was. Could prevent them from regenerating.

Could make then die.

Aodhán cast the rifle aside and swooped to the creatures right side as it blindly swung its claws around, delivering a booted straight kick that sent the creature slamming into the corner of the cell.

They didn’t give it the chance to recover before they planted their right foot on the centre of its back, pinning it to the ground as they lifting up their left, grit their teeth against the ache in their abdomen and started repeatedly stomping upon the Bloodclots head until the skull cracked, then they kept going- roaring in rage and hatred against the aching pain of their being. Until the skull caved in and the brain burst out. Until all that remained were shards of bone and lumps of bloody muscle.

With that the danger was gone; and Aodhán had not the will to push themselves forward any further.

Their body ached from within like their organs had been squeezed, their mind was clouded by fatigue and stress and frustration; their hearts a maelstrom of emotions and none of them strong enough to break through the numbness they felt.

All they had the strength left to do was get off the Bloodclot, its body beginning to melt away into a boiling molten organic slag. They knew they weren’t going to reach the hammock, instead planting their back against the closed part of the wardrobe and slumping down against it. Their strength spent and their eyes refusing to stay open.

Their mind ran away from them for a moment, until the sound of the door opening had them up once more. The audible creaks and squeaks of rubber perking Aodháns ears up.

With a resigned sigh they threw their head back against the floating panel and looked to the doorway. The sight of shotgun barrels poking through the threshold didn’t frighten them, or have them on their feet ready to fight once again. They were the barrels of CSAT Sandraudigas. Automatic 10 gauge toggle-locked shotguns that were supplied to the Nordic coven. Used most often by the Sentinels, the Wardens who’d volunteered to defend locations of critical importance to the Werakin; or in the case of the 4 glossy black figures that took point and secured the room- those who consented to serve even after death.

Void Drones, figures wearing thick metal collars around their necks, kevlar combat rigs and tight black smart-rubber catsuits; sealed in the programmable material in such a way that one could mistake them for fetishists with a thing for total encasement.

But Aodhán knew what lay within. Voidflesh, either wrapped around the bones of the dead or having been mixed with the ashes of the fallen.

The dark teal semi-solid substance from a world so far away from Gaia would become ectoplasmic in reaction to thanergic material, growing and shaping itself into a silhouette of the consenting fallen.

They died and rose again as a silent, obedient Drone. Faceless and all but nameless and powerless. Aodhán would be lying if they said they didn’t see the appeal. Didn’t seethe with envy of the peace the Drones didn’t even know they felt. All they needed to concern themselves with being utterly stalwart and unthinkingly loyal to the Necromancer who held their leash.

In this case, it was the Concubus who stood in the doorway. Awaiting confirmation of safety.

After one Drone with an athletic masculine build slinged Aodháns Séamus-Faoláin over its shoulder, and two other Drones- one with a muscular feminine build and the other of androgynous- returned from the bathroom carrying with the silver combat knife and the bottle of siphoned rot respectively.

They then all stood along the wall at attention. Their arms folded behind their backs, their encased faces- sealed behind dark reflective gasmasks- facing forward. One could mistake it for discipline if it wasn’t more like robotic obedience.

With that, the Concubus- a Hedonic Necromancer- strode into Aodháns room. Her 6 inch high-heeled leather boots clacking audibly against the polished granite floor. Her hair was long and brown, barely hiding the curved black horns like that of a goat along the sides of her head, decorated with a kaleidoscope of ribbons and jewels- pierced through by grey eyes.

She too wore a black catsuit. One that was sleeveless, revealing red skin, paired with two shoulder-length leather gloves fitted with fellsteel cuffs capped with amethyst runestones inscribed with sigils that glowed green against the purple. Paired to the collars around the necks of her Drones liked with similar runes.

Around her waist was a ceremonial corset. Black leather, ribbed, boned and hugging against her body tightly. A crystal eye in its crown resting just above her sternum. Its single black pupil slitted like a dragons within a fiery vortex of purple, blue and pink energy.

It was an Eye of Loviatar. The mark of a Canonite Ultima. A High Priestess of the Cult of Loviatar, the Dark Goddess of Desire.

She looked at the puddle of organic slag with disgust, then to Aodhán with a look of coldness. It was difficult to read her expression from her eyes alone as her mouth and nose was covered with a latex mask with micro-porous holes.

But Aodhán forced themselves to meet her gaze, then when they couldn’t focus on her eyes- her mask. After a moment, her expression softened. Her eyebrows furrowing.

“…Again, Youngblood?”; Xenia questioned, her voice a husky contralto and her accent vaguely eastern European. From years spent working undercover in the Soviet Union before it became the Federal Sovereign Soviet Republics, “That’s- what? The fifth time since Midwinter!?”.

“Yeah… yeah”; Aodhán answered tiredly.

Xenias features hardening again, but she remained somewhat sympathetic, “Are you fit to stand?”; she asked

“Barely”; answered Aodhán, “Why?”.

“You have been summoned. The Elders await you in the Sanctum. The ones you have woken up with your roaring and raging”; stated Xenia.

“Not my roaring”; stated Aodhán, looking to the slag, “Definitely my rage though… they sound like me?”

“Not exactly. But close enough”; answered Xenia, “Their howls are like the screams of your torment that haunt our dreams”

“Who’d I wake up?”; Aodhán asked awkwardly.

Xenia looked to the doorway, Aodhán followed her gaze and standing there with a foot and a back against the frame- was a woman around Aodháns height. A head of blue hair tied into a ponytail. Wearing a navy gambeson with a furred collar, shoulders plated with fellsteel. Her purple eyes resting on Aodhán in a glare. Of annoyance or frustration, Aodhán wasn’t certain- but it was born of regret and guilt as much as it was of that insufferably complex feeling of love.

“…Bollocks”; grunted Aodhán.

Réaltineris held her silence then chuckled quietly for a moment before catching the laugh in her throat.

“You know? When I was a kid, a bit younger than you, I used to sneak out of Dúnfort Gealladóir all the time. Back in my teens when your grandmother was so focused on her research high up in Túr Nathair she had not set foot in the lower citadel for days”; said Réaltineris, lowering her head while thinking back to her youth, “I would sneak out through the sewers into the under-city. To pubs and nightclubs. Fight pits and theatres. They would send one of the prospective praetors out to find me and bring me back. Or I’d get caught trying to sneak someone into my chambers. A cute Orc girl, a hunky Tu’narikii guy, one bombshell of a Mechamorph once. But one way or another my mother ended up looking at me with anything from relief, annoyance or second hand embarrassment. And I’d be left saying ‘Bollocks’ to myself with that same tone of voice before getting an earful”.

“Your point?”; muttered Aodhán.

“There isn’t one. I’m merely finding it funny. The absurdity that history can repeat and rhyme in wholesome and cruel ways”; answered Réaltineris, “I’m just somewhat insulted that in this case, history chose to be cruel”.

“…Well then I sincerely apologise that you are finding me in such a manner rather than a more tastefully innocent position”; said Aodhán sarcastically, “Like in bed with a Demi-Urge”.

“You are welcome to surprise me”; answered Réaltineris, trying to keep her voice calm, “Every other Elder is awake and awaiting you in the Rotunda. Save Claudius, he’s still talking to Chu’mana in Comms- so they make as well be having phone sex. And Fafnir. Not sure where he is. Probably still in Reykjavik. He’ll show up eventually”

She then turned to Xenia; “Can you attend to this?”.

“Certainly”; answered Xenia emotionlessly.

“Good. I need to get coffee in me before we do this, again!”; stated Réaltineris groggily, turning to leave. Her footsteps fading into the dimly lit shadows of the catacombs.

Xenia then turned to look down at Aodhán, her eyebrows curling in such a way that she was undoubtedly smiling under the face mask. She raised her hand up and her Drones heads turned to look at directly Aodhán.

“Hmm~ Such a filthy little thing”; purred Xenia salaciously, her drones converging on Aodhán, “Seems we must clean you up”.

“Ack póg mo thóin!”; Aodhán barked as two of the more muscular looking ones picked them up by the shoulders, all but lifting them off their feet, while the other two acquired their bionic arm and their combat gear, “Feck sake Xenia, don’t hose me with iced water again!”

“Shouldn’t have awoken me at 4 in the morning! Again!”; Xenia snarled viciously, following behind her cohort as they carried Aodhán through the doorway.