Ninth Millennium Navigator

19

Matthias hoped the console had not been badly damaged. 

He did not have time to fully observe the color of the console or the chamber before they left. Callisa's and his safety was his primary concern as they rushed away.

Both minds took time to assess and manage the situation. One sensed for anyone approaching with bad intentions. The other mind was intently focused on navigating this unsteady, screaming woman at high speeds to a safe location. 

Calissa was shaking violently and scraping material out of her eye socket. He knew she was making it worse, but the eye was the lowest priority. He could not help her with the material and carry her thrashing body at the same time. 

Navigation was most vital at the moment given their current progress. He did not want to risk discovery by a man patently inundated with evil who was involuntarily released from a highly frantic, violent experience. Discovery anywhere near the lome was potential death for them both. She was too loud and agitated for him to be able to explain anything. He needed to control the situation and the eye was low on the list of concerns at the moment.

With the lack of any safe, close options, he chose to land on the devastated earth. Once there, he pulled her arms down as they continued to dig into her face. In doing so, he noticed much material buried deep in the crevasses of her nails. She continued to scream fervently and tried to force her hands back to work. Her head convulsed with obvious intention to collide with something to relieve the pain.

He steadied her and lay her down upon the ground. He sat upon her with her hands locked beside her. His legs gripped the eager limbs in tight check. This freed up his two hands to try to remedy the situation.

Her skin deformity had created an adverse reaction in the system. It had manifested itself before, but not to this extreme extent. The reaction occurred within one day in the sequence time—equivalent to approximately fifteen minutes in the real world in this case. Once the infection began, it spread quickly and with fury like wildfire in the sequence.

Now that his one mind was not deep in navigation away from the client's lome, that mind could concentrate on best next steps to get her healthy and them back to safety. The first step was considering the steps leading up to their present situation.

They had arrived in sequence late at night. He had felt the man's touse as soon as they entered. As in previous sequences they had visited, the man felt no need to hide his menacing presence. There was no one but the host to sense it. As Matthias recalled, his touse was foul. Even Calissa had identified the touse previously. She had even expressed some concern with proceeding forward on this occasion. Matthias had persuaded her to continue, convinced that nothing was going to go wrong.

After the first contact of the client's touse subsided, they tasted the sharpness of the whiskey. Cigar smoke was so pungent to Matthias that he almost choked on the suggestion. The smoke and poor lighting in the bar made it difficult to see far into the room. Through the haze, he could make out the several men sitting at the table along with the parasite. From what he could now decipher, his client was a mob boss. This client was not on the same level as Marie, but he still expected more from the man.

He had been so distracted by the powerful client that the presence of the host was not apparent for another hour in the sequence time. The host was sitting beside the parasite as though in cahoots. The reality became clear to Matthias as he observed the two men in silence. The host was living a noir novel as the worst of the worst criminals. This tall, dark figure had appeared out of the blue and supplanted the host, a burly man in a well made suit. The host's distaste for the parasite was obvious in the eyes which despised him despite the presented smile or the laughs at his successor's jokes.