Not Alone

Back in Brown

A week later, Brown's body slouched in a metal chair on the bank of the Singapore River while his imprisoned mind contemplated the many things worse than dying. Skibidi Michael Jackson sat on the ground next to him— there was no chair big enough for his bulk— with a metal bathtub of matcha gelato and strawberries.

Singapore was deep in Skibidist controlled territory. The only other Agents on the Island were under parasite control like Brown, or worse, the lifeless upgrades of Mutant Toilets. Brown was alone among Skibidi, untransformed humans trying to make the best of the situation and the otters and turtles whose lives in the river continued, blissfully oblivious to war.

The Parasite raised Brown's right hand and gave the elderly human ice-cream vendor the finger.

"Stop it, Jellybean," whispered Michael. "That thing can't help being what it is."

Michael was among the most friendly of the toilets (to his own side at least), but even he was getting tired of the Parasite, and his supply of giggles had run out.

It had been a long week.

Brown's photographic memory gave him no way to escape thoughts of his rampage of his last moments of freedom. His mind kept involuntarily replaying his own hand hovering over the medic Skibidi's flush, ready to commit an act that could never be undone.

Had that really been Brown, standing over the dying Buzzsaw Mutant, gloating? How could he have forgotten his plan to ask Ulysses about imprisoned Agents and started killing everyone in the room one by one, like the most dead-inside murderer?

What had they done to him?

When a person was trapped in in his own body, he had a lot of time to think, and thoughts, Brown had found, could be the worst form of torture. 

The Parasite lost interest in the human and had turned Brown's lens to the gelato Michael was finishing.

That looks tasty, doesn't it? Brown thought loudly. Why don't you take your tongue out of my neck and try some? I bet that strawberry is juicy. I'll just sit here quietly and behave myself. Honest. 

Go on, Parasite. I know you can hear me, you little wretch.

The Parasite made no response. It turned the lens down to look at Brown's hands, which were trembling faintly, his new power unwillingly quiet. It switched the hands out into seven-inch knives, then back to hands, then back to knives.

Brown— or rather, his body— had been upgraded after he had been dragged back to the underground prison. He now had a pair of retractable hand-knives, like a TV Man, which along with his Speakerman legs, made him the most unwillingly-made chimera of the three factions. His lens also had an extra layer of glass, rendering the Parasite immune to TV lights. And— this last detail worried him most— a teleportation belt, which let his body be taken anywhere the Parasite wanted.

The Parasite stood and walked Brown over to the edge of the river. Leaning over the railing, they watched a monitor lizard floating sleepily in the water below.

"I want to try it out," the Parasite whined, its speech a little slurred, as its tongue was stuck in the back of Brown's camera. "Let me kill that ugly thing..."

"Sweetie," Michael grabbed Brown's body by the upper arm with one of his enormous metal claws and hauled him away. "You know the Professor is only allowing you to leave the base on condition that you don't let anyone know what you are. It's not time yet. We're here to get you some new clothes for your audience with the Commander, remember? Are we going to the menswear department or women's?"