The woman steps under the doorframe.
Her eyes are explosions of colour with no discernible pupil. Instead, there are two flowering craters around which her iris splashes like a shoreline. A ring of chromatophores extends from the edges of each blossom.
Her eyes are red, the kind of red that spills from a vast wound in someone's stomach. It appears to have splattered onto her face, creating red freckles about her eyes.
She pores over the room, her head skimming the ceiling. Her freckles linger as the hue about her pupils shifts. She frowns, her eyes now yellow and pink, and in a few long paces happens over the android. Henry looks up at her holding a match burnt to his fingernails and a Book trying to the bottom of its lungs not to laugh. He glances at fragments of the door handle which litter the ground. The circuits in his head whisper to him every way the woman could reuse his parts.
"Kar ves dio?," she snaps, carrying in her voice such a wedge as to split moments in half, "Ka ves terramje ai?"
Henry struggles to pull words to an answer, "Sha tyre je– ka'dje vmaun Amij," he raises the Book, "Bë keo më faskra'dje varu myrten t'io, na–"
The woman snaps, "Aupopilje? Tjauke kuriatom! Dhes sha edues maru më tyrëm'dje arsha!"
"Hila, io dhei sha, na ky–"
"Ky ka?," Hila severs Henry mid-connotation, "Ky'verethë? Më ky'helmë tyre ai? Kje dio ky'shei nekujasë!"
Moments grow painful with silence.
The woman spots the remnants of a pair of khakis clinging to Henry's exposed electronics. Her eyes take on a violent red. She glances past the android; the blood in her gaze startles Amy to her feet.
"Ai," she gestures, "Vi ka më dera dio vmau të keo je?"
Amelia snaps to attention. As the android replies, she finds herself growing more aware of the language and its meanings. "Keo" refers to her; "vmau" is a name. Words and context engulf her buzzing mind, and as the two converse, Amelia listens despite their dialogue falling on deaf ears.
Knowledge is addicting.
Just as the fumes and the remarkable odour begin fading from between Hila's fingers, her palm flares up in a burst of heat and light. A thick, pitch-like material engulfs her hand and the light therefrom. The amalgam flattens to a thin disc which ripples like water, and holds its shape as if held together by willpower alone. Henry shifts his weight; he watches the woman's fingers disturb the strands of smoke writhing overhead.
"Tani në serdëtom sheshakë ashike, na s'edui sheshë kërkene," she fumes, "Atom serdët vi tani je kje kanshës dio dardhëntom."
The tablet appears not to be functioning.
Henry notes the woman's contorting expression and remarks, "S'je rejall, Hila; edues drese sha ktu," he moves to set the Book onto the coffee table, from which Amelia backs away.
Hila proceeds to punch the ceiling.
"Ka bes deo?," Henry flinches, "Ai ydall ja? Ha së dhes sha s'jau kje Tehk?," he stares up at the woman as angrily as he can.
However, if looks could kill, Hila's would do so painfully. She finds the amalgam functions no better after attempting in vain to raise it over her head. It changes form as she jams it into her pocket.
Hila eclipses the android. She strains her voice over the last syllable and it cracks like the thin ice she has Henry standing upon. Words smear into a homogeneous slurry; her pupils seem to bleed with every consonant. The overabundance of red pigment stings, boils, heating until it becomes unbearable. Hila drags her hair into fists over her face, her voice tearing within her throat. A stream of crimson runs down her cheek.
YOU ARE READING
The Book of All
Science Fiction"Knowledge is power," most say, but power corrupts all the same. See, knowledge exists as a pyramid. Very many things know nothing, but only one knows everything. To climb the pyramid isn't difficult, up to some point. The climb can be a taxing thin...
