Partner

I figured the other one would be the only one for tonight. But no.

In the original plot for this, Nort was there and all gung-ho and all but carrying a bone saw. The guy is really desperate to cut into a Sidhe. Maybe he's a ... zeno-necrophiliac? I don't even know if I have that right.

But as he's off in a place far, far away, hiding from news peoples and pretending to be shunned by the government... else stuff had to happen.

Suppose now that I think about it, the light and airy morning might have been clever plot if done by another author.

Too bad I dun have that clever plotting mechanism.

Read, Review and Enjoy.




Even Mik thought the new MRI machine was loud. Palt demonstrated on Mik first, having the man lay perfectly still. Mik hadn’t understood why he was demonstrating until the machine turned on and began thumping like crazy. He had been told very sternly to lay the fuck still. Despite the fact that he had smacked his forehead on the top of the little… thing that he…

Slid into?

An entirely separate technician had to be brought in to run the damned thing, it was loud and blurry. Well. Sort of. Not the best quality and there was no zoom function and it only had like a hundred mega pixels per square inch. How was a doctor supposed to do anything with this ancient gizmo anyhow?

Palt was… very verbal about his displeasure.

“Well, why do we have such a poor piece of equipment when the other one was so good?” Mik asked Palt, irritated by the man’s whining.

“Because. This is what you get when you remove the Sidhe factor. That one little piece of bone makes it run smoother and multiplies its abilities. Like… giving a near sighted person glasses. This? This is taking the glasses away after raising a child with glasses and then telling it that it can see just fine, and who needs to be able to see details anyways,” Palt motioned at the screen and then stopped, frowned and leaned inward, “oh my god.”

“My god?”

“Tahl-ra, god of healers, you moron,” Palt snapped, “that mass does not need high definition. Not at all. But this. This cannot be good. His blood work would be off, everything would be… wait. That’s by the hippocampus. Everything would be haywire.”

“Hippo…campus?”

“Controls memory. With mapping of your surroundings, with … filtering memorial information. Emotions tagged with emotions are read through there or discarded at the same time. Basically if it’s there and we remove it… we remove his memories.”

“Why are you talking about removing it?”

“Because it’s a mass, Mik, and it’s not a pin drop on some ancient negative that may or may not be a mass, it is a mass, it’s the size of a quarter and it is right there in his brain. Memory, cognitive skills, verbal skills. This was not here the last time we scanned, which means it’s highly active, it’s growing at an obscene rate.”

“Maybe… it’s not what you think it is…”

“Maybe. Or maybe Paw has a tumour too big to be nothing. And no the spot did not appear on your MRI, or on the thirteen we preformed before this. On. Sedated. Sidhe.”

“What, what sedated Sidhe?”

“The Sidhe that don’t exist,” Palt took in a deep breath and looked away from Mik as he fiddled with the controls of the MRI.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m just. Implying. That maybe. Just maybe. Someone sold an idea to movie makers about Sidhe and then that money went into purchasing new Sidhe and the land that they may or may not have lived on as wild Sidhe before the rancher invited poachers in. Maybe,” Palt shrugged, “and… it might have grossed something like thirteen billion world wide.”

“Which … is like average…?”

“Uhm. That’s after production costs. You haven’t seen any commercials for One World? Like. Sidhe meets explosion. No. Not really. Think epic war movie slash love story with Sidhe. Seperated by people. She stays behind and protects the children while he goes out and it’s his quest to get back to her after being sold to an aristocrat.”

“… I … think that would be impossible. But, hey, if people are eating it up. Good for them. So the program got thirteen billion and no one mentioned this because…”

“The money isn’t supposed to exist. Mik. Are you stupid or something?”

Paw entered the control room, “No all…. Timing… things this time?”

“No autism,” Palt corrected Paw, “Alzheimers is the forgetting of memories and …basically starts as short term memory loss and moves on from there.”

“So… old people,” Paw muttered, “why people make disease for everything? Paw eats worms. Does that mean Paw needs medication? No. Paw just likes the way they feel as they wiggle down Paw’s throat.”

“And you kiss him,” Palt murmured to Mik, highly amused with himself.

“There’s a mass.” Mik growled at Palt.

“I. Didn’t think we’d discuss it in front of Paw,” Palt sounded surprised but turned to his screen, “Paw. Do you know what cancer is?”

“Cancer in genes of people, building blocks of cells and of beings. Of you and me. Building blocks not act correctly and cause mutations. Some mutations nice like green eyes instead of purple. Some mutations bad. Like when cell doesn’t work properly and keeps reproducing self but not self but bad stuff and result is tumour or cancerous growth on part of body that is then said to have cancer. So Paw have brain cancer.”

“It might not be brain cancer,” Palt said.

“It might be all that power use,” Mik said.

Paw looked between Palt and Mik and frowned, “not sure who Paw want be right. If brain cancer then tumour be removed but even for people brain surgery tricky. Could remove Paw. Paw no longer able to see Mik and know him to be Mik. But if Mik right. Then nothing to be done with the stuff. What if tea caused it and it just goes away?”

“Another possibility,” Mik tried to sound reassuring.

“No it’s not. It’s not a possibility. Tea doesn’t cause growths, especially not in the brain.”

“And ginger doesn’t put people to sleep. Shall we argue the possibility of Paw actually being a forty-two year old virgin? Or the fact that the Sidhe grow taller than us when they don’t have access to salts which we are told are an important building block to height? Or shall we debate the possibility of power, of what is and is not power? Is it power if you can see it, or do you need him to strangle you with his mind for you to believe that the Sidhe are not people and do not go by the rules of what is and is not proper?”

Galt had walked in. The man glanced around the room, sighed, and gave the door a knock, “knock, knock, anyone home?”

“What do you want, Galt?” Mik asked.

“Er. I came to see how the program’s golden boy was doing,” Galt muttered sheepishly, “Haven’t heard any leaps or bounds recently.”

“I shared in a communal mind, I got bit, I found out how Souse and Paw’s tribes used to relate. How is that not leaps and bounds?”

“Communal…” Galt muttered.

“Mind?” Palt finished.

“Not exactly communal mind,” Paw responded, “more like place where those capable, those of better blood, can see each other for who really are and no lies can be kept. Secrets and walls can be built but Mik was shattering through all that like curious cub leaping upon anthill, wondering where queen is.”

“I’m sorry. But this mind … how exactly do you-”

“NOT MIND. Like. Inside joke,” Paw considered this for a long moment, “yes, inside joke. We all know how to get there, so we go. And some people are capable of sustaining awareness of self while in this place without being swept away by thoughts of Sidhe or without being overwhelmed or mind scrubbed.”

“Brain washed?”

“Yes. We’sa figure that because Mik can tag along with Paw during ‘nightmares’” air quotes and all, “that he can sustain self. He can. Not quite keep self separate from others, sees from others’ perspectives. Which Paw finds odd considering Mik’s inability to conform to military laws.”

“What nightmares? What is he talking about.”

“Growth,” Mik pointed at the screen for the MRI, “for gods’ sake, he has a growth. Palt wants to cut into him. I don’t. And. I don’t know. See Koln, I thought he was reporting directly to you about this shit.”

“Shit?” one of Paw’s eyebrows raised.

“You have a growth, Paw, I’m fucking worried about you. I could give a shit less whether or not Galt knows about what’s going on or if Palt believes that it’s not a communal mind. You have a growth and you could have a cancer that you didn’t have when you got here.”

“Which means…”

“Which means we’re killing your people just by existing.”




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