Prologue: The Experiment
Alwyn stooped over the pages of his freshly inked schematics. Lantern light flickered across the parchment, revealing arcane symbols, hastily scrawled magical formulae, and at the center of a particular page was an illustration that he stared at for some time.
“Father.” A soft voice whispered gently, nonetheless startling the old man from his thoughts. “It’s late, you should get some rest.”
A young man of about 23 stood in the doorway, wearing white robes and lab gear. Though they were many years apart, the resemblance between them was undeniable. A perpetually furrowed brow, thin lips obscured by a thick beard, with the only distinguishing feature being the younger man’s red hair that glimmered in the light of the lantern’s flame like embers.
“I couldn’t sleep now if sedated.” Alwyn’s eyes returned to the page. “I’m too close.”
“The slime will conform. All of our diagnostics have resulted in the same conclusion.”
“You know that isn’t what I’m working on at the moment, Seamus.” Alwyn sighed, rubbing the dark folds under his eyes. “If we can’t enhance the subject’s cognitive faculties, then our efforts will have all been for naught.”
“Not entirely…” his son hesitated, knowing his words would be dishonest if he continued.
“If I could only determine how to interface with its neural structure. Then training it to have a wider range of responses would be a straightforward matter of inputting stimuli through the—“
“Father, you need rest. You’ll never reach a breakthrough being this sleep deprived.”
“But look at this son!” Alwyn demanded, slamming his pointer finger down on the illustration he had been poring over.
It depicted an ooze drawn in immaculate detail. The seemingly homogeneous creature is dissected into every constituent component down to the smallest detail.
“Yes, and?” Seamus said, confused. “I have seen these diagrams many times, Father. Is there supposed to be something I’m missing?”
“I swear sometimes you’re as unobservant as your mother.” Alwyn spat, obviously annoyed. “We mapped the organism’s biology down to its cellular structure, and with all that, what did we uncover about its nervous system?”
His son responded immediately, “That it is dispersed throughout its entire body, with no identifiable organ or structure to suggest a central framework.”
“Correct, and we have been attempting to interact with that neural network through…?”
“Magical inputs relayed along the armor’s interior surface”
“But if the creature’s mind is distributed through its entire body, and we’re only interacting with its outer layer, then what?”
“Then it is only receiving a fraction of the data we’re feeding it through the armor.” His son’s tone was now one of understanding, and with it excitement. “We need a means of linking with it on an internal level. Perhaps a distilled solution of nano runes. If we configure the sequence appropriately, then the resulting product could be injected into the creature directly. Father, don’t you understand?!” His voice had climbed steadily till it had reached shouts of rambling exhilaration. “Not only is this a breakthrough, but it shaves years off of the training process, potentially!” Seamus caught himself, breathing hard, eyes bright. “I’m sorry,” he said, laughing softly as he regained his composure. “I know. I know. I sound mad.”
Alwyn stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he smiled. There was no warmth in it, only recognition.
“You don’t,” he said. “You sound right.”
Seamus blinked. “Then you agree?”
“I agree,” Alwyn said, already moving again, already gathering vials, already reaching for parchment. “But the runes must be precise. If the sequence collapses, then the neural lattice will be overloaded.”
“Yes. Which is why the injector has to be guided manually.” Seamus hesitated. “The automatic injector won’t allow for that degree of control.”
Alwyn’s hand stilled.
They both turned, as if by instinct, toward the far corner of the chamber, toward the containment vat. Inside it rested the subject. A smooth, grey mass, neither active nor inert. Gray, like cooling ash.
Alwyn looked at his son then. Really looked at him. At the set of his jaw. At the eagerness he had once carried himself decades ago. For a moment, something like doubt flickered across his face.
Then it was gone.
“Prepare the solution,” Alwyn said.
The injector hissed softly as Seamus depressed the plunger. Liquid light threaded through the glass tube, nano-runes suspended in alchemical medium, each sigil unfolding and refolding as it passed into the gray mass. At first, nothing happened. Then the ooze shuddered. Ripples spread through it, fast and uneven. The smooth surface began to fracture, dividing along invisible lines. The runes flared, too bright, too fast.
“Father,” Seamus said, tension creeping into his voice. “The uptake rate is spiking.”
“Hold steady,” Alwyn snapped. “If you move before the agent takes effect then—”
The gray mass surged suddenly. It moved with no warning, no sound. One moment it lay contained, the next it rose, a sudden, violent bloom of substance that swallowed the injector, the tubing, and Seamus’s hands up to his wrists. It flowed up his arms like spilled mercury, cold and burning all at once. Where it touched skin, sigils burned themselves into flesh, then vanished as the slime reabsorbed them.
Seamus began screaming in pain, panic finally breaking through his composure. He attempted to pull away from the acidic slime, but was unable to break free. “Father! Help!”
But Alwyn didn’t move.
In that instant, a thousand calculations screamed through his mind. Power levels. Containment thresholds. The chance that if he stabilized the sequence, if he waited, the differentiation would complete. That it would work. He’d just have to be willing to let his son die.
“I’m sorry, son.” He said as he stood unmoving. The gray mass convulsed before yanking its prey into itself. Its form shifted and jostled, as Seamus thrashed and convulsed within, until finally after what felt like forever, it stopped moving.
Alwyn stood unmoving for several moments, only able to move forward shakily, dragging himself closer towards the subject. It looked dead, its usually rippling and amorphous surface now still. Alwyn peered through the glass of the holding vat, placing his hand on its cool exterior.
He waited, watching the unmoving creature. Was he wrong? Was this yet another failure? Only this time with a cost not even success could pay back?
But then it began to split. Not cleanly, and not evenly.
One portion tore free, shedding its gray membrane like dead skin as it took on a deep, luminous blue. It recoiled from Alwyn instinctively, gathering itself close, its movements hesitant, searching. The other section wrenched itself from the gray mass and wriggled free of its progenitor. This one was a bright green, and it searched around, nudging its surroundings with curiosity.
Alwyn fell to his knees. He did not look at the blue slime. His gaze locked onto the green one, and something inside him hardened.
“This,” he whispered, voice breaking and sharpening all at once, “is what my son’s life bought?”
