The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 5

The time had finally arrived.

Dr. Anderson and Panacea were due in my hospital room in fifteen minutes and yet it felt like it was taking forever. I was so ready to be outta here. There had been many moments where I had entertained the idea of just misting and flying myself home, damn the consequences. Thankfully, reason would assert itself and I would think of the fact that I wouldn’t be getting the potential clarity on my new state of being if I did so.

Then there was the elephant in the room, in the form of the mysterious oil pot that was now hidden away in the bedside cabinet. I still had no clarity on what to actually do about it. One part of me was saying to just call Armsmaster and dump it in his lap. He had the resources of the entire Protectorate behind him, which probably included an entire government sponsored research division and his own abilities as a Tinker and a hero. I also didn’t doubt that he had some scientific background or engineering in his past either.

My research into capes and Tinkers, had me eventually concluding that while their ‘power’ was in supposed ‘future tech’, it could be a lot more nuanced and limited than just that. Every Tinker had a specialization, a branch of technology or science they were limited to. They were savants in certain fields, but try to get them to do anything else and they were no better than a normal person trying to understand or build in that field. If the Tinker was very lucky, their specialty had a broad enough application that it allowed them to dabble somewhat in many fields of science and technology. Building a functional suit of power armor was very involved if you think about it, not only were you dealing with metallurgy or material science, you had to think of powerful and small power generation, hydraulics, small computer systems, energetic materials, general physics, the list went on.

Armsmaster had definitely lucked out. Everything I could find about him publicly and via rumor on PHO, stated his power had such a broad scope, more than likely to do with miniaturization, as the amount of functions his primary iconic weapon, a halberd, had on it was seemingly impossible.

So if there was one Tinker, who could solve the mystery of the oil pot that could pour while still empty, then it was Armsmaster.

The problem with doing so was the consequences. Some of which was probably just me overthinking things and my inherent distrust of authority speaking. The investigation into the pot would naturally target me as a person of interest, exactly when I didn’t want to be under official scrutiny, even if it would be benign at first.

The issues I had to deal with in the future to just basically survive were like a mountain in front of me and I didn’t need an official investigation to compound and complicate matters.

A glance at the time on my bedside table, showed me that my visitors were already five minutes late.

The routine of deep breaths in and out helped me settle my awful combination of nerves and impatience. My mind and imagination had served me loads of wonderful nightmare scenarios as soon as Dr. Anderson and Panacea arrived. From her declaring me some kind of abomination and promising to shout it out to the masses, calling on the Protectorate to arrest me for the greater good, to her being able to reverse my new condition to boring normality. It was amazing, the fact that I already considered the latter to be a nightmare.

My powers, despite their drawbacks, had amazing potential that was just begging to be developed. I had already almost filled a notebook with ideas, possibilities, research topics and brainstorming sessions. The idea of all that going away was difficult to stomach.

In the end it took almost forty minutes before I heard a knock on the door. I took a moment to reign in my emotions, as I didn’t want to sound waspish or appear irritated at their lateness, it was a hospital after all and a patient’s needs didn’t conform to a predetermined schedule.

“Come in.”

Dr. Anderson entered first, looking the same as ever, though with a different shirt and I noticed both in his aura a new content glow and his face was slightly more relaxed. My thoughts were thoroughly derailed in trying to decipher the meaning by Panacea herself entering in his wake.

She wore a white robe with a large hood, which was open at the moment, with a scarf that covered the lower half of her face. Her curly brown hair was distinctly frizzled and showed the signs of a long day behind her. Above her scarf was a face that had freckles so densely packed that you could almost think that the darkened tan of them was her actual skin color.

Her aura followed the parahuman pattern of all the others I had seen so far, but it was her human bits that were alarming in what I saw. The barbs, motes and streams that flowed and radiated from her were… wrong? They didn’t look much like any aura I had seen so far in the hospital at all. It was especially prominent around her head. It was to the point where I really couldn’t be confident in pinpointing her sexuality or general personality at all. Though there was a definite reaction to seeing me and it had me leaning to put her in the ‘batting for the other team’ category.

“Taylor,” Anderson smiled at me. “Good afternoon, how are you feeling?”

“Actually fine and bored,” I replied with pointed exaggeration.

“Yes, well, hopefully we can sort that out and have you discharged today. She’s met you but no formal introductions were possible, this is Panacea, who we’re hoping can shed some light on all this.”

I gave the younger girl a casual wave and a smile, “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Hello,” she nodded only in return and immediately headed to the foot of my bed to begin studying my chart and patient data.

“I managed to get some lab work back and rather bafflingly, we can find nothing wrong with your skin,” Dr Anderson continued. “Every test ran, just told the same story. Bloodwork, utterly normal for a young woman your age, no abnormalities.”

“That’s…” I struggled to find the right word, even as I was relieved.

“Frustrating,” he chuckled. “Still getting no hint of sleep?”

“Nope,” I shrugged. “No tiredness, no lethargy. If I try, I’m just literally lying down with my eyes closed and feeling ridiculous as I waste time.”

Panacea closed my chart and put it back down, then approached the side of my bed. “I can’t remember how you were last week. I’ve seen nearly two dozen patients since then and it’s all a blur at this point. The first thing we’ll try is merely establishing your current normal. Do I have your permission to diagnose you?”

“Go ahead,” I held out my hand, only a slight trembling twitch managing to betray the state of my nerves.

Panacea placed her left hand on mine.

Her eyes instantly went rather glassy, going into a thousand yard stare.

She had dainty hands, not showing any hint of strength and after a full minute of expectant waiting I shrugged and turned to stare out the window, figuring this was normal.

Anderson cleared his throat, “Panacea?”

My eyes snapped to him and I instantly perceived in his aura that something was wrong.

Instinctively, I began to move to break contact with the healer, but her hand moved lightning fast and clamped around my forefinger with surprising strength. It was nowhere near my own and I could use my other hand to easily break the grip, but I didn’t want to inadvertently make things worse.

“Problem, Doctor?”

“I’ve never seen her do this before with any patient,” he shook his head. “Usually she can make a diagnosis in moments, it only takes longer when the problem is subtle or small but even that is half a minute at most.”

“Do you want her to stop?”

He worried his lower lip for a moment in consideration. “Give it another minute.”

We waited together in anxiousness, our eyes glued to the wall clock.

Finally, he gave me a nod.

I gripped her now offending hand with my right, latching onto her wrist and pulled.

The instant she broke from all skin contact with me, intelligence flooded back into her eyes and then surprise.

She seemed to almost lose her balance and only my hand gripping her clothed forearm stabilized her.

“Sorry,” she nodded at me in thanks, taking a deep breath. “That was… amazing, but I have a baseline and some conclusions for you.”

She swallowed and looked at Dr. Anderson, “Some of this will seem… I’m still having a hard time understanding…”

“Give us your best, that’s all we can ask, Ms. Dallon.”

“I’m not sure you’re parahuman, Ms. Hebert,” Panacea declared. “In fact, you’re almost closer to what is known as a Case 53, do you know…”

“Yes, yes,” I waved her off. Case 53 was a PRT designation for parahumans with non-standard biology or more colloquially, the monster capes.

“Only you wouldn’t really fit that either, you have decidedly non-standard internal biology, despite appearances and I don’t know how I could’ve missed that when I cleared you of infections last week. Case 53s are distinctly non-standard in appearance and have long term amnesia. You wouldn’t happen to have a tattoo, would you?”

“Nope, I believe I would’ve noticed that,” I wryly gestured to my nude form.

I caught a slight hint of a blush on her cheeks at that point. “Yes. In any case, you don’t need sleep, with your brain chemistry at the moment, without getting too technical, it’s extremely efficient. Renewing itself with no need for the usual processes that come with sleep. Noctis capes have no standard mechanism in their brains for achieving that status, but usually it’s regulated by a brain structure parahuman research has come to call the corona pollentia. Its location, size and structure varies in each parahuman and in some Case 53s it’s entirely impossible to find. I can’t find yours.”

“So I’m not a parahuman?” I frowned in thought.

“You are, if we’re using the loose definition,” Panacea argued. “The law, PRT and Protectorate will treat you as such. The presence of a corona is not an entirely strict conditional. Moving on, I’m sure you’ve noticed changes to your senses. Well, your smell is somehow better than a bear, all in a human sized package, which shouldn’t make sense but those receptors in your nose are brokenly efficient. I’d almost call it unnatural. Nature doesn’t design that way.”

“I’ve managed to get used to it,” I muttered, twitching my nose self-consciously.

“Your eyes are mostly normal, but I’d estimate a visual acuity of 20/5.”

“That’s pretty extreme, not that I’ve really had a chance to test it.” It was just something that I had assumed had come with the package of not needing my glasses anymore.

“You can probably read your book at 25 feet with no problems now.”

“Well, unless someone holds it for me, it’s pretty pointless doing that.”

She nodded, “Next, you have a general Brute package. Muscle strength and twitch speed is an order of magnitude beyond human norm. I suggest you carefully explore that and be very careful around people. Though you didn’t break my arm or dislocate my wrist just now, so you seem to have a handle on it. Your musculature is also decidedly non standard around…” her blush was back, “your vagina.” I could only shrug in response and nod. “Yeah, and now we get to the weird parts.

Panacea took a deep breath, “I know you know, but do you want me to say it to…” she looked at Anderson.

I sighed resignedly, “He’s my doctor and he’s been bashing his head against the problem, when I could’ve saved him some trouble.”

Anderson blinked in confusion, “Ms. Hebert?”

“You’ve noted in her chart that she’s unable to eat anything, that’s not fully true,” Panacea declared.

“Yes, we’ve tried everything.”

“Her diet is decidedly non-standard, Doctor. You won’t find it in the kitchen, though, I guess that depends on how many of the chefs are male I suppose.”

Anderson looked baffled even further, “What?”

I took pity on the poor man and bit the bullet. “I need to consume semen, Doctor.”

A very awful silence hung in the air after the words were said.

“What? That’s… What?... What?!”

“It’s true,” Panacea confirmed, trying to break through the doctor’s incomprehension. “Her entire digestive system is geared for it. There are parts that I still don’t understand and even parts of it that I can’t see with my power. Overall, though, the only conclusion I can come to is that it’s used for catalyzing semen to produce energy, much as a human does for food with much greater relative efficiency.”

Anderson began pacing back and forth. His aura was so agitated that I wondered if I was going to have to master him into forgetfulness. The jury was still out if I needed to do the same to Panacea, but as she wasn’t screaming to the heavens for deliverance and being rather factual, I didn’t think I’d need to.

He came to a stop and looked at me. “How… have you eaten?”

I rather wished the earth would swallow me at this point. “How else, doctor. By having sex.”

“In this hospital?”

“Can’t exactly go anywhere else at the moment, can I?”

“With who?”

“None of the patients,” I reassured him.

“Oh, good,” he seemed to deflate somewhat at the answer. “The staff then. No problems with them afterwards? No ill effects?”

Now I really wanted to just mist and vanish. “No. Just natural tiredness after such activities and if you’re worried about their professional integrity, they never perceived me as a patient and I was careful to stick to unmarried staff.”

“That’s a relief,” he nodded, his eyes telling me his brain was a million miles away. “What an odd parahuman expression. It’s like you’re a vampire but instead of blood…”

“Yes,” Panacea interrupted, “which she needs to consume about 1cc minimum every two days.”

“The timing feels accurate, though my max is the size of a human stomach and I have full control of how much I use.”

“You do? Fascinating. Digestion is usually not a process that’s in conscious control.”

Anderson seemed to jerk in realization, “What of STDs?”

“Non-standard biology,” Panacea reminded the doctor. “Any standard human disease wouldn’t even recognize where they are if they were to enter her body.”

“I have an internal control ability,” I explained. “It’s hard to put it into words, but when I’m paying attention to it, I can control myself on a cellular level, which includes directing my immune system.”

“That makes sense,” Panacea frowned at me. “While I can see your biology with my power mostly, I know I can’t heal it. When I heal, at first, I just experiment with a single cell, to get a feel for the biology of the person. When I tried the same with you, I might as well have tried to mold a rock with my bare hands. Your cellular control is probably the reason.”

“That could be a problem,” Anderson pointed out. “If you’re ever injured, then Panacea will be unable to heal you.”

“It would depend whether she remained conscious,” she argued. “You could probably heal yourself using this self-control ability, but I don’t know its scope.”

“That’s a definite maybe, I’d need to experiment and not exactly keen to injure myself.”

“Begin small,” Panacea advised. “Just a tiny cut, see what you can do. The technique to just do that would be easily applicable on a larger scale and different parts of the body, except for the most complex bits, like the brain.”

I made a mental note to get that into my journal asap. “Anything else?”

Panacea suddenly looked rather grave and her aura was doing all sorts of weirdness. “One of the reasons I took so long diagnosing you. Never mind the weird bits and stuff I can’t even see… is the fact that you’re biologically immortal.”

I don’t think her words were properly processed by my brain. Did she say…

Anderson looked like someone had slapped him in the face with a fish. “Ms. Dallon… what?!”

“Her cells are active and doing their job, but none of the processes are showing any hint of degrading with cell division as you’d expect. In other words, her cell division is perfect as long as they get the energy to do their thing.”

“Extraordinary,” Anderson looked at me like he’d seen the holy grail, and it was distinctly uncomfortable.

“I’m… immortal?”

The concept was so otherworldly and vast that it didn’t want to sink in.

“Don’t think it’s a blessing,” Panacea warned with a raised finger. “I’ve on occasion wound back the biological clock for some patients, when their condition, disease or injury would have resulted in a much shorter lifespan after healing. Most people don’t think of the implications.”

My mind whirled, almost as if I was dizzy but not completely.

“Any friends or family will naturally age and pass on, while you won’t, if you don’t die in some other way.”

That managed to somewhat snap me into coherence. I knew intellectually that one day, dad would die. In the ideal world, he would be surrounded by me, family and friends on his deathbed. Now, I doubt I could even have a family or marry someone. I would look as I did now, while he was frail and old.

Just as hard I turned my thoughts away from that line of thinking.

“Ms. Dallon, I think we should stop there, unless you have anything else urgent to add?” Anderson queried, clearly seeing how disturbed I was.

“Regarding the skin problem, I have nothing odd to report, your skin is structurally the same as any human. The only other thing we might try is for you to wear something and I’ll keep a hold of your hand to study the process of your skin rejecting it.”

It was an easy short experiment that was done using a new hospital gown. I had barely gotten it settled on my shoulders before the burning sensation started. I tolerated it for five very long seconds before ripping it off.

Panacea let go of my hand shaking head in bafflement. “I have no explanation. Your skin cells immediately reacted as if they were in a mild allergic state with swelling and increased blood flow, but your immune system wasn’t involved at all.”

I scratched my itchy shoulders and watched as the red skin faded back to normality, “Guess there’s no getting away from this then, I will just have to deal.”

“I’m sorry,” the heroine said awkwardly, “Um, just so you know… you’re not the only cape in the world who is functionally immortal, Ms. Hebert.”

“Really?”

“Alexandria is also technically immortal, though her method is not rooted in biology and more a side effect of the Breaker aspect of her powers. Some Case 53s also don’t experience aging the same way and could potentially live for hundreds of years.”

“In any event,” Anderson said, giving a pointed glance at the healer. “Now that Panacea has seen you and assuming she doesn’t have any objections?” The young heroine just shook her head. “There is no reason to keep you here. I’ll bring the paperwork for your discharge and you can give your father a call. I’d imagine keeping your privacy while leaving is going to take some doing.”

“We’ve worked it out,” I nodded.

“I’m also giving you my practice contact details, if anything else happens that you feel you can’t handle medically or you need help, give me a call.”

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Leaving the hospital was quite simple in retrospect. Dad had simply borrowed a van from one of his colleagues at work in anticipation of my release. He would park it within eyeshot of my hospital room window. Then bring a bag to pack all my things and carry it down to the van, while I misted, floated myself down and reappeared in the back of the van. We would also time the trip to happen after rush hour in the evening.

The van itself was tailored for moving medium amounts of cargo, so there was a lot of space and only one fold out chair. I remained standing until he could bring down my bag with a towel. Sitting with my bare butt on that surface was not an option, given what I could smell.

Now that I was out of the sterile hospital I could already tell that this was going to be a pain to get used to. The major thing that I’d only caught hints of on the hospital roof was now hitting my olfactory senses hard. The air pollution levels were just awful. The diesel particulate smell was especially prominent in the van and I could also identify some of the things that had been stored and transported in it recently.

“Hey little owl, you okay?”

I had been so wrapped up in parsing what my nose was telling me, that I had missed dad getting in the van and he was looking back at me with concern from the driver’s seat.

“Fine, just the smell, will have to get used to it,” I grumbled and grabbed the bag from him.

“Given the things Jerry normally transports, I can only imagine.”

I pulled out a towel and laid it on the seat before plopping down on it. Dad buckled himself up and started the engine. “You were gonna tell me about that mysterious pot?”

He had naturally spotted the clay pot when I was packing the bag.

“Yeah and mysterious is a good term for it.”

It took most of the drive home to explain everything I had researched and deduced about the oil pot.

My house was situated a few blocks west of the Docks. The neighborhood was firmly in the low to middle-class housing bracket, most of which had historically held the families of the dockworkers and all the associated industries of Brockton Bay. The downturn in worldwide shipping during the mid 90s had hit the city hard and now the place was more a mix of the remaining dockworkers and those who wanted cheaper housing, yet wanted to remain relatively close to Downtown, where the finance and tech jobs were.

Dad pulled to a stop in our driveway and visibly paused, looking thoughtful.

“Interesting, I’ll be wanting a demonstration of the thing as soon as possible and then a decision can be made as to whether to call Armsmaster.”

I shrugged and nodded. It was only fair, after all, it was dad’s house too.

After he had opened the house and switched off the alarm, I misted from inside the van and reappeared in the small entrance hall.

I immediately noted a number of changes. The windows had new thicker curtains than the old patterned ones that mom had bought. This was to help give more privacy to the house interior and so no one passing the street could potentially catch a glimpse of me if I was in the sitting room with its expansive window.

Dad also showed me, by switching on the back yard lights, that some changes had happened here too. The walls of the backyard to the neighbors had been fitted with extensions, those usually designed to keep dogs with very high jumping abilities out, only these ones also neatly prevent sightlines to most of the backyard interior. None of our neighbors had double-story houses, which also simplified matters.

“Couldn’t stand the thought of you being cooped up in the house, so myself and Kurt worked through the weekend on this,” he commented.

“Thanks dad,” I gave him a brief, tight hug.

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. “Now let’s get looking at this Jewish pot of yours, to the basement.”

The house was relatively old, the basement dated back to its original construction and had received barely any renovation. The bare concrete floors and walls had exposed piping and wiring, with one side dominated by stacks of boxes for unused or broken odds and ends. The house furnace, which used to be coal fueled, was on another side, with the boarded up coal chute jutting up and outward towards the street.

The central feature of the basement was the disused workbench that the house’s previous owner had left us to inherit. Dad also didn’t bother with it, since it was much easier to just keep the house’s tools in the garage.

The single bare lightbulb from the ceiling casted everything in a dim, eerie light.

“Gonna have to replace that,” he mumbled, squinting at the small bulb.

I put down the oil pot on the workbench, “We’re gonna need some glass containers, probably ones we won’t miss.”

It took a while to find something that would qualify, as there was no way we were going to use the kitchen glassware or any of mom’s old glassware in storage. In the end, we had to make do with three plastic cups.

To do the actual physical pouring, he firmly insisted on doing it himself.

“This way we eliminate that it’s some aspect of your powers doing this,” he pointed out reasonably.

In the end he didn’t manage a perfect pour angle the first time, but did eventually get all three different oils I had found the pot could produce. Afterwards, he stared at the thing and carefully pushed his hand into it and came out with no oil residue.

He carefully put the pot down, pulled up a chair and sat down, shaking his head ruefully.

“And I thought this world could get no stranger,” he sighed.

“Tell me about it,” I laughed.

He chuckled with me but pointed to the first cup, “So you say this first one is olive oil?”

“Smells that way.”

He quickly brought down from the kitchen a small store-bought olive oil jar. We generally only used it for certain special recipes from mom that called for it and because of its expense. He opened it and obligingly I put my nose over it for comparison’s sake.

“Definitely olive oil, but I can tell the stuff from the clay pot is way better quality or just made differently.”

“Modern olive oil is industrially made in very large quantities, compared to the hand-made, traditional techniques they use in the country and in farm shops, there should be a distinct quality difference,” he explained.

For the second cup, with the unknown clear oil, we brought down an old stone ashtray that was in the living room. Mom hadn’t been a smoker, but she had a lot of friends who were - mostly from the circles of academia, who had often come to visit. For prudence sake, we also brought in the fire extinguisher from the garage.

Dad carefully poured the smallest amount into the tray, lit a match and threw it in.

The oil immediately lit on fire, proving my instinct about the substance had been correct.

Then we both noticed something.

“That should’ve burnt out already,” he said worriedly.

I could only nod as I stared with fascination at the flame. The color of the flame it was producing was also distinctly odd, a pure white. There was also something else…

“There’s no light distortion from heat.”

Dad pushed his glasses higher up his nose and squinted, “You’re right.” He carefully brought his hand closer and had no problem keeping a finger extremely close to the white flame. Then even cupped his hand over the flame and shook his head in astonishment. “No heat at all and it’s still burning.”

He now even stuck a finger into the flame and wasn’t burned.

“Okay, a flammable oil, that doesn’t produce heat, but does give off light and doesn’t exhaust its own fuel?” Even as I said it, my brain was tying itself in knots trying to understand.

Dad narrowed his eyes at the flame with suspicion and brought up the hand held fire extinguisher, pulling its safety pin and directed a blast of the stuff at the tray.

The white fire was blown and disturbed, but didn’t extinguish.

“This thing is rated for kitchen fires, oils and fats,” he frowned at the red extinguisher, reading its inscription again.

We next brought down a fire blanket from the kitchen to smother the flame, which also didn’t work.

“This is ridiculous,” he growled at the still merrily burning fire. “It’s a fire that doesn’t use oxygen then. I don’t know what it’s using, but it seems as long as the fuel is there, it’ll burn.”

“And if the fuel doesn’t exhaust itself we’ve got a never ending fire, in essence.”

He took a deep breath and pushed the burning tray to one end of the workbench. “We’ll wrap the fire blanket around it, keep it from spreading. The last oil type, you think it’s corrosive?”

“Again, smells that way, I think.”

He picked up the cup, “I’m gonna seal this up and take it for some testing. I know someone from the lab who does the safety certifications for the various warehouses.”

“Hope he can be discreet,” I commented.

“Maybe. Little owl, can I ask you to keep watch on this fire for tonight? It’s gonna be boring but…”

“I’ll bring stuff down to keep me busy, noctis cape, yay.”

He chuckled, “Just so your old man can get some sleep please. It’s gonna be hard enough knowing this is down here.”

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It took a bit to establish and make myself comfortable for the night ahead. I carried down one of the comfortable armchairs from the living room, my power notebook, stationery, a few fiction books from the house library, my GED prep work and a large drinking bottle of water.

I decided to start with the GED book and get that out of the way. It was essentially one of those all in one guide books for everything that a GED student needed to do for the state of Massachusetts. It was pretty daunting, but a lot of the difficulty was just a matter of wading through the educational bureaucracy. I also realized after a few hours of reading, that there was also the problem of sitting the exams. I could just imagine if I tried it in any of the standard ways, such as going to the public exam venues, that I would be a constant distraction to the other people trying to write. In other words, I’d need to organize an accredited examiner to privately administer the GED for me in a recognized state venue as well.

The thought was daunting so I closed the book and turned to lighter subject matter, continuing my read through of the Lord of the Rings. I curled up and pulled my legs in under me on the armchair, finally finding a nice comfy position.

My brain struggled to find a nice flow of reading, my mind always seeming to veer off towards the seemingly infinite fire just a few feet away.

Eventually, I got so frustrated that I did the first thing that came to mind and that was to uncover the stone ashtray from the fire blanket. Now that the small white fire was exposed and still burning merrily against all reason in the ashtray, it seemed to settle things in my head and I could read in peace.

I had barely found my reading rhythm when the world around me shifted.

It was like I was feeling the sensation of a single drop of water, hitting the surface of an utterly still pond, only somehow translated into a physical sensation that seemed to thunder through my very being.

My breathing sped up.

My heart raced.

The world held its breath.

Then just as quickly released.

Everything was normal again.

I dropped the book and nearly flung myself out of the chair so hard that I hit my head on the basement ceiling.

My eyes scanned the basement right to left.

I could feel it.

Just like when the clay pot had appeared.

There was something new in the basement with me.

Everything seemed normal. There were the boxes, the old coal chute, the workbench, the windows, the section of pipe leaning against the wall, the…

My head snapped to the pipe… that was different. That hadn’t been there.

It was a five foot length of silvery metal pipe, just leaning innocently against the basement wall. I stepped closer and the feeling of non-normal intensified.

When I was in arms reach I could begin to make out other details. The pipe’s metal tubing was rather thick, but the total diameter was barely an inch.

Why would a seemingly ordinary piece of pipe be generating this feeling in me?

I reached out a pinky and touched it.

No reaction.

Feeling encouraged I grabbed it fully in my hand and lifted the pipe easily for closer inspection. Moving to stand directly under the weak lightbulb I could begin to see details, such as a company or manufacturer’s name that I’d never heard of before raised in relief from the pipe’s surface. The top and bottom edges of the pipe were also perfectly severed, with no indication of any tooling marks that could’ve cut or grinded the pipe. It was as if the pipe had always existed like this.

I tapped the pipe on the concrete floor, feeling the resonance and it made a satisfying clanging noise.

“Okay, why is a length of pipe feeling like this and just… why?”

It was an utterly rhetorical question aloud to myself.

So my surprise when air seemed to ‘honk’ out of the pipe in response, startled me so badly that I reflexively dropped the thing and jumped back.

The ear rattling clanging of the pipe as it fell and bounced onto the cement floor had me clapping my ears closed with my hands.

Only when the bouncing clatter had stopped and the pipe was flat on the floor did I let go of my ears and stare at the thing with apprehension.

The pipe honked again.

It sounded like a badly out of tune organ note.

Then it honked three times in row, then gave three long notes after a few seconds pause.

That… that wasn’t a coincidence. This was intelligent action… from a pipe!

“Okay, what the fuck is this?” I asked of the universe around me.

The pipe again seemingly responded with a series of honking notes.

Feeling angry and utterly stupid, I snapped, “I wasn’t talking to you.”

The pipe again responded and I swore I could discern an indignation in the tone of the sounds it was making.

I caught myself gaping stupidly at the innocent pipe lying on the floor, then hesitantly stepped forward to pick it up.

“Okay, I can’t believe I’m doing this… but you can understand me?” I held it out roughly in front of me.

The pipe honked once.

“How the fuck is that possible?”

The pipe again pushed a series of hollow notes that I had no clue to understand.

“Duh, stupid, it’s not like you have human vocal chords… ummm, one honk for yes, two for no. Understand?”

One honk.

“A stupid question, but are or were you human?”

Two honks.

“Intelligent enough for lingual communication and identification of self,” I mumbled, casting my mind back to a book on speculative intelligence and AI, mom had me read ages ago.

The pipe sent a single note.

“Okay, glad we got that sorted out. Now how do we have a conversation with only yes or no… that’s just too limiting.”

A series of notes sounded and the feeling I got was one of frustration.

“So sometimes you can broadcast an emotion, that helps but… can you see where you are?”

One honk.

“Can you see yourself?”

One honk.

“You see that you are… a length of pipe?”

One honk.

“And that fact doesn’t disturb you?”

Two honks.

“You were always a length of pipe?”

One honk and after a second two honks.

The only way that could be parsed was, yes, but not always.

“So how do we meaningfully communicate… how…” I mumbled, tapping on the pipe in thought.

Wait, tapping?

I leaned the pipe against the workbench, grabbed my notebook and pen, opened it to a clean page and drew three dots.

The page was held up to the pipe, “Can you see the three dots I’ve drawn there?”

One honk.

Next I drew three dashes on the page.

“And this?”

One honk.

Then the word ‘jump’ was written.

“Do you understand that word and what it means?”

One honk.

I stared at the pipe with astonishment, “You’re quite clever for a pipe.”

The pipe released a sharp, almost derisive note.

“Yeah, yeah, but I think I’ve got a way for us to speak. Be right back.”

One trip to the house library later and I had an old book on general seamanship and prominent in the reference pages inside was a chart with morse code. It took a few minutes to transfer it to a fresh A4 page in larger block handwriting and put it next to the pipe.

“Morse code, one dot is a single short honk, a dash is a long note. Understand?”

One honk.

“Okay, now we’ll go slowly, one letter at a time. I’ve never used morse code before, but it will get better and faster with practice.”

A honk.

“Now, I’ll ask a question, you begin honking the answer afterward… uh, who are you?”

Two short notes, a pause, a long note, two shorts, three longs, a pause, long, short, and on it went.

Eventually I had a string of code on paper.

.. / -.. --- / -. --- - / -.- -. --- .--

Then the quick translation using the reference.

I do not know.

“Do you have any name?”

Two notes sounded for ‘No.’ Then the pipe sounded off more code.

.-- . / .... .- ...- . / -. . ...- . .-. / -. . . -.. . -.. / .- / -. .- -- . .-.-.-

We have never needed a name.

“Why the use of ‘We’? You’re clearly an individual.”

Before I was part of a greater whole, now I am less and as you see before you.

“So you were part of a pipe network maybe?”

Yes.

“Did someone cut you off and send you to me?”

No. The Whole is quite capable of fending off fleshy things that seek to harm us. All I remember is being part of the whole, then… I have no words for it… I was separate, diminished and here in this place, with you.

“Maybe a Tinker teleport or something along those lines,” I mumbled to myself in thought. “Do you know where the Whole was?”

No, the fleshy things were warned never to speak near us.

“You have a very good vocabulary for a piece of pipe.”

Thank you. You are the kindest fleshy thing I know of, perhaps because you are other as well.

“I’m other?”

Other is the name the Whole used to refer to us and other things like us.

“What do you mean ‘things like us’?”

The Whole heard from the fleshy things that always wanted to stop the Whole, they spoke of the Others, they were always different, in different forms, but all came from the same place, from the same potential in everything.

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then again, how could a seemingly sentient piece of pipe have a human perspective at all. It was a miracle that we were communicating.

“The fleshy things, the people who wanted to stop you, why did they want that?”

The Whole’s purpose is to connect and move things to where they are needed. Fleshy things didn’t want the Whole to succeed. It took many of them to isolate the Whole, but they succeeded.

I was clearly missing a whole lot of context. A pipe’s reason for existence was to move anything that could flow through it, protect it from the environment until the gas or liquid could be safely used. Why would anyone want to stop that? Why would anyone want to stop a collection of sentient pipes? Unless…

“Was the Whole trying to connect or move things that the people didn’t like?”

What is moved is not up to them. The Whole moved what was necessary.

A bunch of sentient pipes with no human morality or point of view, ‘moving things’ with no regard but their own sense of purpose, which was utterly inscrutable. That couldn’t go wrong at all, I thought wryly.

“Give me an example of the things you moved.”

Oil.

That wasn’t so bad, usually, unless the pipes ended up pumping oil willy nilly. That was an ecological disaster.

“What else?”

Fleshy things call it mercury.

Used in old thermometers and neon signs, but was so incredibly toxic otherwise. Even small amounts were a problem.

“And?”

Rats.

I gave the pipe a disgusted face, “You pumped rats?”

They needed to be moved.

“And were they still alive afterward?”

There was a pause. All signs of activity from the rats ended, they needed to be moved.

“I’ll take that as a no, what else?”

Glass, sea water, the insides of fleshy things, molten iron.

“What the fuck? The insides… you pumped people’s organs?”

It needed to be moved.

“Urgh, it’s no wonder people were trying to stop you then. How can you even think that people needed their organs pumped out of their bodies?!”

The Whole perceived a need, the Whole tried to meet the need. That is… was our purpose.

“I mean sure, there are people who need donor organs but that doesn’t mean you…”  ‘Pipe, not a person, a pipe, Taylor.’ I reminded myself, trying to rise above my anger. Then something occurred to me. “How would you even connect to these things in the first place?”

The Whole can grow.

I paused, looking at the translated sentence with a sinking feeling of dread worming its way down my spine.

“You can grow?”

Yes, but only slowly and not when you see me. It would take a long time for me to become another Whole. Fleshy things and perhaps even you would easily stop me. So diminished, I can be easily destroyed. I… don’t want that.

“Wait, wait, someone looking at you stops you from being able to grow?”

Yes.

“What kind of arbitrary weakness…” My mouth snapped shut. It was just as seemingly ridiculous a vulnerability as my impossible allergy to clothes. “So what do you want? Now that you’re with me.”

To continue moving things. It is still my purpose.

“How do you think you’re going to be able to do that? You’re not connected to anything,” I reasonably pointed out.

Incorrect, I am connected to air, am I not?

I gave myself a slap on my forehead for my stupidity. “Just how fast can you push the air?”

I cannot explain in terms you would understand.

“How much of your ability are you using when you produce these sounds?”

There are 10 fingers on your hands, when I speak like this, I’m barely using a finger of my current strength.

I tried to mentally estimate that strength but it was just too vague and rough to guess.

“Something to test then, what can I call you? Your name. It feels wrong to call you ‘pipe’.”

Call me 15.

“Why fifteen?”

The fleshy things called the Whole, 15. Sometimes, with a longer name… SCP 15.

I circled the odd acronym and put a question mark around it. That was very bureaucratic and implied some agency of the government was dealing with the Whole, somewhere. Perfect, as if I didn’t need another complication in my life, now I had a piece of dangerous sentient, self-replicating pipe network that the government was keeping contained and if it got out that I had it…

Even researching this on the Internet was likely to send up red flags somewhere. There was no way I could do so from anything connected to home.

“Okay, 15, I’m getting a headache from all this translating and thinking. I’m gonna go back to my chair, relax a bit, read and continue watching this impossible fire.”

There was a pause and the newly named 15 honked, Very well, though I am confused as to why, it will simply burn for another day before going out.

“How do you know that?”

It is other. I know. You should know.

I glared at the pipe. “Is there an instruction manual I wasn’t told about?”

There is no such thing, it should be a part of you.

“You mean instinct?”

Correct.

I put down the pen, snapped the notebook shut and dumped myself into the armchair. I tried to think of nothing else but reading about Saruman and his betrayal for the next ten minutes. It didn’t really work and I could just imagine the fun conversation of once again explaining this to dad.

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SCPs featured in this chapter - "SCP-015" by Dr Gears, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-015. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

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