The Mantis Continuum - Book Four - 6. Chapter 6 - Unadi & Olona, Part One

Unadi was in his shack. The little building stood at the dead center of the lifeless grey circle. He was anxious for Ilya to return with the friend who he hoped would be able to turn him into something other than a perpetual devourer of life. He could not remember a single other time in his existence when he hoped a person would come into his region of death. Now it was his sole thought.

The hours of night continued to slip by, and Unadi tried reading to distract himself. He selected an old reprint of a technical manual that one of his tutors insisted he take with him into his self-imposed isolation, and his eyes moved over the information he found so boring. Unadi ended up flipping through quite a few of his books in an unfocused way. One of the volumes was on the origins and development of early organic mechanics. Another told of the rise and fall of the Oselian Empire. There was even a banned book in his possession, which contained details from several illegal scientific research projects. Many experts at the time of its original printing considered the contents highly controversial.

None of the books helped.

Unadi was completely fixated on the idea of no longer being a Shift, and all he could do in the moment was wish for Ilya to hurry back. He had no idea where Teshon City was. She told him it would be some time before she could return, but Unadi kept checking his window for any sign of her. Looking was unnecessary; he would feel Ilya’s presence again the instant his power started to afflict her and the friend she mentioned.

The hours slowly dragged until the dawn was beginning to glow. Then the day came and went. Another and another and another slipped away, yet there was no sign of Ilya, and Unadi lost hope that she would return.

Early on the sixth morning, Unadi was startled. To his surprise, he could feel Ilya; she was back! He instantly honed in on her and raced through the dead trees in the direction of the life forces he could feel himself absorbing. Two women were walking toward him, and any frustrations he felt during his time of waiting were instantly replaced by joy that he could barely contain.

“Unadi!” Ilya called out to him as he approached. “This is Olona. She thinks she can help, but not on her own.” Ilya was instantly woozy, but Olona was not affected as quickly by Unadi’s powers.

He initially had doubts about the young woman, but then Olona spoke.

“I need to go with you to discuss how this will work. Ilya has to fly back and get someone else we need. Once you and I are far enough away and she can fly again, it’s going to take her quite a while before she returns, so I’ll need to have some space away from you for that interim.”

Unadi was surprised and impressed. “You already understand what’s going on?” He looked at Ilya.

“I told her all about our encounter,” she answered, leaning against a tree as a wave of dizziness washed over her.

Olona continued. “I accepted everything Ilya told me as correct and factual, and I’ve been preparing for this trip to you with that mindset. I think we’re going to be able to help.” She gave Unadi a confident smile, and she dug in her bag and pulled out a device wrapped in cloth.

“That’s the thing I told you about,” Ilya said to Unadi.

Olona went on, “You’re going to wear this halo, which I’ve reconfigured to focus on your mantis gland. When our other friend gets here, she will use her unique siphoning ability channeled through the halo, and the combination will deactivate your energies of absorption.” She placed her hand on his arm. “I can’t even imagine how much heartache your powers have caused you, but Unadi, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Unquestionably,” he replied without hesitation.

“Alright, let’s give Ilya her space so she can head back to Teshon City.”

“Yes, okay, right,” Unadi replied.

Ilya turned and started staggering into the living trees, as Olona followed Unadi into his lifeless realm. After several minutes he informed her that Ilya was again beyond reach of his powers, and just as he said it, they saw her lift off and soar into the morning sky. Soon he and Olona arrived at his little dwelling; she was just beginning to feel unwell.

She removed the device from her bag, unwrapped it, and handed a single piece to Unadi. “Bring this to your forehead,” she instructed, and her voice was a little weaker than she expected. “I need to configure the two components.”

Unadi stood still with a small piece of machinery that looked like a partial star shape held against his brow, while Olona made a few adjustments to a separate square contraption in her hand. She brought it up to the device he was holding and it beeped.

Olona smiled. “Done,” she informed him, taking back the portion from him. She wrapped it, stowed it in her bag, and applied the final setting to the square she was holding. It folded in on itself and became a little solid cube. The object had no external components, and its outside was plain. Olona looked up and said, “This is going to work.” Then she noticed Unadi’s books. She did a double-take and gawked at them. “How is that possible?” she asked.

“How is…” His eyes followed hers. “How is what possible?”

Olona brought her fingertips to the spines. “Where on earth did you get these books?” She looked over at him. “People where I’m from in Xin talked about these, and how they no longer exist. I’ve read books inspired by and based on these books, but I’m totally flabbergasted that you’ve got original copies here!”

“I’m from the mining village of Bahlim,” Unadi explained. “It’s an old Oselian salt mine, and in the valley below is one of their libraries. It’s carved right into the side of the mountain, and the salt keeps the moisture low enough to preserve books indefinitely.”

Unadi continued. “In my dead region, nothing can decay, so the books are still preserved in my presence. Do you want to read them? Since it’s going to be a while before Ilya returns, and I can’t stay near you for much longer, why don’t you take a few books outside of my region? I’ll wait here until I can feel both of you again, and then I’ll come to you.”

“There will be three of us next time,” Olona reminded him.

“How long do you think it will be before Ilya gets back?”

“Six hours, at the very least,” Olona replied. “It was a three-hour flight, one way. We left really early in the morning. Once she gets back to Teshon, she’ll likely eat and rest for a bit. I wouldn’t expect her to return before this evening. I packed myself some food for while the wait.”

“You really did think this through, didn’t you?”

Olona gave Unadi another smile. “If you’re alright with it, I’d love to stick several of these books in my bag.”

“Please, take all you like!”

“Thank you, Unadi.” Olona packed quite a few of them, and she left.

After a short while, Unadi could no longer feel her; Olona was in the dense forest just outside of his area of effect.

Right at the edge of the ring of death, she found herself a comfortable spot, lit a joint, and she started to read. Olona poured over the volumes as the hours slipped toward noon, and she was astonished by some of the information she came across.

In a massive tome titled The Awesome and Terrible Collapse of the Many Nations of Oselia, Olona found a chapter about organic mechanic experimentation combined with genetic enhancements. The physiological manipulators had created living cybertronic weapons and armor, which sounded to Olona very similar to some of the procedures she had performed on herself. The technical information contained may have bored most others, but Olona was fascinated by what she was learning.

Stuck in a book called A Retrospective Look at the American Empire After the Devastation, she found an old photograph with an article titled The Cursed Village. The picture was of a hillside village, and on the back, the words “The mining community of Bahlim Town before the ghost sickness” were written in scratchy letters. The newspaper clipping was not dated and there was no publication information.

*

When a strange plague struck the hillside village of Bahlim Town, people started claiming that the old mining community was cursed. It began in the year 224 AE, and the townsfolk called it the ghost sickness. The illness affected only a few children at first, but then some of the elders contracted it, and the disease slowly continued to spread. Over the course of several weeks, the ghost sickness proved to have no preference for its hosts. Livestock, and even crops were afflicted; it seemed that nothing was immune.

Some of the inhabitants of Bahlim Town fled their village, and each of them made a complete and immediate recovery by simply venturing to the valley below. For most, that confirmed something in the town was the cause of the ghost sickness. To be healed, all a person needed to do was leave the village, but many of the people wished to remain in their homes on the hill, and the first deaths happened several painful months after the initial spread.

Wise folk and scribes came from all around the neighboring region, and they tested many theories, but they struggled to determine the cause behind the ghost sickness. The community water was not tainted. No strange vapors were emanating from the old mine. The illness seemed to be entirely connected to the village itself, and the rumor of Bahlim Town’s curse spread throughout the land.

Eventually, the reason for the suffering was found, and it came from a very unexpected place. A pregnant woman was the only person in the village who did not get sick, and it began to occur to some of the healers that she was the carrier. It was not her fault, nor was she to blame for the so-called curse, but the disease seemed to relate to her directly. The ghost sickness did not cause its victims immediate bodily distress, but before she gave birth, everyone who insisted upon remaining in the village had become ill.

She was not persecuted for the suffering, and in fact, many wise women and men spent time trying to purge it from the pregnant woman. Groups of three or four healers would venture up the mountain, spending a day and a night with her, and they left as the sickness began to affect them. Many tests were performed over the course of the woman’s third trimester, including on her blood, urine, and saliva. The midwives examined her entire body and declared that they could find nothing wrong with the woman or her pregnancy.

At the end of her nine months carrying the baby, her labor pains began to strike, and at that point the midwives refused to let any of the other wise folk visit her. The traveling healers remained in the valley below.

During her hours of labor, the ghost sickness became more severe, and those assisting with the birth were not able to stay for more than a few hours before needing to return to the lowlands, away from the source of the curse.

A brutal 18 and a half hours later, a baby boy was born. He was not frail or malformed, and he was alert from his first breath. The infant seemed entirely unaffected by the ghost sickness.

However, his mother immediately succumbed. The symptoms of the disease hit her like a crushing boulder, and before the eyes of the midwives, her life began to eke away.

She could feel her existence extinguishing, and she reached for her child. With her final breath, she spoke his name. “Unadi,” she whispered, and she died.

Unadi’s mother was not the first woman to die in childbirth, but the midwives were shocked at her instantaneous deterioration.

The babe was cleaned and wrapped in a blanket, but things in the village were getting worse. No one was able to hold Unadi for more than a few minutes, before they too fell ill.

Another team of midwives was called in, and by that point, everyone in the village was in a terrible state. The new group was warned against touching the child, lest they also suffer the worst of the disease. At first, some of them refused to believe the ghost sickness was somehow related to an infant, but a few hours after he was born, most of the midwives refused to touch him.

Over the course of Unadi’s first week of life it was determined, and there could be no doubt that the infant was the source of the sickness. The villagers were forced to evacuate, and the child was left as Bahlim Town’s only permanent inhabitant. Several people recommended euthanizing the baby and returning the village to its former state, but that idea did not come to fruition, nor was banishing the infant alone an option. It would be years before Unadi could fend for himself.

No one was able to be in his presence for much time, so a group of compassionate and determined volunteers began working in teams to care for the baby. Two nurses at a time would climb up the path to Bahlim Town, following a set schedule and giving the others their space for recovery.

Even among the group of Unadi’s caregivers, most refused to lay a finger on him. Within a matter of minutes, those who did insist upon sharing their parental affections with the child were stricken by the strongest symptoms of the ghost sickness. They stated that it was necessary for Unadi to have the physical contact of another human, and a few of them were willing to suffer for his sake.

Without exception, every single living being that stayed in the presence of little Unadi for too long ended up dying. Before his first birthday, the patch of death that stretched out and surrounded Bahlim Town had become a stark indicator of how far the ghost sickness reached.

Within the patch of death, no leaves grew on the dry trees. Not a single needle still clung to any of the evergreens. The grass and clover and moss that once blanketed the forest floor were dead and grey. Low bushes that used to thrive in the shade of the canopy above were now little more than scraggly knots of twisted branches. Even the soil itself no longer teemed with life. Bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and any microscopic life that existed too close to Unadi also died.

*

The article just seemed to end, and Olona wondered if there was more to it that had been lost, or if that was simply the extent of the story. She also got the impression that someone who knew Unadi in his youth had written it. Folding the paper around the photograph, she stuck them back into the book.

As the sun reached its peak, Olona decided to break out some of the food she had packed.

During the several days before Ilya returned to Unadi, Olona constructed a harness. It allowed Ilya to fly with an extra person much more easily. Olona built a few compartments into the harness that allowed them to carry some supplies and food, since she knew her time in the forest was going to be extensive.

Olona unwrapped one of Dozi’s meat pies and enjoyed a bite. It was delicious. She pulled a thin paperback from her bag and examined its cheap-looking cover, scrawled with letters that read Reprint Edition Six: The Parisian Experiments, Years 14-19 AE – Terminated.

She began to read.

The small booklet was written in the first person perspective, and much of the information contained in it shocked and disturbed Olona. She read every word of the entire thing while she ate, but partway through, one section in particular caught her attention. She paused and reread the paragraphs aloud.

“Within the crystalline structure of every photonova gland that we’ve extracted resides a minuscule trigger mechanism along with a single droplet of watery fluid. When the internal switch is flipped, which happens after the onset of puberty, a tiny limb instantaneously extends and retracts. The trigger’s firing causes a cavitation bubble to form in the liquid. This action is only achieved by a single other organism in nature, the stomatopod colloquially referred to as the mantis shrimp. In the lab, we’ve been calling photonova glands mantis glands and the nickname has been picked up by some of the staff.”

Olona stopped reading and asked in surprise, “The word mantis doesn’t have anything to do with an insect? I thought it was something about praying mantises this whole time.”

She continued reading aloud. “In the ocean, the mantis shrimps’ cavitation bubbles collapse in on themselves. Within photonova glands, there occurs an extraordinary phenomenon. A pinprick wormhole actually opens to the universe, and the glands’ access to cosmic energy provides these evolved individuals with their powers.”

Olona scrunched up her face. “Mantis really doesn’t have anything to do with bugs?” she asked the little book.

Its contents went on to reveal that the practice of pinealectomy surgeries had been performed on living humans to remove diseased pineal glands from inside their heads, and that several Shifts – a term which the paperback never actually used – had briefly survived having their photonova glands removed by the same procedure. None of them had lived longer than 36 hours.

When Olona finished reading the small book, she looked at the front cover again. “Years 14 through 19 of the Advanced Era. So, this study happened right at the beginning, right when people realized their kids were not just going through puberty, but they were Shifts. I wonder when the term Shift was first used.”

Realization set in for her. “Wait a second…” Olona took a sharp breath. “These experiments ended only 19 years after Shifts first appeared in the world, which means the oldest that any of these test subjects could have been was 19.” She gasped. “They were all just kids!” She stuffed the book back into her bag, muttered, “Gross,” and she took out Unadi’s Organic Mechanic Practices, Vol. 2. It was a large book.

“Time to distract myself with something not horrible.” Olona sparked another joint, breathed a cloud of smoke into the air, and she opened to the publishing notes. “Year 59?! Being printed in 59AE makes this book almost 150 years old! Wow,” she marveled.

The book kept her focused for several hours, as she poured over information about all sorts of things that fascinated her. It had been written by the very people who invented the practices, and Olona was enthralled by it until the sunlight started to fade.

Lahari’s voice eventually called out to her from above. “Olona!”

She closed the book, stood, and stretched. Olona yawned wide.

Ilya came in for a landing, and her and Lahari’s feet touched down.

“You must be exhausted,” Olona said to Ilya. “You’ve been flying nonstop for hours!”

Ilya did not look tired at all. “Flying energizes me, and the longer I fly, the more I want to! My brain is telling me it’s getting close to bedtime, but I don’t feel exhausted, not like I might after a strenuous hike.”

Olona looked curious. “Unadi let me borrow some old books that have a lot of information I wasn’t expecting, and tons of stuff I didn’t know.” She picked up one and started flipping through it. “I think it was this book that said something about mantis glands providing Shifts with unlimited energy for their powers, and that using those powers didn’t require your own strength. Hang on, where is that part I read earlier?” She kept flipping.

“So where is he?” Lahari asked.

Olona looked up from the book. “Unadi said all we need to do is walk into his region,” she explained, pointing at the dead trees, “and he’ll immediately be able to feel us and come running.”

“Let’s do it,” Ilya said, and the three women entered his lifeless circle.

By the time Unadi ran up to them, Ilya and Lahari were already feeling the first symptoms, and he froze in his tracks at the sight of Lahari. “What?” he managed.

“Oh, yes,” Olona said, “we probably should have mentioned our Bio-Shift friend to you. This is Lahari.”

“I know,” Lahari said to Unadi. She struck a very subtle version of one of the dramatic poses Auntie Peg liked to strike. “I’m weird,” she added, “but I think Olona is right; I think we can turn off your mantis gland.” A wave of nausea quavered through her and she leaned against a tree.

“You’re a… Bio-Shift? I’ve only read about your kind.” Unadi’s initial surprise at Lahari’s appearance had quickly shifted to wonder. Then he noticed Ilya was carrying a large sack on her back. “What’s that?”

“It’s a tent. We’re going to need to stay here in your forest tonight, outside your ring.”

“You won’t need to stay on the outside if we turn off my mantis gland,” Unadi replied. “How did you three even orchestrate all of this?”

Olona answered for the two Shift women, who were feeling worse by the minute. “We had to write out a pretty specific timetable, and we needed to plan for food and water. It also took me a few days to build a harness for Ilya to carry us. She had expressed how much it would mean for you to no longer have this power.”

“It’s a curse,” Unadi retorted.

“Here in the forest,” Olona continued, “you were too far apart to have discussed a plan with you ahead of time, so the three of us figured out how to make it work to come and help you.”

Olona dug in her bag again and removed the halo in its cloth. She unwrapped it, held two pieces, and handed the third to Unadi. “Hold this against your forehead again, and I’ll attach these to it.”

The three parts connected and slid into each other, folding flat and forming a delicate halo.

“This used to protect another Shift friend of ours from being detectable to monsters,” Olona added, and she turned. “Lahari, please, hold this. It’s a channeler.”

Lahari extended her scaly blue hand, and Olona placed the metal cube onto her palm.

“Just reach forward,” Olona explained, “so that the channeler is between you and Unadi. When you use your powers, they will flow through the channeler and into the halo.” She turned to Unadi. “And the combination of her powers and my organic mechanic gear will disengage your mantis gland.” She gave him another smile and felt confident that she was explaining things clearly.

“How is everything going to work exactly?” Unadi asked her. He looked entirely perplexed.

“Yeah,” Lahari added weakly, “what are we actually doing?”

Olona took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks. “You don’t need to do anything, just use your power, and it will go through the channeler and the halo, and Unadi’s mantis gland will deactivate.”

“That’s it?” Ilya asked. She leaned against a tree.

“The two machines will do the rest between them,” Olona replied.

Lahari and Unadi looked at each other.

“I’m ready,” he told her.

Lahari nodded, extended her blue scaly arm forward with the cube in her hand, and she activated her powers.