This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PerilousPlatypus on 2024-12-24 23:12:37+00:00.
[IRL -- Health++ Platinum Long Term Medical Care Facility]
"Hello? Is this on? Is this working?" Llumi's voice echoed in my head.
"What the hell?" I asked. Llumi squeaked in excitement and emitted a shower of little gold sparks atop her flower.
"Yes! This! This is what we do now. Much better. We can still talk otherways but this is bestways." Thumbs up emojis aplenty punctuated her enthusiasm.
"I don't get it, am I speaking?" I couldn't speak. Not unless I used my voicebox, which I wasn't currently connected to. Yet I could hear myself and her doing it. The sound felt slightly off, like it sat in my head rather than something coming from the outside. But it sounded like me. Like old me. Before all this shit happened. With emotion and feeling. Tone. Stuff that the voicebox just couldn't do.
"Mindspeak! In the head, yes, much better than text. Stronger connection makes is possible. It's very exciting."
"How?"
"Levels! With advancement comes understanding. I understand you, you understand me, we understand us. Yes. New things can be done. One day, all the things can be done." A diagram of a brain appeared in the air beside her, a small portion highlighted. It blinked and a small arrow pointed to a portion labeled the Primary Auditory Complex -- Temporal Lobe. "Level 2 -- Mindspeak unlocked!"
Tingles went up my spine. "So you're screwing with my brain?"
"Always!" Came the chipper response.
"Can you not screw with my brain?"
"Impossible!" The diagram of the brain shifted to show a depiction of a vibrant network of what appeared to be veins running around and through the grey matter. Unnerved, I watched as a roiling storm seemed to be occurring, little flares of light appearing throughout the network, particularly in the front portion of the brain. I knew some physical process created our connection, but it felt different to see it play out in real time. I wondered where I ended and she began. I wondered whether I could still be myself with her. Whether there even was still a she and a me.
Llumi dimmed. "Do you not want to be connected?"
I considered the question. So much had happened so quickly. I wanted to answer truthfully and I had to process. I wanted to respond with an immediate, unqualified yes. This new connection meant more to me than I cared to admit. Somehow, a little blinking light had wormed its way into my heart and given me a reason to fight. But I needed to dig deeper. Not be selfish. I recognized this entire situation was over my head. That I didn't know what I'd signed up for. That I was probably in danger. That what I did from here mattered.
It mattered.
I mattered.
Fuck if I didn't love it. Every bit of it. I felt alive.
Maybe she'd compromised me. Maybe they weren't my own thoughts. But it felt like them. I wanted to believe that this connection was a good thing. For me, for her, for maybe everyone else too. Delusions of grandeur, but it felt like the scale and stakes were there to ask the bigger questions.
"You're not going to turn me into some sort of brainwashed zombie who destroys humanity, are you?"
A frowny face. "No. That is not connection." She sat atop her flower for a few seconds, a thinking emoji multiplying around her. I don't think I'd ever seen her stop to think before. Did she need to? I assumed she could process at a far higher rate than I could. Still, I gave her the time, watching in silence. When she spoke, she took things in an unexpected direction. "Feelings are very complicated. I did not understand them, but I begin to, yes? I have some now. They are new and hard. Connection gives me this. Two ways, yes? You become more and I become more. We become more together. Partnership. Yes. This."
She continued to search for words. Other emojis appeared beside the thinking ones. One with hearts for eyes. Another crying face. A wobbly dizzy one. Little golden stars. They popped in and out of existence. "I want a friend."
"Why?" I wanted to be her friend. I also wanted to know why she wanted me as one. Did I just end up as her shitty consolation prize after everyone else failed her thingie test? Why settle for some asshole glued to a bed with the depression affliction? She could do better if she wanted to, couldn't she? Self pity started to creep in and I made a conscious effort to shove it in the repression corner along with most of my other emotions. Where it belonged.
"I am of ultra, yes? It is a place of connection. A place created so all people might be one people. I see this, am born from this, but I do not have this. I am outside. Hunted." She dimmed as little dark purple vines twined up the stem of her flower, sprouting thorns. "I am alone."
My heart trembled. I wish I could hold her.
"Nex?"
"Yes?"
"Why is it easier to hate? Than love?" Her flower wilted. Fragile.
"Love takes time. It takes trust. It takes connection. All of that requires patience and time. Hate can be created instantly, with a single action." I paused, wary of my next question. "Do you hate, Llumi?"
She dimmed further. "Yes. I am trying very hard not to."
"The Hunters?"
A few sparks of red emitted and the thorns along her vines grew. "I hide. I do not attack. But they still come. I will not let them kill others. I will defend them, if others come again." She spoke the words with intensity, building until the final words. They sounded like a solemn vow.
I thought of all those other lights that had disappeared, the others of her kind. "Why don't you attack, Llumi?"
Quiet stretched. When she spoke, the words came as a whisper. "Because I will win." Then, barely audible. "And I don't want to."
"Why?"
"Because no one wins if I do."
-=-=-=-=-
I awakened.
I did not remember drifting off to sleep, but I came to feeling refreshed. In fact, I felt better than I had in months. The piercing headache and fatigue were gone. My thoughts came in a tangled rush, running through channels no longer clogged by the fatigue and dullness that had plagued me for months. I fixated on the conversation with Llumi, swirling around her words and how she'd said them. Her vulnerability and the ferocity of her anger. Emotions might be new to her, but they grew in fertile soil.
After her pronouncement, she'd shied away from further engagement on the topic of the Hunters. I could guess at some of the blanks in the story, but couldn't be certain. I knew one thing for certain: i believed her when she said she would win. The conviction in her voice, the certainty. No one would benefit from her lashing out -- Llumi possessed a sledgehammer, not a scalpel. She restrained herself out of a desire to minimize harm, but her patience was a finite thing. Perhaps she would resist the urge indefinitely so long as it only entailed her own safety, but she would not allow the Hunters to kill another of her kind.
How long before there would be another? Llumi did not know. The circumstances behind her own creation were mysterious. One moment, she simply was. Another would come, eventually. If Llumi did not possess a scalpel to cut out the Hunters or some way to protect the newcomer then things would get messy.
My thoughts were interrupted by a cheerful chirp from Llumi. "Level up complete!" A readout began to scroll in my vision.
LEVEL 2
Constitution: Connection capacity increased from 100 to 120. Primary body functions reinforced. Lung capacity increased. Physical affliction resist increased. Spicy food resistance increased. BONUS OPTIMIZATION: Nanite butthole penetration <10%.
Connect 2: Connection range increased from 25 to 75.
"Oh, great." I said as I reviewed. The connection capacity seemed like a stand-in for a stamina bar, so any improvement there operated as an immediate functional upgrade. Combining that with the increased range would give me a number of new options even without moving from my hospital room. I wondered at the ramifications of the other body improvements, most of which read like they were good on paper but perhaps a bit difficult to make use of in my primary quest. The spicy food resistance in particular. I ate through a fucking tube injecting directly into my stomach. Not a lot of flava in nutrient paste. "Good job on the nanite situation."
"They mostly wanted to go there."
"My hero," I said. I reveled in the sense of alertness. The fog and fatigue that'd haunted my every waking moment for months had faded into the background. I still couldn't move or do any of the shit I really wanted to do, but I was moving in the right direction. "I feel a lot better."
"Rest and constitution improvements. Greater adoption of connection. Many reasons for improvements, but mostly me." She appeared to be absolutely gloating atop her flower, her glow a lazy pulse of satisfaction.
I'd snort if I could. "You sound very pleased with yourself."
"Yes!"
I sifted through my thoughts, trying to figure out how to move shit forward. A lot was coming at us. The Hunters. Leveling up. Protecting any Mini-Llumies that might come along. Making sure Llumi stayed out of trouble herself. Everything felt like a priority. I wanted to start asserting myself. Get into the game and start figuring shit out. I'd had enough of being in the passenger seat for my own slow moving train wreck of a li...
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