WnW 7.17

The Director led us to a briefing room where the entire team had gathered, along with a group of what appeared to be H.E.S.P. researchers wearing white lab coats instead of the black military gear I was accustomed to seeing. Graham was having an animated conversation with one of them and I saw the excited twinkle in his eye. He was in his element, talking to others with a passion for learning.

I went over to Tom and Kay.

“You’ll get a kick out of this,” I said to them and showed them my arm, forcibly aged by Jenson. The aching in that limb was a glimpse into the challenges of old age I had to look forward to.

“Woah! Gnarly,” Tom said. “Did you have a fight with father time?”

“Just a Witch with an inflated ego.”

“Is that permanent?” Kay asked, poking the wrinkled skin.

“I hope not. Although right now the fix Nell is suggesting feels just as unnerving.”

“Why?”

I turned to see AJ, who was trying his best to control his nervous fidgeting in front of strangers. A bindi adorned his forehead, which I hadn’t seen him wear in a while.

“Kay, Tom, this is AJ. He’s been Shaping for longer than you have, so I guess you could consider him your senior. I don’t know a tougher, more resilient kid.”

AJ tried to act nonchalant, but he rocked on his heels after hearing the praise.

“Nice to meet you, boss,” Tom said, giving him a fistbump. “I have a feeling that the ‘fix’ involves some loss of limb.”

I swallowed. “Yeah. Amputation. Nell thinks that my usual regeneration isn’t working because the cells, while old, are still mine. I need to restore the old, er, younger template.”

Tom nodded thoughtfully. I recalled what the Director had said about Tom’s enhanced intuition.

“Your Shape, Tom, is it telling you anything?”

He scratched his head and shrugged. “I can never tell what’s coming from the Shape or what’s just my wacky brain doing its thing. But my gut feeling is that it should work.” He grinned. “Ever feel like gambling a limb on a hunch?”

I made a face and exchanged a look with Kay. “Technically, there shouldn’t be a downside. It should grow back, regardless of if it’s old or not.”

“The downside is getting your arm chopped off, dumbass,” Kay teased.

I didn’t mention how much I hated looking at that arm. Something about how veiny it was. Whenever I got a surge of those ugly feelings, of not existing properly in my own body, looking at the arm made it ten times worse. Okay, I’ve just decided. Chop it off, I don’t care about the outcome enough to stay like this.

The Director clapped their hands, getting everyone’s attention. Conversation died down and the lights in the room dimmed as a screen on one wall turned on.

“Let’s jump right into the topic at hand,” the Director said, picking up a remote and pressing a button. The screen displayed the image of a used needle with a familiar design. A Dice injector.

“The first piece of the puzzle is a chemical compound known colloquially as Dice,” the Director said and then nodded to the person Graham had been speaking with.

The researcher took this as an indication to speak, “We’ve analyzed the drug thoroughly. It’s a complex cocktail of chemicals that interact with the brain with a singular purpose: to affect mood. It is our current theory that Shaping is a process activated from some unknown mechanism in the brain, using emotion as a tool to shape that process. It’s possible that all humans possess some capacity to Shape and that the drug momentarily awakens this process, allowing for a temporary Shaping of the body. Using such a dangerous drug has the potential to permanently alter brain function and in unfortunate cases, can irreparably change the brain’s composition.”

“Aberrants,” Graham said gravely.

The scientist nodded and the image on the screen changed. A blurry shot of a dark twisted shape, the photo taken in motion.

“Yes. Aberrants are people whose brains have been warped to the point where they no longer seem to have rational, human thoughts. What is alarming is that, from what we’ve observed, the shift is terminal, not gradual. A brain will slip past what we have coined the ‘Stoll Threshold’ and immediately the person’s Shape seems to abandon the confinements of close-to-human proportions. From then on the Aberrant will actively seek to harm those around them, not for sustenance or sport, but seemingly only with the goal of inflicting pain on humans.”

I could feel Nell shiver through our connection and the residual emotions carried on into my skin, making it itch.

“Why?” Nell asked.

“We don’t know,” the Director answered. “You will hear that a lot as we delve deeper into these topics. We do have a live specimen of an Aberrant locked up in a secure facility, but outside of the few Witches we have on staff, we have no useful tools for examining this aspect of Shaping. Hostile behaviour is just that, for now.”

The screen changed again and this time it was a video. The view from a chest-mounted camera showed arms clad in H.E.S.P. black, holding a gun. The person was sprinting down a cobblestone driveway, then suddenly they turned to look at a building behind them, wreathed in flames. The building was large and old-looking, with some castle-like architecture. It appeared to be an institution of some sort, perhaps a private school or a monastery.

Neve stiffened as she viewed it. At the same moment, Daria’s face paled and then turned angry. 

“Change it!” she shouted at the Director.

The Director quickly tapped a button to change the screen to a drone shot of Sillwood during its downfall, pillars of smoke obscuring the glow of the fires below like clouds flickering with lightning.

Neve turned away, hiding her face and Daria wrapped her arms around her to comfort her, shooting the Director a dirty look.

“My apologies. We don’t currently know the purpose of Organ’s continued testing and rampant distribution of Dice. But Sillwood gave us an important clue. Shapers react more strongly to the Beacon. Both in terms of the strength of the emotions they experience and the fact that it seems to disrupt normal Shaping, making it more fluid and wild. We suspect that the Beacon uses Shapers to propagate its signal.”

“Fascinating,” Graham said, stroking his beard. “The energy that we think facilitates Shaping, it is closely tied to emotions. And this appears to be a case of the emotion being the desired effect, rather than any Shaping that emotion could produce. A signal, being sent through all who can Shape.” 

He frowned. “But why?”

“That why is our highest priority. Organ is not a mindless terrorist group, they have a purpose. And that purpose is…” the Director paused as they changed the screen again.
It was a child’s drawing of a black sky, centered around a whorl of red scribbles.

“This is a rendition of the object hanging in the sky above some of the Beacons we have encountered. The child who drew it had a Shape. We cannot record the phenomenon, as cameras cannot capture it, nor can those without Shapes see it. But as you can see here, it appears to be a red spherical object hanging in the sky. In Sillwood, some people saw two.”

“A heart,” I murmured.

Several of the researchers nearby turned to look at me curiously.

“I mean-” I stammered. “It beats with the Beacon. It pulsates, like a heart.”

The Director took that in. “I see. We now believe that this phenomenon is not a mass hallucination, but in fact an actual presence that is hidden from normal perception. The anomalies in gravity that we have been observing around the world could be explained by a new celestial object…” the Director trailed off.

“But?” Neve asked, having regained her composure. Her eyes were reddened and Daria rubbed her shoulder.

“But the math doesn’t add up. Normally that would be reason to set aside the theory and search for others, but with Shaping, all bets are off. Shaping fundamentally disobeys the laws of physics. Energy to mass conversion ratios don’t make sense, with energy seemingly being produced out of thin air. So the idea that this thing in the sky is actually as big as people say it is, without causing gravity disruptions on a catastrophic scale, suddenly it seems more reasonable.”

“It’s hollow.”

Everyone in the room turned to whoever had spoken. Tom stood there, seemingly as confused as everyone else. 

The Director eyed him intensely. “What made you say that, Tom? Was it your power?”

Tom looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

One of the scientists exchanged glances with the others before speaking, “That… would make the calculations make a little more sense.”

The room went silent. Everyone was thinking the same thing. 

If that thing is hollow, then what was inside?

The Director cut through the heavy silence with their gentle smile. “Regardless of our theories, we’re interested in finding out more while proving to the public that we can help. There is currently a crisis in Nova Scotia because of the rising sea levels caused by our little hollow in the sky. The city of Rothers is currently suffering from heavy flooding and evacuations of the city are underway.”

Pictures of the city appeared on the screen. The city’s skyscrapers were lined by windows that caught the light like fish scales. There was water flooding the streets, rising high enough to sometimes reach the second or third floors of these structures. Spotted here and there were buildings obscured by patches of unnatural, impenetrable black fog that hung in the air.

“We believe that there are Aberrants lurking in that strange fog. Organ may be at work here. We’re going to deploy you at the edge of the city and task you with investigating these fog patches. The flights are booked for tomorrow. Please do your best.” The Director smiled warmly at us, even with the firmly spoken words.

People began to disperse and I turned back to Tom and Kay.

“Do you guys want to hang out with me and Nell while I figure out what to do about this old man arm? I could do with some fresh opinions so that I don’t get paranoid that Nell just wants to chop it off so she can embalm it or something.”

“Oooh. Sure, as long as I can sign it like a cast.”