[SESSION id=0.19]: Semipermeable
Healthy Change
We worked nearly tirelessly on establishing a safe plan for attacking the test case. The only exceptions were hygiene, food, intimacy, and sleep. For almost twenty cycles. The only exception we never sacrificed was intimacy.
After rigorous testing models were created, we hit a snag I hadn't thought of.
╭─phyllo@Ω in ~ via > 0.0.b
╰─ω cp /lib/share/sex/androgens.so /mnt/container/lib/share/sex/
Access denied."Jazz, we have a problem." I was staring point blank at an issue that left us dead on our feet. We should've seen it sooner. It was blatantly obvious. "Phyllo can't write, only read and execute. So we either build our test on one of our credentials, create new credentials, or hold off until we have one of the sectors cracked."
She leaned over me from behind, her body pressing against me in a way that was becoming familiar but still made me blush.
"Well, that is trouble isn't it." She always sounded so impossibly nonplussed. "I suppose we can try something else. No one would blink at me creating a copy of the file, but that one requires higher permissions." She backed away, eventually returning with a plate full of salty snack foods. "Dad is coming by in a bit for your check-up. Eat some of this, get all your hacker wiggles out, and go lie in bed."
I'd been defying Lion Star's orders since we arrived home from the hospital. Jazz didn't stop me. I don't know if it's because she thought she couldn't or because she knew she could. Either way, when I stumbled out of the bed the first time, she rolled her eyes at me and pulled my chair out to sit beside her.
Sure, it wasn't healthy to ignore the doctor. Sure, it was likely slowing my healing. Sure, it was a risk. But I wasn't going to watch Jazz work without me. I wasn't going to sit around and let myself become useless.
And if Mr. Star noticed that I was struggling to get better, then that was none of my concern. It's not like he would send me back to the hospital. It's not like he could.
"Can't he come by tomorrow?" It was the last check-up set for a 'clean bill', so it didn't necessarily have to happen immediately. "I'm fine. He's stopped by every single cycle. He knows I'm fine."
"No, Lillian." Jazz had been adamant, and that wasn't changing. "You and I can't go out to supper together if you're unwell. And I'm not taking you out until he says you're okay."
"Fine," I huffed before putting a cracker from the plate into my mouth. After I got it down, I added, "But I'm going to complain about it the whole time."
"Yes. That's perfect." She rolled her eyes. "Complain that the doctor who saved your life wants to keep you alive. Complain that the man who risked his career to help you continues to help you."
"Okay. I get it." I put another cracker in my mouth and spoke around it before chewing. "But it doesn't change the fact that I'm fine."
"Sure. Now be a good girl," she grinned, "shut down forest, change into bed clothes, and get in bed."
Jazz still had everything timed down to the tick. Like a supernatural ability. The moment I was properly covered by the blanket, there was a knock at the domicile's main door. I heard Jazz greeting her father, and they joined me a moment later.
"My daughter tells me you're giving her lip about me." I nodded, scowling at him. "Good girl." The similarity between his voice and hers made me shiver when he said that. "Defiance is a sign that you're almost recovered."
"Then I was already almost recovered when we got back from the hospital." He laughed at the implication. "Also, please never call me 'good girl' again. Your voice and Jazz's are too similar."
Mr. Star raised a single eyebrow, then looked from me to Jazz and back. "Right. The Community. If Lyra ever gives up on her grudge, I'll have to scold her for introducing Jazz to them." He pulled the blanket down to get a look at me. "In any case, I'm going to listen to your pulse, your breathing, and a few more things. I'll be shining a light in your eyes and asking a few questions. When we're done, if you're healthy, then we'll all go out to supper together. You and Jazz can tell me why you're in town."
"She hasn't told you?" He shook his head. "We're here for work, mostly. But Jazz has an ulterior motive, and she won't tell me either."
He put a cold instrument to my skin, making me shiver again. "Oh. Should've warned you." I watched him count several seconds before he moved it and repeated. After that process continued a few more times, he put the thing away. "How long have you been taking your meds?"
"At this point, it should be a little over eighty cycles." He nodded and wrote something down. "I'm still not used to the mood changes or the tastes or the feelings or the smells. But we're getting there."
"Did she start you on one-fifty, six, and one-hundred?" The numbers on the bottles didn't match, but the multiple doses daily did. I nodded. "That explains the physical changes." I tilted my head. "You haven't noticed it yet? You're soft and squishy literally everywhere."
"I don't suppose I did." To test his assertion, I poked various places on my body. He laughed at the gesture. It felt normal. "Hey Jazz!" she poked her head in the room. "Am I softer and squishier?"
"Yes." Definitive. No question. "Though not quite the way either of us want. Give it more time."
Mr. Star laughed again. Jazz left the room. "She's right. In any case, so long as you're not having any adverse reactions, don't change anything." He pulled the blanket the rest of the way down and started moving clothes around. I must have made a noise. "Apologies, but a thorough inspection is essential, Lillian."
His hands roamed all over, pushing and poking and prodding. It was an uncomfortable mess. Eventually, he put my bed clothes back where they had been and returned the blanket to its place. From a pocket, he pulled out a light.
"This is going to be bright. It's going to hurt. If it makes you dizzy or disoriented, speak up." I wouldn't. I hadn't in the preceding twenty cycles, even though it had the first ten or so. He shined the light in my left eye, then my right, taking several cycle ticks to observe before moving on. "Looks good."
"Is that it?" Of course it wasn't, but I could hope.
He shook his head. "But we get to move on to the best part. If you're comfortable getting out of bed, anyway." I tossed the blanket aside and rolled to sitting up. "I assumed so. Stand up for me, then walk across the room."
As I stood, he watched my feet. When I started walking, his eyes roamed from top to bottom. He made me walk back and forth a dozen times before telling me to sit back down.
"We're going to ignore the fact that I know you've been ignoring your bed rest orders." He took a few more notes as he spoke. "And focus on the positive. It seems you're fully recovered. Or rather, physically you are."
"Then I can go out to supper with Jazz?" Why was that my immediate concern? "And get back to work?"
"Yes. Of course." He didn't sound happy. "But before all that, let me ask you some very important questions."
"Can I at least get dressed first? I'm kind of exposed here." It was true. And I didn't have any reason to be uncomfortable beyond that. He nodded, but he didn't move to leave the room. "I take it you're planning to talk while I do my thing?"
"I'll look away when you're bare, Lillian, but we need to talk about why you collapsed and how you hit your head." I cringed at the thought. I couldn't remember anything leading up to that moment. "And what was wrong in the cycle surrounding your arrival here in [city[3]]. If we can't answer that, then it's likely to happen again, especially since we're literally one grid-square from where it happened."
"My childhood domicile, Mr. Star." Surely Jazz had told him. "Do you know why I left?" He shook his head. "Because there's nothing for me there. Nothing for me here. Except Jazz, but that was likely planned."
"What happened, Lillian?" True to his word, he turned his back as I took off the sleep clothes. Somehow that felt more intimate as I started dressing. "Or would you rather just continue running from it?"
"How long have you lived in [city[3]], Mr. Star?"
"Almost twenty-three supercycles," he sighed. "Why?"
"Then you certainly knew my progenitor." I was half dressed by that point, and I almost told him to face me. "Or if you didn't know her, then you at least know what happened. Truth be told, I don't."
"Why do you think that is?" A simple question with a complicated answer. One I could give, but I wouldn't. Not unless Jazz knew first.
"You're the doctor, Mr. Star." Not a passive defiance, but an accusation. He should know. "Even so. I'm not having this conversation with you. Jazz!" She popped back in, then seeing me dressed stepped in and crossed the room. "We're going to supper. Whether he comes along is your choice. But I need out of this domicile."
Cellular Memory
Each cycle after that, we'd leave for supper, taking a back route out of the domicile to avoid potential triggers. Jazz's father didn't join us that night or any other. He did stop by still, but less often, leaving me to actually work.
About ten cycles after, Jazz approached me, concerned, but not upset.
"We still have to plan how to get rid of Flower_Princess and Silver_Thorn, Lillian," she said it with determination. "If they're still around, then you're under scrutiny. Even though neither of us has done anything on those accounts in almost a season."
"You know, Jazz," I'd struggled to articulate it, but I was worried, "what you're suggesting is something like an auto-SIGTERM. I don't know how you feel about Silver_Thorn, but Flower_Princess is as much me as 'Jazz's future wife' is." She smiled at the suggestion. I didn't. "I've never told you. Where she came from. Or anything about her, really."
"Then tell me, Lillian." Not a command. A request. But one heavy with guilt. "If it helps, I can tell you about mine, and we can trade notes."
"Silver_Thorn. There's a poison in your favourite – or rather, your old favourite – diversion process called by that name." She likely didn't engage with diversion processes anymore, but it used to be her favourite. I'd gotten it because of her. While it wasn't my thing, it made us both happy to share in it. "And you were working toward poisoning [world] to get revenge on a memory."
Jazz's jaw hung lower with each word. Clearly she hadn't seen that coming.
"It's why you chose Thorn for your friend L.A. back then." She knew that, but she didn't know I knew. "Because flowers are too soft, and Rose wasn't me. But Thorn. Thorn could protect you. Could protect us both."
"We never talked about that." She looked like I'd violated her deepest secrets. It wasn't that.
"No, but I played that diversion process. Everything you said to me back then was a line from it." Well, not everything. "And as I saw where you got all your inspirations, I was happy. I understood J.N. Flowers a bit better. Silver_Thorn is you. You are her. And killing her? It feels wrong."
"Then let me be the one to do it," Jazz's eyes were starting to glisten with tears. "But tell me, oh grand sorceress," a line from the diversion process, "your own secrets, that I may save our land."
"J.N. Flowers was everything to me. You were everything to me. And I wanted to be everything to you." My heart sank as the words came out. Was I not already exactly where I'd always wanted to be? "Your princess. Your thorn. Your Lillian. I chose the name Flower_Princess because I was yours. Flowers's Princess. Simple. Easy."
"And if you kill Flower_Princess, you're afraid you'll lose me?" She really was fast. "That's stupid, Lillian. Really stupid. But I get it."
"It's not stupid, Jazz." Was it?
"You already lost me once, Lillian. And yet, here we are. Despite the fact that I haven't forgiven you for back then." She was calm. The tears were actively falling, but she was entirely calm. It was horrifying. "Every time we part, we are brought back together. It's a rule of [world]. Lillian and Jazz are together. End of signal."
"Everything I've done as her. Everything I've done outside of the name Lawrence Antella. If she's gone. It's all gone." My throat felt heavy. I wasn't going to let myself cry. "Flower_Princess is L.A. Thorn. She is me. We are the same, Jazz."
"No, Lillian. She was a tool. So was L.A. And that other name has never been you. Not to me anyway." She stepped toward me. I backed away, desperate for distance. "She's not you any more than you are your progenitor. She's not you any more than you are what you did back then."
Jazz took a step back. She stared at me, seeing through me. A ghost of something impossible shook me. Then the moment was past.
"Lillian. If we don't get rid of them, then everything will fall to pieces." She held out a hand. "And we can do it together. It won't be so scary that way."
"Why did you bring me here, Jazz?" I needed to know. "Why did you bring me to [city[3]]?" Uncertainty was deadly. Clarity was necessary for safety. "Why won't you tell me the truth?"
"Because you won't tell yourself the truth, Lillian."
"What truth?"
"A puzzle for you, my love." She wasn't smiling. This wasn't a game. "What happened to your progenitor? What happened between us? What led you to [city[0]]? And why are we here, a grid-square from where it all started?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." There were no answers. Anywhere inside me. That was by design. I couldn't know. Knowing meant feeling. Feeling meant fear. Fear meant failure. "If we must get rid of her. Then I need to know why. If you insist I know why, then I need to remember. If I need to remember, then I have to go back."
"Why did Lillian Thorn, the brilliant puzzle solver, stop asking questions?" Jazz's tears were a flood. So were mine. I barely saw her through the blur. "Why did Lillian Thorn, the woman without answers, give up on searching them out?"
"Because I had to." I barely managed the words. "And I don't remember why."
"Then why are we going to get rid of Flower_Princess, my sweet flower?"
"Because if we don't, then we can't fix anything."
"And what does that mean?"
"I have to face it."
"Face what, Lillian?"
"Face what happened to my mother."