#white thalaatha

[the-uptake]

An Unknown Sustenance

The Uptake, The Sarpashana Solution. Book IV, Chapter 1(?)

I’m all over the place. Grunt.

Several figures, clad in white suiting with tailored clean silhouettes, collected near the observation window of their research facility. Some looked on in anticipation, some in boredom. One could not help but pace.

"Sit still, Tis'a."

"I can't. This doesn't matter."

"They already know there's more of them than themselves," the first continued. "It is an inevitable development."

"Let them eat together," a third commented, near the back of them, only vaguely attentive. "We've already seen they form social bonds within their sectors. It's plausible that even at a sector level they will play nice with one another."

"They might even encourage one another to branch out where they've been averse to it prior." A fourth weighed in, agitated. "Where's all the contention coming from, Tis'a?"

"It's taken us so long just to get this far. I'm having reservations about the risks here."

"We've determined a reliable pattern of repeatability." The fifth of them snorted at Tis'a. "If there's a problem, we will simply replace the subjects."

"There's no replacing one of them." The second grunted, seeming to understand Tis'a's agitation. "The zero patient still exhibits mutations and adaptability the others have not. We established the sectors for a reason."

"And ideally, bringing them all together socially will help coax them in the right direction." The fourth pointed out into what had once been a courtyard, now an organized mess of drums, metals, plastics, and indeterminate debris. "Even if they haven't exhibited adaptive traits yet, I'm still confident they have simply thus far been shy to push their limits."

"Hamsa is right. Perhaps if Sigma and Theta see one another... remediating different substances than one another, they might be more inclined to sampling the other sector's comfort zone."

"I still rather hate that you call it 'eating,' Arba'a," Tis'a mumbled. "It's just... unnatural. I don't understand how any of you can stand to watch."

"You know what you signed up for when you took this position." The fifth radiated the authority of a senior figure, and shepherded them nearer the observation window. "Come on now, the staff will be releasing them in waves any minute now. The Betas first, then the Gammas, and so on. Not at all unlike cafeteria shifts in a high school, except the shifts today overlap."

Tis'a's face curled in displeasure but they said nothing.

____________________

The Beta sector subjects shuffled in through the pocket door to the north end of the rectangular courtyard, oblivious to any change in their daily habits at the complex. The ten of them, arthritic and despondent, sat around a sizable pile of small metal bits and set to rummage through it. Nuts and washers, screws and bolts, tailings, all manner of shapes and functions and alloys. They would put a given piece to their mouths, then decide to pass it to someone else, or swallow it themselves without chewing. It rarely went that a given piece passed hands more than two or three times, and it was common for a recipient to be fed the piece by the one who gifted it. The wefts of a deranged social intimacy shuttled the group together through action and few words.

The Gamma sector entered from the East end, and they descended upon one of the stacks of plastics. They rifled through it for the rubberiest parts, and gorged themselves. Occasionally, one might pick out a piece another of them would enjoy more than they would, and they'd toss it unceremoniously in their direction. Over time, the pile flattened from their scattering methods, though it did not draw attention to themselves, the Betas too absorbed in their saturnine ritual. The twelve Gammas, too, remained oblivious to sharing a space with anyone else.

The Deltas and Epsilons filed in from East and West, and served the catalyst for the encounter. They saw one another upon entry into the yard and stood staring, not going to their delicacy without prompting.

"What gives?" an Epsilon called out. He noticed the other groups already present, along with the one that had arrived along with his own, and pointed at them with incredulity. "They told us there was other groups but they never let us see each other!"

"Yeah, this is weird," a Delta agreed. She walked up to him and looked around with a vague consternation. "It's almost like they had some kind of scheduling flub..."

"What are you starin' at!" another Epsilon hollered, glaring at the Betas. But they hadn't stopped eating just to stare listlessly at the Deltas and Epsilons, but rather had their faces set upon the newest arrivals: the Thetas from the South. The third and fourth groups looked behind them to discover a group of distinctly asymmetrical individuals, who had frozen in place the instant they realized they were not alone.

"--Ignore them," one insisted, struggling with a limp gait to drag the rest to a mound of bottles. "We need to..." They insinuated toward the bottles, which upon closer inspection could be determined to be discarded prescriptions and medical waste. "If we don't now, it'll be hours before the next chance to be still."

Those who heard the Theta nodded silently and all went about their business. Many still eyed one another as they fed. Over the next thirty minutes, six more groups entered, and with each subsequent arrival, each withdrew from one another's line of sight, the shame of their condition outweighing the exigence of absolving their many months of loneliness. What brought them all together only served to further isolate. Somewhere about ninety subjects crowded in the courtyard. For twenty minutes or so, the twelve groups continued on in communal isolation as they bioremediated their respective commodity of waste.

For the most part, everyone tried their best to ignore the mere concept of what the others around then consumed.

The door to the north end produced a single subject the next time it opened, and the figure descended immediately upon the haystack of crusted drums no one else has dared touch. His wiry, naked frame bent at odd angles to facilitate identifying their contents by smell alone. Once he came upon a satisfactory stuff, he put his mouth to the cap and sucked and lapped at it until the fluids within flowed readily down his throat. The sheer quantity of liquid wastes he knocked back got everyone's attention, and soon everyone watched in a mixture of horror and fascination.

The Alpha subject got his fill of drum contents after the third, and moved toward the pile of metal junk, only to realize he wasn't alone. He looked to the plastics pile, the pharmaceuticals, the solar glass... His one-eyed features gnarled up in self-revulsion as he could tell these other figures were also consuming in kind, and he shrank from their sight.

"--You ARE here." The cracked voice of a Theta disinterred himself from the pharmaceuticals. Seemingly unable to stand, he still insisted to close the distance between them. "It took me... way too long to understand... what I'd gotten myself into... They wanted... Wolfrin victims... for the trial... But I couldn't have dreamed you were... still alive..."

The Theta's long, dark, stringy hair obscured his face as he lay at the Alpha's feet, and he parted it to stare longingly up at him with cataracted, oleous eyes.

"Dunno if you remember me, but I could never forget you." The dreg smiled in a warm delirium, complacent to how dragging his body along the ground had contorted his tank top to expose a nipple through its neckline. "...Supposing I did get my wish, after all, to become like you, Galen."

The remark shot through Galen to the marrow, and he couldn’t still his shaking rage and confusion and hurt. Before he knew it, he’d smashed his bare heel down on the Theta’s shoulder and dislocated the arm and collarbone all. The Theta lurched in a stifled wheeze, and rolled in a flinch to shield his face.

“–I, I’m sorry. Y’didn’t deserve th–”

“–You really don’t remember me, if you don’t think I didn’t deserve that.” The dreg curled up tighter and coddled his shoulder when he realized Galen had not continued into a full assault, and he sniffed and fell to flat affect. “Did the ghouls even give you the books?”

“...Ghouls?” Galen sat, his brain swimming too hot to remain steady, and he shook his head in dismissal. He looked around a moment to see the others had mostly resumed eating rather than continue staring. “What are y'even on about?”

“Painted ghouls. The stalkers with their faces covered in spray paint. They steal from all the low-level places they can to smuggle stuff back inside the walls? I… never mind. I never learn my lesson.”

“…Runners. They’re runners. The city calls ‘em ghouls? The fuck.” The wiry naked idiot lay back and stared up at the mesh mezzanine acting as a lid to the container which was the courtyard.

“City thinks of ‘em like bogeymen. Like they couldn’t possibly be real stalkers. Just punks dressed up to scare folks or somethin’.”

“They all might as well be dead either way.”

“...You don’t have to tell me, but I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“They got that paint all over their faces from huffin’ it. If a stalker leaves the Quarter anymore, they can’t breathe without paint, or maybe canned air. Dunno why I’m an exception to that. Maybe ‘cause I died way before all this shit started.” He squinted, face struggling not to screw up over it. “I don’t get it. The air in there’s all wrong now. It’s a wonder spray paint’s got enough… whatever in it to sustain runners long enough t’get outside the walls, then do a grab an’ run. I… I don’t wanna talk about how bad it is inside the walls. Not right of me to.”

“That’s fine. …You… you really don’t recognize me, though?” The Theta turned onto his back to give him a crestfallen, soulful pout, and slowly his dearth inflection broke into sentimentality. “It has been since before the walls. I guess I’ve changed just as much as you have. I mean, just… look at you. At the same time you don’t look like you’ve aged hardly at all, your body has just… continued… adapting… And I’ve just… continued falling apart… Going on forty now...” He reset his shoulder and didn’t even hiss. A quiet laugh came from him as he looked away, rubbing the joint. “Melancholy.”

“Are y’gonna just keep mopin’ an’ givin’ me coded hints or are y’gonna tell me your goddamn name? Maybe ring a bell? Y’drivin’ me loon.” Galen wiped the sorry from his face, and made vague circular gesticulations as he spoke. “Tch, it’s not much use anyway. Head cheese’s comin’ up all Swiss lately.”

Rather than form a rational response, Melancholy choked on laughter, then held his mouth and the tears just ran out of nowhere.

“…Finally seeing me again for the first time in over a decade, and you don’t even remember the asshole you took out all your sexual frustrations on while you were working for the EPA…” Melancholy sniffed and looked to him with a limpid sense of humor. He parted his greying undercut to slick down some approximation to bangtails, and pinched his thumbs and forefingers to hold circles to his eyes, intimating glasses with a stupid smile. “Maybe now?”

“Stop bendin’ like that. Don’t like that.” Galen rolled over so he didn’t have to keep looking at the sallow, horrid Theta. He hated being pushed for recollection he clearly didn’t have, being reminded just how little he remembered before the walls. How much of his brain had he lost after being beaten a dozen inches past his life, years ago? “I don’t even clearly know how I ended up in here. Just know they feed me. Today’s first I ever knew there was anybody but me here... You said you was just like me now. Tell me just exactly what you think about you’s just like me, yeah.”

“Well, that’s an exaggeration, I guess. I haven’t exactly gotten as far along as you, though I doubt I could ever catch up. I can knock back... a lot though. Most plastics don’t give me too much trouble now, either. They mostly give the Thetas medical and pharmaceutical discards. Olen over there, she can even handle the sharps bins no trouble. To be perfectly fair, this is the first I think any of us has known there was anyone else here... like this... Dunno how anyone else got here. I only know the folks who were in the same trial as me--and this is a million times better than anything they tried to sell me to hook me.”

To punctuate the statement, ‘Choly turned over and tried to spoon Galen, who allowed it from the stranger in the hopes proximity would help him feel better, even if it didn’t help jog his memories of him. ‘Choly’s face ended up in the crook of Galen’s shoulder.

“I just... Why are they collectin’ people who can eat like me? The fuck purpose is that? --An’ you mentioned you’re in here ‘cause they lied to you an’ told you this was some trial? You tryin’ t���tell me y'wasn’t always like this?”

'Choly turned his head so he didn’t bark another laugh right into Galen’s ear, but settled down again quickly with a nostalgic body beside him. He’d lost track of how long he’d been in the facility, how long it had been since he’d lain beside Cecil, or any of the Potluck. He nudged Galen onto his back and knelt atop him with an apathetic whimsy, his shoulders rolled and head a bit lolled.

“My chasing a way to become more like you has forever gotten us tangled up in each other’s chaos. Even now. I think I’m the only Theta happy to be here. Even happier, knowing I’m here with you... Say, I might not be able to stomach everything you can yet, but I can still...”

And ‘Choly hooked the corners of his mouth to force a smile across the entire span of his face. He recalled Galen disliking just the double-jointed display before and he quickly dropped the distortion with an embarrassed brow. When Galen only reacted in dumbstruck revulsion, ‘Choly ran a hand down Galen’s chest and left it atop the defined, warped abdominal muscles which formed a shape which was neither quite a paunch nor quite a potbelly. Galen shuddered a breath, shoulders in rigor as he frantically looked around to see if they still had any onlookers.

“The idiot from the library,” the Theta whispered desperately. “The idiot stalker stalking you for months on end before you caught me, and flung me into your apartment, and...” He trailed off and put his fingertips to Galen’s mouth, heart stitching knots like a sewing machine with a jammed bobbin. “We can... always make new memories...”

“Are you sure you actually handle all those bottles of other people’s drugs? You are fucking high as shit.”

“I’ve always been like this. I like to think it’s the one thing you liked about me. Gave you an excuse to feel justified roughing me up. Fuck, the shiner you gave me the first time I--” A halted moan came out of ‘Choly as he coaxed his fingers against Galen’s tongue. “I, you. You wouldn’t want to see if we have... that in common, would you? I was always so happy to oblige you, that I never really asked you to reciprocate...”

When ‘Choly moved to run his fingers even deeper into Galen’s mouth, Galen wrenched the hand from his lips by the wrist and glared up at him, haunted. That face. Something clicked in Galen’s head and flashed pieces of connected thoughts together. Fuck me, you’re perfect, he could hear in ‘Choly’s broken, unmodulated voice. This dreg had had his entire arm down Galen’s throat once--at least once--knew everything about him if he knew the lack of features on the outside belied the presence of internal genitalia. The dislocated shoulder, that hadn’t been the first time Galen had popped it out of joint. His face ran metallic, and his mouth in lieu of tears suffused with drool and panic.

“--Nn, not here. I don’t want this. Not like this. Hff-- fuck. Fuck fuck ffh--”

If this ass knew what Galen’s stomach lining felt like, surely he knew how loud Galen could get without something down his throat choking out the sound of it. In front of a hundred people, maybe more watching from observation windows. He flushed deep blue in the face just thinking about it, and did his best to swallow his upset.

“Where else, then? I don’t think they’re going to let us see each other in private. You make it sound like you would want it on different terms, at least. Perhaps just... keeping the stimulation external for now?” ‘Choly traced the chain of nodes where Galen’s navel had once been. Then, when Galen struggled not to cry out, he took Galen’s free hand and guided it up under the hem of the tank top, to touch him in kind. A ragged breath came out of ‘Choly as Galen tried to appease him by focusing such attention on him rather than himself, and ‘Choly fell to choking whispers as Galen traced his navel with a thumb. “Slaggit, if this even feels a fraction as good to me as it does to you-- Ugh, how I’ve missed the smell of your sweat.”

“Have you always... greeted me with sex... or am I just this unlucky?”

“Hhh, hha. I get the, impression, we’re all hardwired this way now. Look. I always thought it was, just the Thetas, blowing off steam after eating... but look.”

The two of them stopped to observe similar interactions, in various stages of disrobing. The Epsilons lounged in pairs across the piles of broken solar glass, grinding against each other, against a shared panel between each of them as they suckled on the edges. The Betas had progressed from feeding each other bits and pieces, to languorously effusing metal directly from their palms into one another’s wanting mouths. The Gammas took to opposite ends of lengths of rubber pipes and let their mouths linger in one another’s when they met in the middle. All manner of lawless orgy bloomed up around them, a topography of derangement fueled by a gamut of appetites.

“They’re... They’re... Why...” In particular, Galen watched the Betas in abject fascination. He barely contained voicing the nascent desire that someone feed him in any such way.

“I’ve lost track of the number of times they’ve told my sector to knock it off. Something about the vagus nerves gets scrambled with the primary mutation... Seems understandable now why the white coats are so jealous. Positive feedback reinforcement, though, I suppose--if they could breed it out of us, we’d have no reward for performance.”

“--Ju --jus --sst, ssssh shut up. Y'sound like one a those freaks in white, but broken.” Galen squinted and shuddered, then felt very small. “Can... can you ss, sweat... like that? The metal? Probably a stupid question, ss, sssince you said they feed you drugs. Don’t got a lotta metal in drugs...”

‘Choly became animated at the thinly-veiled request, pressing his free palm to Galen’s lips and smearing lithium all over them. He could tell exactly what had captivated the Alpha’s attention.

“Pharmacology uses a lot of metals, actually.” He grinned, absolutely drunken on obliging Galen’s appetites in such a precise but multifaceted way. “They do have a grand idea. Do you want me to--”

Dropping all reservations, Galen forced ‘Choly’s hand down his throat and let ‘Choly guide himself all the way down inside. Whereupon, the cowed Theta unloaded every metal he could muster directly into his idol’s gut, all the while stroking the distended stomach lining. However new it was, it was still the most familiar thing either had felt in ages, and Galen blissfully reciprocated the attention by petting ‘Choly’s abdomen. And they remained passionately tangled up in such a way, until the orderlies filed in to pry everyone apart with a firm gentleness, to escort them back to well-rehearsed isolation.