You See Such Mad Things Happening
an The Unlucky Ones snippet
The Curse rises out of him, ghostly bones tapping along his arm in question.
Bly doesn’t know how to answer. His chest feels funny still. Scientist Se has patiently explained to him - “you died” - what had happened before he woke up. But he must’ve done it wrong?
There’s transparisteel cubes around the capsules now.
“I want my batch,” he whispers into his arm, carefully muffled, daringly out loud. He shouldn’t. He must already be in trouble for dying wrong.
He can’t even hear the thuds of Wolffe punching against his own cube. His knuckles are bloody and used to write mean things.
Cody is trying to get Wolffe’s attention.
Wolffe will get in trouble, too. He surely will be disciplined if he doesn’t wipe away the mean words.
The Curse puts a hand against the glass, skull turning to look at Bly.
“I don’t know,” he replies softly. “Maybe it’s because you acted funny yesterday?”
The Curse had grown so large, had called its other halves to itself until they melted into each other. It had looked beautiful and it had felt— scary. But that’s dumb. They’re clones, there’s no need to feel scared if the fear response isn’t to release adrenaline in order to accomplish the mission in an efficient and timely manner.
The lights had clattered and exploded all around them, white halls plunged into darkness, the transparisteel glittering down to the floor. It had been so pretty.
Commander Fordo had snagged him up while Commander Alpha-Seventeen had carried Cody away in the other direction. Gree had been taken away by another Alpha class, too fast for Bly to see who it was.
Cody had looked as mesmerized as Bly had felt. Everyone else had panicked.
And now there are transparisteel cubes around their capsules.
“What if I have a bad dream again?” He can’t go to Cody. Or Wolffe. Or Fox. Or—
He rubs the sniffle into his sleeve. He can’t go to anyone.
The Curse curls around him and he imagines, with everything he’s got, that he can feel it, that it has flesh and skin and warmth.
He comes out of a light doze when a bony hand waves in front of his face, flowing to the bottom edge of the mattress and pointing.
“Stop it, silly,” he chides and looks around. No one is watching him. Fox is playing hand signals with his Curse. Cody ignores his like always. Wolffe— Wolffe isn’t there. Where—
His brother is guided back into their capsule room by an angry looking Alpha-Seventeen, cleaning droid under one arm.
The Curse taps the mattress again and Bly minutely shakes his head. Not while Alpha-Seventeen is here. Bly trusts him with his life but this isn’t about his life.
“Start of night cycle,” the voice in the ceiling announces and the capsules automatically close.
He hurriedly ducks his head and lies down.
The Curse is still outside his body, illuminating the inside enough to crawl to the end of the mattress and fumble a hand under it until he finds the slit in the cover, the pens and flimsi.
He makes himself comfortable on his stomach, knowing the Curse will hover around and through him.
The Curse snaps its jaw a few times, that weird metal rattle only felt, not heard.
“What do you want me to draw?”
The pen follows the glowing finger bones, tracing curves and circles. No straight lines, no hard edges.
Bly looks at the thing when they’re done, angles the flimsi to get a better idea. “What is it? Looks like something from survival sims.” He squints, holds the drawing closer to his face. “Is that a—“ He falters. Stupid survival sims. He knows this. His memory was literally engineered to be eidetic. “A… an angiosperms type plant?”
The Curse hovers next to him, mute.
“A flower, silly.”
It tilts its skull and one of its hands comes out of his chest where his heart is.
“Uh, thank you?” Bly has no idea what the Curse means.
It snaps its jaws at him before sinking into his skin again.
“Goodnight to you, too,” he grins, carefully tucking the drawing under his nightshirt.
