Chapter 102

Chapter 102: 102 "I’d seen Mikhail a handful of times before when Ling or Artemis brought him in to work, but it was always at a distance," said Choco quietly. "Everyone, even the researchers always kept a distance with me, and for good reason. Our resonance frequency is highly unstable, which is what allows them to graft whatever they like onto us, but it of course also means that even unwanted things may also be assimilated." "You assimilated Mikhail," I said. "By accident," replied Choco. "He was wandering around and came too close and it happened that that’s the moment the seal on me was activated." "And that...?" "When a human is about to drown, they will grab onto anything around them, even the person trying to save them. When I was sealed, it was the same. Of course, it was not fatal, but it felt like it and it elicited a similar response in us." "Making you lash out at anything." "Yes." We were standing by the tree stump where Mikhail was playing, now with a full herd of horses. I didn’t need to see more of Ling’s memories nor did I need Choco to explain to me where I came from. I remembered now. "Listen, do you know anything about people from Whale Toes being captured?," I asked Choco. "Yeung Serng Yin or Gou Ngaam or anyone like that?" "Yeung Serng Yin? I must apologise. I don’t know much of what goes on even in here, let alone out in the world." "Oh... That must be difficult." Choco shook her head. "It is manageable. I have a few ’windows’, so to speak, so I’m not entirely cut off." "Windows?" "Mikhail," she said. "And Bran." "Bran!?" What did this have to do with you? "Yes, that one puzzled me for a long time," said Choco thoughtfully. "You see, while my powers are mostly sealed, I still do have some and, not to toot my own horn but even that small ’some’ is quite powerful. So you can imagine how confused I was when a connection was suddenly made between myself and a little human who I had never laid eyes on." "With Bran...? But... how? Do you know how? Wait... the seal!" "You seem to know something about this." "Only a little. I was told that Whale Toes sealed the hundun away but that something went wrong and part of the seal ended up in Bran." I scratched the back of my head. "I think the hundun and you should be the same entity." "Hundun..." Her expression clouded and a crease appeared between her brows. "I am not sure which name I dislike more. It or Nameless Beast." "I’ll tell him your name is Choco the next time I see him," I assured her and her brow smoothed out. "I would appreciate that," she said. "So, the seal in him... the original one, it wasn’t because of some demonic power or anything inside him," I asked. "No, the seal is a mere fragment of what currently binds me," Choco replied. "Then the powers he can use..." "Are from me. Each time he cracks open the seal a little more, a measure of my power flows out through him, nothing more." "I see..." Now wasn’t really the best time to start thinking about the ramifications of this, but I couldn’t stop myself anyway. I remembered that vision of children I’d seen when I’d cut myself on your sword ages ago. At the time I’d assumed, quite reasonably, that the vision was something to do with whatever demon this ’demon blade’ was housing, but now it was clear to me that, far from being related to you, it was more likely that the children were a manifestation of all the parts that had been stitched together to form the Nameless Beast and I’d just gotten a glimpse of it. "Choco, do you think we could take a look at Ling’s more recent memories and see if she knows where the Whale Toes members are?" "I don’t see why not." -- "What is Camelot?" asked Bran, hoping he could maybe get Arthur monologuing like in the movies. Arthur looked at him with surprise. "Camelot? You don’t know what Camelot is? King Arthur? The Knights of the Round Table?" "No, I know what Camelot is. I mean," Bran pointed at the sky and all the spires, towers and other grand buildings perched within the clouds, "what are they?" Arthur’s surprise melted into warm, making Bran feel suddenly queasy. The man stepped towards Bran and clapped him on both shoulders. "I knew you’d be able to see it. I just knew it." The platform was large but not large enough for Bran to feel comfortable taking a step backwards so he let Arthur go ahead with the shoulder clapping business. "Can’t other people see it?" he asked instead. Arthur sighed and let his arms fall to his side. "They would, if they had the vision to. You see Bran," Bran sighed internally as he sensed the long-winded lecture approach, "most people aren’t living to their full potential. They get up, go to work, listen to their boss, argue with their wife, go to bed then do it all again. That’s just wasteful. Don’t you think that’s wasteful?" Bran considered pointing out that not everyone had or wanted a ’wife’ but he decided to just let Arthur get it all out. Instead he just gave an ambiguous shrug. "Right," Arthur went on, apparently taking the shrug as an affirmative, "it’s not the most innovative of ideas, many people have pointed this out, but where I differ is that I understand that these people can’t help it. They have inferior hardware, that’s why they’re a disappointment." Bran almost turned around and jumped off the tower but he still wanted to see Misha so he restrained himself. "But, you see Bran," Arthur went on yet again, "this is where Camelot comes in. What if I could fix that inferior hardware? What if I could take what was mediocre and turn it into something extordinary? That’s what I’m doing here." "You’re changing the world?" offered Bran. "We’re changing the world," agreed Arthur. "When you say ’we’ I hope you’re not including me in that," went on Bran in his usual drawl. "I’m still not helping you." "I am aware," replied Arthur. "But I believe you know as well as I that consent is rarely required." "And what’s that supposed to mean?" Arthur put his hands in his pocket and looked out at the castles in the sky. "Remind me, how exactly do you serve the wishes of the businesses whose luck you bolster? Where exactly does that extra luck come from." A chill went down Bran’s spine as the revelation that Arthur had been keeping tabs on him sunk in. He supposed it made sense for the man to do that, given their apparent familiar relation, but it still felt like a profound invasion of privacy nonetheless. "I take small and equal amounts from insects and birds and fish out in the wetlands," replied Bran, figuring that Arthur had to know this already. "Exactly," said Arthur. "And I am doing the exact same." Bran stared at him, uncomprehending. Then the cogs started to turn in his mind. Click, click, click. "It was you," he said when the full picture finally focused. "The Walled City, the Coil harvesting nostalgia. That was all you." Arthur smiled. "Yes. I did not appreciate you pricking a hole in that particular balloon of mine but I must also say that I was impressed. I hadn’t expected someone of your age and training to be able to achieve such a feat." The jab at his lack of official training didn’t even register as Bran’s mind continued to work. "So that’s why you have energy problems now. Getting the energy from the dragons turned out to be a dead end, so that’s why you need to break the seal on the Nameless Beast." Arthur sighed with a slight grimace. "Close, very close Bran, but no cigar." He pulled his hand from his pocket, drawing out some kind of long, shiny thread. Despite himself, Bran took a step back. "You see, yes, right now, my project does have energy issues, but once it’s been released, it’ll all be able to fuel itself," said Arthur. "What? That doesn’t make sense," said Bran. "You can’t create a closed system like that like a snake eating its own tail. It doesn’t work." "No, it wouldn’t, but that’s not the system I’m making." Arthur sighed. "I admit it. It does sadden me that you won’t be able to see it." Now was the moment. Bran stopped pretending his wrists were still bound and rolled to the side to avoid the thin metal chain as it swung for him. When he rose, he flicked open the blade of the box cutter he’d concealed and which had helped him get out of his bonds, and brandished it at Arthur. The man looked genuinely surprised for a moment then shrugged as he summoned the chain back again. "Typical," he sighed. Bran took the moment of reprieve to channel power into the tiny blade. "Draw," he said quietly and the usual dark marks swept up his arm and to his neck then, not so as the ’usual’, they continued up further over his chin and to his temples. It felt different this time, releasing his power, like how one might feel when spraining an ankle. There was something wrong, something stretched a little too far about it, but Bran forced the thought and the feeling away and dodged another attack. He had more pressing matters to deal with though he did send off a smaller part of his attention to thinking over the issue.