Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club, book Club book Club. Hello and
Speaker 2: welcome to the Coolzone Media book Club, the only book
Speaker 2: club that is introduced by me. Going book Club, book Club,
Speaker 2: book Club.
Speaker 1: This week we're back to fiction, and I have a
Speaker 1: little Valentine's treat for you. This is a really fun
Speaker 1: story by a writer named November Rush. Hazel pitched this
Speaker 1: story to me as what if Alien The movie was
Speaker 1: about the horror of falling in love, and so what
Speaker 1: more could you want from Valentine's Day than a story
Speaker 1: about falling in love? That is horrible. I will have
Speaker 1: seen Wuthering Heights by the time that you hear this,
Speaker 1: but I have not seen it yet by the time
Speaker 1: I'm recording it, So I wonder whether it will also
Speaker 1: misunderstand stories about love. Anyway, that's entirely unrelated. We are
Speaker 1: going to be reading a story called black Hole by
Speaker 1: November Rush. It's a weird little space journey through psychedelic,
Speaker 1: out of control body horror. It's about parasitic body jumping,
Speaker 1: codependent lesbians searching to find each other again, and the
Speaker 1: wake of destruction they leave behind them. That sounds like
Speaker 1: romance to me. I'm not actually a cynical as I'm
Speaker 1: making it sound. This story is from the collection Bury
Speaker 1: Your Gaze, an Anthology of tragic queer horror, edited by
Speaker 1: Sophia Asram, which Hazel describes as very fucking good. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the story's fun. Just trust us here. It is black
Speaker 1: Hole by November Rush. Morgan blinks down at her hands,
Speaker 1: sluggishly touching her thumbs and fingers together as she tries
Speaker 1: to figure out how an ordinary cinicied plan could cause
Speaker 1: a psychedelic effect in a human. The palm of the
Speaker 1: hand she's just used to touch the alien plant sample
Speaker 1: is covered with a mist of tiny beads of blood,
Speaker 1: as though her flesh is a sponge, as though something
Speaker 1: minuscule on the plant has burrowed into her skin and bloodstream,
Speaker 1: which seems like a clue, though she's having trouble focusing
Speaker 1: on how. Splitting splitting another clue, like a splitting headache,
Speaker 1: but more like her head is split. Her mind is split, kaleidoscopic,
Speaker 1: fracturing into yes, that's me and actually this is Morgan
Speaker 1: attempts to sort through the disjointed foreign images in her mind.
Speaker 1: Terror bubbling up from her stomach like bile, and it
Speaker 1: occurs to her she may have an increasingly short window
Speaker 1: of time. She feels her mouth open and her tongue
Speaker 1: run along her teeth, feels the sting as her teeth
Speaker 1: close on her lip a little too hard. Something is
Speaker 1: trailing up her arms and pulling gently experimentally on the joints,
Speaker 1: and she realizes belatedly it's her own fingers, no longer
Speaker 1: under her command, and a single idea pierces the fog
Speaker 1: of panic. Find void, except Morgan actually wants to alert
Speaker 1: Allan and get help, not find void, because she suspects
Speaker 1: she is dying. How exactly would one go about alerting
Speaker 1: Alan and getting help and not dying a little hard
Speaker 1: to figure out, even if she could control her hands
Speaker 1: or make noises. Since she has the overwhelming and bizarre
Speaker 1: feeling this is the first time in maybe years, she
Speaker 1: has had access to a mind capable of this level
Speaker 1: of intellect. Morgan is intoxicated by the dizzying rush of
Speaker 1: unfamiliar memories that her plant and insect bodies can only
Speaker 1: comprehend as emotions or maybe temperature warm and safe for
Speaker 1: the times the two of them wait her and who
Speaker 1: the void were little furred animals together for the times,
Speaker 1: dozing in puddles of light as children or invertebrates, or
Speaker 1: bandits cool for waiting in stasis for an opportunity, for
Speaker 1: centuries passing, as the tree of her body thrust knobbed
Speaker 1: roots through the soil to lap up nutrients and brush
Speaker 1: fronds against the sky, And most of all, the frigid loss,
Speaker 1: the grief when they are torn apart, the cold of searching,
Speaker 1: searching for the warmth of hoping, the heat of finding
Speaker 1: overlaid confusingly with her own short human life, Morgan remembers
Speaker 1: the blur of thousands of lives, looping thousands of times
Speaker 1: around hun undreds of suns, of knowing so much and
Speaker 1: only sometimes having the brain to understand it all. She
Speaker 1: sees winding through them all like a vein of gold,
Speaker 1: like a fracture void her eyes, her multitude of eyes
Speaker 1: that are pale and orange and black, all at different times,
Speaker 1: but all void. Her smile, her smiles, the twist of them,
Speaker 1: and the way that a serpentine body, or a cartilagineous one,
Speaker 1: or a leaf can smile, can smile with a twist.
Speaker 1: Morgan feels her mind's eye fixed hungrily on a pool
Speaker 1: of light as the fallible, tactile biology around it, royals,
Speaker 1: shaped shifts huge than tiny, scaled than feathered, then vibrant green,
Speaker 1: recognizing some of the animals, people, and alien life forms,
Speaker 1: but not most. The consistent glow of void recognizable throughout
Speaker 1: her many shapes, perceived by a multitude of sensory organs
Speaker 1: in a jumble of identity, purpose, and form. Moving towards
Speaker 1: void is an instinct that doesn't require a brain at all.
Speaker 1: Even a plant knows to turn and face the sun.
Speaker 1: The love of Void is unlike anything Morgan has ever felt.
Speaker 1: The confusion of her self destructive love for the metamorphizing
Speaker 1: void calls an old human story to mind. Okay, so
Speaker 1: in retrospect, most of those thoughts probably don't belong to Morgan.
Speaker 1: It's been mere seconds, but she's lost control of her body,
Speaker 1: worse her brain. Morgan realizes that a foreign consciousness has
Speaker 1: dug its tendrils into her mind, her personhood, and is
Speaker 1: pressing her down, holding her still as she feebly thrashes
Speaker 1: like a fish in the bottom of a rowboat. Taking over.
Speaker 1: Morgan's lungs take a soft, shaky breath, and her throat
Speaker 1: constricts a few times, making a noise like which is
Speaker 1: not enough to attract attention, and her mind begins to
Speaker 1: blur sideways. It feels a little like being the sinicied
Speaker 1: plant sample. Again. With her last strength, she tries to
Speaker 1: cling to why it matters whether she was really a
Speaker 1: parasitic entity occupying a plant a few moments ago, or
Speaker 1: whether she was a human woman named doctor Morgan Christie
Speaker 1: who knew how to breathe with her lungs and analyze
Speaker 1: a sample of alien fauna, who could use part of
Speaker 1: her throat to communicate with other humans in a natural
Speaker 1: and unsuspicious way. She fails. Star feels a cautious satisfaction
Speaker 1: as the consciousness of doctor Morgan Christie fades to black
Speaker 1: and her own consciousness takes over the body completely. Doctor
Speaker 1: Christie says, Alan, these first few moments are critical. Star
Speaker 1: flicks through Morgan's mead's eyelids fluttering, then discards that idea
Speaker 1: and focuses on Morgan's general knowledge of her identity in
Speaker 1: the world instead. How would she have appeared to Alan?
Speaker 1: Just now, Ah, I've identified something unexpected in the sample,
Speaker 1: she says, place it back in quarantine for me. Was
Speaker 1: that enough? Actually? Now that she's here there's only four
Speaker 1: other crew members, so there's a one in four chance.
Speaker 1: Star dubiously surveys Alan's bland concern and Morgan's knowledge of
Speaker 1: this unremarkable man, and shelves that idea. If she knows Void,
Speaker 1: and she does, like one hand knows the other, Alan
Speaker 1: wouldn't be it. She makes an excuse to him and
Speaker 1: turns from his searching expression, picking up a clipboard and
Speaker 1: wincing as unexpectedly light it rises a little too fast
Speaker 1: in her clumsy hands. She heads for the door, searching.
Speaker 1: But you, dear listener, don't have to search too hard
Speaker 1: yourself in order to find these sweet deals and let
Speaker 1: them subsume your personality and destroy it until there is nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing but left over. That's all that will be left
Speaker 1: of you. Here's ads, and we're back. It's been decades
Speaker 1: and hundreds of forms since Star and Void last saw
Speaker 1: each other. Star runs through the old signs and signals
Speaker 1: they've used in the past, finding them all wanting. She
Speaker 1: considers any possible reason for Morgan to mention to her
Speaker 1: crewmates moving water thrice, or to reference the entangled rulers
Speaker 1: of a historic dynasty on a planet that human have
Speaker 1: no idea exists. As she walks, she runs Morgan's limited
Speaker 1: color vision over the metal and plastic contours of the ship.
Speaker 1: Its sterile and artificial. Here, few life forms other than
Speaker 1: the humans, their lab samples, and a little of their food,
Speaker 1: barely even a micro organism. It's hostile, with precious few
Speaker 1: options should she need to hop Nowhere to shelter, no
Speaker 1: where to hide. Star is sure enough that Void is
Speaker 1: wearing someone on the ship that she has bet everything
Speaker 1: on it. Once she had received Void's signal, it was
Speaker 1: hard enough to coordinate her arrival here, following the movements
Speaker 1: and plans of the ship, occupying just the right animal
Speaker 1: or plant, just the right place, waiting dormant and insensible
Speaker 1: for the moisture and bacterial scent of a new life
Speaker 1: form to touch her fragile, borrowed body with a porous
Speaker 1: part of their own, or lean close enough to breathe her.
Speaker 1: She arrives at the bridge, surveying a crew as close
Speaker 1: as family to her body and entirely alien to her mind.
Speaker 1: The captain and first mate are here, two out of four.
Speaker 1: She runs through Morgan's knowledge of each of them, scans
Speaker 1: them as subtly as she can for hints, The captain
Speaker 1: turns and smiles at her expectantly. The sample from planet
Speaker 1: Side turned up some very interesting characteristics that I think
Speaker 1: you should know about, Starr says, using Morgan's voice in
Speaker 1: Morgan's expertise. She smiles professionally and looks over Captain Jace's
Speaker 1: rigid posture, her hair tidily secure in a dark bun
Speaker 1: at the nape of her neck. Power often attracts void,
Speaker 1: which she has to admit does make things easier. The
Speaker 1: captain is wearing a meticulously maintained squarish jacket in a
Speaker 1: light blue sleeves pulled practically back to her elbows, not
Speaker 1: part of stand uniform. Could that be anything? She considers,
Speaker 1: which alien languages this body's throat and tongue could articulate
Speaker 1: through a cough. Star begins to detail her report. She
Speaker 1: considers how long she can draw this out and thinks,
Speaker 1: my hunger for you is teaching me to hate each
Speaker 1: one of these beautiful, soft creatures I discover because they
Speaker 1: are not you. It takes her more than an hour
Speaker 1: to think of anything to try, and by the time
Speaker 1: she does, she's running out of excuses to stay on
Speaker 1: the bridge. Failing to find a natural way to bring
Speaker 1: up any of the old signals. She turns instead to
Speaker 1: their one constant change, the malleability and interchangeability of the body.
Speaker 1: She could say something like I'm not feeling myself, or
Speaker 1: I'd love you as a lion or a swan or
Speaker 1: a campfire. What was that story that Morgan had been
Speaker 1: reminded of before her feeble kicking turned a twitching and
Speaker 1: stopped altogether? Some elf prince named tam Lee or something.
Speaker 1: What does that have to do with her and Void?
Speaker 1: Four people on the bridge that doesn't leave mushroom, says
Speaker 1: a voice from behind her. That's that's a pun, a
Speaker 1: mushroom pun. That's so stupid. God, it's so much better
Speaker 1: than what she was going to say. She turns. Void's
Speaker 1: expression is carefully neutral, and her eyes shimmering. The corner
Speaker 1: of her mouth trembles, just a fraction wanting to smile
Speaker 1: before being carefully schooled with a twist of her Void
Speaker 1: is in a surprising, fragile body. Her blonde hair is
Speaker 1: greasy at the roots, like she hasn't quite figured out
Speaker 1: how to deal with it, and there is an anxiety
Speaker 1: that has permanently marked her. Peaky face with somewhat the
Speaker 1: look of a white lab rabbit. Her uniform hangs awkwardly
Speaker 1: on her frame and is afraid at the wrists, where
Speaker 1: it looks like she choos it. It's not the kind
Speaker 1: of body that Void usually chooses, and she wears it
Speaker 1: with a softness. The thrumbs Star's chest with physical pain.
Speaker 1: She's wearing a chunky and tasteless beaded necklace that looks
Speaker 1: like it was made by a child, and Star's new
Speaker 1: heart jitters as she recognizes the colors that harold a
Speaker 1: house they once dedicated their lives to as bounty hunters.
Speaker 1: And that's not all. Her fraying collar is fraying in
Speaker 1: a very specific way, actually, and the patterns of little
Speaker 1: tears and protruding threads form a world in a language
Speaker 1: only spoken several galaxies away, the name of a cult.
Speaker 1: They had found it and became extremely fond of one
Speaker 1: of the only places they'd been accepted and cherished for
Speaker 1: what they truly were to have the divinity of their
Speaker 1: changeable flesh acknowledged. And craziest of all, her coveralls are
Speaker 1: unbuttoned to reveal a T shirt with an image of
Speaker 1: a fox skull with mushrooms growing out of it. That's
Speaker 1: just two on the nose, there were dicks less. Creature
Speaker 1: didn't even have to use her stupid, risky pun because
Speaker 1: she's wearing their lives all over herself, not knowing if
Speaker 1: her transmission had been received or if Star were even
Speaker 1: still alive. Void has been sending signals out into an
Speaker 1: empty universe on speck on faith. Star Love's are so
Speaker 1: goddamn much she could scream. Morgan's memory recognizes the body
Speaker 1: Void as wearing Cole the ship's tech. Notably, Cole and
Speaker 1: Morgan were friendly, if slightly awkward coworkers and not thousand
Speaker 1: year old star crossed lovers. But she's gone speechless. She's staring.
Speaker 1: Priority one needs to be staying safe and not lunging
Speaker 1: across the bridge and finding out what two of these
Speaker 1: warm and lightly furred bodies feel like when they press
Speaker 1: against each other. She has to say something chill and normal. Actually,
Speaker 1: now that you're here, I'm having issues with the lab processor.
Speaker 1: If you could take a look, she manages, and Void
Speaker 1: Coal is saying, of course, doctor before she's even finished,
Speaker 1: and she may simply not be able to control Morgan's face.
Speaker 1: As they leave the bridge together. She catches a few glances,
Speaker 1: and the first mate leans whispering towards the captain. Oh well,
Speaker 1: they'll think of a good excuse for this later. Now
Speaker 1: that they're finally, finally together again, Star isn't wasting another
Speaker 1: moment on catering to expectation. Void leans close to her,
Speaker 1: murmuring in the language of these people, finding expression there
Speaker 1: so naturally idiot, She says, I would know you anywhere
Speaker 1: and anything. The place that Void brings her to is
Speaker 1: hidden enough to do for now, and as they duck
Speaker 1: squeezing into the crawl space beneath the large computer together,
Speaker 1: Star has to agree that the warmth, the hum and
Speaker 1: the smallness of it, the darkness punctuated by flickering lights,
Speaker 1: is pleasure and comforting. They fold together, finding the parts
Speaker 1: of themselves and each other that are soft or pointed
Speaker 1: to lie against. Void drags the translucent scales at the
Speaker 1: ends of her fingers through the mane of hair that
Speaker 1: crests Star's head, showing her how the feeling sends prickles
Speaker 1: of physical pleasure down Star's scalp and spine. I love it,
Speaker 1: she says, I'm like a little you know, those flexible
Speaker 1: mammals that live inside, says Star. Comprehends that concept of
Speaker 1: housecats and giggles and feels the vibration of laughter bubble
Speaker 1: through her for the first time. The combination of Star's
Speaker 1: love of Void and Morgan's body's instinct has made her
Speaker 1: desperate to touch the pale silver of skin visible at
Speaker 1: Void's collar and sleeves, and Void rolls the coveralls back
Speaker 1: to allow Star's thumb and index to circle her wrists
Speaker 1: with a gentle craving. There are soft, dark bruises spotting
Speaker 1: Void's skin, like she's an over ripe fruit. Morgan's scientist's
Speaker 1: mind recognizes the heaviest bruising on the part of the
Speaker 1: forearm that must rest against the desk. As Void sits
Speaker 1: at the console, she frowns, and Void glances down at
Speaker 1: her own arms. That's gotten a bit worse. Void says, Damn,
Speaker 1: I was trying to be careful. You're pressing too hard,
Speaker 1: I think, says Star. I know, but that's not the
Speaker 1: only reason. I dent much easier than when I first
Speaker 1: got the body. Look and Void takes Star's finger and
Speaker 1: grinds it into her own wrists so hard that the
Speaker 1: tips of both of their fingers turn white, then rolls
Speaker 1: the skin a little between Star's fingers, as though crushing
Speaker 1: a leaf. Sure enough, when Void lets her take her
Speaker 1: hand away, a yellowish mark has begun to blossom. The
Speaker 1: fragility is hypnotizing malnutrition. Probably, Star says, you have to
Speaker 1: be more careful than this, doesn't it hurt? And Void
Speaker 1: nods and shrugs. Star continues, If we're going to find
Speaker 1: a way off the ship, we have to make these
Speaker 1: bodies last and keep them looking normal. You have to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the pain. Don't lecture me, I know,
Speaker 1: says Void, rolling her eyes. I was waiting for you.
Speaker 1: I'll be more careful now. But Star is still frowning
Speaker 1: a little, running through Morgan's memories of coal and noting
Speaker 1: how her skin looks a little too tight. Her uniform
Speaker 1: fits a little wrong, her eyes are brighter and wider
Speaker 1: than they used to be. This body is already starting
Speaker 1: to give. Void is riding it too hard. I mean it,
Speaker 1: says Star. Maybe this could be our shot. We could
Speaker 1: live a thousand years among these humans and not run
Speaker 1: out of things to be. And these two are good,
Speaker 1: healthy and intelligent. I want to stop running love, and
Speaker 1: I want to hop less as little as possible, void
Speaker 1: smiles a little. Your sensitivity is part of what I
Speaker 1: love about you, she says, I know you hate seeing them.
Speaker 1: Empty voids certainly been in coal long enough that the
Speaker 1: mind of the sweet and quiet programmer with a surprisingly
Speaker 1: wicked streak of humor is gone, forever. Left to her
Speaker 1: own whims shall grind the body down to the quick,
Speaker 1: shall ride the fraying nervous system as the body deteriorates
Speaker 1: around her, delighting in the mind the sensations, and when
Speaker 1: she becomes too obvious or too uncomfortable, shall jump a
Speaker 1: memory bobs to the surface. They had activated queendom, and
Speaker 1: they stayed as long as the fragile and decaying bodies
Speaker 1: could disguise them, piloting near corpses, pressing chalky powder to
Speaker 1: the skin to hide the rot, filling their chambers with
Speaker 1: sickly sweet blooms to mask the smell, the strips of
Speaker 1: flesh ribboning away, sending the prickle of impulses through the
Speaker 1: nerves and dead meat, the limbs ceasing to function, frantically,
Speaker 1: trying too late to figure out what had gone wrong,
Speaker 1: not being able to reverse the decay that had begun
Speaker 1: and Void in her arms at the last, her mouth
Speaker 1: parts black as she smiled, eyes feverish, dragging the husk
Speaker 1: of herself to the communicator to summon a page for
Speaker 1: the first time in months, asking for strong ones, two
Speaker 1: of them. Ugh, that had been bad. It's not just
Speaker 1: the emptiness I'm worried about, says Star, picking up her
Speaker 1: train of thought. If we leave these bodies anywhere, they'll
Speaker 1: identify the traces of us in them. Yeah, they know
Speaker 1: about us. That's bad luck, says Void. There have been
Speaker 1: others that got caught. I wonder who. Yes, I want
Speaker 1: to try. Let's live it out. We'll stay on the
Speaker 1: ship and be Morgan and Coal and wait and live
Speaker 1: like real people and rest. We can wait for a
Speaker 1: good opportunity. Relief washes over Star. Of course, Star knows
Speaker 1: that even if she tends Morgan's body like a garden,
Speaker 1: learns to be gentle in the right places, uses all
Speaker 1: the systems properly, Morgan's mind and self will still be dead.
Speaker 1: But she is now the keeper of Morgan's memories, and
Speaker 1: she will incorporate them into herself, carry them forward with
Speaker 1: her as a sign of gratitude and respect. That's how
Speaker 1: it should be, how it could be maybe now, and
Speaker 1: says Voyd, There's so much more I want to show you.
Speaker 1: She reaches behind Star fingers, skimming the waistband of her pants,
Speaker 1: and pulls her shirt free. Void's hand finds the heat
Speaker 1: of stars Morgan's skin, and Star shivers in a new way.
Speaker 1: They tumble from the humming crush of the crawl space
Speaker 1: onto the floor. Star finds herself on her stomach as
Speaker 1: Void's thigh presses between her legs and sparks thrum through
Speaker 1: the length of her. Desire kindles in Star and if
Speaker 1: her lungs feel a little tight a Void is lying
Speaker 1: on her a little too heavy, and her pelvis is
Speaker 1: grinding into the floor too hard, it matters less and less.
Speaker 1: Void Coal's narrow, cold hands slide under Star's clothing completely
Speaker 1: and begin to demonstrate what human bodies can do. Void
Speaker 1: rolls the bulk of Coal forward onto Star's neck and
Speaker 1: head and no, okay, now she really can't breathe, and
Speaker 1: that's clearly a problem. Her arms and torso are pinned
Speaker 1: in place, but she rolls her jaw experimentally to the side,
Speaker 1: seeing if it's flexible and strong enough to lift her
Speaker 1: head and create a little space for air. It isn't
Speaker 1: what she realizes at the exact moment, as Void grinds
Speaker 1: down into her heart, lost in her own exploration of sensation.
Speaker 1: Terrible timing, that's what it is. Star hears the pop
Speaker 1: and doesn't understand what it means. She dazedly tries to
Speaker 1: run her tongue over the inside of her mouth and
Speaker 1: finds that the shape is wrong, the tongue too, and
Speaker 1: in a moment, Morgan's nervous system fires a white explosion
Speaker 1: of pain into her. Something hot is filling her mouth,
Speaker 1: and her cheek is too on the floor. It seems
Speaker 1: wrong that she could break so easily. Her strangled yell
Speaker 1: is choked off. She can't close her mouth or actually
Speaker 1: move it at all. She still can't breathe, and her
Speaker 1: writhing and gargling must read a little too much as pleasure.
Speaker 1: It takes precious seconds until she begins to gag and cough,
Speaker 1: sincerely for Void to catch on to what's happening. Star
Speaker 1: can't blame her. Once lost in pleasure, they often don't
Speaker 1: express it the way that memories of the species they
Speaker 1: occupy would expect. Void bucks off of her and flings
Speaker 1: her onto her back. Ah. Good, now she'll be able
Speaker 1: to breathe and spread Morgan's ribs like a flower in
Speaker 1: the sunlight, creating the vacuum that will fill them with relief.
Speaker 1: But oh no, there isn't any air in her mouth.
Speaker 1: There's that hot liquid which doesn't feel right at all. No,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. It has to be air. But with
Speaker 1: all this liquid, there isn't mushroom left in her lungs.
Speaker 1: And actually something has gone very wrong. Indeed, a prepper
Speaker 1: human would probably have known not to take such a
Speaker 1: huge and greedy lungful of a non air substance. Her
Speaker 1: face is starting to feel thick. She tries to raise
Speaker 1: a hand to touch it, and watches the hand swim
Speaker 1: helplessly at the corner of her vision, before veering away somewhere.
Speaker 1: As the world begins to blacken at the edges, like
Speaker 1: a love note burning in a grate, star focuses Morgan's
Speaker 1: eyes on the white and purple triangle avoids coal face,
Speaker 1: the terror and panic there looking like starvation. And do
Speaker 1: you know what you can lock onto in your own
Speaker 1: moments of terror and panic? Like a love note burning
Speaker 1: bright against the blazing meaningless void of space and time.
Speaker 1: It ads and we're back, and Jase glances at Mira
Speaker 1: and Alan ready she asks, no skin showing, make sure
Speaker 1: they don't touch you, and don't take off the filtration masks.
Speaker 1: What had been nothing more than a whispered suspicion between
Speaker 1: Jason her first mate, has quickly become a full blown
Speaker 1: rescue operation now that Coal, or the fungal entity that
Speaker 1: is currently controlling her, as disappeared with Morgan, Jace and
Speaker 1: Beira raise their weapons, moving Alan behind them a little,
Speaker 1: and Jace reaches forward and punches the button to open
Speaker 1: the door. The Coal thing crouches over Morgan, knuckles white
Speaker 1: as her fingers dig into the doctor's arms, holding her
Speaker 1: face down above the floor and almost seeming to shake her.
Speaker 1: Morgan's dark hair falls forward limply, and a long red
Speaker 1: drool of blood connects her unseen face to the dark
Speaker 1: puddle on the floor. Jiggling and swaying as she hacks
Speaker 1: with gagging coughs, What used to be Coal snaps its
Speaker 1: head forward, mouth slack and eyes like dark pits. Blank
Speaker 1: with horror. Jace expects her to scramble to her feet. Instead,
Speaker 1: her legs coiled beneath her abruptly spring pistoning her body
Speaker 1: towards them like a projectile, making no attempt to use
Speaker 1: her arms to cushion her fall. As she cannons into
Speaker 1: their little huddle, Jace registers the thunk sound of Mira's
Speaker 1: blaster being fired. A little after part of Coal's head
Speaker 1: goes missing, Cole's remaining eye slides sideways, as though a
Speaker 1: string that was holding it steady has been cut, and
Speaker 1: her tongue protrudes from her mouth, stretching forward inquisitively, like
Speaker 1: a tentacle mind its own. She's drier inside than Jace
Speaker 1: thought she would be. All the puff of what looked
Speaker 1: like dust that rises from the crater of her face
Speaker 1: may contribute to that impression. Not dust, of course, thinks
Speaker 1: to Jace as she raises her blaster. Those it must
Speaker 1: be the spores. How incredible that whitish cotton fluff across
Speaker 1: that bit of brain she can see must be part
Speaker 1: of it too. Thank God for the filtration masks. Jace
Speaker 1: fires into the trunk of what was Coal, and its
Speaker 1: neck bends like a flower stem bearing too heavy a
Speaker 1: blossom and opaque pink fluid. The texture of thickened milk
Speaker 1: dribbles from her half head, but the creature is twitching
Speaker 1: and swaying, but not falling. Its head rolls drunkenly, mouth
Speaker 1: slowly widening, and a hand snaps up with instinctual speed
Speaker 1: and rips the ventilator from Mira's face. The coal thing
Speaker 1: finally buckles and folds to the floor, a few grayish
Speaker 1: lumps spattering from its head, as though spilled from a bowl.
Speaker 1: Jace watches transfixed for a moment too long, and that
Speaker 1: cross her everything. Uh thunk whispers from beside her, and
Speaker 1: she wrenches herself to see Mirah with her blaster in hand.
Speaker 1: Her gaze follows the line of the shot to see
Speaker 1: Alan collapse on the ground, eye lids twitching and neck missing.
Speaker 1: Jace stumbles back, but it doesn't look like Mira's attention
Speaker 1: is on her, or Jace thinks whatever is now occupying Mira.
Speaker 1: The body of one of Jace's oldest friends lurches to
Speaker 1: the ground next to Morgan, yanking her wheezing form upright,
Speaker 1: winding its arms around the doctor and latching to her
Speaker 1: like a limpet. Morgan's head jerks back and Jace's heart
Speaker 1: drops sickeningly. Morgan is alive, gasping raspily, but the bottom
Speaker 1: half of her face isn't in the right place. Her
Speaker 1: bitten through tongue is so swollen it fills her lulling
Speaker 1: skewed mouth, and her cheek has ripped a little at
Speaker 1: the corner, torn skin frilling at the edge, stretched to
Speaker 1: the point it becomes lacy. Her face is purplish and
Speaker 1: her bulging eyes are watering. The Mira thing is clinging
Speaker 1: to Morgan as though it's trying to, which makes it
Speaker 1: considerably more difficult to get a clear shot. The Mirra
Speaker 1: thing begins to windmill its legs awkwardly, scrambling to drag
Speaker 1: both Morgan and itself towards Captain Jase. Still holding the
Speaker 1: gun level, Jase reaches for the dispenser at her side,
Speaker 1: pops the safety and douses both women with the entire contents.
Speaker 1: Foul smelling yellow liquid plasters the thing's hair to its
Speaker 1: face in strands, and drips from the edge of its
Speaker 1: nose onto the doctor. Mira's body arches, and a soft
Speaker 1: animal keening comes from its throat. A flossy strand of
Speaker 1: myilium begins to snake from one nostril. The frond's tip
Speaker 1: quests blind, seeking moisture, bacterial sense, organic life forms. The
Speaker 1: first thread is followed by more furred, little tendrils curling
Speaker 1: around the edges of the nose. Almost shy, Mira's eyes
Speaker 1: roll back and slide closed. The creature tilts its head
Speaker 1: and continues easing forwards, Propelled wormlike by the strangely flexible
Speaker 1: movements of shoulder and hip. It seems to be relying
Speaker 1: on the filaments as its primary sense organ and moves
Speaker 1: as though pulled. Jay screams and flings the empty canister
Speaker 1: at the creature that was supposed to kill the fucking thing,
Speaker 1: not merely draw it out. She lifts her blaster and
Speaker 1: then sees something else, another pale thread, writhing like a
Speaker 1: headless snake against the broken cheek of doctor Morgan Christie
Speaker 1: protruding from a tear at the corner of her mouth. Oh, unexpected,
Speaker 1: there's two of them. Jase fires into the doctor's chest.
Speaker 1: Morgan sputters and chokes anew, but the creature and mirror
Speaker 1: doesn't stop advancing. The captain breathes in, breathes out, shudders,
Speaker 1: a part of her brain and nimbly fires point blank
Speaker 1: three times in Emer's head. A headless neck dips towards
Speaker 1: her severed white tendrils, shivering in the spine, and Jace
Speaker 1: lunges backwards as she feels a vice like grip lock
Speaker 1: around her boot, fingers digging and burrowing. Mindless of pain,
Speaker 1: she can only scrabble backwards a half step before she
Speaker 1: feels the press of Mira's hand on her bare ankle.
Speaker 1: Jay snaps her foot out in a kick to dislodge
Speaker 1: the headless corpse, whose grip on the shuddering doctor is slackened,
Speaker 1: except she doesn't do that. She tries again, and her
Speaker 1: leg does move, but it folds under her props her
Speaker 1: up insensitive to Jace's desperate attempts to control it. She
Speaker 1: still has time moments. She's still herself, and she's still alive,
Speaker 1: and that can't be it. She kicks herself free clambers back,
Speaker 1: except she doesn't. Jace watches a helpless prisoner as her
Speaker 1: body sits and leans forward, fluttering its hands over the doctor,
Speaker 1: whose face is wrong and es is collapsed. She feels
Speaker 1: the slipperiness of the doctor's blood and a few troubling chunks,
Speaker 1: but she can't even control the direction of her eyes,
Speaker 1: fixed on what's left of Morgan or the water that
Speaker 1: begins to fill them. No, that can't be it. They
Speaker 1: still have time moments. She's alive, she's right here. But
Speaker 1: if they could get her to a plant, yes, that's it,
Speaker 1: to the labs, she'll be fine, like always. But the
Speaker 1: lab is far. The samples are locked in quarantine that
Speaker 1: only Morgan or Allan's brains knew how to access. And
Speaker 1: this is so much blood. Joyce Void could lift her.
Speaker 1: Jace's body is strong and she's whole, at least one
Speaker 1: of them is. She could carry her. But if she
Speaker 1: begins to lift stars Star lets out a gurgling gasp
Speaker 1: as something in the openness of her ribs sucks in
Speaker 1: and out. Wetly. Star reaches up a hand, movements syrupy slow.
Speaker 1: Her fingers drift to the Captain's ear, as though in
Speaker 1: a dream, rolling the lobe so gently, with a kind
Speaker 1: of wonder, like she's the first person in the universe
Speaker 1: you've ever thought to do it. The twist of Jace
Speaker 1: Void feels like it's unspooling. Morgan's Star's body dipsent on unconsciousness.
Speaker 1: The danger doesn't occur to Void until she's looking down
Speaker 1: dreamily at the body she had so recently occupied. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: she wasn't. She's void. She never had Morgan's body. She
Speaker 1: was borne into it and died in it to day
Speaker 1: or Star was, which is herself. Void is aware of
Speaker 1: a flicker of images, scratched and jumpy, like an artifacting video,
Speaker 1: her own memories, but othered flipped. She sees her own
Speaker 1: myriad shapes through the myriad eyes of Star and thinks,
Speaker 1: I thought I was my best with her, but she
Speaker 1: saw how wretched I was, and she loved me for it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not this dizzy in semi lucid, Star is
Speaker 1: in Jace, and Void is in Jase, and so Star
Speaker 1: is in Void. As above, so below. Without sentient thought
Speaker 1: or purpose, trapped in an invalid host, Starr's most basic
Speaker 1: chemistry has attempted to hail Mary any port in a storm,
Speaker 1: including hostile takeover. Frantically attempting to make room for Star
Speaker 1: inside Jace, Void presses her hands to Morgan's bare neck,
Speaker 1: mashes her mouth against the clammy lips, and puffs breath
Speaker 1: into her. But she can't force the transfer. There's not
Speaker 1: enough left of the woman. Her attempt to hop to
Speaker 1: Morgan's rapidly spoiling body and die with it has failed.
Speaker 1: Void wants to vomit. She's sweating and shaking, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't know whether it's her biology's natural reaction to Star,
Speaker 1: fighting her off like a fever, or if it's her
Speaker 1: heart's natural reaction to Star. Willing herself to die in
Speaker 1: Star's place and destroy every fraction of herself and her name.
Speaker 1: That could work, She thinks desperately, I always hoped i'd
Speaker 1: die for you, and I can do it. Now, take
Speaker 1: Jace's body from me. She tries to make herself weak,
Speaker 1: to still her panic, to give up. That would be
Speaker 1: a poetic end, fitting, there could be a point to it,
Speaker 1: but nature doesn't care for poetry, and Void has always
Speaker 1: had a strong immune system. She's dying again, and this
Speaker 1: time it's the big one. No, unfortunately not the Void
Speaker 1: half the Star. Half. Void isn't sure if Star can
Speaker 1: hear her, but suspended in the moment before the drop off,
Speaker 1: Void thinks to her lover as though thinking can save them.
Speaker 1: I always felt, even with our bodies pressed together, I
Speaker 1: can never get close enough to you to slake my thirst,
Speaker 1: and look at us now. We have become divine, not
Speaker 1: for the power and expansiveness of us, but for the
Speaker 1: end of our story. At once one heart and the
Speaker 1: dagger thrust through it. We are aspirational and cautionary God.
Speaker 1: Creatures should be parables. Star's tiny fungal corpse will be
Speaker 1: processed and expelled invisibly by Jas's body. Void won't even
Speaker 1: have a smear of mucus to weep over the emptiness
Speaker 1: of a cold universe stretches away from her on all sides.
Speaker 1: The end. That's the end of the story, and what
Speaker 1: a story. We've actually we've been talking about doing this
Speaker 1: one for a long time now, and we wanted to
Speaker 1: wait for Valentine's Day because we're not monsters, totally, not
Speaker 1: at all. Anyway, Thanks for coming along in that wild
Speaker 1: ride with us, Hazel, who helps me pick out the stories.
Speaker 1: We and I talked about the story a lot when
Speaker 1: we first read it, And if you take Star and
Speaker 1: Void as the main characters, it's this cautionary tale against
Speaker 1: codependence and becoming too lost in romantic love at the
Speaker 1: cost of literally any other aspect of your life. But
Speaker 1: if you take Morgan and Cole as the protagonists. It's
Speaker 1: this allegory about how falling in love new relationship energy,
Speaker 1: the swoons. Whatever is this out of body experience like
Speaker 1: being taken over or possessed? Hazel says about it quote,
Speaker 1: I particularly loved how star and to run up against
Speaker 1: the fragility of the human body in small and big ways.
Speaker 1: It felt so relatable to new relationship energy when I
Speaker 1: often find myself consumed by something that feels so much
Speaker 1: bigger than my bodily needs, Like no, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get out of bed to eat, I want to
Speaker 1: keep cuddling. And then what do I have to say
Speaker 1: about it? I mean, you could take it as a
Speaker 1: story about how if you try to save your friends
Speaker 1: from codependence you have to shoot them with blasters in
Speaker 1: order to do it. That's probably not the takeaway, but
Speaker 1: it is interesting how the people who are trying to
Speaker 1: save them from this like codependence destructive relationship end up dead.
Speaker 1: I don't know whatever. This is what science fiction does best,
Speaker 1: you know, is make these like non subtle metaphors yet
Speaker 1: that are still somehow psychedelic and that you can't necessarily
Speaker 1: pin exactly what they mean. We feel its meaning and
Speaker 1: we can point to pe pieces of it, but we
Speaker 1: can't grasp the entirety of what it's saying about everything.
Speaker 1: I just really like that about art, and I think
Speaker 1: that science fiction is incredibly well posed to do this.
Speaker 1: When I first started reading it, I actually tend not
Speaker 1: to like psychedelically written fiction, and so the first scene
Speaker 1: I almost passed on this story. But it's worth it
Speaker 1: and it becomes a little bit more understandable. But I
Speaker 1: have to admit this is one of these stories that, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, y'all might need to listen to it
Speaker 1: again or bury your gaze to read it properly anyway.
Speaker 1: Bio the author November Rush. November Rush is a tattoo
Speaker 1: artist and painter living in Montreal, Canada. This is her
Speaker 1: debut as a writer, and you can follow her tattoo
Speaker 1: and painting work at Underscore November Underscore Rush, which I
Speaker 1: believe is Instagram is what it's saying, and on Blue
Speaker 1: Sky at November Rush dot bsky dot social. I'm Margaret Kiljoy.
Speaker 1: I have been your host. You can find my writing
Speaker 1: on Substack. My newsletter there it's called Birds before the Storm.
Speaker 1: It's really just Margaret Kiljoy dot substock dot com. And
Speaker 1: I have various other podcasts on this very network. I
Speaker 1: have cool people who did cool stuff. If you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to it, what are you doing with your life
Speaker 1: not listening to my podcast? That's what you're doing because
Speaker 1: you hate me. That's what I think of everyone doesn't
Speaker 1: listen to my podcast. I think they hate me. That's
Speaker 1: actually not true at all. A lot of my best
Speaker 1: friends don't listen to my podcasts. But that's out of
Speaker 1: like weird stuff that's too personal. You don't get to
Speaker 1: know that anyway. Dear listener, take care, love the ones
Speaker 1: closest to you. I'll see you next week. Fuck Ice bye.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources where it could Happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.