Outsiders Pt. 02

"Stupid," Sean asked. His vision was failing him. His whole body was giving out. He couldn't feel his limbs or anything else for that matter. All he could feel was the burning agony in his torso and all he could hear was the crazy bullshit Simon was spewing. "When will those coppers get here," he thought to himself.

"Yes, stupid," Simon said. "I told them not to do it. I warned them against it. It was unprecedented for a reason. Giving a lesser being the freedom to modify the laws of reality around himself? Preposterous! And dangerous, no matter how loyal the being has proven itself. I wasn't alone in my misgivings. The ranks of my supporters swelled when this issue came to a head and only the legendary status of Earth, the lone defiant realm, prevailed. Well, that, and the fact that Simon willingly and eagerly constructed the spell that would retrieve him and send him to us within a year.

"In hindsight, I should have stayed well out of it. People clamored against this taboo being broken and I rallied them to my flag, expecting The Primes to back down and me to be proclaimed Prime in turn." Simon sighed heavily and shook his head. "When you turned me into pink mist, I was transmitted to my people's home world and The Primes called for a volunteer to be fused with my flesh and memories and sent to Earth. I was nominated by acclamation. If I had refused, all my ambitions of becoming a Prime would have come to ruin."

Simon understood now well that he was actually exiled to Earth and that The Primes knew exactly where they had sent him and what was waiting for him here. He had asked The Primes to swear before all the assembled masses that they hadn't modified Simon in any way and they had gone beyond that. They had freely sworn that they hadn't even examined Simon's memory, let alone tampered with it. They swore that the power they had sent to Simon hadn't returned with him and that they had no knowledge of its disposition. Everyone assembled, himself included, felt the veracity of that claim and he was left with no out, surrounded by the masses that demanded he accept with all due haste and hurry to Earth before the mysterious crack closed up.

Just an Earth day before Simon had been killed, he had heard the rumor that The Primes received an unexpected, willing sacrifice from Earth. He had not had the time to investigate it, but it was obviously true. The Primes must have examined the memories of that other sacrifice and learned of what Earth was like nowadays. He had to hand it to them, they played him like a fiddle and removed him in the least objectionable way possible: with a heroic expedition to a mysterious realm. If he died here, no one would challenge The Primes over their decision to send him here.

He glared up at the night sky. The Primes were certain to dismantle his power base with all possible haste and scatter his supporters across the galaxies.

He heard the sound of sirens in the distance. It reminded him of the fact that he was loitering at a bomb site that was taped off with police tape and standing naked over three dying men. "No loose ends," he thought to himself. He extended three tentacles from his belly and they forced their way down each man's mouth and into their chests. He seized their hearts and squeezed them so they couldn't beat anymore.

A horrid pain exploded in Sean's chest and he lost consciousness, even as his body twitched and writhed in the dirt.

The three men died quickly, but painfully, and that brought a sincere smile to Simon's face. He retracted his tentacles and rushed off to run behind houses, away from the streetlights. There were no fences in this neighborhood and his progress was unimpeded. He heard the sirens coming closer and quickly ducked towards a house. He had lived in this neighborhood for five years and he knew the resident was an army officer of the same build as he was. He also knew under which potted plant the officer kept his spare key.

Simon flattened himself against the side of the house and extended a pair of tentacles from his forearms to reach across the porch and retrieve the spare key. The sirens were getting very close now. Acting by feel alone, he managed to lift the correct pot and get the key. He unlocked the back door and entered just as the police car turned onto their street. He retracted his tentacles and set out to quickly explore the house. He needed to get some clothes and then be out of there before the cops started to knock on doors looking for witnesses.

As soon as the sirens quieted down, he could hear the unmistakable sounds a woman makes during sex. They were coming from within the house. He cocked his head this way and then that before he determined they were coming from upstairs. He quickly crept up the stairs and heard a female voice breathlessly gasp out, "Don't stop! Don't stop! So close! I'm go-gonna, gonna..." She began to emit a loud, high pitched wail of orgasmic pleasure.

He approached the door the sounds were coming from and peeked in. The army officer, captain Daniel Washburn, was lying atop a young, black woman Simon had never seen before in his life. Daniel groaned his orgasm out loud as he shot his load into the woman's shuddering pussy. Simon grinned. He had come here for clothes to wear and be inconspicuous, but these two would do very nicely for him to weave a shroud of unnoticeability around himself.

He stepped into the room while Daniel lowered himself down upon the woman. Whilst the two of them were tenderly kissing, Simon extended all of his tentacles and positioned them around the couples' tangled limbs. His tentacles wrapped themselves firmly around the couples' throats and limbs, instantly immobilizing them and making them unable to vocalize. He put his foot against the footboard of the bed for leverage and began to drag Daniel off of his lover.

The two lovers snapped out of their shock and flailed about with all of their might, trying to get loose. Simon winced with the effort of containing them. He tightened the tentacles around their throats and the woman stopped struggling almost immediately. Daniel struggled on, trying to kick himself loose, but his strength was leaving him rapidly and his vision was dwindling down to a distant dot. Only the burning demand for air, that was coming from his lungs, kept him going.

When he lost the strength to fight on and began to slip into unconsciousness, his throat suddenly opened up and he began to gasp in much needed air. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear his vision and searched for Claire. She was held up against the same bedroom wall as he and dozens of tentacles immobilized her in the same manner. Her lidless eyes were fixed on his while her face wore an expression of pure panic. Daniel wanted to give her comfort and take away her fear, but he was scared shitless himself.

With a supreme effort of will, he looked down the tentacles to see their source. He would have gasped in surprise, if only the tentacle around his throat would allow for it. Simon Thorpe, the mousy, pasty skinned loner from down the street stood at their center. They were originating from every part of his body, save for his head. A million questions sprang to mind, but Daniel didn't have the breath to ask them.

Simon saw a packed duffel bag at the foot of the bed and looked in. It contained clothes and toiletries. He bent over and picked up the shaving kit with his own hands. He opened it and was delighted to see a straight razor. "No wimpy safety blades for an army man like you, eh, Daniel," he said, not even bothering to look at the man. He approached the woman and opened up the razor. He made a few curved incisions across her stomach as she flailed impotently to get away from him. Both the humans let out squeaks of protest as best they could with him constricting their throats.

He dipped the end of a thin tentacle into her wounds and it came out bloody. He began to draw upon the wall the equations he needed if he was to be overlooked by every sentient mind that saw him, at least for a few days. It felt good for him to draw again. It made him feel less alone, less forsaken in exile on this watery, blue dot on the rim of nowhere.

When he finished, he inspected his work carefully, looking for any mistake. The blood was dripping down the wall, nearly ruining the equation glyph, and he made a mental note to draw on horizontal surfaces in the future. The glyph met with his approval and he nodded to himself as he tightened the tentacle around the woman's throat. He glanced over at her face and let himself enjoy the sight of her mortal fear. He had reaped so many but he had never before truly understood their dying emotions. Now that he was Simon, he was able to perceive her despair. He read on her face her realization that she was about to die and it gave him joy. Her face took on an expression of utter anguish as her eyes rapidly blinked to clear away the gathering darkness.

His tentacle crushed her airway and her body was convulsing impotently as her eyes rolled up in her head. Simon watched the glyph begin to glow. The marks on it started to pulse and throb with the power the woman's death released. They changed pale colors for a few seconds and then flared up to flash softly for an instant, before vanishing. The wall didn't have a single speck of blood left upon it.

Simon felt his work wrap itself around him. It felt like he was wearing a cloak of eyes that looked out in every possible direction and gave friendly winks to everyone they noticed looking his way, as if to say, "Hey, this guy is ok, nothing to see here, move along!" He felt the power behind the suggestion and felt confident that he could walk out of there and not be noticed by the police, provided he didn't break the public nudity taboo. He would need more than one mind powering his work to override the intense emotional responses nudity inspired.

Daniel was still desperately trying to break loose of his grasp and his throat was managing to let loose small sounds that promised vengeance and suffering. Simon released the woman's corpse to slide down the wall and turned all of his attention to the man. "Waste not, want not," he said to himself and repeated the work he had just done with the woman. His shroud would last longer and be even stronger with the power of two minds behind it, but clothing would still be required. He could have used Daniel's energy to power any number of other works, but he had learned earlier tonight that humans were not to be underestimated and he wanted to take as few risks as possible.

Now that he felt utterly assured of being overlooked by the police as they canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses, he let go of Daniel's corpse and retracted his tentacles. He bent over the open duffel bag and rummaged through the clothes it contained. He was looking for something casual and unnoticeable, yet comfortable and stylish and none of the things he pulled out of the bag fit the bill. He tossed them all on the bed and was about to turn to the closet when he spotted something else in the bottom of the duffel bag.

He bent over and pulled out a thick, manilla folder that had the word "classified" stamped on it in big, red, blocky, capital letters inside a rectangular box. Curious, he stood up straight and opened it. He browsed through the pages of mission statements, project parameters, test results and prototype schematics. His jaw fell loose as he realized he was holding in his hands a potential means of accomplishing his goals.

The Outsider and the late Simon worked together with all of their combined knowledges to formulate a plan. It was ambitious and sounded far-fetched but, as they examined it over and over and played every possible variable in their mind, they could spot no inherent flaw. Simon's smile was beamingly radiant as he realized he could complete the four remaining elements of the portals construction and crumble the barrier further, all at the same time.

The key to using the construction of the element of air to simultaneously shake humans' faith in their technology was literally in his hands. If he could construct all four elements and erode the barrier further by the time of the next full eclipse, he would open up Earth for reaping while his supporters were still in place to have him proclaimed Prime. He shook off his depression and feelings of helplessness and replaced them with hope. All his dreams could still come true.

He laughed, opened Daniel's closet and tore through it to find something to wear. He wanted to look good for the news crews that were going to be at the base. "No," the Outsider half vetoed that course of action, "remain unnoticed!" Simon nodded to himself and took Daniel's uniform.