2nd novel part 2

2011 NANO Part 2

    Deven blinks, “Oh good your done I hung in there as long as I could but I stopped listening around the time you said 9th level.  Next tike why don’t you over react some more because that will really solve the virginity problem.”
    Then it happens.  Her eyes widen, her breathing quickens, and she ramps up.  If the gag wasn’t in her mouth her scream would of shattered glass and put all the horror movie stars out there to shame.  I would start in her belly work its way down to her toes only to launch outwards creating a sonic rail gun who’s only purpose is to express an absolute piece of abject terror.  She had gotten sight of Stephan’s arm which was now bubbling for reasons no one wanted to know.
    Stephan sighs, “You asshole now we are going to have a much harder time putting her back the way she was.  I mean look at her she is freaking out over such a minor phenomena.”  Quickly he strips a table cloth off of the nearby end table sending a vase with some long dead flowers in it crashing to the floor.”
    Alexander face palmed, “I can’t believe you just did that?  She is going to be so pissed at us if we break any of her stuff you know how she is.  This whole house is like some sort of bizarre shrine to her”
    “Well no one made you cut me”
    “No one made you change your blood into some sort of horrible snot deamon thing”
    “Actually yes something did force me down and caused that to happen to me and believe me it wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me so why don’t we try to figure out how to do the virginity thing instead of arguing over a vase with some dead flowers in it breaking”
    “Because that vase is probably very important to her.  I’ve seen her murder people over not setting her table right and you think the vase isn’t going to matter?”
    “Of  course I think the vase matters, but we had to consider the mental safety of the girl.  She was going to loose it.  There see look she’s visably much calmer now, I mean at the end of all of this we have to put her back remember? “
    Then they noticed that Deven was on a cell phone, “Yeah, yeah, no, I don’t think that’s an option, no we already tried that, yeah, yeah well can’t you hook her up to something?  Oh?  Neat!” And with that he abruptly hangs up, “I was calling Jerimia to see if he could help us out with our problem, but he is in one of his moods and you all know how that is.  He said that Jared might be able to figure it out though but I am not entirely convinced her would go along with this”
    Stephan nods, “All of our supernatural stuff does make him a little uncomfortable doesn’t it?  I feel bad because he is so nice and he only has Jerimia for any real company.”
    “Whatever I am calling him” Alexander already had his phone out and they could see him cursing at all of the little buttons.  Phenominal magical power doesn’t lend itself to well to cell phone operation.  Not on any philosophical merit mind you but rather he just didn’t like using the phone.  It felt like he should have someone to do that for him. 
    After the second ring Jared picked up, “Alexander?  Are you alright?  Do you need something?”  The concern in his voice is almost touching.  The two of them couldn’t be any more opposite if they tried.  One is a magcian capable of shaking the world on its very foundation and the other is a techno freak who wanted to evolve the world into an agalmeration of mind and matchine the ultimate Tran humanist step forward. 
    “No no it is nothing like that, see we have this problem, we are trying to cast a spell and one of the components is a drop of virgin’s blood.  Now we have ourselves a young girl but we aren’t sure she is a virgin.”
    “Can’t you just, you know go lift up her skirts and check”
    “Are you going to come and do it?  Besides we just need her blood and there is no need for us to terrify her any more than she already has been.  You know respect life and blah blah blah”
    There is some rustleing on the other end of the phone, “Alright I’ll see what I can do, put the phone down speaker side up and I’ll be right there”
    Almost dismissively Alexander tosses the phone down onto the soft carpet and crosses his arms.  At first he looks like he is trying to figure out what exactly is his most disapproving stare.  After a second there is a high pitched wining sound followed by a crackling blue energy and then just like that he is there, then Jared falls down face first.  He doesn’t even put a hand out to stop himself it just happens.
    “What the hell was that” Asked Stephan as he comes over to investigate.  Prodding cautiously at Jared’s collapsed form, “He isn’t even breathing”
    Deven coming over to help, “Does he breath?  I never actually noticed”
    “You know something?  He might not.  I never really asked him.  Man even I breath I am kinda jelouse”
    “Well you two can exchange notes someday assuming he isn’t dead right now or someth-”  Jared would of suddenly sat up and everything would have been fine.  That didn’t happen because Deven’s head was in the way.  So instead of sitting up Jared had almost reached a peak momentum before his head collided with Stephan’s head.  Jared just collpases back down onto the carpet, now very much animated and working on a fetal position  clutching himself.  Stephen did the obvious by loosing balance, falling over backwards into another end table, opposite of the one they had already defiled.  This one once had a vase full of live flowers.  Now it is empty, tipped over to one side, and Alexander in a heroic attempt to save the vase trips over the shrodinger’s virgin and crashes to the floor in front of the vase which also shatters.
    Stephan who managed to stay out of the area of effect begins to suspect that this evening’s activities might be on a collision course for disaster, but then again Alexander has cast spells like this thousands of time.  The hardest part is finding a virgin, especially in this day and age.  The other hardest part is hopefully going to be not breaking anything.  Sure they failed at that but there is no reason to give up hope now.  Curious Stephan looks over at Jared, he’s never seen him do anything like that before.  Normally Jared is dressed in knee length shorts and the world’s ugliest polo shirt.  Now, well Stephan didn’t know quite what to make of it all, leather pants, skin tight shirt, long flowing trench coat, a thing that could only be defined as a utility belt, and mirror shades.  It is like he stepped right out of some sort of ridiculous video game, which he very well might have for all Stephan knew. 
    Everyone who isn’t Stephan began putting themselves back together.  Jared being the first to stand up, helps Devan to his feet. While he does so he looks around appreciatively, “Where the hell am I?  I expected to be in one of Alexander’s hovels”
    Deven answered, “This my friend is Rebecca’s house, have you never been here?”
    “God no that woman scares me, I mean look at this place what is this?”
    “This is the hallway of life and death or something like that”
    Appreciativly, Jared begins to look around their surroundings.  Stepping over the virgin girl without comment he starts to go further down the hallway.  The walls are at least 12 feet high and each of them are covered in murals, the left wall depicting images of life, birthing scenes, dancing, work, sex, and celebration, the right is the province of death, featuring war, disease and old age.  On the ceiling the images meet and intermingle creating a camphony of imagery sex during war, people wasting away while giving birth, people dancing while falling apart, and thousands of other combinations.  The artwork is absolutely exquisite and Jared could feel himself getting drawn further and further into it.  Everything became connected together.  The placement of the hall’s lighting wasn’t just there for the illumnation but rather they were parts of the larger picture themselves, alternately becoming part of a tree while illuminating the fire people were floicking around naked, the vases along the wall held plants that were part of the picture, a vase of wheat about to be harvested by a an older man, while the vase of flowers were to be presented from one child to another if only the vase was still there.  It isn’t just the mural on the hallway itself but rather the way everything fits into the hallway.  The whole thing is a work of art and Jared could feel himself being drawn deeper and deeper into the house.  He wants nothing more than to become part of the artwork to be a part of the greater-
    Alexander put his hand on Jared’s shoulder and smiles as he jumps, into the air squealing like a startled pig, “Be careful there Jared, there is no gauntee that Rebecca is going to give you back if you go get yourself lost in there.”
    Jared shakes his head clear and looks around again, “It has all just become painted walls and stuff arranged tastefully around, how I don’t understand”
    Alexander shrugs, “I don’t understand anything you do at all, none of us wants to understand what Stephan does, and John Smith?  Forget about it.  We all did what we did and we do what we need to in order to survive.  Speaking of which you think you can figure out if this girl is a virgin or not without touching her?”
    That snapped Jared fully back into himself, a professional who is the best in the world at what he does, or at the very least very close to the best.  From one of the pockets on his belt he puts a little black transmitter and goes to put it on the virgin’s head, who has thankfully gone back to being passed out.  He then summons a virtual keyboard out of nowhere along with an augmented reality monitor and begins typing furiously, “You see Alex, I am not sure what it is that I am accessing when I do this.  It is some sort of version of the soul that much I know but wether it is the actual thing that continues on going once the bodily shell is discarded or some sort of medium in which the soul sits I don’t know.  The point is that I have figured out how to take the human component and transpher it into data, this includes all of her memories and then all I-”
    The rest of them stopped listening to Jared as he works.  No one really understood what exactly he talks about and they all knew he enjoys talking while he works.  It isn’t directed to them as so much as he is narrating his own life to a world out there that can’t be bothered to care.  On some level they understand why he does it.  On most other levels though they just aren’t terribly interested in how he does what he does, just so long as he does it.  No offenses were exchanged, after all Jared who is now thoughtly in the zone couldn’t possibly care less about what is going on around him.  After a few minutes he looks up and says, “No dice.  Something has happened recently that has damaged part of her soul and now I can’t get at the information I need to figure out what we need to know”.
    Everyone else looks at Stephan, “Oh what I don’t see how this could possibly be my fault.  I didn’t cut myself.”  His arm, now fully healed, showed no evidence of the damage previously done to it.  Still the original problem remained.
    Alexander turns to Jared, “Are you still a virgin?”
    “No, also this isn’t actually my body that is here it is actually-”
    “Some complicated complicated thing.  Yes I know you with your nanites and whatnot.  What is with you kids today and discarding your bodies.  I’ve had this body for over 1000 years and it never occurred to me that I should just scrap it for some new fangled designer wotsits or for bits and pieces of your horrible star things.  That is just weird.”   
    Jared cocks his head to one side as if trying to listen to something, then he gives up and returns to the conversation at hand, “But you have modified your body.  The human body isn’t made to last thousands of years or even hundreds.  I grows to a certain point and the starts falling apart.  By all accounts you should be dust by now and yet here you are, virgin at your feet, preparing to cast some sort of spell.”
    “Now see here part of that has to do with the sort of energies that I channel through my body when I cast my spells and other parts are-”
    “A deliberate modification of your body to enhance your longevity.  It isn’t like I meant to do this to myself either it just sort of worked out that way when I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be””
    Stephan jumps in, “Oh yeah trust me the whole blood thing is sort of convient and I no longer have to make waste or sleep but this was all done to me by something that wanted a more perfect servant, not because I felt like I needed to be cooler than anyone else.”
    Alexander harrumphed, “Still what I am, physically is definably human unlike you two”.
    Jared smiles, “Well if you want to define humanity as a series of predefined biological bits then no by no means I am not human.  I am transhuman.  I am the thing that is the bridge between me and something else, something new and brilliant.  I may not be the next stage but in 1000 years look at all the marvelous changes the human body has undergone.  What, we’ve generally gotten taller?  I mean really?  In my short time on this earth I’ve taken my body, my mind, and my soul and I’ve turned them into things that can’t even be imagined.  I was going to take everyone with me too but you know how it goes.”
    Alexander smiles in agreement, “We do like our bodies just the way they were given to us don’t we?  Transhumanist scum”
    Jared smiles back, “Bah me and mine we will throw off the shackles of the flesh and face down the enemies of progress, we will all be one and they will be nothing and all of that.”
    They laughed together.  Deven shook his head, “Alright ladies whatever.  I say we just grab the virgin go out into the back yard, cast the damn spell and let what happens happens.  I mean between all of us is there really anything that can stop us?”