Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my 23rd "5" minute* freewrite. The prompt is: "speaker".
*Not 5 minute this time, 90 minute ;)
This piece is a continuation of my last freewrite, and the eighteenth installment in an ongoing story. Let's see how long I can keep this up, using the prompts provided!
Part I: @bennettitalia/freewrite-129-fingernail
Part II: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ii-freewrite-130-wasps
Part III: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iii-freewrite-131-solitude
Part IV: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iv-freewrite-132-gardening
Part V: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-v-freewrite-132-the-attic
Part VI: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vi-freewrite-132-plaid
Part VII: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018
Part VIII: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-viii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018-apricot
Part IX: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ix-freewrite-137-witches
Part X: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-x-freewrite-138-syrup
Part XI: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xi-freewrite-139-artichoke
Part XII: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xii-freewrite-146-monkey
Part XIII: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xiii-freewrite-147-witch-with-apple
Part XIV: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xiv-weekend-freewrite-03-17-2018-crazy
Part XV: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xv-freewrite-150-sizzling
Part XVI: @bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-xvi-freewrite-150-medium
Part XVII: @bennettitalia/7vupp3-the-strangeling-part-xvi-freewrite-150-medium
Freewriting is a daily practice for most poets and fiction writers, designed to loosen up and get things flowing, like stretching before exercise. Visual artists, especially those who draw or paint from life (figures, landscapes, still lives, etc) do something similar in "gesture drawings". After reading several of @poetrybyjeremy's freewrite posts, I got excited to try these again. Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this daily freewrite! @mariannewest/day-153-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-speaker
https://pixabay.com/en/medium-psychic-female-fantasy-woman-goth-1726601/
When I came to it was the chip that woke me. Thresholds fell suddenly to zero, shocking me out of my oblivion. It was worse, so much worse, than a bucket of ice water to the face. My Senses were picking up everything within a three or four mile radius, in excruciating detail. For a long moment I just lay there, curled up in a ball, shaking. Then I got a hold of myself and upped the thresholds to around 75%, cutting through the confusion of images and sensations to find the immediate threat. And there it was. Four of them, walking quickly along the tunnels toward me. One was definitely Apricot... but her movements were strange, stilted. The other three...
Wasps.
Wasps! Where was Mia?
I looked around the tiny room in a panic, reflexively, as if she could somehow still be there with me, when my Senses hadn't registered anyone else in the room. She was gone.
I dressed and geared up quickly, went down my mental checklist to see if I had everything with me, and stepped out into the corridor. It would be no good trying to evade the Wasps. If they'd already signaled The Handler, this place would be swarming with monkeys within half an hour, and there was nothing I could do about it. If they hadn't... it was important that I convince them we were still on track.
I walked toward them, projecting a sense of confidence I was nowhere near feeling as of yet, performing the somatic exercises I had been taught to trigger myself into full Project Chameleon mode. They were about 3 or 4 minutes away. By the time I reached them, my mods would be fully functional, my walls solid.
My thoughts slid to Mia. Where had she gone? I had to find her. The look in her eyes when she had said goodbye... I'd seen a lot of sadness in my lifetime, but nothing like that. My chest ached, my mouth felt dry, my eyes were burning. Longing gave way to panic: what if I couldn't find her? I had to see her again, to explain...
I shook myself. Focus. Breathe. Wasps now. Mia later.
I rounded a corner, and there they were, walking purposefully toward me. Apricot was leading. She saw me, and her eyes lit up, with excitement or fear. It was hard to tell in the dim light of flashlights and occasional candles, but it might have been hard to tell anyway. She opened her mouth to say something, then immediately closed it. She moved as if to run toward me, then stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides. "Hello", she said, somewhat lamely.
The curly haired male Wasp touched her arm. "Thank you Apricot, we'll take it from here". The words came from all three wasp mouths at the same time, of course. Apricot looked confused, then angry. She leaned forward, her hands balled into fists, and opened her mouth as if to scream. Then she straightened up and looked over her shoulder. "Oh look at that, one of the candles is out", she said. And off she went down the corridor to rectify the situation.
The Wasps stood and looked at me. I had my thresholds set at 98%. This would prevent a sting, keep them from being able to read me, and still give me limited Sensing abilities within the range of a few yards. There was something different about them...
"Where is the Strangeling?" came the inevitable question, three voices intoning it at once.
"I was working on her", I told them, "and I was getting somewhere. But she must have suspected something. She disappeared last night at around 4:00 AM." None of which was an outright lie.
"Why did you try to shake us when you came here?"
I allowed myself to give them a look of exasperation. It fit with the pretense. "I had to. She could Feel you and I had to play along, pretend not to know anything about it, and let her take the lead. I knew you'd find us regardless."
They seemed to accept this. All three of them paused for a moment, their eyes distant, as if in conversation with each other. Or more accurately: talking to themselves. Then they seemed to come to a decision: "We can't stay away for too much longer. Signals from The Hive are getting weak. We're afraid of being permanently cut off if the membrane does not come down soon."
I nodded, as if I'd been expecting this. Though truth be told it wasn't actually all that surprising. Of course their primary concern, apart from completing their mission, would be with their connection to the hive. It was their only identity. To be cut off from it would be to lose their center, their governing imperative. A kind of psychic death, one they might not physically survive.
"Ok," I said, "how long do we have?"
"Two days. Three at most."
Perfect. The bones of a plan had begun to take shape in my head. I looked past them, down the corridor, to where Apricot was standing, whispering something to a candle in a sconce. "You have to stop stinging her", I said. "She has something she wants to tell me. It might be important."
They nodded. Now that they had ascertained, to the best of their ability, that my intentions did not run counter to those of The Hive, they seemed to have relaxed, and to again be willing to defer to me.
I called to her. As she turned to respond, the candle in the sconce finally flared up, brightening the passageway.
"Caspian", she said, both fear and relief in her voice. "Tell them to stop stinging me. Please..."
"I already have."
"Thank you", she breathed, tears springing to her eyes. "It's horrible. Like a speaker in my mind playing somebody else's music. And I know it isn't mine, but I can't help dancing..." she slid down the wall to sit on the ground, her face in her hands. Her body shook with sobs. I felt sorry for her, and all at once, protective. She might not be my favorite person in the world, she was cocky and arrogant in ways that, truth be told, reminded me of myself, or at least of what I'd been trained to be. But she was also brave. And she loved Mia. I recognized her suddenly as a friend, and a peer. I trotted over to her, put my arms around her.
"I'm sorry about the Wasps."
She lifted her head to look at me, fire in her eyes.
"Where's Mia?"
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