Junkyard Speedball - Chapter eleven

Junkyard Speedball - Chapter eleven

This is the eleventh part of an updated version of the novella, Junkyard Speedball — a symbiot story, which was first written a couple of years ago and introduces a couple of characters that subsequently play major roles in Van Hallam’s Hellsborough Chronicles, as well as providing some insight into the region of The Dark Peak known as the netherlands.

The End, Part II

What happened?! Said Willow, returning to the shack having consumed her fair share of potcheen during the celebrations.

He, Lomas, returned, said Mold, we dealt with him, he's dying now.

Good, best thing for him, said Willow.

But what about her, said Mold, looking towards the revenant girl.

What about her? Said Willow, she's a Ley, just trash; means nothing to me, or you. Take her back to the Leys, let them deal with her.

No. Not my way, said Mold, we must restore her.

But you can't, you tried. Retorted Willow.

I need to release Kibble. He can then become her symbiot and I can channel Lomas's dying thoughts. Do you, or your people know another way?

Maybe, pondered Willow, but, no, it wouldn't work.

What? Tell us. He's dying fast, we need to know.

Well, she started, when we Firthwood foresters are young, up until adolescence, when we face the change, when we overcome our fears and pass into adulthood, some of us maintain a connection with a particular animal of the forest, one that we have grown up with. We have a mental connection, can see through its eyes and hear through its ears. We smell though its nostrils. After we have passed the exam, the connection is ripped away and we no longer possess the same insights. It is a painful departure, she added, a wistful, almost tearful note to her voice.

But how do you break the connection? Said Kibble.

We don't, she said matter of factly, the animal does.

You mean Kibble has to do it? Said Mold.

I don't know whether he can, I mean, he's not bio is he, he's a synthetic organism. Do they possess the same methods?

I grow like any other species, said Kibble, I have just been engineered, that's all; I don't feel any different to an indigenous species, I was just developed, that's all.

OK, said Mold, let's assume Kibble can do it. How does he do it.

He dies. Said Willow.

Dies?!

Yes, but in doing so, he transfers, cognitises, with you Mold, becomes one. He ceases to exist physically, yet lives on in you.

Which means we can't use him to channel Lomas's thoughts back to the girl!

But don't you see?! Said Willow raising her voice.

No, not at all.

When we met, when I attacked you the first time by the sportster, you thought it was my symbiot. But I have no symbiot.

So what attacked us?

I did, in the form of my animal, Craikwing, my hawk. That is why you never saw her again, it was me, I changed then returned to myself. But Craikwing is still here, Willow pointed to her breast, inside me.

So, let me get this right, said Kibble, I need to die, voluntarily. I then become a part of Mold, forever, yet I am still me, inside him. And, at any time, Mold can become me. Right?

With practise, said Willow, but yes, that's about it.

Well, here goes, thought Kibble as he tried to breath his last metaphorical breath, I want to die, I need to die, he thought, but he could still feel that he was in his own spherical form. Then Lomas's mania reached him, cursing and spitting and spewing unholy vitriol, and Kibble realised that he was meant for better things than this, he knew that Lomas was wrong and what he had to do was right, the correct path, his destiny. He never felt like he had lost consciousness, but maybe he had because when he awoke, Mold was writhing with a mental agony he (Kibble) had never before experienced. He saw his own spherical shape through Mold's eyes, silent now, dead and already, within just a few short tics, beginning the quick process of decomposition that was a feature of the synthetic form when mental energy was lost.

Then a blackness consumed him, them both, as Mold's body passed out with the pain of the symbiotic cognitisation. They awoke to Willow slapping them in the face and dazed, but basically healthy, knew what they needed to do. Mold approached the revenant girl and placed his head against hers, Kibble mentally snuggled up to her nothingness, he felt the vacant void of her mindlessness, but he could feel something, touch something, the ancient mid-brain. All of a sudden he felt the channelling, felt the girl's pure thought, of joy at the baby, of poverty in the Ley, of childhood and adolescence, mother, father, sister, daughter, wife. He felt it all flood through, a sea washing over him, through him, into her. Her name is Lilly, he realised, fifteen; her baby is a boy.

"Where am I," said Lilly, "and where have I been?"

If you know anyone else that you think might find this interesting, then please forward this email to them :)

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Hellsborough Chronicles book two “Darker Peak” is now being worked on — look out for early releases.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)