The Space Spoon novel Chapter 65

Tejeda pondered his choices after being absorbed inside of Fresh Flesh. He could either wait for the bacteria to consume him or initiate the shift. He had a lot of DNA swimming around him.

Only in extremely dire situations did he do this. He hated the perks of his psionic ascension and avoided using these abilities, which he perceived as a curse. Others strived to earn powers, to climb the steps toward an Apex, while he was close enough to reach two of them. The biological one was easy; nature provided for him and he didn’t want to deny his roots. He had never wanted psionic powers but living so long as he did meant learning stuff even if you didn’t want to.

He started to take over the meat body, one molecule at a time. His mind melded with Fresh Flesh's, who already had Kirian’s inside. Tejeda could use this to his advantage. He was eager to know how the scientist managed to create a sentient bacteria.

First, Tejeda went inside the simple mind of Fresh Flesh. In a glance, he saw everything the creature knew. So much for being extremely intelligent for eating so many brain cells. Fresh Flesh considered an unknown stranger to be his creator, not Kirian. The scientist received information on creating a sentient bacteria from a man while still on Aunald.

Tejeda had to delve deeper into Kirian's more complex mind as he merged even deeper body, mind, and soul with the Fresh Flesh. The remaining pixels in his vision were still blurry as they hovered toward the periphery. They finally melt into the harsh, dark gray of a bleak room. He knew what was about to happen. Despite the dim light, the scene would soon become so clear that he could see the memory that he sought.

Kirian sat next to his bookshelf, looking cozy in a rocking chair. He couldn’t see Tejeda. Only his consciousness was here, seeing past memories. His psionic power was something he strove to avoid at all costs. Taking over another person’s body was a vile thing, and his mind had to bear the burden of two lives, two minds, and two memories. As if the memories of his long life weren't enough.

Despite this, he was aware that this scene had occurred in the erratic flow of the real-time-space continuum. A battered scientist battled to achieve the breakthrough of the millennium. He was engrossed in his book and had no cause to glance around. Fantasy and reality tugged at his mind as equals, forming his ambition to develop an organism capable of eating organic molecules, including other bacteria and even malignancies. Every terrible invention begins with a good intention.

While Tejeda's incorporeal form was hovering somewhere in the air, unseen, observing the past, he got swept away again. Kirian dragged him down memory lane. He went anywhere Kirian thought about, unwillingly.

While reading, the scientist remembered his mother, outside his childhood bedroom, scratching with a pencil over a nearby sheet of paper, a picture of a liver with dark spots, a heart with darkened veins. On such days, unhappiness shrouded him because of his mother's sadness. A doctor unable to heal maladies but struggling to cure incurable illnesses, the perfect recipe for depression, the very thing that killed her.

On bare feet, he tiptoed out of his bedroom. Kirian couldn’t have been more than ten back then. With all but one lamp on the desk put out, he could hardly make out his mother sleeping on her chair. Her face turned, her cheek against the desk, her eyes closed. The steady rise and fall of her chest indicated deep sleep. He covered her with a blanket and swore he would do something to accomplish her dream.

If only he could invent something to consume the infections and the diseased tissues. Something so powerful that nothing could stand in its way. "Fight fire with fire," an ancient adage rang in his head.

Tejeda stood there in the thin air, wasting time and churning through memories just to find a memory inside another memory. It was quite hilarious and pathetic. A man with a goal who had died for his dream and was eaten by it. Tejeda was a man without any reason to live, and yet he was still standing.

"Yes, I can cry for the villain’s backstory," Tejeda mumbled. "Poor thing had good intentions, and now he deserves at least a tear. Who would cry if I were to die? No one! So stop whining and give me what I came here for!" He yelled the last part as if Kirian could hear him.

The silence of the room shuttered as a human entered, his footsteps loud over the wooden floor.