Where the Predators Prowl [Ch 84, 85]

84. Garden of Concept Delights

I opened and closed my hands, staring at my fingers suspiciously, half-expecting to see fleshy flower eyes once again blossoming across my skin. My nerves tingled with the phantom sensation of endlessly expanding branches and roots, the echo of my desire to spread, bloom and multiply suppressed but still there, bubbling beneath the surface.

I looked at Candace, pushing down my body’s inexplicable desire to propagate.

“Sup?” She asked.

“You fused to get me back?” I asked, already knowing the answer on the account of the three prad bodies sprawled on the ground between questionable strawberry-sized bush blooms that were growing toothbrushes and floss fully in their plastic and cardboard packaging.

“Yepperoni,” she nodded. “You were turning into a flesh tree with eyes. Couldn't exactly let that slide. I hope you know that that batshit scared me. I basically shoved everyone into me as fast as I could.”

“Sorry,” I let out. “I really didn’t mean to… become an actual tree.”

“S’okay,” she got off me and started to collect prad bodies, shoving them into Kristi’s large backpack.

“Are you… staying in Candace’s body?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I am. I have the best Astral-sight as Candace. Gotta be extra diligent, in case you decide to have another existential crisis and attempt to become a permanent fixture of the local flora.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Umm… I didn’t know that you could set me on fire like that.” I recalled the horrific pain of fractal emerald flames obliterating my branches with a shudder.

“You know… I didn’t know that I could do that either,” she said, “It’s like the flames freaking bloomed on their own. Sorry. I was pretty freaked out and didn’t know what else to do… I don’t think that I’ve ever done anything that destructive as a Binder before. It’s VERY strange. None of that should have… Wait a minute.”

She stared down at the dental bushes, her mouth falling open. Then, her head snapped at Calvin. “You! Farmer-man! This is your fault!”

The Mini-Mart Archmage rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I guess that it is.”

“What?” I turned to Calvin.

“Explain,” Candace growled.

"My apologies,” he said. “This land, my current domain. It's modded in a specific way with Depictomancy focus notes to help concepts bloom. That's my whole farming gig. Your man here is technically a liminal entity masquerading as human. The garden took advantage of his true nature, amplified it in a way that was… a bit iffy.”

“A bit iffy?!” Candace barked. “He turned into a freaking flesh tree!”

“Urm, right,” I said. “I’ll just… go over there.”

I quickly rushed out of the garden, past more freaky bushes, conceptual fusion trees and other questionable growing things. As I stepped onto the cracked, gray concrete, the gnawing, flowery feeling in my bones, muscles and nerves became reduced and then was gone completely.

The air tasted like ashes and dry dust, but at least the unnerving urge to bloom was gone.

“Phew,” I let out. “Much better.”

Candace shoved the five mannequins into the dimensional bag and fluttered to my side, sending glares at Calvin. "You didn't think to mention this earlier?”

"I didn't think it would affect him so quickly," Calvin said, walking to the edge of his domain with Manny in tow. "Most concepts take weeks of exposure before responding to the soil. His low Level, plus incredibly high soul Liminality, plus the garden Omnicode turned out to be a rather unfortunate combination. Next time you visit, I’ll have to design some kind of jewellery for you to wear that’ll keep you from blooming." He offered me.

“Omnicode?” I asked.

“Drawn Omnicode,” Calvin nodded. “The language of System Wizards, the dungeon installers.”

He reached down and unearthed a sticky note with a drawing of a blooming tree on it. The drawing moved, rapidly shifting from a seed to a sprout to a bush to a tree like an animated .gif.

“Can I have that?” I asked.

Canvin nodded, offering me the sticky note. As I accepted the drawing, the fingers holding it started to chafe and throb, desiring to bloom.

“Alec!” Candace spun to me. “I just freaking got you back into a human shape.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just one drawing. He’s probably got like a million of them buried in his garden. Right?”

“Yep,” Calvin nodded. 

Candace opened her mouth to possibly reprimand me some more.

“I can manage just one,” I told her, relocating the note from one hand to the other like a hot potato. “I want to understand whatever the fuck it does to me, figure out how to fight it.”

“Aight,” Candace said, pulling out the Nemesis glider from the bag. “You’re lucky I’m not Kristi. She deffo’ wouldn’t allow this kind of knobfold experimentation.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got Kristi in you now, no?” I commented, pinning the note to my right wrist.

“I do.” She nodded. “In the soul backend. The frontend of my consciousness is a lotta Candace.”

She stared at the note.

“Frontend? What are you, a computer?” I asked.

“Beep boop,” Candace fired back. “Kinda. As a Binder, I’ve got some soul excel going over here, can bring specific skills or even emotions to the front.”

“Neat,” I commented.

"Aight. Catch ya two lovebirds on the flipside of yesterday," Candace waved at Calvin and Manny. "Thanks for the lovely lessons and chalk procurement list.”

“Come visit us again!” Manny displayed a waving emoji on her monitor.

“We'll definitely be more ready for you next time,” Canvin said. “Again, sorry ‘bout the whole blooming thing, Sir Alecai.”

“No worries,” I said, although on the inside I was still feeling a tad frazzled by the whole experience.

Candace took Kristi’s Decimator rifle out of the bag and handed it to me. “Gun.”

I opened my mouth.

“I’ll fly, you can sit behind me n’ shoot baddies,” she explained, "You're on gun duty, tree boyo."

“Think there’s gonna be things to shoot?” I slung the rifle across my back, the heavy magisteel weight settling between my shoulder blades.

“Most likely,” she nodded, climbing onto the flying armored bike. “I’m sensing trouble ahead.”

“Trouble like?”

“Don’t know. Something paralegal. Whatevs it be, it’s hiding from direct Astral sight. Get yo dragon bag ready too, just in case.”

“Kay.” I adjusted my dragon-filled backpack to my left side and got on the Nemesis behind her, wrapping my left hand around her waist. She was shorter than Kristi and ached her back, leaning forward so I could actually see over her shoulders. The engine hummed to life beneath us and we slowly rose from the ground. Her fluffy, white tail swatted my chest as she wiggled her butt in front of me on the seat.

As we rapidly gained altitude Calvin and Manny grew smaller, waving at us from below, looking like caring parents sending their kids off to university.

. . .

The gray sky rapidly swallowed us whole, an ashen curtain stretching in all directions.

“You know the way?” I asked Candace.

“Yeh.” She nodded, showing me a phone that she’d mounted on the dashboard. The Pawgle GPS app there was flickering with colorful static, showing a flight path. “Just downloaded a local map.”

“And you trust that?” I arched an eyebrow.

“I trust my eight-eyed Astral sight,” she replied. “Which tells me that using the GPS is the way to go.”

The Nemesis turned, following the ruins of a toppled highway. Buildings covered in questionable growths jutted from the sides at uneven angles like the rotting teeth of a giant's skull.

"How's the tree-note feeling?" She wondered.

"It wants to grow," I admitted. "There's this pull, like gravity but inside my body. It's hard to explain."

"Try me."

I searched for words that could capture the sensation. "It's like... hearing music in your head that makes you want to dance, but the dance is becoming a tree, blossoming, seeing, being more. It’s annoying but also it’s something that my body really wants to do, to… to finally liberate myself from linear, mortal coil.”

“You weirdo.” Candace snorted. 

"Says the concept-binding fox with four souls."

"Fair point, my tree-tastic pal," She laughed. “Still, do tell me more.”

“About?”

“About yo tree urges.”

“Why?”

“The better I understand them and you, the better I can unbind ‘em, duh. Or help you bind ‘em to our advantages by throwing ideas at your tree butt.”

“What advantages?”

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe you can bloom in a direction that's not specifically healing.”

“What.”

“Like, reconstituting yourself some digitigrade legs to run faster or a bone sword to poke out eyes like… uhh… in Terminator Two. Extra muscles? Extra eyes to see things behind you?”

“I feel like you are encouraging me to be less human.”

“Just a little. Don't go all out as a freaking tree. Release some liminality in some specific, smol ways through that note. That's why you got it from Calvin, right?”

“You are too good at guessing my deepest intentions.” I laughed.

“Foxes are experts at sniffing things under the snow.” Her tail swatted my face.

“Let's say I grow a bone knife in my arm for a fight,” I speculated. “What would I do with it after?”

“Reconstitute yourself back to a human shape.”

“And if I can't?”

“Then I'll burn it off with Fractalizer fire.” She offered.

“That stuff hurts like hell.”

“Then you better figure out how to reconstitute back on your own.”

Below us, the highway ruins gave way to a bewildering patchwork landscape featuring sections of random dead cities, forests, deserts, mountains, rivers and ocean stitched together without logic or reason at odd angles.

“Calvin told me that every world is a dungeon,” I said.

“Am aware, ye.”

“You don't think that it's concerning?”

“Eh.” She shrugged. “It's only concerning when excessive Entropy gets in and breaks something horribly. Like this doomed Earth. See that patchwork nonsense? Das Entropy chewing on Space and Space trying hard and failing to reassert herself. The lines between dimensions are thin as fuck here. Are you worried that something like this is gonna happen to our Earth or smthin?”

“Yes. What exactly prevents our Earth from getting this screwy?”

"Constant vigilance n’ maintenance. Most high-level Archmage Binders are preoccupied with patching our world when it gets too buggy due to other dungeon spillage. Omnids too. Like when Denver infested our Earth, Omnids didn’t allow everything to become Denver, put a lake-shaped patch on the problem.”

Her tail swatted my face again. I grabbed and pushed it off to the side. The fox arched her butt out even more, drawing my eyes to her curves.

“You doing this on purpose?” I asked.

“You know I am.” She laughed.

I considered smacking the wiggling behind.

Something caught my eye distracting me from that fun thought, dark shapes, fluttering movement to our right. "Candace..."

"I see them," she growled. “Bastards interrupting my funtime. Get that dragon bag ready.”

More dark, fluttering shapes emerged from the clouds. They resembled an entire flock of paper airplanes.

"Paper birds?" I asked as one of the paper airplanes plunged off the glider’s magitek shield.

"Smells like legal paperwork," Candace hissed. "The edge of Denver must be nearby, they prolly have a functional office building or two near the mall! Das’ her scouts."

More and more paper airplanes struck the shield, making it ripple with radiant colors.

“Release the dragons!” Candace barked. “Bike’s shield gonna run outta mana if they keep at it.”

I fumbled with the backpack, fighting to keep my balance as the Nemesis swerved through the air. My fingers found the zipper and yanked it open.

"Go!" I shouted into the bag. "Fry the paperwork!”

The dragons didn’t need to be told twice. They poured out from the innards of the bag, wings spreading in the air. In seconds they reached the paper birds, lighting up the sky with brilliant lines of dragonfire.

The legal paperwork bird flock disintegrated rapidly, having no defences against the little dragons.

For a moment, I thought we were winning. Then a new sound reached us, a deep, deafening howl that vibrated the air. It sounded… like the horn of an incoming train.

Through the thinning cloud of paper birds and dragons emerged… a locomotive. Not on tracks, but flying through the air, its metal body gleaming dully. Steam billowed from its stack, and its cowcatcher featured a logo of the Scales of Justice.

85. Nameless Mall Pawage

"What the fuck?" I let out.

"Das’ Denver Express," Candace yelled.

The train blasted its whistle again, rattling my bones. Candace banked, narrowly avoiding a collision as the locomotive attempted to plow us from the sky. Passenger car windows flashed by us. Behind each one lurked shadowy figures in glasses, suits and ties.

"A whole trainload of lawyers. Slayer!" Candace hissed. 

Our dragons regrouped, forming a protective circle around us, but they looked puny and fragile compared to the metal behemoth thrumming beside us.

I lifted the Decimator, bracing it against my shoulder. 

The train howled its deafening horn again and I squeezed the trigger. The Decimator bucked against my shoulder, and railgun bolts streaked toward the train. The first one struck the side of the train compartment with a thunderous boom, sending cracks racing across the metal surface.

The train shuddered, wiggling in the sky like a giant flying centipede. 

I fired again, and again thankful for the overpriced anti-concept bullets. Each shot tore away more metal, destabilised its flight path, tearing through bulkheads and detonating windows. Another blast from the railgun almost completely sheared two cars. Bodies of Lawyers rained from the hole like flailing ragdolls.

The train blasted its whistle once more, sounding like it was in physical pain. It banked away, trailing smoke and sparks. It plunged into a bank of gray clouds and vanished, its whistle fading into the distance.

“Phew,” Candace let out. “Good shooting. Think we’ve scared 'em off. Get the dragons back in, I'll lower the shield.”

Wind slapped my face when Candace turned the barrier shield off. I opened the dimensional bag.

The little dragons circled back into the bag, their scales looking ashen gray. Their wings drooped, and cracks had formed along their delicate bodies. They fluttered into the bag, crawling across us, making bothered noises.

 I zipped the bag closed quickly.

“They’re losing colors,” I said.

“I saw,” Candace sighed. “We need to get 'em’ back to Cascade ASAP. They won’t last another day in this damned place.”

"We need to hurry then."

“Yeah.” Candace nodded, guiding the Nemesis to descend. "The mall should be just ahead."

We broke through one lowest layer of dreary clouds, and there it was. The Nameless Mall. 

From above, it resembled a cancerous growth on the utterly fucked, lunar-like, cratered landscape. The building’s structure sprawled in all directions without pattern or purpose. Entire wings stretched out like tentacles, some curling back on themselves, others extending into white nothingness. Parts of the structure looked almost mundane, composed from traditional building materials such as concrete, glass, steel. Other sections were populated with titanic trees growing from roofs like mushrooms, giant leaves made from mannequins, clothes, shoes, BBQ grills and even parts of escalators.

“Daaamn this place is huge,” I let out as we descended to a relatively clean entrance.

“Yee. Das’ one big nasty-ass mess,” Candace agreed as I got off the bike. “And from the smell and look of it everyone inside hates everyone.”

“Then how are we…?”

“Don’t know. Think, Alpha-boy, think.”

I racked my brain, staring at the nightmarish mall entrance wreathed by coupon vines. Something nagged at the back of my mind, the first message from the local System greeting me.

"Ah!" I snapped my fingers. "Systemfall told me to 'like and subscribe to local flora and fauna' or risk being digested forever."

"Yeah?" Candace tilted her head, ears cutely perked forward.

"What if that's how this place works? What if we need to... add these places as friends? Follow them? Subscribe to them?"

"Hrmmm, you're onto something,” the fox bobbed. “The mall conceptoids prolly still run on attention metrics! I’ma split up to increase our chances.”

She blinked and her colorful eyes dimmed to her own grays. Addie, Kristi and Nessy climbed out of the bag. The husky immediately wrapped me in a tight hug, tail wagging while the raptor and cheetah simply glared.

“Get out yo’ phones,” Candace said. “You can judge Alec’s tree-ways later. We’ve got a social media emergency!”

“A what-emergency?” Adelle asked. 

"We got a fashion influencer to save? Someone not getting enough likes on their selfies?" Kristi asked sarcastically.

“No,” Candace bobbed. “We gotta add everything inside dis’ mall as friends. Throw likes at all the shops.”

“How could adding shit from this fucking place on Pradstagram supposed to help us?" Kristi eyed the gloomy entrance. She pulled out her phone with a sigh and turned it on. “The fuck.”

“What?” Nessy asked.

“Bulwichu just sent me a friend request,” Kristi replied, feathers fluttering in rippling waves.

“Approve her,” the fox said. “Then open Pawgle, search for ‘Nameless Mall’ using the ‘businesses near me’ option n’ start liking and adding everything to friends.”

“This is by far the stupidest and most insane thing I’ve done,” Kristi commented but opened Pawgle.

Adelle chortled and then stared at my arm. “Ummm… your arm’s growing eyeballs.”

“What?” I looked at my wrist. 

There were indeed eyeballs there. My perspective wobbled slightly, suddenly including an additional point of view from the level of my arm.

Nessy leaned closer, staring back at the eyeballs. "Does it hurt?"

“Nope,” I replied.

“This is some metallica shit,” Adelle poked one of the eyeballs making me blink it.

“Alec!” Kristi bristled. “Take off that damned sticky note!”

“Try seeing more than current linearity,” Candace suggested.

"Oi fox,” Kristi barked. “What the fuck?! Quit encouraging him!”

“It’s a goodly test of controlled bloomage,” the fox replied.

"Easy, Kris," I said. "Just a small experiment."

"Small? You have fucking eyeballs on your arm Alec!"

"Only three," Adelle counted. "Four. Oh shit, five now. They're multiplying."

The amount of eyeballs became hard to manage, the view growing blurrier.

“Ah! Try to add some gray matter in there. Think of your life in the Supercenter,” Candace added helpfully.

“What’d I just say?!” The raptor growled. “Alec! Do NOT grow a brain in your arm!”

Nessy simply stared at my blooming arm. Then, she started to hum something about growing together.

“Nessy! Stop helping!” Kristi growled. Everyone ignored her.

The tingling sensation intensified as new tissue formed beneath my skin, neurons to control the excessive number of eyes. I could feel intelligence branching out, connecting, building a small network of gray matter inside my forearm which was growing thicker by the minute.

The eyeballs blinked, all five now moving independently, scanning the environment. My consciousness stretched, expanded, incorporated the additional views. The mall entrance became observable from five separate angles, each eye picking up different details. I spotted the coupon vines swaying without wind, mannequin legs sticking out of trash bins, a shopping cart rolling by itself in the parking lot behind us.

As I focused on the new neural network in my arm, something unexpected happened. Memories bubbled up—not from this life, but from before. 

From the Supercenter.

Walking through endless aisles of household appliances, the sterile fluorescent lights casting everything in a sickly glow.

Vivianne beside me, fox fur matted with blood, limping as we fled from shelf stockers made from static wearing blue vests.

A silver RV parked in the garden center, its windows glowing with warm light, waiting for me. Always waiting. Protecting me from the monstrous otherness outside it at night. 

“Alec,” Kristi hissed. “That looks like a fucking tumor with eyes.”

I turned the extra eyes towards her, examining her. 

The raptor choked and took a step back, bumping into Adelle. 

The eyes approximated Kristi’s height at 7 feet 2 inches, counted the number of feathers at 179 on her right elbow and 171 on her left elbow, moved up and down her diamond-dust dress. Her muscular feet featured two walking toes and one sickle claw sticking slightly upright, plus a small claw in the back.

Her Aura looked sheared, incomplete. A gemstone artifact sparked on her neck, stabilising her irregular mana patterns. 

The curse? The Highway still held some of her soul?

“Stop leering at me with your gross extra eyes!” Kristi blanched.

“Shhh. Let the man leer,” Candace commented. “He’s learning to see more.”

“Not leering,” I said, seeing seven extra frames at once, fingers adding more shops to my likes. “Just… Understanding. Remembering… more.”

My phone buzzed from one of the businesses I just added. The Dollarstore had posted a new story. It was a grainy .gif of us standing outside the mall, tagged: "Fresh meat has arrived! #ThirstyThursday #NewFollowers"

Our phones buzzed and pinged with notifications as the Nameless Mall entities began responding to our friend requests and likes.

"I got accepted by the Food Court!" Nessy smiled. "They tagged me in a post: 'New snack just arrived #FreshMeat #YummyHusky'.” 

She frowned.

“That sounds concerning," Kristi said and then scowled at her own phone. "The movie theater blocked me but accepted Alec? And posted 'No raptors allowed. Humans only. #ClawsScratchTheSeats'."

I typed a message to the theater, asking if my ‘assistant dog’ Nessy would be allowed into the hall.

The reply from the theater came back quickly, permitting the helper dog, but no other pets.

"Yo," Adelle snorted. "The Victoria's Secret just added me with the message 'Perfect model proportions. 5% discount for the tallest muscle babe we've seen today’"

"The optometrist accepted all of us but left a comment: 'Finally! New eye donors! #WebSpecials #FreshRetinas #Discountsfor5'." Nessy said.

“Keep adding more shops,” Candace said. “We gotta make more friends inside.”

"The pet store wants to know if I'm house-trained," Nessy frowned.

"The electronics shop asked if I'm compatible with Windows 95," I read the latest message.

"Got a tag from Conceptual Contradictions saying they've been expecting my order for the past three years, but also that they haven't opened yet," Candace chortled.

"The fuck? The record store just unfriended me, then refriended me, then tagged me in a post… and I don’t remember making the post," Kristi blinked rapidly.

"The shoe store followed me and posted 'New shipment of orange cheetah leather pumps arriving soon #OrganicMaterials'." Adelle huffed. “Someone’s askin for a punchin’.”

My arm-eyes swiveled toward the entrance, picking up movement in the shadows. Something blurry lurked just beyond the threshold, watching us with hungry intent.

"Uhh, guys," I said, directing several eyes at the movement. "Something’s at the door.”

Candace glanced from her phone to the door and back. "The FPH nest just blocked all of us. Caption: 'Food doesn't need social media. #Noms #FirstPersonSnacks'."

“Frig! They’re some kind of a hive-mind! We gotta get outta that FPHs view,” she hissed.

We scrambled backward, retreating down the stairs, putting the Nemesis glider between us and the doors. The mall entrance receded, the coupon vines undulating more frantically now, reaching out as if beckoning us to return.

“Mkay,” Candace declared. “Keep bombarding the shops with likes. We gotta jerk their customer desire feels harder. Throw them five star reviews!”

We resumed our vigorous Pawgle rating campaign.

"The clothing store, 'The Emerald Mile,' just tagged me.” Kristi read. “'Seeking a new, live salesgirl. Must have a commanding, vibrant presence and be willing to hold a pose. Permanently. For ten thousand years.' Aaaaand they can fuck right off."

“No,” Candace shook her silver mane. “No fucking off. Write back to ‘em asking for safe passage to their store for resume dropoff.”

“Kay,” the raptor ground out.

The cheetah grunted to herself.

“Go anything?” Candace asked.

"Uh-huh. The toy store, 'Teddy's Terrors,' just slid into my DMs. It wants to know if I'm interested in becoming part of their 'limited edition, lifelike predator plushie' collection."

“Ask em if they can provide a clear path to their store for resume dropoff,” Candace said.

“Aight,” the cheetah returned to her phone.

"The bookstore, 'The Reader's Nook,' just sent me a friend request," Nessy murmured. "Their bio says, 'We don't just sell tales, we catalog them and buy your life stories!'”

“Reply with… I’ll consider selling you the story of my life if you can provide a secure path to your shop,” Candace said.

Nessy’s paws flew across the screen. A moment later, her phone pinged. “The Reader’s Nook says, ‘Excellent! We’ve cleared a path of existential dread between our entrance and the western parking lot. We look forward to cataloging your essence!’”

“See? It’s working!” Candace beamed.

Our phones buzzed one by one, a digital symphony of conceptual weirdness composed of the mall’s extradimensional denizens that vied for our attention.

“The electronics store, ‘Circuit City of the Divine Motherboard,’ is offering me a free dial-up modem if I upload my liminal consciousness to their central server,” I reported.

“Tell ‘em to clear a path.”

“The bank, ‘First National Bank of Regret and Potential,’ wants to know if I’d like to open a high-yield existential savings account,” Kristi grumbled. “They accept deposits of ‘lost time, missed opportunities, and crippling self-doubt.’ Interest rates are subject to the whims of the voidborn.”

“Good, market your existential doubt hard and reply back,” Candace grinned.

“Do I have to?” Kristi glared at the fox, clearly not wanting to admit to any personal existential struggles.

“Yep,” Candace affirmed. “Rant about Highway Sixty-Nine stealing two years of your life.”

“Ughhhh,” the raptor groaned. "Fineeeeee."

"The food court wants to know if I'm grain-fed or free-range," Nessy complained. 

"Tell them organic and locally sourced," Candace stated with a sly smile. “Also, ask them how to order something that doesn't exist from a fast food place that never opened.”