The three of us strolled back into the living room, me still trying to make sense of the things that old man had said to me. I went over to the couch and sat down rather suddenly. Lyra followed and sat next to me.
"So," said Tetesac, walking over to us. "To start off some sort of conversation, how was your night?"
"Fairly normal," I said, "Nothing particularly noteworthy about it." I thought about mentioning what Princess Luna had told to me, but I decided to put that off for now.
"What about when you practically made love to that steak?" noted Lyra, with a dumb grin on her face.
Noticing Tetesac's look of confusion, I was quick to clarify what she meant. "I cooked a steak last night and ate it. It just happened to be really good."
To my surprise, his face grew even more confused. "As in, the steak you had stored in your refrigerator?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"You told me that steak was the seventh result of your attempts to grow synthetic meat. You noted that it was the best attempt you had made so far, although you still hadn't managed to perfectly replicate it yet."
"Synthetic meat?" I said, "Oh god. I ate that? Why would I make synthetic meat?!"
"You were always rather fond of steak, but cows being sentient beings, you hardly ever had the opportunity to obtain one."
Lyra quickly interjected here. "Wait, steak comes from cows?! Jeez, I'm glad I didn't learn that until after finding out that steak wasn't a real steak..." She looked a bit sick to her stomach.
"Sorry, I had no idea," I said. I wasn't quite sure what else to say to that, so I turned back to Tetesac. "So, I ate one of my experiments?"
Tetesac laughed. "It seems so. You told me you were not going to eat it for fear it might kill you. It seems like that didn't happen."
"What the hell?" I said, bewildered, "That thing could have killed me? Why would I keep that in my fridge?"
"Well, to be fair," said Lyra, "That probably wouldn't have been a problem for you, what with the whole immortality thing."
I stared at her blankly for a second, then laughed. "Oh yeeeeeeah! I completely forgot about that!"
Tetesac's demeanor suddenly changed to a more serious one. "...Immortality?"
Whoops. Looks like we spilled the beans on that. I shifted in my seat.
"Ah... right, I may have forgotten to mention-"
"Oh, no, it's alright. I figured that part was a given anyway," said Tetesac.
"A given? What do you mean?"
"A form of immortality was given to all of the subjects you tested with the strand of Celestia's hair. It makes sense that you would gain it as well. It was a form of immortality that centered around practically instant flesh regeneration. However, in them, it only lasted a mere six to seven days. A being of your size, one would think it would have lasted even less time..." Tetesac began pacing around the room.
"Hold on, what?" I said, standing up. "What are you talking about?"
"During your experiments, one thing you told me that was the larger a being was when you transferred the hair's power to it, the faster it lost the power."
While that was fascinating, my attention was more drawn to the part about me testing the hair on several subjects. I feel like that doesn't quite match up with something he told me before, but I'd better not say anything until I remember what it is.
"So... You're saying I may have lost my immortality by now?"
"It's possible. There's only one way to find out, really."
I thought this over. "...Oh, god damn it. Okay, fine." I got up off the nightstand and went into the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" asked Tetesac, craning his head to see what I was doing.
"One moment!" I came out of the kitchen with a knife, holding it pointed towards my own arm. My sleeve was pulled back, leaving my forearm completely vulnerable to the knife's blade.
"Oh dear, George. You don't need to do that-"
But I didn't care, I wanted to find this out now. I poked the knife about a centimeter down into the skin of my arm and pulled it out again. I instantly dropped the knife, clutched my arm and started stamping the ground with my foot. "Holy shit, that hurts! And I tried to not make as big of a wound this time..."
It took me a second to notice that Lyra and Tetesac were looking at me rather expectantly. I looked down at my own arm and removed my hand, and what met my eyes was...
...The cut from the knife, still in my arm and still bleeding profusely. I looked at my other hand, noticing that it was covered in blood. Shit.
"Well, I suppose that settles that, then," said Tetesac. "I was going to suggest that you simply scan yourself with the KEVIN, but I suppose this option provides far more instant results."
"Yeah..." I was still looking down at my arm, stunned. I had kinda gotten used to not being able to die. I suddenly felt far more vulnerable than before. It was as if anything in the environment could jump out and kill me at any moment.
"Okay, I'm just gonna... go upstairs and wash my hands." Not waiting for a reply, I quickly dashed up the staircase, a firm grip on the handrail. I leaped into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I turned on the sink and scrubbed the blood off my hand and arm, some of it having already dried on. I searched in the medicine cabinet, found some gauze, and wrapped my arm in it, covering up the cut. I pulled my sleeve back down over it. There, good as new.
Before leaving, I took a second to look at myself in the mirror.
"I guess I'm only human," I said to myself. "No reason for me to have immortality when no one else does."
I was lying to myself, of course. I wished I was still immortal. But I can't bother worrying about something I can't change. I shut the medicine cabinet and left the bathroom. Noticing that my undershirt was stained with some blood, I sighed and went into my room to change into a new one real quick. The room now had a more somber feel to it, as if some of the color had been sucked out.
I dragged myself over to my closet and opened it. I quickly found a shirt and changed into it, throwing the stained one into the corner. Maybe I'll bleach it later or something. I went over to the window and sat on my nightstand, looking out onto the streets of the town. I guess I'm just a human now, right? It was a pretty stupid thing to call myself a god just because I was immortal.
I got up off the nightstand and walked to the other end of the room. "God, I'm so stupid! Calling myself a god when I barely knew anything about myself..."
In an attempt to calm myself down so I could think more clearly, I took the clock down off the wall to try and fix it. As soon as I touched the back of it, it launched out of my hands, hitting my nightstand. The nightstand banged against the wall and fell forwards, the lamp resting on top falling onto the floor and shattering. The clock, on the other hand, had ricocheted off the nightstand and embedded itself in a wall.
Well, I guess it's nice to know I still have that broken magic.
I went over to the nightstand to pick it back up, but something caught my eye. On the floor, previously hidden by the nightstand, was a small unmarked book. I picked it up and opened to the first page. To my surprise, the first page was blank aside from the first page, which simply read "Walt's Notes".
So, this is a journal, huh? Cool. I skimmed through the next few pages. Stuff about experiments I'd worked on, something about fruit drinks, something about synthetic meat...
I flipped through the pages until I got to the last one that had anything written on it.
April 24th.
Tetesac's intentions are more dangerous than I thought.
Thankfully, my plan will be able to put his to a halt. The
series of events that this will cause will definitely be
enough to stop Tetesac's own plans. In the event that
something happens to me, I have initiated a failsafe
that will put my own plan into action under certain
circumstances only I know about. I call it the RYAN.
Additionally, I am the only one who knows how to
disable the RYAN. This way, Tetesac's plans will never
come to fruition, and the future of humanity will be secured.
Future... of humanity? I quickly flipped through the surrounding pages, looking for some sort of context to this. No dice. What on earth was Tetesac planning? What was I planning? The hell is a RYAN? This is really goddamn confusing.
Before I could finish thinking about this, however, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I quickly shoved the book into my suit and stood up just as Lyra walked in front of the doorway.
"What's going on? What's taking-" She stopped, having noticed the carnage that had ravaged my room. "What in Celestia's name happened?!"
"Er... I sneezed."
"You sneezed?"
"Look, never mind. Let's just go back downstairs." Before Lyra could reply, I rushed downstairs and down the staircase. I stopped on the staircase for a moment and looked at the handrail. It was smeared in blood. Whatever, I'll worry about that later. I continued downstairs and to the living room.
"Ah, there you are," said Tetesac. "I was wondering what was taking so long. Not to mention all that banging. I feared you may have hurt yourself."
"No, I'm fine," I said. Lyra finished coming down the stairs as well and stood next to me.
"Well then," said Tetesac. "I believe we should head back to the castle now so we can work on your memories. Is everyone alright with that?"
I nodded. I wanted to ask about what I had read in the journal, but I had a nagging feeling that was a bad idea. So I kept my mouth shut, for now.
"Yeah, I'm ready. I want to see more human technology," said Lyra.
"Very well," said Tetesac. "Let's head back to the castle, then."
On the way there, I took the opportunity to gaze at the town around me. I suddenly got the impression that it felt rather... small.
"Hey, uh, Tetesac? Is it just me or is this place rather small for a kingdom?"
Tetesac sighed. "Our race is rather small in population. In fact, there are only roughly one hundred thousand of us."
"One hundred thousand?! Jeez, talk about being a minority..."
"Yes, our kingdom is no bigger than, say, Manehattan. However, we are proud of our nation, regardless of how small it is."
Looking around some more, I noticed a flag waving around in the distance. From what I could tell, the design consisted of two hands joined together against a red background.
I pointed towards the flag, getting Tetesac's attention. "That this place's flag?"
"Ah, yes. It symbolizes the unison between all humans. We are quite proud of it," he said.
"Everyone's pretty proud of their nation, huh?" said Lyra, who was standing noticeably close to me. I looked around and saw that several people were giving her angry looks.
"Yes," said Tetesac. "Some, perhaps unhealthily so."
After arriving at the castle, we headed directly to my lab. Once we arrived, Tetesac spoke up.
"You two can stay here for now, I will be back later. I have some of my own duties to attend to." And with that, he left.
"...That was sudden," I said. Lyra nodded silently. I turned the key in the lock and opened the door. I fumbled around for the light switch and turned it on. The lab was just as it had been left before, coffee stains and all.
As soon as Lyra and I walked in, I shut the door, went over to a table, and took out a book. "Lyra, come over here."
Lyra walked over to me. "What is it?"
"There's something I need to show you." I opened the book to the page about Tetesac's plan and gave it to Lyra. She read over it for a minute, then gave the book back to me.
"So... What are your thoughts on this?"
"I don't know," Lyra replied. "That's a lot of stuff to consider. What is Tetesac planning? Whatever it is, apparently it was important to you that it was stopped."
"Yeah..." I read over the page again. "I can't say this helps my trust in him, though."
A voice came from behind me. "Trust in who?"
Surprised, I looked behind me, to see Tetesac in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
"Uh... Well, that is to say... Crap."