by Elin Wyn
“Well,” she said. “I suspect the Puppet Master is the same way.”
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“Has it destroyed an entire city or settlement yet? Has it killed everyone it could?” she asked.
“No, not exactly,” I answered. “But it did kill some people and destroy some buildings,” I told her.
She looked at me. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “Did it actually kill those people, or did they die because of what happened?”
“What’s the difference?”
She flashed me a you’re stupid look, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Did the Puppet Master’s vines specifically kill anyone?”
“Well, no, not exactly, but…” I answered.
“Well,” she interrupted, “then they died as a result of the PM’s actions. Which means that it may not have exactly meant to kill those people, it just happened.”
“Doesn’t mean that it’s innocent,” I countered.
“Never said it was,” she said with a shrug. “Those people dying because of what the PM did is terrible, but I’m trying to say that it might not have killed them on purpose. Just like it didn’t destroy the city, it wasn’t trying to cause permanent damage. Which means that it’s not inherently dangerous.”
I thought about what she had explained, and as much as I didn’t want to, it made a weird sort of sense. It didn’t absolve the Puppet Master from what it had done, but it did shine a different light on it, if she was right.
She was back to touching the vine, but this time I noticed the vine doing something different. It was pulsating, in a way…almost as if it were…breathing? It seemed normal that if it were merely a creature, it would need to breath, but this vine was as big as I was and the concept of it breathing …farfetched to me.
It bothered me, yet Daphne seemed perfectly content with what it was doing, as if breathing through a vine was perfectly normal.
“Come here,” she whispered to me. I stepped closer and she reached out for my hand. “Feel this,” she said as she tried to place my hand on the vine.
I snatched it away, not interested in that at all. “What are you trying to do?” I demanded.
She huffed. “I was just trying to let you feel the vine.”
“I’ve touched it before,” I said, referring back to the vines that had domed-in the city.
“Did you ever notice the heat radiating from it?” she asked, her voice filled with that amazing tone of hers that made me feel as if she thought I was the dumbest person around.
“Yes,” I answered, letting my own tone of annoyance play through. “It was radiating the heat of the sun that it was blocking. What of it?”
“Well, if it was radiating the heat of the sun, then how do you explain that this vine is so warm?” she asked. “It’s not on the surface.”
That was certainly odd. I was at a loss.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked, obviously rhetorically because she didn’t bother waiting for me to answer. “It means that this is not a simple plant. Plants that generate heat do so in tiny amounts, even here, where the plant life is admittedly stranger than usual. Only animals generate their own heat, just like we do.”
“Now you’re saying that the Puppet Master is not a sentient plant, but a sentient animal?” I asked, not bothering to hide my disbelief.
“Maybe not necessarily an animal, per se,” she said, “But something we can’t easily classify. Something more. Think about it. You and I generate our own body heat, and we’re not plants. This thing is generating its own body heat, as well…” she trailed off.
“And you think that means that this thing is…what…an animal, or at least a not-entirely-plant-like creature?” I guessed.
“Precisely.”
“And that’s supposed to mean something important?” I asked, mostly out of aggravation. I knew that it did. Of course it would.
If she was correct in her assessment, that meant that we had been dealing with the Puppet Master incorrectly. If it was some sort of beast, then there was a slight chance that it was intelligent enough to understand its actions and it was merely defending itself.
And if it was some sort of sentient being, like Tella had suggested once, and Daphne seemed to be hinting now, there might be a chance at communication.
“Well, yeah. We need to find the head, or whatever holds the brain. We need to see if we can communicate with it,” she said, echoing my thoughts.
She was exuberant now with the idea that this may be more than a thinking plant.
“No,” I immediately said. “We stay here, where there’s a chance for us to get out by climbing the vines and cutting through to the surface. We can’t risk going any deeper into whatever this is.”
“You go, then,” she said. “I’m going to go look.” As she turned away from me, I reached out and gently, yet firmly, held her by the arm.
“No,” I said, pulling her back towards me. As she protested, a small tendril-like vine came from under one of the other vines and wrapped around her other arm. There was a short moment of fighting with the vine, then I had enough.
I drew my blaster and shot the vine, watching in satisfaction as the tendril splintered and broke apart.
As I pulled Daphne behind me, she let out a muffled scream and yanked her arm from my grasp. I looked back to see hundreds of small vines wrapping themselves around her, forming an egg-like cocoon around her.
I heard her scream again.
I aimed my blaster, but didn’t pull the trigger. There was too much of a chance that I would hit her, as well.
I holstered it, then reached out, grabbed the vines, and pulled. Despite my straining, nothing happened.
I pulled out my knife and started cutting at it, but for every vine I cut, another replaced it.
What was I supposed to do?
Daphne
I panicked the moment the vines enveloped me.
Which, I must say, was a perfectly reasonable reaction, if not entirely scientific of me.
They sprouted from the ground fast, and started wrapping themselves around me without giving me a chance to fight back. In just a few heartbeats, I was completely trapped inside a cocoon of sorts, the vines slithering together as they formed an almost impenetrable wall around me.
I could hear Takar shouting from the outside, but my heart was drumming so loudly I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I started hyperventilating then, fear gripping me tight. All I could think about was that I had been so naive to think there’d be no danger to this...and now I would have to pay the price. I could already imagine the vines wrapping themselves around my neck, choking the life out of me, and I started thrashing inside the cocoon.
I couldn’t die like this.
I simply couldn’t.
Suddenly, though, the little green tendrils that were around my wrists and ankles slid back, and I slumped down inside the cocoon. The vines were no longer holding me, and there was at least a foot of space between me and the cocoon’s inner wall.
I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down, and closed my eyes for a second.
I could hear Takar moving outside, striking the cocoon over and over again with what I assumed to be a blade, and that just made the vines pack themselves even more tightly, strengthening the cocoon’s outer shell.
Could they be reacting to what Takar was doing? Could it be that they were trying to protect me from him?
“Takar!” I shouted, suddenly realizing what was happening. It all made sense. “Stop it! Whatever it is you’re doing, stop it right now!”
“What the hell are you talking about, woman?” he growled, his voice coming at me as if he were standing on the other side of the planet.
I kept on hearing his repeated blows against the cocoon, and so I just raised my voice again.
“Just stop it,” I shouted, realizing that I wasn’t in complete darkness. There were a few holes that allowed the light to filter through,
and I looked for one large enough to allow me to peer outside. Pressing one eye against it, I saw Takar standing just a few feet away from the cocoon, looking completely furious. There was a knife in his left hand, and his right one was resting on the butt of his gun.
“Just stand still, Daphne,” he continued, unholstering his gun and pointing it toward the cocoon. “I’m going to try and shoot it, but you have to tell me where to aim. I don’t want to hit you.”
“Are you even listening to me?” I cried out. “Put that gun away right now!”
“Are you insane? That thing is trying to kill you!”
“No, it’s not,” I tried to argue. “Please, Takar, I need you to trust me on this. Can you put your gun away and stand still?”
“Are you sure?” he asked me, shaking his head all the same. He probably thought I was acting like a complete nutjob, but I didn’t care.
Takar would just make things worse if he kept on trying to stab or shoot the vines, and I wasn’t about to let the situation spiral down into chaos.
“Please,” I begged him, and this time he took a couple of steps back and holstered his gun. I breathed out with relief the moment I saw him do it, and then ran my tongue over my parched lips. I wasn’t entirely sure if what I was about to do would work, but something inside me told me I was on the right track.
“Takar doesn’t mean to hurt you. We are not here to hurt you,” I started saying in a low, soothing whisper, brushing my fingertips over the grooves on the cocoon’s inner wall. I stroked the vines softly, almost as if I was petting a small creature, and I could almost feel them relax under my touch. “Takar isn’t going to shoot. He’s just worried about me. He means no harm.”
I kept on speaking, reassuring the vines no harm would come to them or me, and I was pretty damn certain that they were listening.
I could feel them pulse under my fingertips, relaxing ever so slightly, and the more I spoke the more I started believing the vines weren’t just listening...they actually understood what I was telling them.
After a while, the vines finally started loosening. The space I had inside the cocoon grew from one foot to two, and then three and four, and it wasn’t long before the vines started retreating. I watched it happen, slack-jawed, mesmerized by their fluid and elegant moves as the cocoon opened.
“Daphne!” Takar cried out, immediately taking one step toward me. He grabbed me as I stumbled out of the cocoon, an expression of pure worry on his face. He eyed the vines for a moment, still not trusting them, but then turned his undivided attention back to me. “Are you okay?”
I said nothing, still trying to process what had happened. That just made Takar even more concerned, and he started patting my body down, looking for any wound or injury. I felt a shiver run up my spine as I felt the gentle touch of his fingertips on my skin, and my heart skipped a beat. I let him do it without saying a word, just enjoying his closeness, and he only pulled back when he realized I was looking at him.
“Daphne? Are you okay?” he asked once more, and this time I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I was no longer afraid, nervous, or anxious...I was completely ecstatic over what had just happened.
“I’m more than just okay!” I cried out, turning around to look at the vines once more. They were relaxed now, as if they were keeping an eye on us, intently listening to every word we said. “This is big, Takar! Don’t you realize what just happened?”
“Not exactly,” he admitted. “Other than you were buried in vines, and now you’re not.”
“The Puppet Master listened to me,” I tried to explain. “Not only that, but it understood everything I was saying.”
“And what were you saying?”
“I explained that we weren’t a threat, and that we hadn’t come here to cause it any harm,” I continued. “And that’s when the vines pulled back and freed me. This is real intelligence at work, I know it! We need to look into this!”
“I don’t know if we—”
“Look,” I cut him short. “We have a real opportunity here. The Puppet Master isn’t being hostile toward us right now, but that may change if more people come crashing through the tunnels or if we try to force a way out. Let’s not throw this opportunity away, alright? Your entire team of scientists hasn’t had a breakthrough for who knows how long, but today we can make a difference. I just need you to trust me.”
He frowned and, averting his gaze, exhaled sharply. I could almost see the gears inside his head turning, but I wasn’t worried.
Takar seemed like the kind of soldier that prided himself on being a worthy asset, and he knew that his general was aching to find out more about the Puppet Master. Even though he had been dragged into this unwittingly, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t pass on the opportunity.
“Fine,” he relented, just like I had expected. “But I want you to be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” I laughed, reaching for him and grabbing his hand. Before he could protest, I started pulling him further into the caverns. The answer we needed to solve the Puppet Master riddle was somewhere in this cavern system, and I wasn’t going to stop before figuring it out.
Come hell or high water.
Or Takar.
Takar
For one of the few times in my life, I wasn’t in control of the situation, or even around someone in control that I trusted.
I was, instead of being in control, being dragged down a maze of tunnels by this woman who was no longer annoying, but was now…interesting.
Even if I did think she was trying to get us killed.
She had managed to find a way to endear herself to the Puppet Master, and that endearment had led to the Puppet Master putting a protective vine cocoon around her when it thought that I was threatening her.
Then, to add even more confusion to my life, she had gently caressed the vines of the cocoon and talked to them…and they listened.
She had done something that none of us had attempted to do, and it worked. She had somehow managed to get whatever this creature was to listen, to treat her kindly, to protect her, and to convince it that I wasn’t a danger to it. As if I could have caused it any real harm. If it was capable of surrounding an entire city with vines hundreds of feet in height, I sincerely doubted that I would be able to do more than cause it to itch.
I had allowed this woman to pull me along in her search for wherever the head, or brain, or control center, or whatever allowed the Puppet Master to think, was located, and I actually found myself enjoying it.
Not the being dragged part, but the investigation part. I honestly found myself looking forward to finding out what the Puppet Master was, and not even from a military standpoint.
I had grown up as a very inquisitive child, always more interested in researching something to discover what it was about while my brother had been the more outgoing type. We had stayed that way until a rogue tribe attacked our country, forcing me to abandon my life of study and take up a life of training.
This, however, was an opportunity to investigate a lifeform that no one knew anything about, and that appealed to me. It called to my more inquisitive nature. I knew that if I had not been forced into fighting, I would have pursued a more scientific line of the military life.
Granted, there was the chance for something terrible and deadly to happen, but since nothing had yet occurred, it was worth chancing the danger. To find out if this was a sentient being, if it was something that could hold a conversation and be reasoned with…I felt tingles throughout my body at the thought of it.
It was an interesting sensation to feel that tingle again.
I could almost hear Karzin and Rokul in my head, trying to call me out for this feeling. I didn’t care. Sylor would have approved, at least on an intellectual, just-for-study level.
My brother would have made fun of me…not for being interested in investigating this, but for letting this small human woman drag me along. After all my grumbling about our team members falling to their mates...
I ducked my head to avoid hitting it on a low portion of whatever tunnel Daphne was pulling me down.
It wasn’t that she was my mate. Of course not. I stopped again to accommodate another low-lying ceiling, it was just that by letting her pull me along, I had no other choice but to follow for her protection.
That was it. Keeping to the mission, keeping her safe.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked as we turned down yet another tunnel.
“Not a clue,” she smiled over her shoulder. “I’m just kind of going until we find the head.”
I took a grip of her hand and stopped, yanking her to a halt right along with me. “Hey,” she cried out. “What was that for?”
“You really don’t have a plan?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I sorta have one. I want to find the head, maybe talk to it if I can, and get a scan of its brain. Can you imagine what we could learn from its brain scans?” Her enthusiasm was almost infectious.
I had to shake my head as she swiped a wisp of hair from her face. “I know a few people that would rather learn from an autopsy of its brain, but that’s a different story at the moment.”
“It better be,” she said firmly.
“You do realize that the head of the beast is the most dangerous place to be, even if this particular beast is intelligent,” I said.
“Eh, that may be true,” she responded, “but the head is also the best place to find information. Like you said, if he is intelligent, we need to talk to him.”
“Oh, it’s a ‘he’ and ‘him’ now?” I teased.
She blushed. “I was tired of calling him an ‘it’ or ‘creature’.”
I pulled back a bit and arched an eyebrow at her. “You really believe that the Puppet Master is sentient and can understand us, don’t you?”
“Well,” she said almost ashamedly, “yeah. I mean,” she finally let go of my hand and turned around, paced a few feet down the tunnel, then returned. “I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this, it, everything. Why didn’t he destroy the city, especially when you guys found the poison that hurt him?”
