Merge

Evening. I crawled into bed. Why I kept getting in bed to sleep each night was beyond me, since it was a hassle to get in and out. I hardly fit in the bed, either, and the sheets were completely slimed.

Everything was slimy anyhow. The only things spared from the onslaught of greenish mucous goo were some appliances, light switches, and other stuff I kept more than four feet above the floor. Still, I could sleep just anywhere in the house, and maybe not have to scale the stairs every damn time I wanted to synthesize some food. I made the excuse that my connection’s charger was upstairs. And besides, in case rioting broke out in the burbs, I’d be upstairs if thugs broke in on the ground floor at night.

Of course, what really had me hauling myself into bed every night was a naive wish for normalcy. 

I had my connection in bed with me. The displays consumed my vision as they had every other waking hour. With the weird prehensile filaments that had come to replace fingers, I scrolled through the socials on one display and watched the livestream of a protest march on another. And, as with every other waking hour, the shitty little optimist in me had another stroke as both exploded in front of me—the socials figuratively, the protest literally.

I composed a post for the socials: 

look what happens when *ye olde respectable authorities* let a pot of pissed citizenry simmer for 50 years. it boils over. but instead of letting the alien universe merge w/ ours, they tried to wipe it from sight. “oh well what do we do about all these people manifesting into crippled aliens?” “eliminate them! a better solution than just allowing the universes to merge so the manifests might stop, clearly.” yeah so now manifests and normal humans alike must cower in fear of both troops *and* crazed rioters. i’m having so much fun watching the world burn while i await my impending grisly slimy doom. sad.

Almost the moment I posted, the thing gained traction. I hadn’t a clue why people put any stock in me as some kvetch who went by Kappa, but they were following my updates left and right. Might as well take the influence, I thought, even if it’s all just people who agreed with me in the first place.

I was fed up with this round-the-world chaos. I turned the active displays to an MMO and local newscasts respectively, the random city happenings becoming background noise as I and some other players took on a boss. I was almost cheered when “They Are Us We Are Them” and other slogans popped up in chat. 

Then the newscast changed. The protests and riots in my city were escaping the downtown, leaking into the suburbs where I lived. Legions of the peaceful and righteous were clogging the streets by day, while unfettered chaos roamed by night.

I simply stopped playing the game and let my character die, I was so sickened. Whether by looters or by the troops that would likely be deployed in response, I’d be found out, slumped here over my connection, fifteen feet of legless alien coiled pathetically in this unlit, oozy room. That would be my reckoning—but really, it should’ve happened earlier, with the size of this city and all. Guess it was like me to pretend things were all normal until the shock came. Still, I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again, knowing one of these nights…

The night came with a crash, the culmination of a day of sirens and chants. I was halfway up the stairs, having lost the appetite to finish a midnight dinner. Freezing in place, I listened as at least three people hopped through the floor-to-ceiling windows they’d just smashed at the front of the house.

And almost immediately: “Aauugh! Look at this, are you seeing this! It’s all over my shoes, it’s everywhere!”

Another gave a crass chuckle. “Slimy bastard.”

Right, that was me, and it meant it would take eons to finish scaling the stairs. As I continued my crawl, grasping the railing to get up each step, the looters crashed and swept and complained about slime through everything I owned. Upon reaching my bedroom I curled up with my connection, covering my face with my tail, and internally wept.

I didn’t know which grieved me more—the fact that I couldn’t defend my livelihood, or that the looters were posing under an ideology that was supposed to support me. Well, what did it matter? All I knew was that I was hiding up here in a corner like a weakling, and when they came up here to decide my fate, I had better not look so feeble. So I prepared a scalding tirade of slime-related insults with which I would make a verbal final stand. 

Come to me, reckoning, I thought. I may be unarmed, but I have some last words in store for you.

Instead, I heard, “Guys. Don’t even think about the second floor or the slime bastard, troops’re coming, let’s…”

And the house went quiet. The shooting, screaming, and smashing outside crept back to my ears.

A shaky breath. Still alive. Still had my connection with me.

My kitchen, and the mucus-covered wreck therein, was exposed now. Other rioters—or worse, troops—could rat me out at any moment. I decided to make use of my connection with whatever time I had.

update ffffff first floor broke into fff fuckers left me alone but it’s not over yet. the future is now. may not live to see it but i think there’s like a 50/50 chance of the merge happening. i’m just one of many who might die b/c of decades of refusal to merge. most of us weren’t alive through all of it. we spent most our lives hardly knowing what it was. and yet here it is biting us back for our predecessors’ stubbornness. many have lost it all this month. many more will. don’t let it be in vain.

The previous night’s post had amassed tens of thousands of votes and far too many comments to read. Fine. Good. Hear from you again soon, mofos.

I drifted into a kind of shocked trance after that. Too freaked and stress-sick to sleep, but far past the mental threshold of wakefulness, I just sprawled out on the floor of my bedroom. The street outside was filled with combat boots and mayhem for a while—I think someone might’ve come in my house again, if only to hide—but it faded with the dawn. 

When the sun’s full rays finally blasted into my eyes, I was so braindead I muttered “Congrats on not sleeping in bed for once” before coming to my senses. My connection said it was quarter past eight. There were a few voices outside. 

Now what was going on. I opened a display and turned on the local news again. 

Protestors—peaceful ones, I hoped—had clogged the boulevard near my place. I guessed I was hearing some that had leaked into surrounding neighborhoods. The city mayor, a recently-elected upstart of a politician, had prepared an address to give in front of the protestors. Strange move, that, since the norm these days was for a protest leader to give a speech directed at the leadership, and for said leadership to offer inane monetary compensation to people in response.

I pulled up the socials, about to make another post, when—

“Hullo? Anyone home?”

“Huh?” I called back, and promptly slapped myself in the face. Well, I was as through with lying low and hoping to live as I was with having to run a bath twice a day to stay hydrated. 

A different voice, rusty-sounding. “We were wondering if you were hurt or anything. We wanna help.”

I dragged myself over to the railing by the stairwell and looked down through the bars. Two people had traipsed through the kitchen: one a swarthy beanpole in a bionic outfit, the other short, but clearly a gym junkie and built like a cargo jet. Both were still looking for the sound of my voice.

“Uh, thanks, but I think I’m good,” I said.

The bionics enthusiast whipped around in my direction. “How’s that now? You got burgled, slime be damned, and those sorts still think they can turn a manifest in for a bounty.”

“Anybody’d need help with this utter situation,” the gym-goer piped up. “How long you been stuck here anyway?”

I sighed. “Thank you, but really, I’m good. I could care less what happens to me from here on out, I’m past my time. Now go protest and—”

Gym Junkie exploded. “Quit that! You’re gonna live to see some merging happen. Cause it will happen. You know what?” At that the pair turned to each other and muttered a bit, too quiet to hear from the second floor. 

When they’d finished, Bionic Suit said, “The mayor will help.”

“The mayor?” The protestors still couldn’t see me and the skeptical look I wore. “I mean… I think it would be pretty stupid to give me money. The mayor ought to spend that on the bigger issues at hand.”

“I said help, not money! And I meant real help. Like, you’ll really want to not be so fatalistic cause this help’ll blow your mind.”

Gym Junkie jabbed a meaty thumb in my direction. “I’ma be honest. This kid sounds like Kappa.”

I stiffened. “But I haven’t put out any vids—ah shit.” 

“Yeah. Kid, you’re a manifest whose house was looted last night, and a real ray of sunshine to boot.”

Bionic Suit giggled, “You know the mayor follows you on socials, right? Doesn’t even know you’re a resident here, probably.”

“…What?”

“True story. Now if you’re going to insist on cleaning this up yourself, we’re getting out of here. Speech is at nine, friend!”

The two began strolling back through the kitchen. They were almost out when I remembered what household this was.

“Wait!” I called, “Get the organic residue soap and go to the garden hose out back. I will not be responsible for horrid aquatic slime getting up your shoes. Especially not up the springy bionic ones. Seriously.”

The protestors squealed with mirth and obeyed. I couldn’t hold back a smirk myself.

In the meantime I took a bath and finished my leftovers from the previous night, mulling over everything. People think they could still get a bounty on manifests? I was sure they could. And yet, there had been troops running down the street; they couldn’t possibly have missed the signs that a manifest lived here, so they must’ve ignored me. Maybe then it was a city-limits thing, which at least would’ve forced a would-be bounty hunter to truck me to an adjacent provincial. Even on the city scale, though, safe spaces for manifests were rare, given how persistent many councils were in keeping the status quo. Drowning in questions, I looked it up on my connection.

No. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to rest so assured. The city rules still had “permission for citizens to report or turn in manifest aliens to authorities with action and monetary reward at said authorities’ discretion, as per Greater Law” as a clause.

Still, something else in the search caught my eye. A post on one of the local socials subfora from a month ago: This Provincial is Degenerating . The new Mayor is letting manifest aliens slip through the cracks in society by having reworded the Law . 'Authorities Discretion' meaning the Mergies in the Council can do what they want with the Invaders . Now they can hide in the brooding belly of our City . I cannot believe this madness .

An inconsiderate and vomitous asshole. But helpful nonetheless, so I composed a comment on the post even though it was old: sincerely, thank you for making this known. this will give me something to live for, knowing some can still act with sympathy for one’s fellow man in mind, while I am trapped in my own home. ♥

There was no being sure that the post was entirely true, or even remotely so beyond the paranoid ramblings of a disgruntled, curmudgeonly crank. For all I knew the law had always been like that, with a cocktail of other laws I was too lazy to find making it impossible to bend the wording. But it sounded like the mayor just might be on the side of the protests, and man, did it feel good to engage the snark.

In any case, it was almost time for the mayor’s address. I doubted any expectations would be exceeded, given the tendency of people in leadership positions to do the bare minimum to appease demands. Still, I slithered over to the window and, propping myself up, held the switch to open it for the first time since I manifested.

I was hit with the murmur of a distant crowd, and with an impulse to hide. Resisting the needless urge, I gazed out onto my street.

The houses were wrecked, and debris littered the mycelium pavement. Quite a few people were milling around; the likes of which I’d only seen on Automaghast Night, and then it was mostly kids. Some of them were neighbors tidying the callous wreckage of last night. Most were unfamiliar, and judging by the slogans and icons pasted on much of the clothing, they were almost all protestors. Rather solemnly they wandered around, helping vacuum the mess and rubbernecking whenever they passed my house. Gym Junkie was down there helping move some heavy equipment, and beamed a stupid grin at me when I opened the window. I recoiled, of course. Bionic Suit was nowhere to be found.

I sat just under the window with my connection. I wasn’t even using it. Seriously, it was like my best friend now, I towed it around like a safety blanket. So there I was, me and my silent companion, when the crowd on the adjacent boulevard became hushed.

An amplified voice echoed out, youthful and high-pitched, yet rich and full-bodied.

“There is widespread fear that the Merge will change everything. That in the worst-case scenario, anyone who isn’t a manifest already will be. 

“That fear is overwhelmingly false. Studies have repeatedly shown that a Merge is a first contact between two cultures. Cultures, mind you, which have a pressing need to cooperate. Simply, we will meet people who look wholly inhuman, and yet are wholly human, just in a sense we are not used to. Certainly there won’t be an apocalypse of manifestation among us.

“Yet, look where we’ve come to with that fear. Innocents fear for their lives. Now I’m a bit off-script here, but I received a story this morning from just down the street. A house looted back there belonged to a manifest in hiding, who was as threatened by troops killing them in the name of public safety as by looters and bounty-hunters under a guise of promoting the Merge.”

Wait. Bionic Suit must’ve gone and told the mayor about me. I arched my back. “Holy shit…”

The mayor continued. “Their thoughts echo those of manifests and untouched humans across the world. For that to happen in my city, or even in my native universe… it makes me want to quit my job. Human nature itself is the enemy, and how can we hope to beat nature? But as much as our inaction is the work of nature, so is the collision of alternate universes.

“There’s no telling, I think, if we’ll complete the Merge in our time. We’ve already seen how long we can continue promoting inaction via murderous action. But I’ve had enough of watching my forebears burn the world to fuel their eternal flame. So sit back and relax, my citizens, because I’m about to pull a move.

“This city’s anti-merger system keeps the bubble of reality around the whole provincial untouched by the other universe… I’m turning it off. ASAP.”

The crowd just flipped. So did I, in a more literal sense, as I heaved myself back up to the window in one go and hung my idiotic gaping head out the window. What did I just hear.

The continuing speech was barely audible over the cheers. “Mangling it beyond recognition, even! Suppose I could get some bloodthirsty rioters and troops to use their explosives for that?” 

The crowd went even crazier, before dying down at some unseen cue. I imagined the mayor holding up an authoritative hand like a fucking messiah.

“Take care, for the world will still be dangerous. Manifests, we’ll protect and assist you. You’ll have access to more habitable environments. Everyone else, be kind to your neighbors, both from the alternate universe and our own. Things are going to get interesting from here on out. So be open, friends, for the era is young!”

I hardly registered the crowd’s chanting. I was grinning now, no holds barred, and I would’ve broken out in tears if I could. Everyone down on my street could see me. They probably knew who I was at this point. It was a moment of complete vulnerability, and I couldn’t care less.

Relaxing on the front lawn with my connection later that day, I went back to the socials, which were blowing up yet again.

hi. so. this mayor just made a perilous move. it’ll overturn decades of precedent. it’ll drive some powerful people up the wall. it endangers anyone who supports the decision, mayor included. it’ll cause the first substantial meeting between two very alien kinds of humans, our side of which has not made such a good impression in the past. it is, in short, completely fucking nuts. but we all know it’s really a do or die thing. we’re still better off now, we furthered the cause, so thanks mayor. things are going to get interesting aren’t they.