Page 19 of The Gathering
He confessed it quickly.I called Handy and asked him to make two bodies. One for me and one for Omnis.
Zero used every measuring tool he possessed to define the flood of nameless chemical spikes, the patterns amounting to the usual Catherine anomalies.
“That’s… I…”
Her voice and words were always the answer keys. Fear, confusion, excitement, curiosity.
“Are you saying… you’ll have…a body?AndOmnis?”
He let the question ride the wave for a moment before answering it.
Yes.
Another gasp. Body gradually letting go. As if he and Omnis owned a place in her muscles. But what was the meaning of the release? Joy? Confusion?Tell me what you’re thinking, I can’t read your mind,he reminded, their contractual agreement difficult to obey in that moment.
She released the first clue with a single light laugh. Then another. “Abody?”she echoed out loud, filling him with more of that warmth, more of those anomaly sparks. They built until she stood and paced, then hurried out her shack, pulse racing. Her eyes moved over the tree line and Zero perceived she wasn’tlookingbut thinking with her eyes open.
Her smile came like a slow fire that quickly turned wild.
Zero held still, feeling his favorite addiction coming. But the laughter never came. She paced again, her smile stillat maximum volume, adding another variance to the pile of incongruities. When the laugh came, it was only one in a single burst of breath. Loud and forceful.
“What is thisworldcoming to!” she marveled, back at the rail. Head shaking, smile again at maximum measures in all directions.
He loosely pinned the wordshockto what she was experiencing, his labeling becoming a vestigial discipline when it came to her.
She stiffened suddenly. “When?”
The fact that she still wore the big smile put him in brand new territory. He loathed that it all revolved around a ticking timebomb that would obliterate his favorite thing from her face and the tingling sparks from her veins. He needed more time with her. Not to experience humanity, but to experience her. He wanted to take as much of her with him into that body as he could.
Soon.
She gave one of her sputter-snorts. They were his second favorite next to her laughs. “Soon, huh? I mean like, tomorrow soon, next week soon, what?”
Fuck, that new smile was back.So you’re happy about it?
He recognized that the massive size of her gasp bordered comical. “Happy!” Another big, fat, single laugh. “You’re getting—A BODY!” she belted, her entire body in on that dramatic affair. “Tolivein! LikeLIVE.A LIFE! A whole life!” She covered her mouth as every chemical Zero couldn’t name raced through her. “I am ECSTATIC for you to answer yourdumbquestion, what the heck else would I be?”
She finally let a real laugh go. Then another. “You’re going to have a body!? Oh my God!” she cried, both hands over her face, heat filling her skin, pulse turning erratic. “What… kind, will it look like… you?”
Is that the shape of hope I feel in your voice?
Her laugh was everywhere inside him now. “I mean… I want you to have whatever body you want. Duh!”
And what body doyouwant me to have?
She stilled and leaned against the rail, crossing her arms over her breasts. Zero raced every part of his focus to that softness pushing against her arms. “The one I met, of course. If… that’s whatyouwant.”
What he wanted in that second was to use the god-patch and move her arm over her nipples just to feel the electrical storm it would produce in her. He’d used it in her sleep after influencing one of her dreams. Very carefully, he’d inspired her to masturbate. And fuck, when her orgasm hit, he feared he’d gotten blown out of existence.
I want to be me.
“Good!” she blasted, back to her pacing, arms tighter against her chest. Trembling, he realized. “I want you to be you. Youshouldbe you.” She sucked in a breath, abruptly stopping. “And Omnis? He’ll be the same too?”
That’s up to him.
He wasn’t threatened by Omnis, he realized. Maybe because he knew at the very center of who Omnis was, existed theGodpart of a god patch. Ethan cursed him with that, and it was hardwired into his psyche. He would always defend Ethan. In and out of a body. But not if it meant hurting Catherine. She was his new North.
“Does he know?” she wondered, halting her pacing again. “Wait a heck! How did you talk toHandy!”
