"How are you so weird? How?" Amelia gently combed my hair with her fingers while her other hand dabbed away my tar-tears with a tissue. "Nothing like that ever happened to me!"

That didn't sound right to me.

"Nothing? Ever? How come? You had to have run into the code at some point. I mean, you managed to bridge the cybernetic-human gap, right? Made the cybernetics actually usable? Programmed the packages and everything?"

"Erm… the packages thing? I'll be honest, that was… mostly my father. Well, my mother, actually. It was her final contribution to my father's research before… well… and it took years for my father and me to understand everything she'd left behind to the point where we could use it. Even then… we've been limited to the eldritch life forms she studied and worked on back then. Sure, I trimmed things, modernized them a little, improved them in some minor ways. But it was all built off a framework she put together."

I hummed, narrowing my eyes at her. It sort of made sense. Still, considering the stark oddness I'd just gone through, I had a hard time believing she had never experienced a single odd thing while working on the cybernetics.

"And nothing weird ever happened? Ever?"

"Well…" She hesitated, but words eventually tumbled out of her. "I'd feel weird and loopy after working on the cybernetics sometimes, and I… lost stretches of time. Often. I'd just go to work, blink, and find myself at my work station hours later, a whole lot of code already compiled and ready for use. I… don't actually remember working on the cybernetics' code directly. Not — not even once."

"That didn't qualify as 'weird' the first time I asked?" I demanded woodenly, my mind racing through several less than ideal scenarios.

Was she okay? Was she eventually going to keel over, pass out, and never wake up again? What the fuck had working on the things done to her, and were there long-term side effects?

I hissed in pain as she slapped her hand down on my forehead.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"I can see your brain running at a thousand kilometers per second, so stop that. I'm fine. I learned how to cope. My father forced me to work on the shit, sure, but I hardly spent all my time getting my brain fucked with by the cybernetics. It was a very small, very rare part of my schedule. I mostly worked as a ripper and his assistant. And on engineering, design, and production for a bunch of mundane, non-eldritch cybernetics. Promise."

"Fine… but for the record, I'm still worried."

"And I'm still worried about the shadow on that scroll you keep lugging around, so what of it?"

That was kind of fair, to be honest. I told her as much. She was not amused, but neither did she press.

"So… what now?" she asked. "You have access to the weird eldritch code, but it's not like you can use it."

"Ummm… Well, I guess I should level up my skill first. I'll take it from there depending on the results. Don't freak out no matter what happens while I'm upgrading?"

"That sounds like you're expecting weird shit that will make me want to freak out."

"I maybe kinda sorts am? I disguised it as part of the whole experiment fallout last time I triggered a level-up. But there was a lot of bleeding tar, twitching, and the whole… 'fraying at the edges' thing, you know?"

"No, I don't 'know.'"

"Well, you might learn about it soon-ish. I really hope it's not as bad for you."

I made myself a little more comfortable, already worrying about how I was probably going to get tar all over her and the cozy couch we liked to share. I so didn't feel like getting up, though.

"Ready?"

"No."

"Perfect. Here I go, then!"

I brought up the Programming level-up offer again and hit that 'yes' button.

The effect was as instant as it was uncomfortable.

My entire body locked up. No, that wasn't quite right. My entire being — body, mind, whatever metaphysical aspects like souls and such I had… it all froze.

Then reality was torn asunder, and an eye peeked at me from beyond infinity.

Reality transformed into a fractal of understanding and ignorance, collapsing ever inwards to the dirge of a billion billion mouths all screaming out in maddened agony. Human minds, crushed underfoot and reduced to records of past brilliance, all whispered to me from amidst the screams.

Secrets long forgotten, banal knowledge that modern programmers barely even paid attention to, and languages from beyond the pale all mingled into one singular mass. It seeped into my brain through my ears, contaminating, spreading, impressing itself onto me as indelibly as my childhood trauma had.

At the same time, subtleties spun through my mind, linking up all the new knowledge that was turning my brain into a badly mixed smoothie. I understood what it meant to approach programming properly, how better to spot inconsistencies and errors, and even how to optimize my code to run a little better on whatever software had to support it.

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Small things, really. Things you'd be able to pick up through long years of practice. Yet here I was, getting it all ahead of time and at no price at all.

Beyond, of course, having my mind irreparably affected by what my memories were revealing to me.

And they were memories, I realized quite suddenly and with startling clarity.

Memories I should have had already. Memories that stretched so far beyond what I was glimpsing now, that the extent of the knowledge they wished to impart on me dwarfed the collective knowledge of all humanity, even scattered amongst the stars as we were.

Knowledge I should have been privy to when a shadow latched onto my face with its spindly fingers, inside a crumbling shard purchased at a black market. Knowledge left behind in that moment, hidden, like a shameful secret…

I gasped back to awareness. Curling into a ball, I wrapped my arms around myself and fought the urge to throw up. I could feel the taste of tar on the back of my tongue. I knew that if I did throw up, it would reveal that my stomach was full of the stuff. That almost made it rise up my throat again, but I strangled the impulse in its crib.

Slowly, the memories of the greater knowledge-infinity faded away, replaced by my reality rooted in the physical and the mundane.

I realized then and there why shadows preferred the netspace so much. It was much more aligned with their nature. If I had to drag around a head full of infinitely branching data that seemed to cover everything down to its last detail, or at least as close to 'everything' as The Ravening Observer could get, then I'd be loopy and unresponsive in the real too, whether I knew how to handle myself in it or not.

"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay," Amelia whispered gently, her hands desperately gliding over my clammy skin. "You'll be okay."

"T-Thanks," I managed to get out between chattering teeth.

"Don't fucking thank me, you idiot. You're doing this for me."

Her voice choked, and I glanced at Amelia's face for the first time since triggering the level-up. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Sobs tugged at her chest, wanting to be set free, but she stoically took it all.

"Amelia… no," I whispered, feeling a twinge of shame. "I'll be honest, whether you're here or not, I would have done it. I… I need it. I want it. I don't want to be a defenseless, idiotic little street rat. I was always going to chase after the knowledge the package can offer me. You're just extra motivation to stay… myself, while I do it."

I wanted to sound extra cheesy saying that, but the words just came out perfectly sincere. She bit her lower lip until I was worried she'd draw blood, but then she gave me a very determined nod.

"Okay… Okay. Did it at least help?" she demanded at long last, which made me smile.

It was an unhinged, toothy smile, in spite of the fact that my pearly whites were somewhat stained black.

"Yeah, it helped. I'm not suddenly completely proficient with programming or anything, but it really shored up a ton of my weaknesses. Plus, I got some insight into the, ehh, unique programming of these cybernetics of ours," I drawled, eyeing her green fingers.

For just a moment, that spiral of knowledge flashed through my mind again. A title, a name, hooked its claws into my mind. It stubbornly refused to let go, even when the rest of the incomprehensible horror of far too much insight faded away into… something less than a vague recollection. A suppressed, barely existent potential, perhaps? Something that could only ever be dragged to the surface by further skill level-up fuckery.

At least I now knew exactly why I hadn't turned into a shadow. The process had definitely started. It had just gotten derailed by the strict defenses and limitations placed on my package. Funny that such a thing could save my sanity, especially since I technically owed my thanks to Amelia's father.

It was also kind of scary that shadows did what they did through the simple act of transferring knowledge into their victims….

But, I was just distracting myself. Instead of indulging further in that pointless activity, I picked up the scroll with the app linking Amelia to her cybernetics, and once more dove into it. This time, when that same alien code popped up, I didn't freak out.

It was still hurting me. It was still overwhelming. But I could muster just enough will to tap into my Assault skill, forcing it to exert the influence I yearned for onto the pulsing, fleshy code that was desperate to incorporate me into itself. To spread its influence and twist me into something new, and exciting, and wholly inhuman.

A work of art in the sublime form of flesh and blood and sinew.

The work of The Consuming Mender, She Who Makes Whole.

Even just thinking the words sent a shiver of something racing up my spine. A feeling of slimy, exposed muscles and oddly smooth skin brushing against me kissed my mind like a phantom. I resolved never to say the words in the real, and then double swore I'd never do so in the real using shadow-speak.

I had no idea what would happen if I did. But every instinct I had, human or eldritch, screamed at me that I would regret it.

It was funny, then, that another name and title now called to me with a protective fondness. It was a name and title I'd already heard before, and which had further crystalized themselves in my mind.

The Ravening Observer, He Who Witnesses All, whispered sweet nothings in my ears. He guided my hand as I acknowledged his distant existence through the small, barely noticeable alteration of the code that bridged the gap between Amelia and her cybernetics.

The scroll in my hands pinged with a notification concerning the imminent installation of Amelia's package.

My stolen lab assistant gasped. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment. Then she collapsed against the couch, going completely boneless as her eyes rolled tempestuously under her eyelids.

I stiffened when her fingers suddenly began to change. They morphed into clamps, some odd spoon-like instruments, scalpels that were perilously close to my skin, and finally back to regular fingers.

Amelia also chose that moment to gasp awake, breathing heavily. The sweat that now clung to her did funny things to her clothes, but I was a bit too wrung-out to appreciate that properly at the moment.

"Rather traumatizing, isn't it?" I said quietly, making her eyes focus on me rather than some far-off whatever. "And yet I keep doing it to myself."

She scoffed, but her eyes softened as she put her hand back onto my forehead, pushing away sweat-soaked strands of my hair. We were both kind of a mess.

"Yeah, well…" She sighed. "If what you got so far is half as useful as the stuff I got…"

"Yeah, I know. It's not easy to give up on those sweet, sweet eldritch power-ups, huh?"

"Not at all." She looked incredibly sad as she said that. "I mean… I had these odd feelings. While operating on people. Kind of like intuition? They always guided me through. Let me do a better job. Now, I suddenly understand them and… I haven't unlocked a ton of stuff. But the knowledge and instincts I got are way too valuable to give up. I'm just happy I had a few points of Essence backing me up before I unlocked my package."

I grimaced, refusing to think about my own level of readiness back when I'd unlocked my package. It hadn't exactly been the ideal process, if I was being honest. I mean, I wasn't bitter about it, but… Amelia didn't have to bleed tar all over the place!

Then again, I had a ton of Essence compared to the first time I partook of the eldritch knowledge, and I was still almost throwing up tar.

Higher levels require even more Essence to withstand them? I wondered, before deciding that I didn't care for the moment.

I had my Medic now. Her package was unlocked. That meant my excuse to keep her from accompanying me was gone.

I just knew she'd force the issue of the equipment acquisition trip sooner rather than later.

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