Chapter 41 - The Grafted

“What do you mean?” Syahos asked. The image of Kayla that had appeared was disheveled and terrified.

“There’s a grafted here!” she cried, the image of her cowering with her hands over her head, “It’s ... oh god, it’s tearing up the security guards!”

Syahos’ fur stood on end, all across their whole body, and they felt a whine building in their throat. They looked up at their displaced self.

“Did you know about this?”

“As much as you do now,” they replied.

“A grafted?” Syahos asked, breathlessly. They began pacing, panicking, “What do we do?!”

“Well, you’re going to go back and become me, and I get to figure out the grafted problem,” the displaced Syahos replied, trying to calm themselves down. “We can’t panic!”

“Lucky you,” Syahos muttered, then thought about it more, “Or I guess ... lucky me. This is complicated,” they focused on the cockpit, and pictured the time that they first saw themselves standing there and they blinked.

The displaced Syahos watched as their past-self disappeared.

“And I don’t think it’s going to simplify anytime soon,” they muttered. They called Kayla back.

“Syahos?! We need help!”

“Is Craig with you?” they asked.

“Yes!”

“OK, head for the exit and when you get out, go to the teleport park,” Syahos instructed, “I’ll get the ITSTU moved there, I promise! I’ll call you back as soon as I can!” She looked desperately at them for a moment before nodding and ending the call. Syahos called the Vancouver teleport park and waited for an available attendant. They would need to know exactly where to teleport before attempting it, blind as they were.

Craig leaned with his back to the bar while Kayla peered over the bar. His heart was racing a mile a minute.

“You see her handle that shit back there?” Marcus asked, awestruck, “Fuck, did we know she was such a bad-ass?”

“Not the time, “ Craig replied, though he had to agree. He’d never seen Kayla move like that before. It had fanned that something that had been sparked on the dance floor last week.

“It’s moving further into the casino,” Kayla whispered after a moment, “Seems to be heading the same direction we need to, but if we’re quiet, we can creep along behind it and maybe get around it.”

A few moments passed with Kayla holding a hand in the air, then motioned forward, crouch-walking out of the bar area along a row of slot machines, keeping low and the line of sight blocked as much as possible. Craig held his breath and peered over the bar. Everywhere he looked gamblers were stuffing themselves under tables, crawling behind slots. In the distance, people fortunate enough to be outside the proximity ran for their lives. Most of the security had all but abandoned the goal of containing the monster after more of them had been pulled into the the abomination.

The grafted was growing. Anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path was sucked into its mass to join the writhing, suffocating collection of individuals horribly fighting for dominance or escape. It had consumed at least three humans, the four passaro security guards, and the giant kaiseichan bouncer from the Fortune. Craig watched helplessly as it slapped a mass of arms and and wings against a slot machine and pull itself into gambling station where it found an unfortunate human. She screamed and tried to cram herself under a card table, only to be pulled kicking and fighting by a tree limb from which passaro talons extended. Craig shuddered as her face warped and melted, becoming lost in the larger mass. This was going to haunt his nightmares forever.