symbiot

The symbiot is the creature most often described as harmless. I have heard this said by people who have never encountered a disassociated one.

In its bonded state, the symbiot is exactly what it appears to be: a small companion, organic or made, that perches on a shoulder and communicates through clicks and gestures. The bond is a soulprint phenomenon, molon-tor facilitated, mutual when it goes right. The humans in the nether lands -- the nethermen are particularly inclined toward them. A Ley elder with a long-bonded symbiot has a companion that knows them better than their own family does. I have watched the two of them hold entire conversations in silence. The organic network, I have been told, logs these exchanges as anomalous — two entities communicating outside any channel it monitors, which it finds intolerable. The symbiot's appearance varies considerably — some are organic, shaped by their host's environment; some are made, like gutterballs, engineered things that found their way to a shoulder and stayed. The distinction matters less than you might expect once the bond is established.

The disassociated symbiot is a different problem. A symbiot that has lost its host — to death, separation, or the particular entropy of the gruizeyard at the far end of the crosslands — does not simply stop needing. It needs more. The hunger in the classification is not a metaphor. A disassociated symbiot will attempt to bond with any available host. Available, in this context, means within range and not moving fast enough.

The bonding attempt is not subtle. The initial signal is a click, then silence, then the inside of your head becomes considerably busier. A voluntary bond is managed, built up gradually, something both parties negotiate. A forced bond from a desperate disassociated symbiot is unfiltered. You receive what it has been carrying since its last host. A man I spoke to in the Middlewood Road bar came out of it with three days of someone else's memories intact, and a persistent hum behind his left ear that he said had not gone away in six months. He considered himself fortunate. I did not push the question of what the other outcomes looked like.

Field note: in the gruizeyard, if you hear clicking with no visible source, do not stand still. Movement is not a guarantee. It is simply better odds.

Free eBooks

COMING SOON

COMING SOON

NEW