Tales from the Night - Midnight Stroll

July 2067. While taking out Mr. Kramers, Lejl's noctiphage pet, for a stroll, Paddy finds reflecting on the latest weird events in her life, including her fateful meeting with a fascinating shoiga. However, her quiet is perturbed when a voice calls her from the dark...

Paddy groaned with barely hidden discomfort. He wasn’t there. For the third night in a row, to boot. Was the meeting spot wrong? No, that couldn’t be the case – fishfolk were creatures of habit, no need to change spot, especially not if you have recurring customers coming to buy their overpriced wares. Maybe he was arrested or ill, but if that was the case a replacement should have been sent. Which left her with a vastly more dreaded hypothesis: that the new CEO of the Fishface Crime Syndicate had reorganized the business. She hoped that wasn’t the case, she really did, but hopes and wishes only did so much. She gave another deep look at the alley, trying to spot any shadow, any silhouette, any living creature. A sudden metallic noise made her startled.

A rat.

A simple rat, strolling through piles of messy rubbish. The rodent stared at her, stared at the pet she was keeping at her leash, before running away in what could only be described as primal fear. The leash pulled her arm, forcing her to grab it with both hands, applying resistance with her feet, as the creature shrieked, baring its fangs at the escaping mammal.

“Sit down, Kramers! Down! Down, I said!”

The noctiphage, though, didn’t seem to want to listen to her pleads – if anything, he pulled even stronger, almost causing her to lose her balance. Paddy gritted her teeth, as she counterbalanced the impetus of the creature, her voice going even louder than before

“I said DOWN! Bad phage! Bad!”

As the rat disappeared into the dark alley, the noctiphage relented a little, sat down on his four. Paddy patted his head, her fingers followed the border of the bioluminescent white bands scattered on his dark skin. She liked noctiphages less than hematos. Their total lack of eyes and their nasty acid glands grossed her out – not as much as the stench of lymatos, but – in fairness – there was little more repulsive than a lymato. Still, at least Mr. Kramers’s glands had been removed when he was little more than a young adult. He was neutered too, before he reached reproductive maturity – which also meant that he never had a chance to secrete that particular hormone that made female phages go wild and rabid during their mating sessions. Which was frankly a shame, as Mr. Kramers looked like an extremely healthy and well-endowed specimen, which would have had many a phage drool over him.

Paddy blushed at that thought. That was the kind of dangerous thinking that brought her to her life-changing predicament. Something she wished she could wipe from her past, and – yet – whose aftereffects were washing her interiors like an oceanic storm did to a ship high at sea. That isn’t the real me, she thought, it was just a phase, I’ve grown out of it! It must be the fault of…

The fault of something she wouldn’t name. And yet, there she was, with the notorious fame of a ravenous, card-carrying phagefucker. She played with her long red braid a little, trying to calm herself down, focused back on the matter at hand. Three days and yet no replacement. Where were mobs, when she needed them? Truly disappointing. She stared at Mr. Kramers, who was simply idling, sniffing the air with nonchalance. He was the easiest justification for going around that decrepit part of the city. Lejl worked night shifts Jackson’s, Cyphr was too tired to bring him out – so, they were more than happy to let her handle the phage’s late evening strolls. Of course, they had to tease her, those fiendish gremlins she called friends.

“Don’t do anything nasty with li’l Kramers, ‘kay? He’s young and uncorrupted!”

Thanks, Lejl, that was a much appreciated jab that nobody ever threw at her before, a very original and brilliant joke, truly the epitome of comedy. Fortunately, even a ditz like Lejl could understand that enough was enough and – after noticing Paddy’s discomfort – she stopped playing around with the allegations. Anyway, she really liked Mr. Kramers – just not in the way her friend joked about. He wasn’t much harder to manage than a dog and had the added benefit of being extremely interesting, from a biologist’s point of view. Examining the behavior and the reactions of a real domesticated phage had been priceless. The most peculiar trait for her was how well Mr. Kramers was adapted to human presence – even without synthetic hormones to trick his well-developed smell receptors. That was something that couldn’t be said for his wild counterparts. At the thought of those red and blue male hematos, Paddy blushed again – the memories of her R-rated exploits pummeling her from all directions, assaulting her senses with sensations long gone. She slapped herself in the face. That had to change, she had to find a way to re-orient her neurons, divert the bloodstream from places it shouldn’t have flown to so easily. She pulled the leash again, moving away from the alley, in the direction of a small park. Sitting on a bench for a while would have calmed her down, for sure. Just what she needed, a bit of fresh air, to forget the disappointment of last night. To think it looked like everything was going so well – that male shoiga was so handsome. Those finely polished scales, that long, thick, slippery tongue that promised every sort of earthly pleasure, those strong hands of him, those luscious pecs covered by small dents. Paddy had looked at him breathless, and breathless was also her first kiss with an alien lizard. Shoigas were everything she could have asked for in a non-human mate – and that one had such a beautiful reddish hue too, something rare that made him even more charming. Before she knew it – maybe also due to the three cocktails she had already gulped down that evening – she had pounced on him, pinned him to the floor, begged him to ravage her right there, right then.

In the middle of Jackson’s.

Under Lejl’s amused gaze.

Causing the owner’s annoyed facepalm, his hat pushed down, almost covering his eyes, with his featureless expression screaming a somber why am I even doing this? Fortunately enough, that misadventure didn’t stop them from enjoying each other’s company for the rest of the night. Until her body failed her, that is. She gritted her teeth in a fit of repressed rage. Xadre had been gentle, treated her like a princess, in the back of his pick-up truck and truly, genuinely did his best to give her a good time. Yet, Paddy’s body wouldn’t follow her lead. Despite his valiant efforts, despite all her arousal, the whole experience felt dull and unsatisfying. She even resorted to fake it, in the end, not wanting him to feel sour about the outcome of their dance. It was no fault of his, of course – it was all due to her… peculiar condition. Something she was bound to fix on that evening if the Fishface dealer was still around. Well, at least she got the phone number of that amazing specimen of a shoiga, as they smoked a joint together after their physical activity, still hugging in their birthday suits. That had been at least a little bit cathartic, as they got to know each other a little bit more. It turned out that Xadre worked in the orchard of a shoiga winemaker that opened shop in New Langdon. A low-income, yet legal and honest job. On her side, she didn’t even need to talk about herself too much. Of course he knew about her phagefucking shtick. Of course the tapes were circulating on EXODUS too. Of frickin’ course. There wasn’t a single adult male shoiga in the whole artificial planetoid that hadn’t watched the video at least once. Yet, Xadre wasn’t one to judge her for that. If anything, he was stoked a human gal even took interest in him. Shoigas were even less accepted than mutants, and having a girl jump on him and kiss him in the open was something he had never expected to happen. She found him extremely sweet and caring, for being so different from her. That experience made her understand her grandaunt Marin and her bouts with those alien lizards much better. A nice smile opened on her face, while thinking about her. Grandaunt Marin had been the only member of her family that didn’t consider her dead after the erotic video debacle. If anything, she had kept supporting her and calling her from time to time. She should have paid her a visit, just to see how she was doing and share their thoughts on the subject of shoiga lovemaking, one day – something she had first hand experience of too – but definitely not while her military nut commander of a son was around.

Her thoughts washed away as she finally got sight of the bench. Empty, well cleaned, something one wouldn’t expect from what essentially was a decrepit park in the city’s very own hinterland. There were a couple lampposts around, one of them flickering irregularly – but not often enough to be annoying. She sat down, allowing Mr. Kramers to curl at her feet, resting on his belly, then she took out her phone. She needed a distraction of sorts, a distraction to divert her thoughts away from the fiasco with Xadre and her body’s demands for something she couldn’t get. She lazily browsed the news, trying to find at least one that picked her interest. Of course, the first few pages were all about the giant plant that emerged in Shard just a couple weeks earlier, the so-called Rekashiza. Interviews, expert testimonies, videos, protests. She quickly glanced at the titles, before muting the word rekashiza altogether and moving on. While she was indeed curious about the origin of such a peculiar organism, it wasn’t connected to phages in any way and didn’t seem to be much of a threat outside of a small area around its emergence spot. She scrolled down, moving to topics that had nothing to do with that nightmarish organism which came out of nowhere. Her mind needed to focus on less intricate matters. Villam Sanderbach’s new conjecture on the origin ROPES (that crackpot, again?), the many controversial sightings of a mysterious ghost ship in the mysterious Sea of Japan (yes, it was indeed a Traveller article), a dual battle concert of pop star I.N.A.B.A. and her rival Nanami scheduled for early October in Euterpe (maybe she could have gone there with Chai or even Xadre?), the tomboyish top-model Myadeline Heargreaves becoming the first neko to be featured on the cover of popular adult magazine Nothing but Skin (she took a mental note of tracking down a physical issue the following day… for research purposes about neko biology, of course). She tried to enlarge the preview of that last one. Nekos were a truly fascinating species. They didn’t have half enough scales to be remotely interesting, but Myadeline Heargreaves’s figure made her weak in the knees every time she caught her on stream. That perfect physique, those many ear piercings, her spiky, long, hazel hair, her magnetic hazel irises, her tongue and navel jewels, that perfectly brushed tail and varnished nails. Old Paddy would have never admitted it, but, if Chai had awakened her bisexuality in ways that were hard to ignore, Myadeline had thrashed down that door completely, leaving it broken beyond repair, causing her to openly wish she had a chance at meeting her in person. Till that moment (that might never had come), her pictures had to suffice. Yet, in the heat of those thoughts, Paddy absentmindedly tapped the wrong icon, causing another photo to pop up instead – that of what looked like an old, crusty ship lying on the beach. Paddy rolled her eyes, groaned at her fat-fingering blunder. The amount of mysterious and controversial in the article body (obviously marked in bold) made it clear what kind of link she had opened by mistake. She could almost hear the voice of Res Vertighel narrating it – something that made her even more exasperated. Before she knew it, her eyes had scanned part of the text, picking up some details here and there. Apparently, the article was about an Italian illegal fishing vessel that went missing two months or so before, found stranded and without anyone on board on the coast of Japan, only to disappear the following day. Since then, blah blah sightings blah blah mystery blah. She knew how those stories went. Nothing of substance, just random conjectures to keep readers from navigating away. That didn’t work for her. She swiped to get back to the previous page and to the picture of Myadeline Heargreaves she was longing for. Except, Traveller’s news site had a last surprise for her, hijacking her swipes and showing a list of other mysteries for you instead. As Paddy groaned, moving her finger on the return arrow again, something caught her attention.

The truth behind the man who speaks with flowers.

She stared silently at the screen for one long second, while keeping Mr. Kramers’s leash in check.

The truth behind the man who speaks with flowers. She didn’t know if she wanted to click on it, not after what Lejl had told her about that night at Jackson’s, about that colleague of hers being killed by flowers blooming from her body. Lejl was well known for exaggerating events and coming up with seven different origin stories for herself (Paddy was somehow convinced she was a failed RealLifeAnime attempt at cloning Amy, who was slated to be the protagonist of a canceled show but still under NDA, or something to that effect), so it was hard to trust her on anything important. She was a perfectly fine gal to hang around with, but believing anything she said required several reality checks. The man who speaks with flowers was one of those stories – a urban legend, as she candidly admitted, that seemed to have become true.

Speak with the flowers,

and they will too

until their heart

will bloom inside you .

That felt like some crackpot mumbo jumbo, especially because it connected the story with the an offshoot of the notorious sand blood flower. First, there was no real evidence of a human blood flower. While the rodent blood flower was – unfortunately – a reality, there had been no known cases of human transmission, even if a species jump was still a possibility. Second, even if such a human blood flower existed, it couldn’t be transmitted airborne. That would have been such a massive departure from its previous growth cycle that it couldn’t be a feasible mutation. Third, even if it was feasible, flowers were simply not equipped to do that. A level of control such as what the parasite plant in the so-called man who speaks with flowers had was simply unbelievable. It was akin to what a cordyceps fungus could do to an ant, forcing the host to talk with other people to transmit the pollen, causing the dormant flower seeds to bloom inside them.

No, that sounded too scientifically unlikely.

She sighed again, closed the tab, trying to get back to the news main page. Only to notice something, squatting near Mr. Kramers. A child, patting his head. She let out a surprised scream, almost fell from the bench.

“Hey! Heyheyheyhey! No, no, no, stop kid! He’s not an automaton! He’s a real…”

“A noctiphage! A real noctiphage!”

She glanced at the kid. Short, maybe twelve, thirteen years old. Short black hair, phone in hand, filming Mr. Kramers.

“I’ve never seen one this close! It’s so cool!”

Paddy stared at him quizzically. Kids should be scared to death by phages, if school curricula are to be believed. Why was this one so comfortable around one? Maybe because of the leash? The looked at her, she could clearly see sparks of excitement in his irises.

“Can he spit acid?”

“N… no, my friends had him deglanded. If they hadn’t, nobody would have allowed them to keep him around!”

As she said that, the kid started patting his head, causing Mr. Kramers to start rubbing his cheek against him, much to his delight. Paddy smiled a little, amused by that unexpected scene, as the child was alternating between filming the nocti and playing with him. Yet, something felt out of place.

“Where are your parents? Isn’t it a bit too late for children your age to stroll around alone?”

“Oh, mom’s close! Look, she’s sitting right there!”

Paddy focused in the direction indicated by the unexpected guest. She could indeed make out a faint silhouette, near the light of a flickering lamppost. She couldn’t distinguish any details, but, without a doubt, there was a person sitting there, on another bench. This gave her some peace, but her senses were still sending her mixed messages. She noticed the kid’s gaze, directed at her, now that the novelty of the nocti’s reactions seemed to be already waning.

“What does he eat? At school, I’ve just learned that they are carnivorous.”

“Noctiphages need quite a lot of meat. He can eat something like three or four whole rats per day, sometimes rabbits too. O… of course, we aren’t buying animals just to slaughter them for him!

Pre-packaged meat is - most of the time - enough, albeit not as tasty for him. But, see, noctiphages are carrion eaters. They are weak compared to hematophages and mostly finish off already dead or dying preys, so there isn’t much difference in providing them with cooked steaks.

Their acid glands are useful to get rid of bones while chewing, but that’s something that Mr.

Kramers here cannot make use of. Still, compared to hematos, noctis have an even more developed hearing and sense of smell, albeit this came at the cost completely losing the use of their eyes, which remain undeveloped. To compensate for this shortcoming, noctis have a distributed array of photosensitive cells placed all over their skin. This layer doesn’t produce a real picture, but at least gives them a rough mapping of their surroundings, based on the direction and intensity of the captured light. While this is handy, it makes it pretty painful for them to stay up under direct sunlight, but at night they are at their most comfortable. According to the seminal work of Zavreski and Holunder…”

She pinched her own lips to stop the exposition. She had gone full-hyper-fixation mode once again, without even realizing it. The child, though, seemed more than interested and decided to sat on the bench, just near her.

“You’re so cool! You know so much about monsters!”

Paddy cracked a tired, uncomfortable smile. She didn’t know at what age kids these days started watching certain kinds of videos, but she hoped – to the bottom of her heart – that at least this one was aware of neither her viral clip on Pornelius nor her best-seller book Haemos did me better. It was always pretty stressful for her to be scorned by their parents, once they noticed their pests interacting with her and recognizing her as that phagefucking corruptress.

“I wish my dad did too, but he’s so so busy.”

Oh, good, the child switched topic, causing her to draw a deep breath. She accepted the assist, used it to move farther away from her phage-shaped woes.

“What’s his job?”

“He’s a policeman! This morning he even showed me his precinct! Unfortunately, something bad happened, so I needed to go back home…”

As he said that, the kid pulled out his phone again, pointed it at Mr. Kramers, then smiled at Paddy.

“I want to film a horror movie and I didn’t know how to get a monster! But he’s perfect! Can I film him a bit longer? Please? I’ll show the clips only to my friends! Pretty please!”

Paddy stared at the small mass of excitement playing with his phone. She was relieved she had left Chocolat sleeping at home. She didn’t want her small, treasured pet to become the selling point of a primary school video – but an adult, fully formed creature was another story.

“Sure! But be gentle to Mr. Kramers! He’s a well educated noctiphage!”

“Thank you very much, Ms…?”

“P… Patricia. You can call me Patricia. And you? What’s your name?”

Using her full name was a tactics she didn’t use often, but since most of the people knew her as Paddy O’Rilley, going by Patricia – which was technically not a lie – has sometimes helped avoiding the weight of her own identity. To think she hated being called like that…

“Lann! My name’s Lann!”

The lampposts flickered, all of a sudden. Darkness fell for a long second, before light expanded its domain again. Paddy jolted, pulled Mr. Kramers’s leash instinctively. The kid, though, seemed completely unfazed.

“I can’t wait to show these pictures to dad, once he comes back form duty! I’m sure he’ll manage to arrest” a garbled, screeching noise covering the words of the kid, as if someone scratched chalks on a whiteboard “this time!”

All lights flickered again. Two, three times. Mr. Kramers shrieked, pulling the leash stronger and stronger. Paddy almost fell from the bench, landed badly on her knees, hugged the noctiphage, patted on his head.

“No, no, no, Krammi! It’s fine, everything’s fine! Just a short blackout, see? Nothing serious, Krammi, hush! Listen to aunt Paddy, yes? Good boy! Good. Now, please, gentle. Like this, yes!

Good.”

The lights went on again, the flickering gone from all except one of the lampposts. Paddy suddenly realized that, in the confusion, she used her own name – not Patricia, Paddy – when talking to Mr. Kramers. She cursed under her breath, looked up to meet Lann’s eyes, hoping he didn’t notice anything.

But nobody was there.

Puzzled, she looked left, right, up, down, all around. The kid was nowhere to be found. She turned towards the bench where his mother was sitting.

Yet, nobody was there either.

She gulped, feeling completely lost, stared at Mr. Kramers. The noctiphage was silent, quiet. Too quiet. Only then she noticed it. The small, metallic badge looking at her from the asphalt, left among his paws. She picked it up, examined it in the now steady lamplight. It was a badge.

A police badge.

From...

A shiver ran down her spine, as her hands opened, her fingers refused the touch of the cold metal, letting the badge fall, bounce on the ground, roll for a few seconds before flattening down, under the bench.

“How…?”

Paddy hastily pulled Mr. Kramers’s leash, left the bench behind her, her gaze jumping around, eager to find traces of the kid, of his mother, of any proof they had been there in the first place.

Nothing. She felt uneasy, startled. Was that too an effect of her lack of… no, not a chance. But what if…?

She instinctively looked for the fallen badge, but darkness had chewed her domain, cutting her vision, limiting her search prospects. Still, after a little struggle, she managed to shine her pocket flashlight on the spot she intended to inspect. Yet, no badge in sight. Where she thought she had dropped it, she noticed instead something different.

A violet chrysanthemum, peeking out of the cracks in the asphalt. As her fingers almost touched it, touched its petals, she heard it.

Laughter.

A kid’s laughter.

She stood up immediately, almost hitting the bench with her nape, pulled Mr. Kramers to her, started walking backwards, without looking away, then turned, picking up the pace, faster, faster, faster. She had to get herself fixed, yes, there was no doubt about it. That had to have been a hallucination, that had to be an effect of her lack of… that. She took a mental note of going back the day after, with the favor of light, to clear her thoughts and look for the badge in more favorable conditions.

No way, she thought, she read it correctly. No way.

No way that badge really came from Northern Algol.