Point Zero by Aer-ki Jyr (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

which were both Jumat abilities used in conjunction with another, and only with another, and she hated losing those most of all.

But in the end the survivalist skills of the other psionics were more important to her dueling capability than her battlemeld skills. The coordination of it she’d keep, but all the other boosts that went with it she was getting rid of to make room for the upgraded Furyan Jumat tissue that she was not going sacrifice in the downgrade…rather it was going to pile up to even greater concentration in her smaller body.

All her new abilities she was keeping, including the curious foot pads that she and 6 of the others had developed. They were a buildup of cells on the soles of their feet, but they didn’t seem to do anything. They weren’t too good for abrasion, and were located just beneath the skin, making her foot strikes even more unnatural when running and doing agility work. Without knowing why they were there she didn’t want to remove them, but so far no one had a clue what they were for, just that the genetic coding in it was screwy and not fully capable of being mapped out.

Shrinking it wasn’t going to be a problem, for that part had already been deciphered, but it still bugged her that a lot of her body had unknown factors in it…not stuff that might pop up in the future, but stuff that was here now and nobody knew why.

So this wasn’t just a gamble in terms of size reduction, for what if she needed the larger body for something else that was unknown.

The door finally opened and Wilson walked in along with a quartet of medtechs, one of which was carrying a vial of liquid and another an armband.

“About time,” Morgan chastised them.

“Needed one small modification,” Wilson said, taking the vial from the medtech and handing it to Morgan. “Drink up, Alice.”

Morgan looked at the small tag attached that simply read, ‘DRINK ME’ on it.

Rather than laugh or frown, Morgan actual shed a couple tears recognizing the reference and realizing this was the moment.

“I changed my mind,” she said, looking up at Wilson. “Keep me unconscious until it’s over.”

He nodded, then put a hand on her large shoulder. “This is right for you.”

“Let’s get it over with,” she said, popping the plug in the vial off then tipping it up and drinking all of the nearly liter-sized tube of murky liquid in one long draw, using her Lachka to swipe out the last few drops inside at the end, then she tossed it onto the floor and laid back face up on the bed as one of the medtechs came up and put the linkage armband on her that would allow the supersized Regenerator located in the wall direct physical access to her.

It would both remove excess material as it was peeled off and dumped into her blood and lymph stream for excretion, as well as provide the necessary molecules for the new growth that had to be added to stitch together parts where things would be removed or to strengthen smaller parts that now had to pull more of a load.

The machine made the connection instantly, but when the medtechs told it to render her unconscious warning lights popped up, drawing Wilson’s attention.

“Your newfound powers are resisting the mental intervention,” he said, glancing down at her as he kept his hand on her shoulder, and would until she was thoroughly out. “You’re going to have to lower your internal shields and let it do what it needs to.”

Morgan blew out a breath, closing her eyes and committing to this no matter what happened. She wasn’t going to live as a giant and have smaller opponents dance around her in combat because her reflexes were dulled by the extra mass.

Slowly she let herself become vulnerable, with all the stuff in her head spilling out into her conscious mind that she’d kept bottled up. More tears followed, but she didn’t care. She was the Master Chief now, and his mission wasn’t to do anything…just survive.

The medtechs were going to take far better care of her than his augmentation butchers had, so it was just a matter of surrendering to the change that would lead her to where she wanted to be. She didn’t have to put any effort into it, just pass time.

Morgan felt her mind slipping and didn’t fight it. She became stressed in the head, then her vision of it eclipsed and her senses cut out almost entirely.

“She’s not going all the way under,” one of the medtechs said a few minutes later, “but she’s close.”

“Give it time,” Wilson urged, monitoring her as well through his physical connection. “Dropping her defenses isn’t natural.”

“We can keep her at this level throughout, it’s just not optimal.”

“Patience,” Wilson reminded them, sensing an unraveling inside her very diminished mind. She was fighting this, but she was winning…he could feel it…and after a few more minutes she let go completely, and the Regenerator was able to assert full control over her body and keep her unaware of what was happening as the liquid she drank spread throughout her organic tissue.

“We’re in now,” the medtech confirmed, and Wilson finally let go of her shoulder and pulled out a chair from a wall compartment, having it unfold next to the head of her bed. “This is going to take days.”

“I know,” he said, sitting down and just staring at her. “I’m going to stay until the transformation starts.”

“It already is,” the medtech said as her cells began uploading the new genetic instructions in the liquid, bonding to each cell and creating a temporary addition to the chromosomes that would coordinate the size reduction that was not called for via training or any other natural effect. “She’s the first Archon, isn’t