NetherWorld by Daniel Pagan (each kindness read aloud .TXT) 📕

he still had command of his wrestling moves. After a brief struggle, the Guards secured Lumpy and began to escort him out of the Stadium.
“Lumpy, you know the rules. After what you did, you can never come back. Show your Blue tubes here again and we will batch you up for the Shredder,” warned one of the Blue Guards.
Lumpy screamed at Nick and Whizzy while struggling to get free. “I’ll get you two. You can’t hide from me. Just wait!” Soon the Guards moved Lumpy of sight.
“Lumpy must complete mission. Must eliminate wotten Byte and weport to NazKlan. Release Lumpy or you be sowwy. Must catch the wotten ones.” Lumpy prattled on in his impeded fashion as the Guards dragged the retired wrestler out of sight.
Nick turned to Whizzy. “Okay. Where do we go?”
“We need to find the Randoms to score some purified Taint.”
“Whatever you say Whizzy. Lead on.”
With that, the duo took a left the stadium and walked toward the HateAsh.

Chapter 12
Touched By Taint

Book of TranFor:

AldAyn saw the beginning and one possible end. Only those in the Ether, a place neither here nor there, can see all possibles.

In the early cycles, a sudden and persistent rain developed over the Silver Forest. The Silicates had never experienced anything like it before. Eventually, the rain made its way from the forest into the streams that fed the metropolis. Once clear jaba streams turned lime green, frothing vile deposits along the shore line. NetherWorld had no natural defenses for such an attack. The monsoon continued for endless cycles, eventually moderating to a steady drizzle. Still, the Silicates found no way to prevent this most unwelcome precipitation.
The rains gave rise to a milky mist along the outer reaches of forest. This mist, called the Ether, fascinated Bytes at first. Many set off to explore this new phenomenon. Sadly, none of them ever returned. The Ether kept all that crossed into the mist. Unspeakable acts were obscured by the thick fog. Unintelligible babble leaked out into the Forest. Cries of madness deterred adventurous Bytes from going near the Ether.
No one could explain these strange events. The Servers commissioned some the best minds in the Nether metropolis to investigate both the forest and the fog. Every one of the investigators disappeared into forest, never to be heard from again. The Silver Forest was a key link in the ecological chain of NetherWorld. The health of the forest was critical for Silicates.
After losing a few valuable Bytes to the Ether, the Servers sent members of the elite Blue Guard to investigate. They too succumbed to the milky mist. In the end, the Servers decided to stay away from the Forest altogether. Instead, they concentrated on filtering the polluted jaba streams. AldAyn, the most clever of Bytes, was assigned this activity. He tested the jaba for every known virus. He found thousands of strains in the liquid. The confluence of these strains produced a powerful pollutant he called “Taint”. The more taint in the streams, the more toxic the Jaba.
AldAyn performed a variety of experiments, some on himself, to determine how these viruses affected the Silicate body. A few of these unsanctioned experiments brought him to the brink of deletion. A few times AldAyn woke in far away sectors with no memory of how he got there. Most observers thought him a mad scientist and dismissed his behavior altogether. Besides, there was a larger concern within the Walled City.
Rumors circulated about tainted creatures lurking in the forest. The Ether mist trapped them in the deepest recesses of the forest. Observers from the city spoke of lime green globes with pulsating orange tubes spinning through the trees. AldAyn spied on these creatures from a safe distance in the neighboring field. They called themselves the “Tainted Ones”. Their voice and speech were unlike any he had heard before.
Over time, some of the Tainted Ones began to leave the Forest. During downtime, they captured Bytes from the Walled City and brought them back to the Ether. The Tainted Ones were creatures of darkness and shadow. They rarely surfaced during the day. The Boot was their signal to retire until the dimming returned. It was said that the Tainted Ones could “turn” a normal Byte into one of them by forcing them to ingest the viral jaba.
Tainted Ones travelled in small circles, called orbits. They followed stray Bytes and then surround them. After ripping out their tubes and sucking the data dry, they poured the vile poison into the helpless Bytes. Any code the Byte carried became corrupt. Within a Boot, they transformed from a healthy blue hue to the vomit green color of the Tainted. Glowing orange serpents emerged from the follicles once filled with their healthy tubes. Their minds rotted and their speech developed into a helium hiss
As the population of these creatures grew, the Servers added extra security to the entrance of the Walled City to protect against abductions.
In a very short span, the Tainted Ones infested all of the synthetic woodlands. Diseased creatures roaming the forest and fields caused grave concern within the Walled City. Swarms of Tainted Ones approached the Walled City in the twilight before downtime. Despite their best efforts, a few Tainted Ones always slipped into the metropolis.

Camouflaged in a nearby field, AldAyn studied the creatures. After a few Boots, the Tainted Ones felt his presence. They knew of the observer who lies in grasses. He would not escape the Tainted Ones. One day, a small orbit of Tainted globes surrounded AldAyn and brought him into the Ether.
“Please. Let me go! I am only here to observe. I mean you no harm,” AldAyn pleaded. He could barely see his claw in the thick milky fog. A pervasive odor best compared to rotting fish trapped in a trash bin for days, assaulted his sense of smell. He turned left and walked a few paces. Unable to find his way out he tried the opposite direction with the same result.
Childish laughter echoed on the band of Ether, causing AldAyn to search for the source.
“Hello? Anybody out there? How do I get out of her?” he asked. More childish giggles ensued.
“Look. What are you going to do to me? Make me a greenie like the rest of the Tainted. Just make it fast. I prefer not to suffer.”
“Oh, but you will Suffer. You have stepped where only shadows walk. Pain be your penance. We have you here in the nowhere,” answered a hissing voice, sending a chill though his entire sphere. Whispering chatter came from every direction. He saw shadows. Hundreds of them. They flew above and around him whispering incoherent, but scary language. One shadow flew right through him. He could feel it move through his ribs, past his heart, and out through his back. This was too much for him.
“This one is not like the others. Something different. Can you tasty the difference?” said a shadowed voice not far from AldAyn.
“Yes. Yes. His code has the mark. This is one we must perform the download,” agreed a different shadow.
“Then it’s agreed. Download we must for this one,” said a third shadow nearby.
Panic sent AldAyn spinning wildly in a desperate attempt to flee to serpentine whisper. No matter how fast he moved, the whispers followed. Shadows continued to fly through him as he ran. Each time it produced that unpleasant sensation of another being in his body.
“You really think you can escape us AldAyn. We are of the mist. Spin for us AldAyn. Spin.” ordered the invisible voice. Shadows surrounded him and begin spinning the terrified Byte.
“Stop! Please! Stop this!” pleaded AldAyn; his clawed hands waived around trying to stop the shadows.
AldAyn continued to plead for mercy and the shadows spun him even faster. Mist began to coalesce into a tube. Closer and closer the tube moved to his mouth. There was no way to stop it.
The spinning stopped. Disoriented, AldAyn was losing consciousness. Everything was mist and whispers. His visor was so blurry he could not make out the shadows around him.
“See. That’s better. We are the shadows. Now, tasty our Taint!” A milky liquid flowed from the tube into his all of his tubes. That was the last thing AldAyn remembered before blacking out.

Waking up just outside the band of Ether, AldAyn found himself back in the Silver Forest. From here he could easily find his way back to the Nether metropolis. Standing up on his plunger-like legs, he wobbled quite a bit, nearly falling back to the ground. Something did not feel right.
Finally regaining his equilibrium, AldAyn felt flushed, like blood was flowing double time throughout his sphere. Looking down, he noticed that he was now lime green instead of the robust blue hue he had before the Ether attacked.
“What is going on here? I must be infected like the rest of them,” he said aloud to no one in particular.
Looking around to see if any tainted creatures were lurking about, AldAyn found the path was clear. He trundled through the swampy muck towards the walled city. After a while, he became quite dizzy and settled down under a copse of rotting trees to collect himself.
The flushed feeling became more intense, causing AldAyn to lose consciousness. During this time, he succumbed to the visions. It is said he suffered sensual symbiosis. Smells appeared as sights. Sounds contain unusual odors. Sights, he heard from every corner of the forest. It was an out of Byte experience.
Strange voices spoke to him in tongues he had never learned, but somehow understood. They talked and talked for what seemed like days. They spoke of things to come, some of them good and some of them very disturbing. His head was spinning, while his body was inert. As this episode transpired, AldAyn’s globe began to glow in the dark forest.
After absorbing all the words and visions, he heard a final word whispered to him, “Awake.”

The Servers became concerned when AldAyn did not report back about the Silver Forest. More and more Tainted orbits entered the Towers that lie beyond the Nethers. Many towers fell. They could not muster a viable defense. They sent numerous Bytes to check on him. None of them made it back.
When AldAyn awoke from this episode, he knew his purpose. He was visited by the Awakened. There was much work to be done. He raced his glowing green sphere back to the walled city to tell the Servers about the Awakened Ones. When he reached the moat, the guards would not grant him passage.
“We are sorry AldAyn, but you are infected. You now pose a danger to the Bytes of our city. We should delete you, but the Servers instructed us to banish you to forest