Are You Even Human

59. The Nature of Divine Love

Blossom asks."Nope," I confirm.

Blossom continues.

"Yep."

"Which stole. You just stood around and gawked at everything," I correct.

"Gawked!" Blossom repeats, apparently liking the sound of that word. She'll eventually have to learn the boring ones, but I suppose this will do for now.

"Yes, gawked," I nod.

I sigh, glancing up at the nearby houses to check their addresses. We had to walk all the way here from the library, and we're probably still a block away.

"Human culture has many laws and rules, and an entire social class dedicated entirely to enforcing those rules," I begin.

"…Yeah, basically," I concede. "No one can agree on what the laws be, and some people ignore laws they agree with for various reasons as well, and so there's a need to ensure people are obeying them as much as possible just for the sake of a consistent, functional society. Most of our civilization is based on mutual agreement, so we need those agreements to be enforced. If necessary, this is done through violence."

"You're not wrong, but it's more complicated than that," I say. "Anyway, we stole a lot of cash and we're going to use that cash to buy a car because otherwise, the car we take will be reported as stolen, and we'll be much more likely to be stopped by law enforcement. Which… would be bad."

Blossom assumes incorrectly.

"Because again, the entire point of stealing the cash is that cash is difficult to trace," I explain. "With the way I took the cash, it will be extremely difficult to link it to us. Whereas if we steal an entire van, we can't hide it because we need to use it. They'll find us for sure. So we buy the van, and then they won't be looking for it because we'll have done nothing wrong in acquiring it."

"Right, except for that. But they can't prove that, so it's fine."

Which is why we needed to go to the library; I needed internet access to find the closest person privately selling a vehicle large enough to carry Maria. So ideally, either a pickup truck or a van. Thankfully, we found the latter. Much easier to hide her in. For a pickup truck we'd need like… a huge blanket or something? It would have been a mess.

…Not that we're likely to drive all the way into the middle of alien-controlled territory and extract a Demon without being noticed but hey. Expect the worst, prepare for the best. Or something like that.

Blossom hums.

"Wow. And here I thought nothing could curb your enthusiasm for crime," I say flatly.

"Fair enough, I guess," I say. "Looks like this is the place. That's the van from the picture."

It's not a remarkable van, and it's not a remarkable house. Single-story, lower-middle-class neighborhood, somewhat scraggly lawn. The porch practically 'our doorbell doesn't work.' The van we're looking to buy is parked on the street next to the sidewalk, painted white and unmarked other than a bend in the front bumper that most likely means whatever accident the vehicle got into was the owner's fault.

Fortunately, I don't care much about the owner the van's condition beyond whether or not it'll drive all the way to Georgia, and a bent bumper probably doesn't mean too much is wrong. I head up onto the porch, press the doorbell to absolutely no response (called it), and then knock. A middle-aged man answers the door, and overall he seems just as eager to take my cash and kick me out as I am eager to take his van and leave. All in all, a perfectly functional interaction, and by the end of it I have the keys and title to a vehicle. I hop inside, directing Blossom to the passenger seat, and sit down on the driver's side.

So. Now for the one somewhat noteworthy flaw with this plan.

Blossom asks.

"I don't know how to drive," I answer.

"I don't know how to drive," I repeat. "I've never done it before."

"Well I think… I I should just be able to use a brain that knows how to drive?" I say hesitantly. "I'm kind of banking on being able to figure it all out."

Blossom asks.

"Yeah, but we can't really die?" I say, sticking the keys into the ignition and trusting Lia's instincts on how to twist them. "So it's fine, probably."

I step on one of the pedals, the van lurching forwards. Alright. That's gas. The other one is the brakes, I guess. Why does my left foot keep trying to avoid resting on the brake? Shouldn't I have one foot on each pedal?

"We'll be fine," I insist, and the vehicle chugs forward. "Let's go to Georgia."

We can go a little slow until I get a handle on things. It's not like there's a road speed. Most of the time. I think? I'll figure it out.

Blossom says.

"I'll be careful," I promise. "I'm figuring it out."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumble. Oh, shit, that was a stop sign. Probably supposed to stop for those. Next time for sure. "You have the atlas we got from the library, right? Time for a crash course on human road systems. Open it up and follow my instructions."

I grow some extra eyes so I can watch her leaf through the road maps without looking away from the actual road, the two of us slowly figuring out our route as I settle into my borrowed driving instincts. It's kind of weird; the I think about it, the better I seem to be. If I start actually trying to drive well, I have no idea what I'm doing, but if I'm distracted, I'll start responding to things like red lights entirely on instinct, without even fully realizing what I'm doing. I don't like it, but I have to go for what works over what I like right now.

We can't risk getting pulled over, after all. Neither of us have ID, so we'd have no choice but to incapacitate the cop and drive away before anyone notices. Which… probably wouldn't even work.

"Julietta worry much," Blossom hums.

"'Julietta, you worry too much,'" I correct for her.

"Why?"

"That's just the correct way to say it," I answer.

"Why?"

"Because the rules of grammar structure dictate that specific words must be used in specific ways in order to be clear about what your sentence means," I tell her. "Saying 'Julietta worries too much' and 'Julietta, you worry too much,' are different, because in one you're speaking generally but in the other you're speaking specifically to me."

Blossom asks.

"Well, yes, it didn't cause any confusion or anything, but it's still a good idea to use correct grammar most of the time."

"Why?"

I sigh, turning onto the highway. This is going to be a long drive. I think the trip is going to be about eight hours, in fact. Hopefully we won't need to get gas. I don't really know how to do that either. I'm sure I could figure it out, but… ugh. I'm definitely going to need to.

"Say," Blossom reminds me.

"Thinking about needing to buy gas," I say. "The pumps don't accept cash, so I'll have to pay inside… it'll be weird. Doable, though."

"Where stop?" Blossom asks.

"You want to plan our stops?" I hum. "I dunno. Any relatively large town along the way will do."

"Food."

"Right, you'll need to eat again," I frown. "Did you really have to keep part of human biology?"

"Ugh. Yes," Blossom groans.

"We aren't tourists, Blossom. We're on a rescue mission."

"Tourists!" Blossom says excitedly, picking up on the meaning of the word immediately. "Blossom tourist!"

"I… I mean I guess sort of a tourist, but please don't act like one?" I beg.

"Blossom be good," Blossom promises. "Blossom is good! Therefore, nice lunch."

"Alright, alright," I relent. "We have to get food either way, I guess it doesn't matter how nice the meal happens to be. Unless we get fast food, but… I can't stand most fast food so I don't expect you to either."

"Eternal victory for Blossom!" Blossom cheers, doing her best to clap her hands but repeatedly missing. God, she's… I can't tell if her disguise is particularly good or particularly terrible. She doesn't act normal but it's not in a way that screams 'alien' so much as 'developmental disorder.' She also looks suspiciously like Lia Morgan… but not much like Lia Morgan that I couldn't call anyone who tries to make the connection a racist to cut off the comparison. Personally, I prefer just regular hiding to hiding in plain sight, but it might honestly work out.

"I didn't have any idea you were planning to do this!" I protest.

"Wh—I didn't even have a functioning brain most of the time! I was busy being Or un-dissolved!"

"Haha! Julietta goop. Goopietta! Portmanteau!" Blossom giggles wildly, flopping around in her seat.

"Please never call me 'Goopietta' again,"I sigh. "I really don't like—

A horrible screeching noise suddenly rings out underneath the car and I yank the steering wheel to the side, causing the van to jolt into the far lane and several cars to honk like hell at us. Terror floods through me, but… the car just feels normal. Same as ever to drive. I slide back into my lane with my hands gripping the wheel hard enough to hurt.

"What was?" Blossom hisses, her arms and legs splayed out and wedged into various corners for support.

"I… I don't know," I admit, looking around at the road. The edge of the road has a kind of odd texture here… hmm. I slowly shift the car so the tires touch the edge of the road there, and lo and behold the sound nearly scares my socks off a second time. "I guess it's textured to alert you that you're hitting the edge of the road. Terrifying."

"Loud," Blossom whines.

"Yeah. Sorry," I say. "I forget you're not used to having as good of hearing as we do either."

It's kind of weird that aliens can't match us in sight hearing, even given their vastly superior sense of smell. It's not like their world didn't have things to see and hear.

Blossom says.

"It's a survival thing, I suspect. Evolution made us good hunters and good at not being hunted."

"Hunters…?" Blossom hums, tasting the word.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. "Aliens hunt. I've literally heard you talking about it. Instead of prey you call it… food that… moves?"

Hmm. That… does actually indicate some unfamiliarity with the concept. Do they not eat animals in their home universe?

Blossom asks.

"What is what? Animals?"

"Yes. What is animals?" Blossom confirms.

"It's… they're the things that swim around in the water that aren't humans or aliens. You eat them."

"Hmm. Don't have," Blossom shrugs.

"You don't have any?" I ask. "What do you mean? Are there just no living things other than you?"

"Not move. Not think," Blossom answers. "Us, food. Not more."

Her memories wash over me, describing a vast planet—albeit one far smaller than Earth—brimming with plantlife but utterly devoid of so much as an insect. It is a twisting world of color and beauty, unmoored by the rigidity of physics, blooming with flowers and trees and vines of all shapes and sizes, all ready to be cultivated and consumed however the colony desires. She speaks of a dark and gloomy place as well, full of dying flora and starving people, taunted by those above them as they, too, fight for scraps with only somewhat greater efficiency. She moves on from the memories quickly, though I can't help but focus on them myself. They're… harrowing, even for me.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Blossom says.

So there's just enough food that everyone needs to fight over it, but no one is truly at risk of death?

What an awful god.

I shudder, thinking back to my fight against the Council of Blasphemy, and the way that the Queen just… at the end. As her final spite against Failure, she accepted her death. I can't say I understood it at the time, but I did respect it. I respect it even more now.

"Yes," Blossom agrees, and we leave the conversation at that. The next couple hours of our drive return to English lessons of unpredictable effectiveness until Blossom's stomach demands that we take our first stop. While I can't say I the wasted time, she does manage to convince me to pick up our food from some nice-looking local place and head to a nearby park to eat it. The place is decently busy thanks to the nice weather today, with a few other families nearby and even a small collection of children on the playground. Poor things. I hope they get a chance to grow up.

"Small," Blossom whispers at me, staring at them as she takes a bite of chicken. Chicken is probably my favorite meat because it barely tastes like anything. Except for the dark meat. I can't chicken thighs.

"Right, you guys… come out fully grown, don't you?" I whisper at her, and she nods, her mouth too full to talk until she manages to swallow.

"One of the people we're heading back to protect is about her size," I say, pointing at one of the kids. "Anastasia."

Blossom asks.

"No," I say. "Adoptive daughter, perhaps. Adoptive little sister, maybe? But I didn't create her or anything. I'm just taking care of her."

Blossom hums.

"Yeah?" I frown. "Is that bad?"

"No," Blossoms says. "Interesting. You interesting."

She shoves the rest of her food into her mouth all in one go and stands up, walking over to the playground. Well… staggering to the playground, more like. She's not at risk of falling over anymore, but I wouldn't really describe her as 'good at walking.' Which… is probably bad. I quickly get up and follow after her, taking her hand and steadying her half for her own sake but mainly for the sake of the parents who would probably get if a teenager started walking towards their children looking like she's drunk. Just a simple bit of concern on my face and insistence on staying close to Blossom to keep her upright should help shift the vibe from 'disorderly teenager' to 'a girl helping her sister with a muscular problem.'

"Why are we checking out the playground?" I ask, but Blossom just exudes a mix of curiosity and concern rather than answering with words, approaching a boy sitting in the sand and playing with action figures. A quick glance allows me to immediately figure out who the kid's mom is, since she's the one sitting on the bench and looking at us intently. I smile at her and offer a reassuring nod. Complete strangers always fall for the reassuring nod. It's absolutely the best social hack for 'I am not doing anything wrong.'

I might not know what Blossom wants here, exactly, but I know she's not going to eat anybody or whatever. She squats down in front of the kid, loses her balance a bit, and lands on her butt in the sand, getting the child's attention.

"What doing?" she asks him.

The kid blinks owlishly.

"What doing?" Blossom repeats.

"Playing with Garbles," the child answers. It is at this point that the mom starts surreptitiously getting closer to make sure we're not dangerous. Not even the reassuring nod is fully capable of halting the mama bear instinct.

"What Garbles?" Blossom asks, and the child responds by holding up the action figure in his hands, dirtied with sand, and immediately starts listing out wacky facts about it. I get the impression that 'Garbles' is a made-up superhero. Not sure why it's called that. Blossom doesn't bother to ask.

The mom relaxes a bit when I smile at her again, hovering over Blossom in much the same way that she starts to hover behind her kid. Nothing to worry about, ma'am, just some autistic-to-autistic communication. Blossom seems genuinely enraptured by the nonsensical story the child is weaving, after all, and the child is quite happy to tell it. I don't pay too much attention myself, but it's something about wild, exciting adventures that the kid thinks up for his toy and play-acts out in the sand.

"Thank you," Blossom nods at the child before standing up and heading back to where we ate. I follow her, nodding at the mom one more time.

"What's up?" I ask Blossom. "You seem… weirdly unmoored."

"Un-moo-er," Blossom repeats, tasting the word. "Yes."

I open up and let her emotions flow into me, tasting the pungent mix of fear, melancholy, suspicion, sadness, and restlessness. She's… learned something. She's not sure whether or not it's true, but she strongly suspects it is, and it is not a kind truth.

"You got all this from a kid playing with a toy?" I ask.

"Garbles important," Blossom says quietly. "Important. Dirty. Scratched."

"…Yeah?" I say. "Sorry, if you're sending anything, it's a bit much for me."

Blossom says directly, doing her best to clean up her thoughts.

I send back, startled.

Blossom insists.

"That's… a doll doesn't do anything on its own. They made up those stories. They weren't real," I explain.

"Library," Blossom says.

I want to find a way to refute that, but I can't think of anything. Didn't In-Joke imply something like this, too? Not that I should be listening to anything that insane bastard says, but… what else could Possibility want? What else has Possibility ever asked for, beyond the chance to watch me do whatever I please?

"What about the other gods?" I ask. "Possibility might be easy to please, but the others have much more specific preferences."

Blossom asks, and… no. I guess the answer is obviously no.

Suddenly, though it has been far too long since I've listened to a good book, my mind is churning with tropes. Comedy and tragedy, Bliss and Failure. Blasphemy would love villainous leads and anti-heroes. Perfection would eat up those tiresome stories where the main character never has to struggle to succeed. Not everything matches, but the closer I look the more parallels I find.

"Well," I say, "I guess I can definitely understand why that might be a little distressing. If I was a bit more religious it would mess me up to learn that my god doesn't think of me as anything more than a toy."

Blossom says, her eyebrows scrunching together as she stares at me.

"Then what is?" I ask.

Blossom says.

She glances back at the playground, her eyes locked on that dusty little action figure.

I… I'm really not sure what to say about that. That's a little heavy to unpack.

Blossom answers.

We return to the van and return to the road, my fellow councilmember unusually quiet as I drive. I'm not normally a person who minds the silence, but unless I completely deafen myself to the network I can't help but feel her brooding melancholy and wish I could do something about it.

"You know, new things are often more interesting simply by the virtue of being new. It doesn't necessarily mean there was anything wrong with prior stories."

"Possibility is a creator," I remind her. "It could have built another."

"Maybe," Blossom acknowledges, and the silence returns. It's quite a while before she speaks again. Even the network is little more than chaotic, wordless brooding as she gets her thoughts together.

she admits.

Oh.

"And here I thought it was just my stunning personality," I say, the attempt at humor falling completely flat considering how Blossom can feel my genuine disillusionment.

Blossom says,

"I'm sorry," I manage.

"Everyone is the main character of their own story," I respond, almost automatically. "There are billions of people in the world. Any number of them are probably more interesting than me."

"Even if that's true, the only reason I'm interesting at all is because of the blessing that god gave me," I say. "If I hadn't gotten this power, I would have died months ago in Chicago like the thousands of other people there."

"Yes," Blossom says. "Unfair."

"…Hey, it's not like you don't have one of the most absurdly powerful abilities I've ever heard of," I remind her.

Blossom says.

Well, I don't think I can bring myself to apologize for

For some reason, I can't help but smile. I suppose, if I were in her shoes, I would be doing exactly the same thing.

From there, the trip to Georgia is exceedingly long and grueling, but not particularly noteworthy. I might have almost totaled the car a few times—

—but it all worked out in the end, so who's counting, right? It's when we start getting close to Atlanta that the real challenge begins. I end up parking the car well outside the military cordon, shifting into a bird to get an overhead view of where we will ideally be sneaking into. As I feared, though, there's absolutely no way we are driving a van straight into alien territory without anybody noticing. It just isn't feasible. Blossom and I going alone on foot be possible, but we'd probably need to steal military uniforms and jump through a dozen other hoops before probably still getting caught when we start running straight towards the Queen. That's not even getting into how we still need to track down Anastasia and the others. There's no way to know if they're in this camp, hanging out with one of the Queens, or even in a different state entirely until we explore and find out. Still, it's what we have to do, and so that means we need a plan.

Blossom suggests.

"Don't underestimate human forces, Blossom. You're powerful, but there are some very powerful humans here, too. Even if you manage to fight them all, you probably couldn't do it without killing some of them, and I'd rather you didn't."

"Fine," Blossom pouts. "Then what plan?"

"Well," I say, "I was thinking maybe we could find a shipping container. Or possibly an unused garage. A garage would be easier, but way more conspicuous. Let's see if we can find a trainyard."

It takes a good bit more driving, but we eventually find exactly what I'm looking for: a lockable container just barely big enough to fit the van into. The fit is so tight that we have to teleport out instead of opening any doors, but we manage to lock it up. It's not a perfect seal, but it should be enough to last for a while. Now, we just have the final step.

"Yummy in Julietta tummy!" Blossom cheers as I strip off my clothes and flow over the container, worming my way underneath it and surrounding it in its entirety. Then, I swallow with a nonexistent throat, and both the container and the van are gone. I halfway expect to feel a pit of lead weighing down my stomach, but of course I feel nothing. The van is safely tucked away, ready to be vomited out at a moment's notice.

"Now fun time," Blossom grins evilly, and we make our way to what I identified earlier as the least-guarded military checkpoint. There are, of course, no fewer than two soldiers watching every road into the camp, but two is the perfect number for us. I shapeshift myself a close approximation of a military uniform, grab Blossom by the arm, and march purposefully towards the way in.

"Hey!" one of the guards calls out to me with a grin on his face. "You can't bring your girlfriend in here during a shift, buddy!"

"Not unless you plan to share!" calls out his partner.

"Don't get your dicks stuck in that gutter," I snap back at them, carefully picking up speed. We need to get close before they catch on. "She's a runner. Command wants her brought in."

"Why would they care about a runner?" one of the men asks.

"Powers," I shrug.

"Powers?" he says, scrunching his eyebrows together. "Let me call this in."

Yeah, I kind of figured. Protocol is designed to prevent weak lies like this from working, after all. Unfortunately for these soldiers, Blossom is now close enough. A sharp crack rings out behind each of their heads, and they fall to the ground, concussed. I rush forward, lengthening my arms a little to catch them.

"Hey, careful," I say. "You can kill a human that way."

Blossom tilts her head.

she asks.

"Just because I want something doesn't mean it's something that should happen," I grumble. "It was just an idle flash of anger. I wasn't even really thinking about it."

"Can we do the psychoanalysis later?" I hiss at her. "Put these on."

Instantly, one of the unconscious guard's clothes have teleported onto her body, giving her plenty of time to smugly smile at me as I rush to put on the other set.

"I'm fine," I answer through gritted teeth, buttoning up the last of it. "Just follow me and do as I tell you."

Blossom performs an absolutely pathetic salute with the wrong hand.

"Yes, mah-aam!" she beams. I grab her arms, move them into the right positions, and hold them there.

"It's 'yes ma'am,'" I correct.

"Yes ma'am," Blossom pronounces perfectly, her smile growing even wider. I huff, stashing the bodies in the nearby booth before heading into the base. There's no way this is going to work.

Fortunately, I do at least know my way around impromptu military camps. Now that we're inside, nobody is really going to look twice at two people in uniform marching around with purpose. At least, not until someone finds the unconscious soldiers stripped of those very same uniforms that we left behind. Hell, one of them could wake up five minutes from now and alert the entire area. Maybe they already did, and it's just a matter of time before word reaches the sort of people who can actually implement a plan to stop us. There are dozens of clever ways they could root out an infiltrator, and they would be stupid to not have thought of any considering that they know a shapeshifting supervillain is on the loose. Even if they had absolutely zero creativity, all it would take is an order for everybody to line up in the same field and report to their CO. Whether I'm a new face that nobody recognizes or a duplicate who doesn't actually know where I'm supposed to be standing, my ability to disguise as a human vanishes.

Which is why we have to go fast. I almost wish Blossom and I could split up to search, but considering that she still doesn't speak English that well, there's no way I can trust her not to get into trouble on her own. I just have my domain spread out as far as it will go, brushing over every person and every other domain that I run across in hopes of coming into contact with someone I recognize.

"…Seraphim?" someone hisses shortly after I brush over a domain steeped in Blasphemy. Shit. Shit! She found me already!? I turn to look at whoever just spoke, readying myself for a fight… only to find Rafflesia, not Agnus Dei, looking my way in shock. Although, she's not even looking at me. She's looking at the girl who looks like me… or at least how I used to look.

"I Blossom," Blossom corrects her.

"Huh?" Rafflesia blinks. Blossom holds out her hand to shake.

"Not Ser-uh-fim," Blossom says. "I Blossom."

"…Demonstrate your powers for me," Rafflesia orders.

Around Blossom, the earth , dirt and grass scattering up into the air as if kicked from a hundred different directions. Rafflesia flinches at first, but then she relaxes.

"Sorry," Rafflesia says. "You just look like… hmm."

She glances suspiciously at me.

"Are you powered?" she asks. "And what's your name?"

"We're new," I say, not bothering to try and deny that I have powers. It would be too difficult to hide. Hiding my abilities, though… that should be doable. "My powers only work on people. Permission to demonstrate?"

"Sure," she nods, and I press my domain through hers, enveloping her working arm and her empty shoulder. Should be simple enough to mirror, once they're a part of me.

Carefully making sure my domain is nowhere near her brain, I peel apart the scar tissue covering up her missing limb and let a new arm bloom, bone and blood and flesh pouring into the limb like molten metal in a mold. She cries out in shock and what I suspect is probably discomfort, but the moment I finish my new limb I relinquish control over it. We didn't know each other long, but she was always good to me, and understanding of the way my powers tended to isolate me from most others. I'm happy to leave her with a gift, even if we might end up fighting each other sometime.

She stares in disbelief at her new hand, flexing the fingers and moving the arm that just filled her empty sleeve. I wink at her, and turn away to resume my search.

"Have a good one, Rafflesia," I say, pulling Blossom along while she giggles at the other woman's expression.

Blossom insists.

I don't need to say anything in response. She can tell I still think it was worth it.