7.4  ·  Bowels of the Ship

With a thud, another Kromagg soldier dropped to the ground as Tam rubbed their overused punchin’ fist, which was beginning to show signs of rawness.

I object to this name. ‘Tam’ is too close to Tim.

‘Tim and Tam’ sounds like an Australian comedy duo from the nineties that people look back on fondly but then when they watch an old routine in 2017, they realise it was actually mega racist.

…Well, got anything better?

No… but it’s also too close to Tom.

Oh for the… it’ll do for now.

They turned to Sherri. “Okay, we decided to be called ‘Tam,’ unless we can think of a less derivative name.”

Sherri looked at them with a puzzled glance – which seemed to describe all of her glances since they’d showed up.

“Does that mean I get to be Sam again?” John asked, as he followed Tam up the ramp to the Manta ship, which loomed large over the smaller ones around it, that would have been a third its size.

“No can do, Junior,” said Tam, giving a smug look to John. “Sam’s still right here.”

They tapped their temple. “You wanna address him directly, use his name.”

John narrowed his eyes at Tam as they cracked open a panel at the side of the ship and began rearranging cable configurations.

“I’ll take you up on that. Sam, who the heck is this Thames guy anyway? Where did he come from?”

Step aside for a second.

Ugh, please don’t mention all the murders.

Believe me when I tell you I don’t want to dig around in there.

Sam shut the panel on the ship and crouched to open another, before locking green eyes with John. “Thames is from the 2020s, and is a leaper who worked for some bad people. That’s the, uh, sanitised version. I’m keeping his worst instincts in check, so don’t worry.”

John pursed his lips. “That doesn’t sound encouraging.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, giving a broad gesture. “We’ve got this far with him. He can’t hide anything from me like this, much as I wish I could unsee some of the things in his mind.”

And yeah, I see what Lothos wants now.

Sucks, right?

Didn’t stop you wanting a piece until you realised you’d never return, hmm?

I’m not disagreeing.

Sam cast an eye to Sherri, who looked wholly relieved that she was seeing only Sam. “We need to get inside, Sherri. In about two minutes, the hangar’s gonna flood with soldiers.”

Sherri nodded, and grabbed the wrist of Tim, who was still silent and wide-eyed.

Back to work…

Tam continued their work disabling the ship’s locking mechanisms, as another part of their brain continued to work on the problem of what was happening to Sam.

Is this ship bio-mechanical? We recognise a hybrid system when we see it…

The outer door of the ship made a hissing sound, and popped open. As Sherri pulled it open, Tam looked up at her.

“You never mentioned these ships were partially made of living tissue,” they said curiously.

“Does it matter?” Sherri stepped inside, pulling Tim with her. As Tam followed, they shrugged.

“Not really, but it just gave us a little more to think about.” They pulled shut the door, and whispered: “Voices down.”

Ziggy has a piece of Sam inside her.

The inside of the ship was dimly lit, and all around them, a humming sound filled the air. The red walls seemed to pulsate, like they were breathing. John phased through the walls, and visibly shivered as he looked back at the fleshy surface.

This is gross.

Shush.

… But… yeah. It’s super gross.

Having come to a consensus on the ick factor, Tam frowned, sticking out their tongue. “Feels like we’re conducting a colonoscopy, in the role of the camera.”

“What next?” Sherri whispered, glancing first at John, then at Tam, with questioning eyes.

Tam squinted, as an array of possibilities raced through their mind.

Sam could trace John’s life string.

“This way,” they said, heading further into the ship.

“Listen… Tam…” Sherri said, tasting the name. “Not that I’m not impressed with how you’re handling all this…”

Tam paused, looked back at her with a crooked grin. “You’re worried that the thing that happened to you is gonna happen to us, right?”

Sherri gave him a sheepish nod.

“Don’t worry about that,” they said. “The code that Sam activated is specifically designed to circumvent the dominance trend.”

They looked behind Sherri, towards John. “You helped design it. Or, will. Anyway, this is not a permanent thing. When we leap next, we should separate into two forms again.”

“Should?” Sherri’s brow furrowed.

“Trust us, we’re a doctor.”

With that, Tam wrenched open a door to their right, and disarmed a soldier who had been waiting to ambush them.

“Not today, Satan,” they said, with a kick to the junk.

That was juvenile.

Fun, though.

Tam grabbed at the Kromagg’s collar, brandishing the blaster they had just acquired.

“Sherri, if you wouldn’t mind, there’s some rope in the storage compartment over there.” They nodded past the door, to the room in which the soldier had been hiding.

“My pleasure,” Sherri said, giving Tam the first proper smile she had permitted since they’d merged. They worked together to tie up the soldier, who snarled and gnashed, trying to sink his sharp teeth into someone’s arm.

“Down boy,” Tam said, chuckling. They looked up at John. “Better prepare a rabies shot if he breaks the skin.”

John tilted his head and regarded them through squinted eyes. “I… genuinely can’t tell when you’re joking.”

“Thames deals with everything by making jokes and referencing pop culture,” Tam said, pulling tightly on their final knot. “So assume we’re joking most of the time. Though that doesn’t necessarily mean the joke isn’t the outer layer of a truth bomb.”

They gestured to the tied-up Kromagg. “Like this li’l guy. If he’s the truth, the rope is the joke. Just unravel it a bit to see what’s inside.”

I’m kinda surprised how many jokes come out of Tam. I always thought you were a humourless guy.

I have a sense of humour, it’s just… I know when to be serious. Sometimes there is nothing to laugh about.

There’s always something to laugh about.

There’s usually something to laugh about.

“I think they’ll be trying to get into the ship in about thirty seconds,” Tam muttered. “This might sound disgusting, but the quickest route to the core of this thing is…”

They slapped a hand against the meaty wall, and it responded with a repulsive ripple. “…Through the flesh.”

Sherri and John’s faces screwed up with revulsion. Tim, standing in the doorway, seemed to finally realise just where he was in that moment.

“Are you serious?” he said, his jaw slack. “That is nasty.”

Tam retrieved an axe from the wall, and swung it hard into the warm flesh, and a congealed black liquid began to ebb out.

“Oh boy,” they said, as the foul smell filled their nostrils. “This is going to be messy.”

As Tam dove into the hot, moist innards of the hybrid ship, the answer to their problem came to them like a cattle prod to a nipple.

Sam has established some kind of transcendent connection between other Sams. He reached out to the one whose life has touched his own, and was able to see what was happening with Thames.

My string theory…

Ziggy has a piece of me in her. Maybe I’ve been able to tap into it, somehow? Since Ziggins?

You’ve been making all these calculations and having the kind of probability insights I’ve only ever seen in a computer.

Sam is a hybrid now, too.

The revelation did not make the experience of crawling through pulsing, oozing flesh any more pleasant.