The Bookwyrm

The stark reality of his situation crashed on Nolan the moment he woke up.

Friends, dead.

Family, lost.

Life, gone.

And through it all, the presence in his mind, watching silently. He could feel it shift. Feel it…not think, exactly, but exist. It exuded an energy that he could feel.

He shuddered.

Killed. Likely by the being that now lives in your mind.

Still it stayed.

He looked around the room. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it looked like a hospital room. A large window took up one wall of the room, though he couldn’t see through it as large white drapes had been pulled across it, letting only the filtered sunlight through. He lay in a hospital bed, one that had several computer monitors next to it. Strangely, near where his head lay, there was a ring-like device that arced over the top of the bed, almost like a miniature MRI machine. 

He looked down at himself. He wore a simple hospital robe, and nothing underneath. He tried not to think about who’d have changed him. The IV in his arm was gone, though he did have a simple wrap around his arm at that point, like you’d wear after you got your blood drawn. Perhaps they had drawn his blood.

A digital clock on the wall read 4:02 pm, June 26. Before he could think too long on how much time had passed, the door opened. A woman walked through, wearing medical scrubs and a face mask around her neck. Her light brown hair was pulled into a bun. She held a clipboard, but didn’t seem to be focused on it.

“Nolan,” she said, “How’re you feeling?”

He hesitated for a moment, uncomfortable. “Better. I think.”

“That’s good,” she said. She set the clipboard down on the counter, scribbled one last thing, then walked over and sat down in the stool next to Nolan’s bed.

“You probably have a lot of questions,” she said. Nolan noted her green eyes.

Nolan nodded hesitantly.

They sat in silence for a moment as neither said anything.

“Sorry, I should introduce myself,” the woman finally said, breaking the silence. “I’m Dr. Olive Cent. Just call me Olive.”

“I’d introduce myself,” Nolan said slowly, “But you seem to know who I am already.”

Dr. Cent nodded with a slight smile. “The Agency has access to basically all official records, and many unofficial ones as well…you need a lot of info to do what we do.”

“Which is?”

Dr. Cent sighed. “I suppose I’m going to give you the crash course after all…unless you’d rather wait?”

Nolan shook his head. “Summarize it to me. I can worry about details later.”

“Alright. Take it slowly.

“For centuries - perhaps forever, we aren’t sure - Earth has been experiencing…contacts, connections, whatever you want to call them, with other dimensions. By dimensions, we mean realities, or planes of existence; not the mathematical definition of the word. Other universes, ones that operate by rules we’re unable to fully comprehend.

“There are a lot of various effects that this contact with other realities has. Some positive. Many negative. It’s our job to research these, figure out how to contain and even control these dimensional effects, and use them to prevent harm from coming to the people of this country.

“That’s the short version.”

Nolan sat silently for a moment.

“Why haven’t I heard of this? Why keep it secret?”

Olive nodded. “Usually the first question the new guys ask. Over time, the frequency and…intensity of the contact with other realities has been growing, to a point where it might cause panic if word got out. There are a variety of other reasons, as well, ones I don’t fully understand. You can ask around yourself at some point, probably.”

Nolan wasn’t completely satisfied, but he let it drop.

“I have one more question,” he said, “Then can I get something to eat?”

“Of course,” Olive said.

“What’s inside me?”

“It’ll take a bit of explaining, but I’m guessing this is something important.” Seeing Nolan nod, she continued. “Any instance of extradimensional effects on our own reality is called simply an Event. Events are subclassified in several ways. There are Controlled Events, or CEs, or Events that a human with access to extradimensional effects cause deliberately, and Uncontrolled Events, or UEs, which happen outside of human control.

“Additionally, there are In-World Events, IEs, that happen fully within our dimension, or Crossover Events, or XEs, in which some part of another dimension leaks into our own, or vice versa, usually through some sort of a Gate. 

“Certain dimensions contain beings, Extradimensional Entities, or EEs. Most of these are insubstantial, and only affect the world around them through their effects. There are a number of cases in which an EE forms a bond with a human host. Strangely, every documented instance of an EE-human bond is symbiotic in nature; both parties provide something to each other.

“These Bonded Extradimensional Entities, or BEEs - affectionately called ‘bees’ - can provide their bonded human with a variety of paranatural abilities. Since the formation of the Agency, we’ve documented seventy-three American cases of Human-Entity Bonds, fifty-eight of which belonged to members of the Agency. Forty-four recorded HEBs exist currently in the U.S., and forty-three of those work for the Agency.

“Last night, you experienced a Crossover Event, and bonded with an entity that passed through the resulting Gateway. That’s the being that lives in your mind now.”

Nolan sat, trying to process the onslaught of words.

Olive cringed slightly. “Sorry,” she said. “Maybe I should have let someone trained in teaching this stuff talk to you about it. I threw a lot of terms at you.”

“No, it’s fine,” Nolan said. “Just…a lot to process.”

We are one.

That phrase made sense now.

“But why…the man in the ambulance…he said that this EE likely killed my friends. Why would it bond me?”

“We don’t know,” Olive said solemnly. “We understand very little about the nature of EEs…they might not follow our conceptions of emotion, values, logic…at least, not until they spend a long time with a human host. Most bonded agents say that their BEEs don’t truly remember their past in any meaningful way, or at least in any way we can comprehend. Even after all our time researching these other planes of reality, we still know staggeringly little.”

Nolan nodded. “Thank you.”

Olive smiled. “Just doing my job. Want me to get you some food?”

Nolan nodded again. Olive stood up and headed towards the door. 

“One last thing,” Nolan said as she turned the doorknob. “Am I the forty-fourth HEB?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean they’ll try to recruit me?”

“It’s highly likely. The skills of a bonded agent are invaluable.”

Nolan fell silent. “Okay,” he said, finally.

“We won’t press you into a decision. Your life is going to be very weird over the next few months. You’ll meet some people, learn some things, and then the Agency will help you along whatever path you choose, in the end. But, Nolan?” 

She met his eyes.

“This has become a part of you, whether you like it or not. You’ll have ties to the Agency for the rest of your life. And, in my experience, it makes the most sense to embrace that. Make it your home.

“It worked for me, after all.”

She left the room and closed the door behind her.

Nolan remembered something that the suited man had said. 

It’s been over twelve years since the last code red Civilian Involvement Incident.

Olive was probably in her late twenties, early thirties. 

Could the same thing that happened to Nolan happened to her, twelve years ago?

He settled back into the bed, thinking, then turned his focus to the being in the back of his mind.

Unbidden, a simmering anger began to come up in him.

Why did you kill them?

Something came from the being. A thought, a concept, an emotion; it was hard to define. Suffice it to say, Nolan wasn’t able to decipher it, and his headache flared up again as he tried to do so.

Wonderful.

Another signal.

You know I can’t understand you, right?

Another indecipherable jumble of thoughts and emotions, then a pause. Then a very clear sense of frustration.

You’re…frustrated?

Confirmation.

Nolan threw his hands up in the air. You and me both, headache. You and me both.

The entity in his mind seemed to start saying something, then gave up and retreated into the deeper folds of his mind.

This is going to be interesting.

Nolan woke up.

This in and of itself was a strange experience, as there seemed to be a hole in his memory on how he had gotten here. He was sore, and had a splitting headache; he could barely think. His eyes were still closed, but he could tell he was lying on a soft bed, and had something in his arm - probably an IV needle.

As he grew more aware, he recognized the familiar sound of a car driving on a highway; the steady drone of the engine and the wheels on the road provided a hypnotic ambiance.

He blinked his eyes open, finding himself in a dimly-lit "room"; it looked like the back of an ambulance. Two people were in the room; a nurse or doctor, her hair in a bun, typing something on a computer, and a dark skinned man in a suit, sitting on the seat to the side of the bed, with a briefcase across his lap.

"You're awake."

It was the man who spoke. His deep voice had a strangely calming effect.

"What...where...what..." Nolan started, trying to figure out what question to ask first. He settled on: "Where am I?"

"You're in an ambulance," the man responded, "currently driving to Houston, Texas."

Nolan frowned. Why would he be...

Memory.

An explosion, a flash of unnatural red light. A demanding presence. Pain.

Nolan hissed in pain as his headache flared.

"Take it slowly," the man said, leaning forward. "An Event like the one you experienced isn't kind to the mind."

"What...what happened?" Nolan managed to say.

The man sighed. "It's hard to explain without background knowledge. You'll learn more at our headquarters."

Nolan was barely paying attention; he was hovering between diving in to remember more, or running as far away as he could to escape that pain.

As he studied his own mind, he became aware of a presence.

Something was sitting there, in his mind. Something...inhuman. Unearthly. Incomprehensible. A presence that now resided along with Nolan's own.

Another memory.

***

Nothingness.

To call it blackness would be inaccurate; black is a color, something you can imagine. This was nothingness. There was no blackness, no whiteness, not the presence of an absence. Just an absence.

Panic. A single emotion among pure nothing. Nolan didn't know how to deal with nothing.

And then, from the nothing, a voice.

Are you...being? It asked.

Yes, Nolan responded.

Are you...alive? It continued.

Yes, Nolan responded again.

A sense of touch, then a burst of light.

We are I, the voice spake. Single. One. Entity. Being. Alive.

Two. Divided. Separate. Dual. Dead. Except also single. One. Entity. Being. Alive.

You and me are we, are I. Are one.

The nothingness faded to the blackness of unconsciousness, a welcome cacophony in comparison to that absence.

***

Nolan burst out of the memory sweating, gasping.

"What," he whispered, horrified, "is inside me?"

"That is one of the questions that we will answer when we arrive."

"Arrive where? The headquarters for what?"

The man looked Nolan in the eye. "The Federal Agency for the Research and Control of Extradimensional Phenomena."

Nolan didn't know what to say to that.

He sat silently for a minute. Then asked. "Where are my friends?"

He remembered going out with them. A movie, something action-packed. A trip to an ice-cream parlor, where he got something sweet and sour. A walk in the park, joking, laughing, wrapping his arm around Jessica, who smiled and kissed his cheek...

Then an explosion, a flash of unnatural red light. A demanding presence. Pain.

"Dead, I'm afraid. Killed. Likely by the being that now lives in your mind."

Nolan shut his eyes.

We are one.

"Where's my family?"

"Wherever they were when you left them. Unfortunately, like the families of your friends, they will be informed you died in a horrible accident."

Tears began to fall down Nolan's cheeks.

"I'm sorry," the suited man said. "It's been over fifteen years since the last code red Civilian Involvement Incident. I'd hope to keep that record indefinite. But this is how it played out."

Nolan barely listened. He started to sob.

As he cried himself back to sleep, he could feel the presence in the back of his mind, watching, existing.

We are one.