Monovalent had been created a mere year before the creation of the Shiverla and soon their bodies and lives had been goldenly-intertwined and all their faculties had been silverly-fused. In many ways, they had blossomed together and despite knowing the Shiverla would someday need to be destroyed once they were no longer useful as weapons, he knew from almost the second of their coming into existence that he would find a means to save them. He had watched them grow and never would he allow another to take them to hell or heaven.

  He had watched as Alice grew into something both mischievous and oddly-sweet yet to the (in Monovalent’s estimation) emotionless droids around her, she was but a disorderly, impetuous child; sometimes volatile. Prone to red fits of rage and little blue rivulets of sadness. Yet the machine saw her as having a lovely watchfulness, pensive. She dwelt prettily under his observer’s powerful gaze.

  She was perceptive to not merely what was overtly shown on a person’s face or even their trembling tones, or slight moisture in their saddened eye, the raised or slumped shoulders but their very electrical currents and chemical signals, she could read.

  Pointing out what they all felt startlingly accurately, as the elders around her never noticed. They all saw her exquisitely pretty, pointy face but heard always a petulant undertone to her lovely voice.

  One of her softest moments happened cuddled up in bed; sweet, cold, and with those forever-to-be thin, delicate arms yet set with full, fair, rounded wrists set over the finest bone structure of young flesh; it occurred as she were slightly pink-nosed and cheeked, in fluffy boots and a great-grandmother’s gifted, handmade in her earlier childhood, white, layered dress and whence the mother read her Beauty and the Beast.

  Closest to the original French version she in general preferred to modernized or excessively watered-down ones. At the end, her young daughter spoke up with hopeful guile, saying “I too would wish to be brave enough to save my father and forgive beast his faults and marry him someday…”

  “Before the transformation, he’ll love and appreciate me more if he knows pain and hardship and trusts me for staying at his worst. Be for his troubles so much richer and more intense. Almost feel like I earlier was…With him,” she said in a far too adult manner.

  Little Evan equally fair and ravishing of face was even on his “good days” somewhat more than mere petulant. Impertinent was a term more often coined to describe his odd behaviour. Behaviour which consisted of whereupon being asked a question or requested to do something he would comply and quite politely so. His voice however as well as his body language and mannerisms would hold the most meagre amounts of amused contempt as though he were laughing at you all the while.

  Sometimes though never fully direct he was a little more overt. Diagnosed incorrectly with autism on account of his bizarre behaviour he was first asked by his psychiatrist if he liked the other children.

  “They are fine, I tolerate them, our personalities do not clash, nor do they interfere with my emotional well-being or capacity to learn if that’s what you mean.”

  “Okay…” the psychiatrist whose name was Donaldson looked somewhat disconcerted, confounded even. He had never heard of a seven-year-old speaking with such literary proficiency combined with such a bizarre detachment.

  “How about your teacher then… Miss Peters your parents said her name was....Do you like her?”

  Seeming ever distant and self-contained, Evan merely looked at a ladybird on the wall, smiling to himself, and didn’t answer.

  “Did you hear me, Evan?” asked Donaldson “Did you understand the question?”

  Cute little Evan looked up; he was no longer smiling and looked bored and blank-faced once more. “Yes, sir I do understand what you are asking. Miss Peters is a very competent teacher. So justly I adhere to her learning-based requests; after all, teaching enhances brain development which in today’s industrial society is essential,” he replied robotically.

  “Yes, but do you like her- is she nice?”

  “She is most amicable, gives to charity, socially apt, and yes personally I find her to be someone I can easily tolerate,” Evan answered, “I like some of what she teaches, her instruction methods are skilled in her field many would find her warm, approachable and professional respectable. She’s a bit humorless and puritanical but considering the militant mores of this time that’s only to be expected.”

  He carefully refrained from talking of the vapours and hysteria she on occasion had when she or her ideals were challenged, he knew gendering the language would be dangerous. He also refrained from telling the psychiatrist of his night and waking dreams of a strange other child; fine and fair and near as lovely as he.

  He didn't speak of the two-story, white home where she dwelt: the tree he saw her leaping from at ludicrous heights: legs bendy and resilient as springs; loose-jointed and spread-eagled, gliding like a feline to the ground on unharmed feet. How he saw her pretty head lolling in the schoolyard or at some park with swings, where he observed baffled youths collapse with fever as a common occurrence. He also didn’t mention something else... Hearing a soft, metallic voice imbued with a mischievous cleverness and an oddly-human warmth…One living, he knew somehow, in a dark yet dustless manor.

  It was interesting to note how he, Evan, never used the word ‘like’ in his response to the psychiatrist. What Donaldson did not know, was Evan despised the word “like” considered it lukewarm and meaningless, and had actually never used the word “like” or even felt a liking for anyone. Donaldson smiled again though his smile genuine and warm at the beginning of the session was now thoroughly strained and made him look like a clown with a migraine.

  “You didn't really answer the question,” he told Evan desperately.

  The boy turned and looked him straight on, body stiff and perfectly still, his expressionless eyes purplish and not blinking. “Well nice is relative sir,” Evan said, “and subjective.”

  “She is clearly highly regarded as a person over here and nice well-being an adjective her students and others I imagine might pertain to use when describing her.”

  “I don’t know whether she would be liked say, in the poorer areas of China, Russia, Vietnam, or Korea however where they quite probably resent middle-class first-world inhabitants for their oppressive exploitation and minuscule compensation of their labour and constant whining. Not to mention in America’s case late arrival into both World Wars and interference in other countries' affairs during the Cold War.”

  “We don’t live in the United States,” Donaldson said in despair.

  “We might as well”, replied, the terrifyingly self-possessed Evan, “with all the sycophantic deference our country gives to the States.”

  Like Alice, he was a clever, inquisitive,e and brutally honest child but had quickly learned questioning things like rampant careerism, or political correctness was impossible which is why the nastiness of children took a different form, they took pleasure in acting like little spies and moral guardians informing on each other as much as their teachers had been instructed to inform on this forsaken youth. From five years old they penned apologies for their worldly transgressions that ended up in school reports and permanent records that made future hiring more difficult.

  “We know this behaviour is foreboding of a future of poor values. It is often learned from parents or outside influences and even from quite a tender age must be carefully monitored: we should not allow those who don’t want the best for everyone to be validated by being allowed to work alongside/disrupt the peace of other to infringe on their rights to equality and happiness explained one mainstream politician about the new practices we are building a better tomorrow.”

  Not very often but a few times when they didn’t know the answer on a test or were trying to think of a witty comeback to a slight (though they were generally both quite adept at this) Alice and Evan would hear that soft metallic voice whispering the answer or a wry come back to them or it would plant the name of a book they heard of but forgotten to find and read. Evan heard a musical note that would work in his songs; Alice viewed a colour that would liven up her landscapes and portraits.

  Evan assumed it must be a hidden part of his subconscious talking, Alice that she had slipped into one of her terrifyingly vivid daydreams, there was little chance they could fathom it was Monovalent who couldn’t quite bear the silence although Aryan assiduously insisted, he not communicate with” his” children. In the dead of the night as their minds were between the land sleep and those awoken and so they would think it part of a dream Monovalent that artificial intelligent being engaging in steadfast surveillance of his Shiverla would and whisper to them “I love you.”

  Evan was the only child who didn’t join the Justice-Raiders child groups present in all schools that the government-funded under a kind-new-generation initiative. From seven to eight years old they spread messages of inclusion and awareness, decked out in We Are the Age of Justice shirts selling chocolate or health bars depending on the state and whether it had the Obesity in Children Prevention Law.

  Both to teach them how to handle money and responsibility and prepare them for corporate life. They did such goods as asking for money to make queer marriage legal worldwide, stop prejudice against trans-identified people, and racist language, and to depinkify female culture.

  Someday, people will never have to worry about their opinions being silenced due to traumatizing threats, and exposure to depictions of harmful treatment that help keep marginalized groups in a state of fear and prevent encouraging women from blossoming into greatness and STEM fields.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Conveniently ignoring that female participation in STEM was higher in countries with less equality and gender quotas and ones absent mass school and parental and media and representation in entertainment encourages the adults who put these ideas in their little heads.

  “Sometimes words are enough, calling someone ugly or weird because they look different or love different”

  We will be a culture that promotes people to feel valued and safe from criticism or things that may trigger them emotionally, encourages a diversity of opinions and ultimate freedom of expression and means to optimum mental health and professional and personal success” they touted almost earnestly until one saw the lack of wile in the large, deadened eyes.

  “Those sixty-dollar, third-world shirts are made by poor people for a pittance mostly Asian or Indian women who work obscene hours and lack access to proper education,” Evan said when asked why he wouldn’t join. “Which might be a tad more important than the issues you’re raising.”

  “You equality, egalitarian spouters would only care their underpaid cause their women, not human beings who need to eat sometime. You still happily worship an establishment where education, connection, opportunity, and resource-wise benefits go to you the overlords, you just want to be busybody social guides, definers of acceptable social behaviour, make sure women, gay, Asian you still can be on top.”

  “Pity, soon you middle and upper-class plutocrats with mundane existence without struggle, depth or meaning and no will to live, will spend all your time manufacturing false dramas to combat your emptiness and overdosing yourselves with masses of anti-depression meds.”

  “As well as due to never having starved, given birth naturally, or been to war and general wussiness, ample pain suppressers. Suffering though not quite as proliferate as those on bottom-rung in droves dying of chemical-laced food and overworking-related heart attacks. Oh-great-punisher of those who don’t lines tow. I don’t care but I don’t like hypocrites.”

  “If weren’t so blinded, you’d realize, the causes you exemplify are retarded you’re retarded,” to collective gasps as retarded like cancer, spastic, mental and Negro was a word you could get blacklisted or expelled for saying.

  If he hadn’t known they were all terrified of him and his virus that killed his enemies which they didn’t really believe in properly (but enough to avoid conflict with him just in case) he wouldn’t have calculated it as worth the risk.

  Monovalent shut off the recording of his beloved Shiverla and considered his plans to spare them. His metallic eye turned to a particularly princely young man, Simon Raphael Bloom. He had a plan to use him to overthrow Aryan alongside gaining Emnauel's help in reprogramming him so he could therefore attack and finish off his master( who he was actually quite fond of) which was down to his every wire, forbidden. Therefore playing saviour to his precious Shiverla kin.

  Simon Raphael Bloom was a young, very handsome man with a certain gentle grace of both nature and face. He was fair of skin and of tall medium (five foot eleven) height and had a wiry and slender, muscular build. He had fine features, full, ruby lips, and pensive eyes, that vivid green of forests and thorns and rose stems. These eyes were also quite large and a dense, soft mane of straight, dark golden- blond hair fell into them.

  His voice, soft and kind and most earnest, was second only to Emanuel’s (whose modulation of his was most astounding). With the ability to be sweet as the hummingbird, near as soothing and placating as the mother singing to the child, but like Emanuel’s could be very powerful and was godliest whence whisper-soft and with such range, that it echoed vastly. It had a firm-handed, strong, masculine quality. The voice of the Father who art in heaven. He was a staunch believer in democracy and heavily regulated capitalism and was thus opposed to Aryan and his group.

  He was a member of a rival political party The Generationlists( all about ensuring a stable political system that would endure through the generations), a sort of branching off of the Greens who fell apart as the third party of Australia. From weaknesses in their economic policy and pandering to soft, middle-class interests and sentimentalist issues( multiculturalism, refugees, gay marriage) and after some scandal involving shoddy dealings within the party’s highest ranks long after their founder stepped down as leader.

  Simon a new upstart of theirs, had been highly suspicious of all the recent deaths of Aryan's enemies, and all these sudden populist, parliamentary reforms.

  He decided to do some sleuthing into Aryan, Shiver, and Mist's pasts. The party had many other members up for seats in the House of Parliament of course, but these two youngsters who just suddenly become high-ranking party members had always seemed rather seedy to him.

  He searched and searched till he came across a series of news articles pertaining to one Alice Cradle, Shiver Gray's name before she changed it. Many people around her had died, of the same viral plague that was killing people now. This girl was seen as a sad little survivor turned political activist who had attended two schools hit particularly hard by the plague and where many perished.

  Simon had often considered that perhaps Aryan and his altruistic, near-heavenly persona was very much a farce. A scientist and an exceedingly wealthy and powerful man and one who Simon felt was a rather spurious humanitarian for he exhibited quite a sanctimonious and self-righteous air. He suspected among other things he was using some kind of biological warfare.

  Perhaps using some type of plague to wipe out his enemies... but so many of Aryan’s nemesis had died of suicide or been convicted for heinous crimes, disappeared off the face of the earth, or simply had their business crash and fail...

  Even if he was resorting to subterfuge, Aryan could not possibly have orchestrated all those deaths, could he? Simon shook his head with no clue that Monovalent had been informed by one of Aryan's spies that someone had been snooping into Shiver and Mist's pasts. Monovalent decided not to tell Aryan but leave Simon clues... A trace to follow.

  After all, he was no threat: the virus dormant in his system could flare up at any moment on Monovalent, Mist, or Shiver's command. The virus’s flesh-eating properties could be engaged instantly, and Simon would be immobilized within minutes and dead within the hour. Long before he could have time to travel to the police station and explain and show his accumulated evidence to the law enforcement authorities. More importantly, the machine had calculated could be quite useful to him.

  Monovalent stole or took without permission from his own drives the papers describing Aryan's experiments with stem cells and AI technology on the development of fetuses with potential for immortality if they were conflated together with a machine.

  He first sent a medical report involving young Evan.

  A child nine years, tallish but with a slight build was brought to the ER after a funnel-web bite. A neighbour brought and signed him in as his parents were both unreachable. Spider’s blood was on his hands, its remains in a glass bottle. He Informed staff;

  “Thing bit into me whilst sleeping and so I caught the repellent beast and upon feeling its revolting form blanched. Resultant; my throwing it against a wall with force.”

  Examination revealed arachnid already deceased of bacterial or viral agent. Hairs greenish and abnormal tissue-like growth on its head later tested and revealed to contain foreign DNA. Causing tumours from excited, uncontrolled cellular mitosis. The dead body twitched due to uncontrollable muscular activity, and excessive saliva at the mouth. Data and effects on humans/origin are under investigation at present.

  The patient silent yet seemingly unharmed made little eye contact and spoke only once after answering the on-call nurse’s questions in a manner polite, cooperative but reluctant. It appeared to be about the blood.

  “Filthy, undignifying, remove it, please. Pity he didn’t wake me quite in time to avoid this,” his tone suggested disgust. His odd behaviour as possible signs of avoidant personality disorder and/or obsessive-compulsive germ-phobia and likely autism were noted.

  As he presented asymptomatic, staff assumed venom was not excreted in the assault. However, under the advice of the attending physician, he was tested. Results were normal except toxicology showed small, broken-down traces of the poison as if he were possibly unusually immune and his body had neutralized the compounds. Patient sample was taken for further testing everything showed typical except a few possible odd genetic markers found. However, connection to the immunity could not be proven.

  Someone from what seemed to be named the Shiverla Infantale project had saved and recorded this documentation of the incident.

  The nelfine organ is in fact the only marked signifier (small but visible on advanced X-ray) without extensive, specialized testing that the Shiverla were inhuman. It could, under Monovalent’s command, near-instantaneously dissolve apart and revert all the pair’s cellular bodies to their stem cell stage before remerging whole. Appeared to have been written as an addendum at the bottom of the page.

  Monovalent also silently “gifted” him some papers Mary, a collaborator, published on retroviruses in human DNA and how humans were actually virus, bacteria, and cell chimeras. Finally, he sent a piece from the secret Shiverla Journal documenting their progress and had a page of simplified terms of the new biological processes of the bioweapons and their newly made-up names.

  Shiverla documentation- new terms and their applied meanings

  Metamornaphasis-fetal from nano and metamorphosis. Meaning miniature robotic lifeforms and to undergo a transformation. Foetal is abbreviated often to fetal though do I retain a penchant for preferring its "incorrect" o-inclusive origin

  Naturally refers to infancy whence still developing in the mother’s womb and has a lovely undertone of the fey as in otherworldly, fairylike and I'll utilize later.

  Say: met-a-morn-a-fay-sis.

  The Farling changeling: who like the fabled spirit hath taken the place of a human child yet refers specifically to a creature not mythical but scientifically born/engineered.

  Shiverla faetal- an immortal, gene-spliced human-mirroring chimera. Sometimes written as faeytil. The female version can also be called an Illa faerytil. They're of a cellular, viral, bacterial, nano, and artificial-intelligence-aided structure. Riddled seemingly with errors Mendelian, its every allele does lack a line of direct genetic inheritance. Leaving them my Shiverla-faetal with no clear parental lineage. Shiver for the frozen fairness of its incarnations.

  Called too, the telomeres faetal. Derived from the archaic faetus and fetal and references the immortal fay. Also derived from and is the mirror reversal of fatal.

  Pronounced either fay-e-till in the holyed language of the air upon discussing its mystical nature or inhumanness but if considering its muddier and simpler connection to mankind it ought to be said in a comparatively harsher vernacular of the common folk where they lie the "illa fay-e-tarl."

  The ruthless Monovalent even sent Simon some documents pertaining to an enemies list which was comprised of various people Aryan had killed and some he presumed must be ones he planned to later kill or take down.

  He also procured a diary of the seven-year-old Alice describing how people around her particularly those she disliked became ill or died of that still-unknown, viral pathogen. When Simon, face pale as old milk, had seemed to put things together, Monovalent sent him a Virtualiser. It simply said, “Come try and stop us” and he gave him Aryan's address though he hardly needed to as he could just have looked it up on the internet. The next day Simon turned up Aryan was out, but Mist was in. Simon was invited in begrudgingly. He told Mist he knew the truth.

  The boy looked bewildered for a second then laughed and showed him the door. Simon knew no one would believe the truth and if they did, he’d be dead before he could tell it if what the documents claimed the children could do was true. Alice's diary had suggested however she was not such a sociopath as the others. Perhaps he could enlist her help, divide and conquer their ranks. if Alice or Shiver as she was known now, told people the harrowing truth and showed them her powers before Aryan, Mist or Monovalent could kill them, they would perhaps only then believe.