Revelations And Realizations

Hey Everyone!! :-)

I thought I'd share a little peek at Petri's adventures, today. Enjoy! :-)

Excerpt from Intrinsic Connections:
When Chessie fell to her knees and slumped over onto her side on the floor, the power that had been collecting within Petri came to a head and energy suffused every cell of her being. Time slowed and every barrier in and around her seemed as flimsy as tissue paper. Effortlessly, Petri stepped away from the Arcanum who had been holding her and held up her hand.

"Stop!" she ordered, her voice reverberating through the room and the minds of everyone in it as she snapped the connection between Chessie and the Arcanum who had been slowly killing her.

In that moment, the remnants of the barriers fell, and Petri thought she could see all the way to the end of the universe. The separations she had always felt between herself and others were gone. Chessie's mind was open to her in a way it had never been before, and it took quite a bit of effort for her to stop herself from invading her friend's most intimate thoughts.

Likewise, the Arcanum were open to her. Not just the two in front of her, but every Arcanum in existence. She saw all the way into the heart of the Collective and out the other side, and it was clear to her that the Arcanum were far more numerous than she had suspected. Everything about them was on display. All their thoughts, their plans, their desires, and their fears were hers for the taking. None of their shields mattered any more; Petri could see straight through them all. And it had never been clearer to her just how alien they really were. Because, while she could see everything contained in the Collective and the individual minds of the Arcanum, she understood very little of what she saw.

And it wasn't just the minds and their contents that were open to her, it was also the connections between them and the fabric of the Collective that was clear to her. She could see how all the minds wove together and why it felt so good to be a part of it. The Arcanum, as asexual beings, never experienced the endorphin cascade associated with sex that was such a strong drive in most species. Instead, they had apparently sublimated the drive into the Collective.

Petri didn't know if they did it deliberately or if it was an evolutionary mechanism that ensured the Arcanum wouldn't war with each other. But whatever its origins, when the Arcanum joined their minds together, they experienced a biological reward on par with what other species experienced when they joined their bodies together. But in the case of the Arcanum, that sensation was magnified and reflected hundreds of thousands of times through all the minds that had joined together. No wonder it was such an addictive feeling.