Quoted By:
"I walked all the way through the Fen, then I went through the well where you <span class="mu-i">stole</span> the snake from, then I— then we fell? Down into here?"
"Fell what distance?"
How did this turn into an interrogation? "...A lot?"
"Probably fast. He splattered."
You're too busy trying to banish that mental image to respond.
"Cured goo has more structural integrity than the base stuff, but it's not infinite. A steep fall onto a viscous surface would be a splatter. It doesn't hurt," Pat amends, seeing your facial expression progress. "No receptors. Just awkward when you're all over the floor <span class="mu-i">and</span> the walls and ceiling, and it takes a minute to pull everything back in order. But if he splatted, then the curing doesn't matter. The droplets would be small enough to bond almost instantly. Bug Man got eaten?"
"I wouldn't say eaten," you say defensively. "He seems... happy."
"That's what it does, Charlotte! That's what fucking Type IIs do. They don't have the decency to do you in— they do you in and slap your cardboard cutout up with the others. Like you're a shark head on a fucking overmantel, you know, gored and harpooned and everything, but at least you're smiling up there! Forever! There is nothing worse in the universe than that. There is nothing."
"Not Management...?" you attempt.
"I said nothing."
"But, I mean, I don't think you actually die, I think it's still actually you in there, just, um... I mean, Gil got eaten by the manse he was in, sort of, that's how he got beetled, but he's still Gil! He's just beetles now! I mean, he was still Gil— but you know what I mean! That's not how any of it works."
"Says the wonder child," Pat drawls. "How many Type IIs have you been in?"
You fold your arms. "I'm not answering that. It's not important."
"Let me guess. One? I have probably dealt with a hundred. I know my shit. They are <span class="mu-i">evil</span> things. They hate you for being alive, Charlotte Fawkins. They hate that you're real. They hate every drop of blood in your precious little body, and there is nothing they want more in the world but to cut you open and <span class="mu-i">suck</span> it up. If Bug Man got mansed—"
"Don't call him that."
"—then he's not who he was anymore. Obviously. He's bugs. Do you know what happened to his old self? It <span class="mu-i">died.</span> His real body? You know they've observed a vacant body over the course of a couple weeks? It's not pretty, champ."
"He- he has a new body now!" You can't third-slap her now! Restrain yourself! "He's exactly as much of a person as—"
"I didn't say he wasn't a person. I've talked to him. Nice enough, bit of a nudnik. I said he <span class="mu-i">died,</span> which is still an improvement over this shit, because at least he died <span class="mu-i">him.</span> He had that dignity. If Us got him, that's—" Pat darkens. "I'm sorry."
"He's happy," you say.
(3/TBC)
