Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Racing the Reaper

"No!"

Atropos leaped forward, slamming the pipe down onto the back of the Kappa's head. When it didn't go down immediately, she did it again, and again and again, until blood-loss from the stab wound, and repeated blunt force trauma finally did it in. Behind her Lachesis was screaming. She dropped the pipe onto the floor and turned.

Lachesis had run forward with Clotho and both were holding Krill upright. He was lying prone on the ground with his eyes glassy, his limbs limp and languid. His antenna had been snapped clean off and clear liquid was leaking down over his face and neck: The Vrul equivalent of blood.

He was going to die.

If he wasn't dead already.

Vrul didn't survive trauma like that.

They didn't

This wasn't government propaganda. Krill was a surgeon and he had seen accidents like this enough times to know and he had imparted his wisdom upon them, warning them to be careful. They weren't indestructible like humans or Drev, and they didn't have the ability to just keep living after being brutalized in that way.

Why?

Cell death happens extremely fast in Vrul, unbelievably fast. Combined shock and large wounds on Vrul can cause sudden cell loss around the effected area which will then cause a chain reaction that will spread around the body. Luckily this does not happen in small injures, but extreme trauma to this degree, it certainly would.

Clotho was still screaming.

"Shut up!" Atropos yelled, "I have to think!"

She turned in a tight circle.

She just needed soemthing.... Something that would halt the cell death long enough. From what Krill had told her, an accident like this would have to happen IN an operating room for the Vrul to survive, possible but not at all probable. So how could she stop time.

That was a tall order.

She couldn't stop time but maybe...

Maybe she could stop time for his cells. Her eyes roved around the room, faster than a human could blink and she saw it, knew what she needed to do.

She ran forward and grabbed Krill under the arms, "HELP ME!" She shouted, "We lift NOW."

Her two sisters did what she asked, immediately and without question, that was a good thing because every second they wasted was another second he didn't have. Together they inflated their helium sacks and floated into the air, their combined buoyancy lifting Krill off the ground

Atropos turned them towards one of the empty vats, and together they dropped him inside, where he first floated and then began to sink.

"What are you doing, he's going to drown." Lachesis demanded, but Atropos was still going, 'Grab that tank over there and hook it up to the tank hose.

She pointed to Clotho, "Operate the machine and get one of those masks on his face." Though they were confused and unsure what was going on, they did what Atropos said rushing forward to do their work. Both of them were fast, unusually fast using all four arms and all four cortical hemispheres to full capacity to get everything done at once.

Atropos separated all four cortical hemispheres to think about one problem at a time, following four different threads of thought at once.

She needed to freeze him.

The major problem with that plan? Ice, when allowed to form slowly, forms in crystals within the cell, as it crystalizes it shreds cells causing cell death. Even if you do preserve the meat the cells are no longer going to be viable, not that cryogenics were impossible of course, the Vrul had done it before, you just needed to make sure that the body froze faster than the crystals could form. There were bunches of other problems to go along with that, but the primary one was making it cold enough fast enough for the water to freeze like that.