Due to popular request, this story has been turned into a series. Read Part 1 here
The process had been … an experience.
Nora-Ceph looked down at her hand, opened and closed it slowly. Fingers were weird.
”How are you feeling?” In front of Nora-Ceph stood Quelz. Quelz was missing an arm. That arm had now replaced the brain of the human Nora.
An octopus’ arm had always been full of nerves and even somewhat independent of the main brain. All movement had been controlled by a huge mass of nerves. It had been a small step from there to a fully functional brain. Each Cephalopod was now able to remove an arm through a surgical procedure and … plant it in a human. Where it took over.
Of course, the procedure had its risk. Only half of all test subjects survived, the fusing of arm-nerves and the human’s spinal nerves didn’t always work. The chemical, polyethylene glycol, was able to combine the nerves, but there were other unwanted side effects too. And the immune response wasn’t light either because the process removed the blood-brain barrier.
Considering all that, it was a miracle so many procedures worked.
”Nora-Ceph?” Quelz sounded worried when Nora-Ceph didn’t answer his question.
”I’m fine, I’m fine”, Nora-Ceph hurried to say. ”I was just adjusting. This feels … weird. I’m not used to being … singular.”
”Your absence hurts me too”, Quelz said. ”It’s hard to let go of a part of yourself. But it is for the greater good. Can you stand?”
Nora-Ceph moved forward a bit on the bed she was lying on, so her feet could touch the ground. Slowly, she put her weight on them. She swayed. Quelz reached for her arm to stabilize her, which enabled Nora-Ceph to keep her balance.@suesa
”How can humans walk like this all their life?”, she wondered. ”Two legs! How did something primitive like this even evolve?”
Quelz made a sound that would have been a chuckle had he been human.
”Don’t be too hard on them, they managed to evolve a lot faster than we did. Sure, they destroyed the whole planet in the process but hey, at least they were able to found new planets to colonize and destroy!”
”Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Quelz”, Nora-Ceph said. ”You’ve always been more optimistic than that.”
”You’re right, you’re right. It’s the stress, you know? While you were under anesthesia, some things happened.”
”How long have I been out? What happened?”
”Three days. Not longer than the others, but it was enough for people to notice your host vanished. Apparently, she was working in the governmental agency of Luna 3. People noticed her absence the same day.”
”Shit”, Nora-Ceph called out. ”Did they come looking for her?”
”Yes. Someone saw her leave with the child, so the police came looking for Lejdz. We were able to hide her, but … there were arrests. And we haven’t seen the three they’ve taken with them since.”
Nora-Ceph clenched her fist. An interesting sensation, unusual but welcome. She could get used to this. There was a certain strength in human muscles she hadn’t experienced before.
”Seems like I need to re-assimilate as soon as possible”, Nora-Ceph said. ”How are my vitals? Any immune reactions that might kill me soon?”
”Nothing so far, but I don’t like the thought of sending you back so early”, Quelz said. ”If something happens … if there’s a rejection of your tissue … they might put you in a hospital! And if they cut you open, they will notice something is wrong. We can’t guarantee you’ll be transferred to one of our doctors. The risk is just too high.”
”There’s always the chance of rejection, even years later. Just give me enough of the immunosuppressant drugs and I will be fine. As soon as I notice any damage to my nerves, I will report in with our trusted doctors. It will be fine.”
Quelz was clearly still not convinced. Nora-Ceph could almost feel his distress. But just almost. The lost connection between Quelz and the other arms had left her with a weird and painful feeling of isolation.
”We need to make sure the others go free”, she reminded him, while slowly letting go of his arms to try and stand on her own. ”They won’t survive long in that prison. The humans never give us enough water. Say it’s too expensive to meet our needs and it’s our own fault we got in that situation.”
Quelz’ color had turned into a deep, sorrowful blue. He moved away from Nora-Ceph, towards a table with several bottles of pills. He picked the largest one and handed it over to Nora-Ceph.
”Three a day”, he instructed her with a shaking voice, ”not less, our your tissue will surely be rejected. Not more, or you will leave yourself vulnerable to all kinds of infections. Three, you understand?”
He knew Nora-Ceph had the procedure memorized. But she wasn’t offended by him explaining it to her again. He was worried and she would have been worried too in his place. She was worried now. Worried for those in jail, worried for those she’d leave behind.
Worried about herself.
She grabbed the bottle and put it in her pocket. Then she hugged Quelz.
”It will be okay”, she said. ”I will tell them a good story about why I vanished and how the Cephalopods weren’t involved. They will let those they’ve taken go free. I will assume my role as the human Nora and continue with our mission to infiltrate humanity. It will all work out. And then we will be free.”
”Yes, that’s how it will be.” Quelz tried to sound hopeful, but his color didn’t change in the slightest. Nora-Ceph let him go.
”Well then”, she cleared her throat, ”time to be a human.”
Sources:
Octopus Arms Found to Have "Minds" of Their Own
The blood-brain barrier: an overview: structure, regulation, and clinical implications
Picture taken from pixabay.com
Glad to see you published another part. Thank you 😃😃😃
The way you describe every peculiarity is what I like. I also try to do this in my stories but I miss the words because of not a very good command on english.
Don’t know how to improve it.
Edit :- By the way, you are missing a Star ⭐️ in the 13th para.
This story needs a complete knowledge about octopuses !! 🐙 Amazing how you turned it all to a science fiction. Waiting for the next part😋
I like philosopher!
Interesting read! Captivating! Professionally i'm a biomedical scientist, and i could relate well with immunology and neuroscience. I will be following through all the chapters that you'll be posting (will read the chapter 1). Thanks so much and have a good one!
There is some nice bio engineering going down here :) It would be a strange wake up for sure!
Nice writing as always, Peace
Yay. Read the other piece and was left feeling unsatisfied. It's weird how one gets acquainted with your writing and starts to obsess over your stories. I read your work like I have been craving alien stories if that even makes sense.
Thank you for continuing 😊
An afterthought, I wish I could've my brains mashed with a wolf's :D Insane yes but its the truth... at least while I have this line in my mind
Still a good read :)
I'm just new to your blog and as I read this I'm really confused yet intrigued at the same time because I don't know the full premise of this but I kept reading haha Thank you for the good read! I'm new to the STEM community in steemit and really starting to get in touch with my own STEM side with my posts as well as that of others. I think it's going to be real fun!
hey @suesa, I read this and was so hyped to post my own story. But I have to keep relying on bots for growth. I'm not complaining or anything. I love this story and I appreciate it very much. But is the writing community too thin here or am I not seeing it? I get if people don't like my content but I would appreciate it if people told me they were there. I'm just really blue right now and I need to express this somewhere. Sigh. I'm sorry.
You should get in contact with the Writer's Block
https://steemit.com/writing/@gmuxx/meet-the-writers-block
Try to connect a bit with them, socialize. They're a great support network for writers on steemit.
Okay, I'll give it a shot once I'm home. Thank you very much for the reply!! :)
Okay, i think i get the story now :). After my third read, at first i thought human nora had her brain exchanged for baby cephi's. I guess i became too attached to it after the first part. But no, its Quelz and if she has 8 hands, it means each ceph have 8 seperate minds right? And Quelz has a part or a faction of his mind in human Nora. Coool, i was wondering how the cephs managed having different minds in one body.
I have questions though, or maybe they would be answered in the following series. Would Nora-Ceph be able to transmit her thoughts back to Quelz without a physical meeting, considering Nora's brain is a figment of Quelz.
When Quelz or any Ceph makes a decision, is there a vote for the best response by his 7 hands, minds?
Hehe :D , does Quelz brain feel wierd being in a female body?
This cracked me up, i could picture this little detail in my head, Nora-Ceph trying to stand, on just two legs, hehe :)
They can't hide their emotions :( , so unlike humans.
Cant wait to read the next part. I should discuss this with my friends. Already, i feel like a science nerd.
Nora-Ceph now owns a human body and thus can use it to speak. Quelz is also able to speak (baby cephi has demonstrated that Cephis and humans understand each other). That's how they communicate. But they can't read minds or transmit their thoughts, as the brains aren't connected anymore.
Cephis technically have 9 brains: 8 in the arms and one big one in their head. The 8 smaller ones usually only play a secondary role. In actual cephalopods, the brain seems to be able to give a "command" to one of the arms, upon which the arm acts by activating muscles. The arm can also react by itself to pain. That's what I based this on (see sources).
The Cephi part of Nora-Ceph doesn't really care about the whole gender thing, after all human males and cephi males are nothing alike.
Nothing alike, understood.
From what you have explained, the cephalopods seem smarter and way advanced than humans. They even got doctors to perform delicate operations like brain transfusions.
Now if the smaller brain of a ceph is able to accomodate the human body, giving it the needed instructions, then what more a complete ceph with 9 brains.
How did the humans manage to keep them isolated for so long?
I still feel deeply for Nora, human Nora. Also i cant wait to see how Nora-Ceph adapts to the human world. Were fragments of Nora's human memory extracted from her brain?
I am asking too many questions . I'll just wait till post the next part :)
Yes, wait for the next parts :P but I appreciate your engagement!
this story is really interesting. Makes me imagine how human muscles work on chepalopoda, so out of box. On the other hand, the series is somewhat satiric to human habit in destroying environment (earth), i found it in other serial too. I think it is a characteristic of writing.
i am a fan of madam @suesa.
can not wait for part 3
I can imagine how Nora-ceph has been adjusting and adapting in a human body. I remember the series, Strain, wherein a parasite takes over the human body. What I like about how you wrote this is that the cephis still has memory, but just has a new body. The plan of Nora-Ceph in infiltrating humanity through Nora’s body is a brilliant idea since humans possibly cannot (yet) recognize this plot. I can’t wait for the next part and the twist!
I think this is gonna be faster than I thought. Then don't criticize others for commenting so quickly, one can read this quickly enough to understand and leave a comment in less than 20 minutes, well at least I can. I'm going for the other one, I'm curious about that octopus mission.
I expect at least 5 minutes reading time, so people who comment after 2 can't have read it :P
A good story Nora-Ceph does this story have a true story?@suesa
I'm sorry before I do not understand the meaning of fiction, Story or fiction is an artificial fiction made by the author, where the story in it into the arena of imagination, imagination or fantasy thinking thinking of the si.thanks for the flag
The flag was mostly because I didn't want this comment at the top. For some reason, it reduced more of your self-vote (oh how I despise self-votes) than intended.
I'm a minnow. My stories self-vote automatically, now I'm feeling paranoid. Why do you despise self-votes?
Oh, it's mostly selfvotes on comments I can't stand. Looks like you're high-fiveing yourself after masturbating, you know? Spammers comment hundreds of comments a day and upvote them, effectively taking a good portion of the reward pool.
Btw: before posting, theres a checkbox at the bottom right where you can choose if you automatically selfvote or not. But if you don't spam a lot and don't give yourself $500 per vote, self-voting on your post isn't that bad.
It's just the comments that annoy me greatly.
Oh, by the way while we're at it, do You know what might have happened to my comment options? I don't have a checkbox for self-voting nor can I change whether I want to power up or go 50/50.
Good to read this another part. I enjoyed it. Just mind blowing the way you have written it. Interesting thing is we didn't know many things in this world.
Well done man. I just love to read.. It's my passion. Waiting for your next post. @susea
nice writing. congrats
Wow.This is really interesting and fascinating. I live in the event. I have stirred my emotions a lot dear sister @suesa... We really want more from you. I wish you success and excellence.
glad to see published another part...
This is really new to me, and I was unaware of knowledge of controlling system of hands of Octopus. Thanks for sharing this informative post.
Your article is quite interesting and very easy to understand, its content is very deep.!!!!!!
I like your content @suesa, trying to succeed is a human dream, broken grows lost lost.
It's a very good story I've never heard of before. I also like it. I hope you get more from this post
wonder plant!
...plant?
This is fiction story.... but it looks real...
how come????
Really it is great to you & me.
great to share
I'd guess it's because it was based on scientific facts. Plus, very good writing style of course.
I have to follow the story of luna from the start, I like the way your story.
You may give a little intonation in order to make the atmosphere going on in the story.
hello angry young lady this fiction/story is just amazing i do have some English problem but what i understand is just amazing and remember i read your both parts of this series
Nice part, will wait for the next one. Good work, keep it up :)
Enjoy your weekend!
Have you ever posted on #wattpad
nope
You sure know your way around words. I am glued on here.
I read the first part since its a series now but I was unable to comment due to I was unable to understand the storyline because I dint know much about the cephalods. Then I did my research on them and found out their interesting features most especially the regeneration feature. Thanks for posting such sci-fi story and making me learn. No knowledge is lost. Following though.
Wow! It's really nice. You must have watched some movies to give you this inspiration.
"Nora-Ceph, it's time to be human." I love this part, I just think Nora's dead. I need to check out the ceph now. Nora hugged one, so I need to know how big they are..
Lovely fiction. It's unbelievably nice. Sometimes, I think you copied, but cheetah should have showed up or even steemcleaners.
But wait! I forgot to ask. Do they really talk in reality?
Nice work..
I chose to make them able to talk to make writing them easier
Aiit... I've seen a lot of weird animals so I was about adding them to the list.
nice post . I also try to do this in my stories but I miss the words because of not a very good command on english.
I just found this story. You are a gifted storyteller, congratulations! The pacing is just pitch perfect.
I am hooked already, and will be coming back for sure! Thank you for sharing!
Perhaps it's reading one right after the other, or my human centric mindset, but I can't help but wonder about what the cephi's did with poor Nora's brain. I presume it was discarded unceremoniously.
It's a legitimate question!
This fiction fascinates. It brings to mind several real-world parasites that influence the brains and behaviors of hosts or slaves, including Toxoplasma gondii and the various dulosic or leistic ants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave-making_ant
Nice story suesa....got ya
What I already told you.
:) getting good[er]
Great content, keep up the good work
You only needed 3 minutes to read a post that's 1000 words long? Impressive!
You are really a good writer, anticipating the next episode
You took 2 minutes to read 1000 words? Amazing!
😂 Really amazing
Good post . Nice idea @suesa
Good luck for steem story
Upvote and reply me @burabay
Thank you so much