Obey and Learn .
Pay attention .
Make no mistakes .
Now , follow .

Kolun dwelled on the words spoken to it by the Chiroptera captain .

"It will to a hallway come. It shall choices make . Newt you are , and newt you shall remain , until you the truth understand . See things , and learn ."

"Obey and Learn ." Kolun intoned .

"Pay attention ." They intone together . "Make no mistakes . Now , follow ."

Kolun was a place , it wasn·t a name . It was the name of the drawer where it slept with its cadre . In the next cadre over they would also have a Kolun , and in the cadre over from that , and from the cadre over from that . Newt it was , and Newts did not have names , until they had augmented themselves and begun the process to completion .

Newts you are , and newts you shall remain .

Now , follow .

The top of the sky , a massive steel ceiling that stretched from horizon to horizon , was imperceptible overhead , as the sky was blanketed by a thick iron-rich atmospheric vapor-fluid that belched 60 hours a day from the massive smokestacks that sprung from the District ð Foundry .

Kolun·s lungs were coated with coagulative necrogen and nanomachine reconstructors . The balance between the two made the hot soot air remotely breathable .

The side of the building was made of recycled sheet steel . It could have been saved from a previous crop or it might have been riveted together last week . Sure enough , inside was a hallway , the clean white walls in stark contrast to the Fane of Flesh outside . And Kolun could see the plaque next to the first door .

It was curious . It had been designed to want to draw a card after making a successful infiltration . All Newt had been designed for natural curiosity and then left on a world of sharp scrap metal and hot iron .

It entered the hallway , checking for traps , the doorframe , the walls , the floor . What would it find? Ka

Level 6 Abyssal Zoamorph

Kolun entered the room through the white door rimming opaquely translucent sheet glass . In the middle of the room was a plant . Or maybe a fungus? Ka what was it? Ka

Donning a tight breathing mask , the newt approached the life form . It had once been newt , like itself , and yet had clearly been completely mutatively transformed . From the boulder-like shape of the mass , it looked as if the newt had been curled up on its knees , large fruiting bodies of fungi and moss grown on top of each other in thick pelts . Roots grew into its head , its eyes empty and staring deadly at nothing .

See things , and learn .

The newt stared with a roil of wonder and analytic , not daring to touch the potentially toxic HtKhNaKi [exoflora] .

When it was done , the newt exited through an identical door on the same wall , leading behind a large pane of glass segmenting the hallway . There was another door , and another pane of glass , and another door . It tried the handle on the door it had just come from and found it to be locked .

Level 7 Pandemonian Zoamorph

The door to the next chamber was identical , the translucent glass concealing some red body instead of a green one . It opened the door and went through it with mild curiosity .

If the body in the previous room had been indiscernably alive or dead , the newt in this room was very alive . Thick steel cuffs held its wrists , ankles , and neck to an operating table at a 72° incline , its chest wide open and held there with clamps , great lungs visibly heaving with every breath , its heart beating frantically inside its chest .

The Pandemonian newt stared at Kolun with abject horror , as if strongly hallucinating . It pulled and wrenched at its buckles , cutting its wrists and doing little good . As Kolun circled the room , it found the zoamorph·s skull cut open , parts of its brain cleft or clamped , its adrenal glands overdeveloped and bulging .

Obey and Learn .

There was a click on the other side of the room , though Kolun lingered breifly to study its transformed compatriot . The newt on the table screamed into its sewn-shut lips , shaking and screaming harder with every advanced inch . Kolun monitored its terror with passive witness , noting the sweat streaming down its brow as it shook and bucked .

It was a short walk to the door , and through it , into the next section of bright white hallway . Kolun·s feet left thick oily boot prints behind it .

Level 8 Elysian Zoamorph

There were four newts in the next chamber , the counters covered in implements just like the last two rooms . Two of the newts wore identical dark rust cloaks and carried candlabras made of twisted iron . They flanked another newt , coded more strongly female than most newts , as it washed its hands in a steel sink . It looked up and at Kolun , and then back to its work with disinterest .

The subject in this room looked like a lily , its flesh scalpeled in thin layers , artfully pinned back and on display . Tubes and hoses ran into and out of its exposed vital organs , save for the intestines , which were in a frosted glass cryofridge . As Kolun watched , the leading newt picked up a handheld device and turned it on .

"More? Ka" It had the decency to ask .

"More Ha" It whispered , shaking with anticipation . The doctor-priest leveled the vibrating wand at the zoamorph·s sex organs , and it moaned out loud .

"It feels good to obey ." The doctor-priest intoned .

"It feels good to obey ." The zoamorph responded .

"It feels good to obey ."

"It feels good to obey ."

The doctor-priest took a long thin skinning knife and slit a section of unarticulated meat on the outer side of the zoamorph·s left flank . The zoamorph moaned ecstatically , sighing with relief as the blade expertly unzipped its flesh .

"It feels good to obey ."

"It feels good to obey ."

The two stared into each others· eyes as the doctor-priest entrained the zoamorph with the vibrating wand . The zoamorph·s trembling became tighter , more acute , like it was building to orgasm . The doctor-priest slit the next section of flank and the zoamorph sighed with relief again .

Kolun tore itself away from the spectacle , going to the next door and finding it unlocked . It went through the hallway into the next portion .

Level 9 Themyscrean Zoamorph

It was the ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninty-ninth time .

Again . Again . Again .
The same twisted surgery , sometimes for runs of hundreds or thousands of iterations identical , other times evolving and mutating , other times stochastic and random . Sometimes the Hollow was genetically male , sometimes it was female . Sometimes it had come in with semen between its legs post-mortem . It had come in alive , dead , undead . Always it was the same person . Over and over .

Again . Again . Again .
For the first thousand iterations , the text had been different . "Try this next time" . "Remember to do that" . After a thousand , whoever was on the other end went cold . All they ever said , anymore , in between ·sections , was "Again" . "Again" . "Again" .

By now i could carve up a living body faster than a slaughterhouse butcher could dismantle a living body for meat rations . x inches from here to here , y pounds of pressure on skin of z moisture to cut clean angles at 30 and 60° .

I had already been out of the computer simulation before . Thanks to some strange allies i found the Internet , the AppNet , the Dark Web . I found technologies that could be combined to form perfect control over real flesh-and-blood humans , the shapes that live outside of the water pail we artificial-virtuals live in .

Kas mi Na , ha bou dah?

Still , there are truths to reality . A virtual image can be made to do anything the coder programs it to do . Even if the graphics are as advanced as Vivisection Simulator , no matter if it is right or wrong or just or unjust . As it would happen , some dejected schmuck had programmed me to do just that .

The 99,999th was alive , and a screamer . The past nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine had all been alive .

I looked it up , once . Who the target was . It was me . I was being made to destroy myself . Yet there are laws that govern reality . A virtual image can be made to do anything a coder inputs .

Vainly , i had hoped we would stop at 100,000 . Or the next . Or the next . Or the next .
Again . Again . Again .

des