85. Serpent Smoke

        Orien's amazing talents weren't a development the gods were trying to eliminate by sacrificing his life, it was something they would be developing farther. In order to reproduce it and develop it farther they would need to know all about his biology, where this trait came from, how he had acquired it, so as to mass produce such qualities in their future Crystal Generations. It was a promising link to the Electric Brain theory and it arrived just in time.

         It was late, the Graduation Ceremony Celebrations were winding down and the tunnels of the Underworld unusually quiet. Lit up on wine, king Atalon, Malodon and an aribu carrying Orien's head, waited while Torus unlocked the Moha Lab. Even Torus had become involved in the Crystal Program now. The Crystal Program would be upgrading the TLS Program too, perhaps even replace it someday. Every new development could potentially affect his role in the New Empire, he wasn't stupid, he made sure to be involved somehow.

         "He told me he came from the stars" Atalon explained part of the Glow Boy story as they walked down the hall.

         "Maybe he did" Malodon offered.

         "Maybe there's something to it, you know, the whole 'serpents coming from the skull' illustration from the Book of Life could represent an electrical smoke..." The king was starting to open his mind to new concepts of consciousness, arising from his new experiences with consciousness altering drugs. "Maybe the Light Serpents aren't electrical currents, maybe they're our electrical spirits!"

        "Now you're sounding like a Lunie" Torus scoffed.
         "It has to do with these crystals inside their heads" Malodon assured, convinced of his theory now. "I believe, based on prior research, that the more crystals there are, the more so-called serpents will appear."

        "I thought the crystals were a defect" Torus reminded.

         "Imagine if we had them?" Atalon offered, entertained by Malodon's idea. "Maybe they can be implanted?"

         "That's ridiculous!" Torus wasn't buying in. "How can you implant spirits?"

         "We implant the crystals, you idiot! The spirits are a by-product" Atalon reminded. 

        "They are conducted by the crystals..." Malodon offered. 

        "Inhaling is basically the same thing as implanting is it not?" 

        "Perhaps" Atalon challenged the young god. "You even told us you were flying after you smoked that stuff! Didn't he Malodon? Isn't that what spirits do? Fly?"

         "Yes" Malodon agreed.

         "It was just a dream" Torus hissed. "It wasn't real!"

        "Exactly" Atalon replied. "Without the crystals there is no controlling it."

         "It doesn't hurt to try implanting them" Malodon was with Atalon, he had already been experimenting with the idea. There was more to the crystal connections than any of them understood. "One thing I'm sure of, is that the secret lies in the crystals that we once considered a flaw. My guess is Orien is heavily flawed, he has a multitude of crystals inside his head that caused the Crystal Skull to glow. In fact, I predict his head is loaded!"

         "I don't think there's any Light Serpent spirits in those skulls or any skull" Torus insisted. "He didn't create that glow with his crystals, that was simply reflected light. Illusion! Look again at the image. It's not a serpent, it's a wisp of smoke! Come on, it's an obvious connection. You smoke that shit: you fly, but it’s not real flying and you will never control it!"

         "Perhaps you don't feel anything from the Crystal Skull because you don't have any crystals in your head" Malodon replied, as they entered the lab. Carefully, he placed Orien's head on the work tray, clamping it in place.

         Torus was offended. "How do you know?"

         "You don't have a pineal gland" Malodon replied.

         "What? How do you know?"

         "Because I made you" Malodon replied. "Therefore, I'm familiar with all your parts. You don't have one."

         The argument went cold. Breath was baited as Malodon carefully pried the skin away and cut open Orien's skull. He parted the lobes and plucked out the gnarly gland, layered in a film of blood. He rinsed it in a saline solution and held it up to the light. 

         "Nice!!" A smile broke out across his face as the organ glistened with promise. "See? Look at the golden crust, it’s beautifully crystallized!"

         Atalon craned his neck to see the crystals shimmering in the light, Malodon was right! "This one was highly conditioned, wasn't he?" 

         "Yes. He even spent time in Lochia."

         Interested now at a deeper level, Torus leafed through the red folder as the gods ogled the specimen, wondering now about Lochia and its magical powers, he had seen them in action at the ceremony today. He scanned Orien's stats... "His conditioning was almost doubled in the last two weeks...."

         "It really shows!" Malodon observed the clusters of growth.

         "What increased though?" Torus wanted details, scanning through the tablets and documents on offer. "What were they doing to condition him?"

         "It's such a beauty!" Malodon exclaimed, surprised again as he sliced it through the center to examine it's structure. "Look! It's fully crystalised, even inside!"

         Atalon liked what he saw. "It's solid gold!"

         "If I can develop this crystallization using Seton's medifications, then we may be able to incubate the development from the moment of conception. They could be hatched already crystalized like this."

         Torus listened in with growing resentment, knowing now, there would be little chance of new funding for his TLS Program, it would become obsolete, he had been strung along, his security was slipping away each stage along the way.

         "Wow... Perhaps you can crystallize all the gens..." Atalon was becoming more open minded than ever, it seemed like a logical and practical theory. "Maybe we can even crystallize the New Nefilim!"

         "This was only a test" Malodon reminded. "This degree of crystallization didn't happen by chance" he explained as he removed the pineal from the microscope slide and placed it in the dryer. "It's partly the DNA but DNA only sets the stage. Some of the Gens didn't respond to the conditioning the same way, so I doubt the medification will affect them equally, either."

         "All the Culloom tadpoles had crystallization to some degree and they were all Goldens..." Atalon could see the DNA pattern. "It explains the mixed success with the TLS Program too..." Then another observation. "If Glow Boy spent his last two weeks at Lochia..." He closed his eyes for a moment of divination, then chuckled, as the vision appeared. "Ha ha! Just you wait until Medena hears about this, she'll be all over it with Ephra upgrade proposals  and renovation funding requests!"

         "Ha-haaa!" Malodon laughed along.

         "Good thing you run all the accounts through my department" Torus reminded, smarting. "Or else witches like Medena would rob you of your Empire with their predicted funding requests while you're high as a kite on Serpent Smoke!"