Initiation: Mindbinding
S1E4 | Sci-fi | Biopunk | Coming of age
Hello my fellow voyagers🖖. ‘Initiation’ is a four-part, coming-of-age biopunk sci-fi mini-series. In this final episode, a young girl undergoes her initiation into the ancient practice of mindbinding—a pivotal moment in her journey.
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
It’s a trap. Amiie woke up the following day with those words ringing in her head. It’s a trap. She lifted her hand and looked at the pink healing pad peeling at the corners. She flexed her wrist. The pain was gone. It’s a trap. The ever-churning ocean was calm, almost placid under the smooth grey sky thrown like a blanket over the sun, the windless air a hot, sweaty cesspool even under the high-tech cooling fibers of her bedsheets. She sat on her bed, cooling the soles of her feet on the smooth marble. The palace was strangely silent. For a second, she toyed with the possibility of being all alone, freed from the world of humans, especially those related to the house of Vesper.
She walked into the marine blue shower attached to her room. The jet of cold water made her squeal on her toes before she let it wash off the sweat from her body. When she returned to her room, her bed had been made, and a formal white overall with a blue collar was hanging on the wardrobe door. The maid was gone. Was she supposed to dress herself? Was this part of the initiation? For a brief moment, she thought of reaching out to her mother. It was an aching, feral need that made her feel ashamed and vulnerable. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She had bloomed. She was on her own!
‘Ready? I’m coming to pick you up!’ said her mother in her speaker implant.
The familiar voice sent rivers of emotion through her body.
‘I’m ready,’ said Amiie.
Her hands were clenched in fists, the knuckles white and bloodless. She was not going to cry! She was not going to cry!
It’s a trap! It’s a trap! It’s a trap!
She felt a nod in her throat, and her eyes welled up with tears.
~~~
‘Are we having breakfast?’ said Amiie.
The stiff fabric of the new overall was cutting into her skin. She hurried down the unfamiliar hallway, trying to keep up with her mother. They had descended to the underground levels of the palace in a secured area she had never seen before.
‘It’s better to keep your stomach empty,’ said her mother, stopping in front of a windowless door made of massive steel.
‘Where are we?’ said Amiie.
‘In the treasure vault of the Vesper house,’ said her mother, straightening her blue collar and smoothing the wrinkles of her uniform with nimble hands.
The steel door slid open.
‘There you are!’ said lady Kaiser, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. ‘Lady Vesper and our future sister.’
Donning the uniforms of their respective houses, the other four ladies beamed at Amiie, their smooth, baby faces matching the smooth, bare room. Besides the five ladies, there was only one strange cocoon at the center of the room, about the size of an adult human.
‘What’s that?’ said Amiie.
‘The screaming room,’ said lady Kaiser, letting out a shrill laugh.
The women went quiet. Lady Kaiser’s smiling mask fell off for an instant, replaced by a fleeting shadow of fear.
‘Don’t listen to my nonsense, dear,’ said lady Kaiser, gently pushing her toward the cocoon.
‘Maa?’ said Amiie, turning around to look for her mother.
When her back touched the cocoon, she recoiled in fear and disgust. It had an elastic, almost skin-like consistency.
‘What is this?’ said Amiie. ‘What are you going to do to me?’
Suddenly, her mother stood there, her face eerily calm.
‘Today, my dear daughter, you will be initiated in the female practice of mindbinding,’ said her mother. ‘When a woman comes of age, her entire biology changes, allowing her to become fertile and bear children. However, the hormonal changes also affect a woman’s emotional well-being, as you probably noticed in the past weeks since you bloomed. Mindbinding helps noble women transcend their biological limitations and fully control our emotions, thus allowing us to become worthy members of our houses, worthy wives and mothers.’
Behind her back, Amiie felt the skin of the cocoon pull apart.
‘Please step in,’ said her mother.
‘What will happen in there?’ said Amiie. ‘Please, maa, I’m afraid!’
The women surrounded her with those eerily calm faces, placing their palms on her body.
‘Do not be afraid, Amiie,’ said the women in unison. ‘We will always protect you.’
The hands gently pushed her inside the cocoon.
~~~
The cocoon’s skin wrapped around Amiie’s body. It was transparent from the inside, and she could see and hear everything that was going on in the room. But she couldn’t hear her voice when she tried to speak. The skin seemed to absorb noise. Amiie checked her other communication channels but found that they were locked.
‘We are ready!’ said her mother.
The five women turned to face one of the white walls, which slowly peeled off, revealing a glass screen behind which Amiie saw her father and the heads of the other five houses.
‘As the mother, I will choose the control level,’ said her mother. ‘Considering Amiie’s history and behavior in the weeks since she bloomed, I decided that level three would be appropriate. This will ensure tight control of her base impulses and allow her enough room to develop her personality. If there are no objections, we’ll proceed with level three.’
Her mother raised three fingers in the air, but lady Kaiser grabbed her hand and lowered it slowly.
‘If we may, lady Vesper,’ said lady Kaiser, squeezing her mother’s hand. ‘We do have an objection. After observing Amiie for weeks and discussing the matter, we all decided that the girl must be a five.’
For a moment, Amiie thought that her mother would crumple on the ground, were it not for lady Kaiser’s iron grip. Maa! She wanted to reach her, but she was trapped in the cocoon. Maa!
‘At yesterday’s dinner, she showed great control over pain,’ said her mother, regaining her composure. ‘This demonstrates that she has more self-control than we initially assessed.’
Lady Kaiser smiled her little evil smile.
‘That is precisely why she should be a five!’ said lady Kaiser. ‘The girl has a stubborn, rebellious nature paired with a strong will and unnatural pain control. Only adherence to a strict practice will bend such a mind. Think of the wonderful things she can achieve with a little self-control! Perhaps even become a whale whisperer, like her mother.’
Lady Kaiser raised one fist in the air and unfolded her fingers one at a time: one, two, three, for, five.
‘The girl is a five!’ said lady Kaiser.
A silent whisper ran through the voyeurs gathered behind the glass screen: The girl was a five.
‘The bidding war begins!’ said lady Kaiser, leaning toward her mother. ‘My son was quite taken with your daughter, lady Vesper. The Kaiser house will make sure not to disappoint its young heir. And what a wonderful wife a five will make!’
The cocoon wrapped Amiie in darkness, mummifying in its stillness. She felt the warmth of a human touch, the vibration of a whisper bumping into her ear.
‘Remember Alva,’ said her mother.
Those were the last words Amiie heard before something sharp punctured the back of her neck, sending her into a spiral of pain. She was in free fall, caught in a vertigo of the senses, spinning in and out of awareness, expanding and contracting, sensing new synapses and neural pathways forming in her brain and old ones dissolving, her senses connected to a vast virtual network with millions of users, at once comprehending the empire built by her family and diving into its underlying structure. It felt like her body and mind were torn into myriad directions, stretched to the point of breaking.
‘Please, let me out of here! I’m begging you!’
But no one could hear her, and the pain went on and on and on.
~~~
One year later‘Try again,’ said her mother.
Amiie focused with all her might on the sound-generating software and gave it a mental command. A series of soft, cooing, and guttural sounds propagated through the water. Amiie repeated the sequence over and over until she felt movement in the water. Then she heard them! Alva and her little baby calf joined the choir with their crystal-clear voices. Amiie swam in the direction of the sound, paying attention to every little detail and sensation, the sound vibrating through her chest, the sunlight sipping through the waves.
‘It’s coming out beautifully,’ said her mother. ‘Don’t stop!’
Alva approached with her freshly born calf on her back, then floated to the surface of the ocean to breathe. Amiie ran her hand over the smooth, cool skin of the calf, enjoying its sweet, babbling, squeaky sounds. She then switched her attention to her virtual audience, an eclectic group of premium ticket holders privileged enough to witness Amiie building her virtual whale habitat in real-time. This is amazing! An unbelievable experience! The most anticipated release of the decade!
Amiie was tired but happy. After a year of hard work, trials and errors, pain and tears, she had finally managed to start her little whale empire. She switched back to the soothing sights of the ocean and let her body float above the waves, arms stretched wide into infinity.
‘Jaan, you’re going to be an amazing game master,’ said her mother.
The end
Initiation: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
Author’s notes
This is the final part of ‘Initiation’, a serialized short story exploring the backstory of Amiie Vesper, a character from my feature-length screenplay ‘The Deep Dive’. This screenplay—an utopian-dystopian cli-fi narrative—belongs to the Dust Road' universe, which you can dive into here. Unlike my usual approach of completing a series before sharing, I wrote and published ‘Initiation’ episode by episode, shaping the story in real-time.
Through ‘Initiation’, I expanded on the worldbuilding of The Deep Dive, introducing the mindbinding practice as a unique tradition within the noble houses—a relic from the old world that clashes intriguingly with the future society I’ve created.
Another story in The Deep Dive universe, Welcome to gulmohur, features Madina, Amiie’s rival in The Deep Dive, adding more depth to the characters’ shared world.
Next week, I’ll be posting a ‘making of’ piece about ‘Initiation’, including the research and inspiration behind the story. I also plan to edit ‘Initiation’ and publish a polished version here, which will offer a chance to reflect on how the story evolves in its final form.
Initiation: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
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I think this is my favourite chapter, though I agree with Johnathan in that there's definitely space to expand more within that year that passed by. At least there's the space there to write into should you be so inspired. ;)
I like the build-up and tension as we were led towards that cocoon. Excellent and vivid prose as always.
I was more fearful than I needed to be. But that last year went too quickly for me! I hope you flesh it out at some point in another story with more of the mindbending trainee details.