Page 20 of Alien Peacock

“Can you fly up and check?”

“I keep trying.”

He doesn't need to tell me that it's really hard. When I look up, there's just as many crazy-looking Maeves up there as down here. Even walking on the force fields here on the floor is super confusing, so I can't imagine what it must be like trying to fly through it and not being sure which way is down and which is up. Especially after the disorienting adventure in the gravity room.

I keep my head down and trudge on. My self image is being eroded pretty effectively by these damn mirrors. And it wasn’t that robust to start with. All my imperfections are being exaggerated. Or are they? Maybe this is how I really look, but I just don't see it. Maybe my eyesarethat droopy. Maybe my hairisthat greasy. Maybe my legsarethat uneven in length. Maybemy upper lip is that hairy, and maybe I'm carrying much more of a paunch stomach than I thought.

I give one of the mirrors a good kick right in the weirdly curved, toothpick-thin shins it shows me having. “I don't believe you!”

Fighting back a little feels good, even though the force field isn't damaged in any way. I jump into the air, wanting to stomp my heel into the knee of the image on the floor below me.

A new mirror appears under me, about an inch higher than the old one.

My warped image never gets her knee stomped on because I land on the new mirror.

It gives me an idea.

6

- Arelion-

I'm seeing hundreds of reflections of myself. I see myself from every angle, and while they're all distorted, I could enjoy these images for a good while. My colors are so bright and vivid! My feathers so colorful and fresh and perfect, my shape so muscular and my movements so graceful! Despite the obvious attempts to make me look bad, I know it's fake and I find that I enjoy seeing the little details that I usually don't see, like the angle from behind and directly from the side. Mentally erasing the imperfections that the force field mirrors are inventing or exaggerating, I conclude that I look just as good as I think I do.

Some of the images make me chuckle with their ugly ridiculousness. Surely there must be a controlling force behind this, one that tries to seek out visual imperfections and amplify them?

I unfold my wings and beat them, rising from the floor. There's not much space between the force fields, and flying in thismaze is close to impossible. But this must be another strange experiment gone rogue, and I have to get out of it.

My wings beat againsts the force fields, and my head keeps being pushed down. Moving among the mirrors is like being encased in jelly. There’s no hard surfaces, just a soft resistance to the movements. I risk wearing myself out trying to stay airborne.

After another useless attempt, I fold my wings back in and grunt in annoyance.

“Are you all right?” I ask into an image of myself where my forehead is twice the size of my torso.

“I think I’m getting higher,” Maeve’s bright voice comes from just behind me. I don’t turn to check — this science experiment distorts sound as well. “Try to jump and step down hard.”

Well, her instructions are clear enough. Having no faith that it will work, I jump into the air without using my wings.

As I reach the top of the jump, the force field mirror under me is replaced by another that seems to be higher up.

“Interesting,” I say into one of my reflections, ignoring the giant mouth. “Even the lower force fields are dynamic.”

“Maybe it works if you fly?” Maeve suggests, her voice sounding as if she’s falling past me.

I had already thought of that, and I grit my teeth as I beat my wings in the small confines of the mirrors. Indeed the mirror I was standing on is replaced by new ones, higher and higher. I hadn’t noticed before, but it must have happened the whole time.

Now that I see how it works, I keep flying upwards, slowly making my way past the mirrors above me and seeing how new ones come into existence below me. I hadn’t noticed before.

Before I know it, my head hits the rounded ceiling of the hemispherical hall. It too is mirrored, but it’s hard metal.

“I’m at the ceiling,” I report to Maeve. “Keep going upwards. I will find the apex of the curve.”

“That was fast,” she replies from somewhere below me. “I don’t know how close I am.”

“It helps to have wings,” I tell her. “I can’t imagine why you don’t have them, too.”

“Some mistake in my genetics, I’m sure,” she says from far away, but still below me.

I locate the apex of the ceiling and hover there, beating my wings. The view below me is incredible. It’s a million force fields, all showing some silly version of me. And yet I enjoy looking at them all. “I wonder what was the point of this experiment.”