Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 40 - The Ancient Path Of Memory
“Why are you a grey K-Rox?”
They were sat on a hill high above the growing city of Alexandria in ancient Egypt, the hill sloped steeply enough behind them that they could lean back against the ground and still see the ancient metropolis if they glanced down through their feet.
The greens and yellows in the grass swayed a rhythmless dance in the breeze, a tropical smell of mud, livestock and sweat, tickled their nostrils as it brought with it the stories of the day wafting up from the populated land below.
They spoke using an older form of an ancient language; Arabic, K-Rox had actually studied the language as well as having it didactically implanted into his Nplants. He loved the fact that it wasn’t a definite form of speech, two people could translate the same text and get two different answers, whilst both being right.
“For the same reason anyone is a grey, for the credits.”
“Yes but you take it so much further; why do you do it?”
The question wasn’t an unreasonable one, there were only a few thousand greys and out of them only around one hundred could be considered advanced-level, and out of them only another dozen or so could be considered anywhere near the level of K-Rox; when it came to dedication to being a grey he was quite clearly in a league of his own.
“I don’t know, I never really thought about it, when I joined up with StayTel I didn’t really have much going for me, no special skills or augmentations that I could leverage and I was fine on the standard network . . .”
K-Rox trailed off, he remembered a time not so long ago when he didn’t even bother to leave the game at reset, he simply allowed himself to be paused and restarted, Empires ran for ten game-subjective years and he had stayed through three resets meaning he had been living in the 21st century for forty years straight.
Except it wasn’t real living, it was the same ten years four times in a row, it got to a point whereby he had heard almost every main news item on the planet, and the random elements within the game had started to feel a lot less random.
The strangest thing about that whole episode, K-Rox thought to himself, was that he didn’t even miss his Nplant feeds, news updates, social requests and all the general mental traffic that he and everyone else on earth had buzzing through their heads every day.
K-Rox turned to look at Amorphia, she was stretched out with her hands above her head, her eyes closed and the beginnings of what could have been a smile on her lips. He watched her for a couple of seconds, tracking the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she breathed in the smells of Alexandria.
“I guess the reason if I’m being honest is that I’m absolutely fascinated by the Great Confusion, and I just feel like the more time I spend in Empires, and as a grey in general, the closer I get to what it was like for a human to live two hundred years ago. Then perhaps I could find . . . I don’t know, some kind of clue, and even if I don’t it’s fun looking you know?”
K-Rox propped himself up onto his elbows and looked down into the valley below, when he spoke again his voice was distant, as if he were voicing thoughts aloud to himself.
“I mean look down there, we can recreate a civilisation that is so old they were considered ancient by the Romans . . . yet, yet . . . I don’t know Amorphia there’s something I’m missing, it’s just really difficult looking for something if you have no idea what that something is.”
Amorphia opened her eyes and rolled onto her side as she rested her head in her hand and fixed him with her calm stare.
“Perhaps that’s why you are the best person to look for it, because you know it is there, and you don’t want to give up.”
K-Rox realised something as Amorphia spoke, it was such a sudden realisation it caused him to sit up, he looked into her eyes but his mind was a thousand miles away.
“I think . . . I think I’d be lost if I ever stopped looking, it’s not a choice anymore, it’s just something I have to do.”
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 39 - The Reality Adjustment
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 38 - Vengeance Requiem
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 37 - A Life Less Lost
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 36 - The Quantum Paradox
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 35 - Identity Crisis
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 34 - The Devil's Advocate
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 33 - Memory Reparation
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 32 - Reclamation Inferno
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 31 - Memory Boot Initialised
Asimov's Ghost Summary And Chapter links 21-30
Original artwork by @fr3eze
Original words by Cryptogee
Altered Image: Cg
I think K-Rox exemplifies the archaeologists of present day, the historians, anthropologists. He is an intellectual in a sense, who finds delight in the past, in history, in old and dead things.
I think that it is his dedication to his search that makes him a superior candidate for finding Asimov. But he is not a warrior.
Oh men, Amorpia seems to have absolute control over K-Rox.