Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 41 - The Shadow Of Death
“We have to get out of here, this amount of radiation would even kill you in the real. If you die the game will throw you back into orbit, you’ll be dropping back down ready to go again, you’ll have little to no recollection of our conversation and I’ll have to find you all over again.”
Except next time you might kill me she thought to herself.
Jemima thought he had taken the news well that Amorphia was essentially a spy on a mission (in reality several missions) and had been recording their conversations.
Now though he simply squatted on four of his legs, his flat salamander tail lay prone on the ground behind him. She thought herself silly as she looked at the giant beast and felt that he looked sad.
“She didn’t record everything Kay, there were private moments between you and I don’t just mean sex. 219-Amorphia was her own person, and she definitely cared for you. Many of those conversations you guys had were totally private, sometimes she would even stop a recording in the middle of a conversation.”
This fact was completely true, however she left out the part about how the Original would fly into inconsolable rages when this happened.
Jemima desperately wanted to move from this place, at the same time she was sensitive to K-Rox’s state of mind. He had just been told that his murdered, artificially sentient girlfriend was actually a cloned QSID mind that had hacked its way into the game in which they met.
It was no doubt a lot to deal with, however she was acutely aware that his game-life would be down to around sixty five percent, which meant he was perilously close to the minimum engagement life-levels. Should they meet someone they had to fight it would be touch and go whether he’d have enough energy to get through the battle, and she’d have to start all over again.
“So um, I think we should go.”
K-Rox had been lost in thought in his gel sac, lying in his foetal position, swaddled by the tubular intestines of the salamander. Jemima’s words brought him back to the present. He noted the sick feeling that had been rising in his stomach wasn’t because of the shocking news Jemima had delivered. It was because of the high polonium radiation levels his game avatar had been exposed to.
“Get on my back.”
Jemima didn’t hesitate, she sprung forwards twisting in the air so that her head would be just by his, spreading her hands so she grasped each side of the metal beast's giant head. She landed on his back with a soft metal clunk, she extended long nail-like appendages from the base of each of her four legs and secured herself to the salamander carapace.
Less than forty milliseconds later the salamander bounded across cratered land. The faintly flickering light of a discreet thinCast illuminating the underside of her body and a small portion on top of his segmented carapace, indicating the directions he was receiving from the bot on his back.
High above in the thermosphere some four hundred and seventy kilometres from their current position, Malcraft watched the two as they made their way across the dead zone.
He dimly contemplated attacking, he would have the element of surprise, the higher ground and the superior firepower. However he knew he wasn’t’ going to, after all this time he finally had someone to share his pain with, he couldn’t let that go away.
The time will come when we must meet, for now my tortured salamander you play with your little Jemima-bot, regain your strength, you will need it, I yearn to meet you in mutual anguish.
Malcraft nearly thinCasted his thoughts to the salamander, stopping himself with only six milliseconds to spare.
“No, don’t ruin it now, for the first time in ages I think I’m actually going to have some fun.”
Malcraft realised that deep inside his exoskeleton he was grinning a mad grin, mouth stretched taut, jaw clamped, eyes wide. He thought of the screams, the anguish, the sheer mental torture.
At last he thought to himself.
Someone to share the pain with.
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 40 - The Ancient Path Of Memory
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
@cryptogee yes there are people like Malcraft who seek to communicate through shared pain. They seek to make their enemies see how much they hurt through inflicting pain on them. It is sadistic but it is the truth. Malcraft is mentally unstable.
I am glad that a level of trust has been achieved between Jemima and K-Rox. It might be the difference between life and death as well as K-Rox completing his mission.
Malcraft somewhat reminds me of Letho in the Witcher Series. He doesn't really have bad intentions, he just looks for somebody he can find common ground with. So he is mainly driven by his own inner pain and is searching for ways he can release this pain. Ok, he's doing it rather arbitrarily, but regardless.
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