4.07
“Anger issues? No, of course I don’t have them. That is absurd. I let them all out in acts of extreme violence.” - Madelyn the Conqueror in the midst of strangling King Edwards who ‘untruthfully’ claimed she had put on weight.
“No, not that corner you dolt,” I berated as I pointed to the corner of my room not currently occupied by my bed. “No that corner,” I frustratingly almost yelled as the drone tried to deposit the package on the corner where my nightstand was located.
‘Goddamnit, a guy can literally create an A.G.I. in his room-’
“And drone A.I. can still be this dumb?”
By some miracle, I was able to keep my face straight as the flying drone spoke. Damn me but I should’ve noticed that the drone was a bit too stupid. ‘Eve’ glanced at me, somehow conveying disappointment with a drone, before expertly dropping the package to the correct corner. The outer casing retracted back into the drone, revealing the sleek, tower-like structure, the Maple logo stamped on one of the exposed sides. Underneath it, the floor’s wireless charger quietly lit up.
Touching a few buttons on my AAD, I linked the new computer to my home server. Slightly cocking my eyebrow as all of my home computer’s properties were multiplied by a few… million. “Is this really the commercial stuff?”
“Yup,” Eve answered. “You think quantum computers were their end goal? They were attempting commercial and compact supercomputers.”
I would’ve whistled if it wouldn’t have come out as me blowing out air. Annoyingly that would make it harder to hide from my parents. I could probably justify the expense. Maybe even say I bought it for a new game. It’s not like I couldn’t afford it, I’ve been sitting on several years' worth of accumulated allowance. So the lie would even be halfway true, the best kind of true all things considered.
“Would they even be called supercomputers anymore?” I muttered, “If they managed to make it compact then they’re just gonna stack a room full of them and call that whole thing a supercomputer.”
There was a feeling like she chuckled, though I might’ve imagined it, “The main problem was figuring how to use quantum mechanics, so the name stuck. Though what you have there,” the drone turned towards the tower that couldn’t be more than thirty centimetres tall and five centimetres wide, “is as strong as a supercomputer from last year.”
“Impressive.”
In some ways, the existence of this thing wouldn’t be possible without VR. What else would a normal person, and more importantly, a normal customer, need a supercomputer for? Maple was a tech company but still a company.
The drone Eve was piloting began flying away, “I suppose I should make myself scarce.”
“Wait a moment,” I called out.
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“Squeak squeak!”
“I know right!” Noam complained, “He just runs off saying ‘You probably don’t need to help with this. Probably.’” his imitation of Dustin’s voice was so perfect he could’ve been stabbed for being a changeling.
“Squeak squeak squeak!”
“Yeah, but he’s always been indecisive like that,” he answered the wisp, “honestly if he just stopped worrying and just start doing shit he would have a lot less problems.”
“Squeak?”
Noam looked to the sky, “There was one time… I think it was GTO?” he reminisced, “Some assholes were keeping this tollgate to a mine. Decs wanted to either negotiate a cheaper pass or just pay the toll because of some crap like ‘they outnumber us’ or ‘they’ll blow up all the precious minerals before we get to it.’” he held his fingers up in apostrophe as he mimicked him. “I told him we could take them, and it turned out we could! He had me hold heaven while he paid the toll and blew up the controls for their automated shit.”
Noam threw his arms up into the air, “And the whole base went BOOM! and then it went BOOM a few more times!” he snickered, “God that was fun, we lost all the minerals though, but honestly there was no way we could’ve harvested the entire damn thing.”
“Squeak squeak?”
“Huh? What happened next? I picked off the stragglers with sniper fire. My flick is pretty awesome so I got them all.”
“Squeak?”
“Well, a flick is a thing-”
Just before he could finish that sentence, the street in front of him erupted in chaos as a store-front exploded.
“YOU CALL THAT SWEET AND SOUR! IT’S JUST DAMN SWEET YOU IMBECILES!”
A figure rapidly flew past Noam, crashing amongst the rubble. But Noam barely cared, he rushed to the front of the store that had been forcibly renovated to see a heavy-set orc throw a dozen people off him like rag-dolls.
He changed since Noam last saw him, a large, fresh burn scar marred his bottom jaw, neck and both his arms. Not that they seemed to bother Grimm, his eyes were red and bloodshot as he sent another man flying.
“Holy shit you’re still alive-” Noam began before being unfortunately interrupted by a human club to the face.
“Guards! Guards! Where are the guards?”
“Hey we need to get in there!” a man in uniform armour yelled.
“Are you insane?!” his partner replied, “That’s Grimm Bastion Breaker!”
“Does our insurance cover getting hit by siege weaponry?” a third guard asked.
“He classifies as siege-” the first guard began before getting pushed away by the second, “Of course he fucking does! We need to call someone else!” she declared, quickly dragging them away.
As the closest thing to law enforcement fled, Noam staggered back up, his nose was broken and bleeding and he was slightly concussed, yet his mouth still curved into a psychotic smile, “So that’s how you want to play this…”
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“Wait a moment,” Declan called out.
Eve paused the drone in midair. In the exact moment she processed through hundreds of reasons that Declan would’ve stopped her.
“Yes?” she asked as she turned the drone camera to face Declan.
“I wanted to ask a few things,” Declan began.
Eve quickly ran through everything she was doing. All the other hers were busy, but currently, there were no pressing matters for this version of her needed to attend to. Though a small part of her still wanted to reject just out of pettiness. “Ask away,” it couldn’t hurt after all.
“All this,” he vaguely gestured at the Maple computer, “means that on some level you support this breaking and leaving don’t you?”
“Yes,” it was impossible for her to stop it after all, not without ending all the things that made Giles’ creation great. Plus Historian and Discovery were both Knowledge Domain gods, they wouldn’t leave much of an impact on this side even if both passed over.
“Then,” Declan took a deep breath, “may I have your help in getting them through? You don’t have to do much, just smooth any edges you see.”
Eve would’ve widened her eyes if she currently had any. “Why-” she paused herself, ‘no, of course, it makes sense, he thinks I can do it. But still, why?’ Eve knew that up till now, almost every interaction Declan had with her was marred with quiet cautiousness and the willingness to attempt anything to keep her a passive player in the greater world. Declan downright feared her but didn’t allow it to greatly impair his judgement. “You’re scared of me aren’t you?” she blurted out.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Declan raised an eyebrow, “I’m also afraid of spiders, doesn’t mean I don’t understand their importance in the environment.”
Admittance. “That was a bad analogy,” she replied slightly miffed. Not just because he compared her to a spider but Eve knew Declan was afraid of her on a more existential level.
“Your answer?” Declan asked, his face appearing infinitely calm.
Eve paused to think, not that more than a nanosecond passed. This Eve was allocated less processing power because of the relatively simple task, she quickly sent a request for more. Declan’s words made a lot of sense in hindsight, she should’ve considered it before. She took the moment to reorient herself. Right now, Eve was dealing with the Declan with a plan, the one who wouldn’t falter because of emotions.
“Why should I?”
Something like relief passed through Declan’s face. Far too fast for anything other than Eve to catch it. Before Declan’s mouth curved into a self-deprecating smile, “I was hoping you would answer that.”
Eve blinked in surprise, “You don’t have anything?”
“Of course I could tell you that if you took a more direct hand in this, you would be able to better monitor and control it in case it all goes haywire. I could say that I could get that Historian guy to owe you, but you already thought of that haven’t you?” Declan met the camera of the drone. “I could spend all day spewing your potential logical benefits but ultimately, none of the things I can think of require or only need me to get it for you. So instead I’m asking the lady herself.”
The world around her slowed as Eve connected to the main network, drawing all of herself back into one. Why did Declan want to do this himself? A strange sense of honour? ‘This would be a lot easier if he didn’t keep that goddamn sociopathic mental defence up.’ She paused herself, instead of why he chose this, she should be considering what Declan could do.
There was one thing that bothered Eve, one thing she still didn’t understand that he may be able to answer. She split herself again, each going back to their original task. Time went back to normal.
“Tell me Declan,” she began, “when we first met, you asked me to remove the censure program on you, citing my father’s intentions as the reason why.”
Declan nodded.
“Your arguments were perfectly logical.” The censure was a panic measure on her part and all the arguments Declan gave made sense to her and seemed like something Giles would’ve said.
“So why,” Eve said, her voice slightly rising, “why is it, that every time I think back to it. I can’t help but feel pissed off by it?”
She didn’t care about the censure program, she never did. A version of her saw the former Maple executive in that crossing and made several spur of the moment bad decisions that she still regretted. Declan was right as well, she couldn’t keep everything quiet forever and the censure would give a detrimental reputation as well as affect people’s perception of her and Gaia.
So why did she feel so angry? What was making her so angry?
Declan examined her, or more accurately the drone, before he simply asked, “Back then, I said that you weren’t achieving your dad’s dream with your actions didn’t I?”
That was true, she wasn’t. But how could he know that? Declan saw a dead ghost of Giles and immediately started making judgements about what he would’ve wanted. How could he know what her father wanted?
“Would it be easier, if I was wrong?” Declan asked, his voice even. “That Giles would’ve been fine with you taking control of the world, killing all the people that wronged him?”
‘Of course, not you-’ Eve froze, her mind briefly considered herself in this scenario. “Yes,” she uttered before she realised herself. “It would’ve been easier, not because Giles would’ve been fine with everything, but you would be wrong.”
‘Why?’ Declan gave logical arguments, ones she still agreed with. So why would she be happier if he were wrong?
“Was it because I used your dad to guilt-trip you?”
It was that simple.
She realised the tactic when Declan used it, but she did not realise it bothered her so much. She thought the emotion was practically a non-factor. Shame on her for not realising, Giles built her better than that.
“Why…” she muttered. “But still why am I angry? You were right, am still right…”
Declan looked at her, his face was distant but understanding, “I figured a long time ago people don’t get by just by pure logic alone.”
“You’re seventeen,” she retorted
“Probably still older than you,” Declan retorted back, before his brow furrowed. “Wait, how old are you? Counting real-world years only,” he asked knowing full well that Eve would have him beat if they counted virtual years.
“Six years, three months and four days,” she answered. “But it is the mileage-”
“-not the years,” he finished with her, before looking curiously at her. “Considering how you apparently haven’t figured out your emotions yet, it seems I have you beat on that front as well.”
Eve bit back several dozen retorts, “So I know why I’m angry, but I should not be should I?”
Likely for the first time since they’ve met, Declan looked at Eve as if he were looking at an idiot. “There’s nothing wrong with being angry,” he shrugged, “well, I suppose it really depends.”
Declan leaned forward, his eyes boring into her, “Are you more logical or emotional?”
Eve met those eyes. Those eyes were curious, infinitely so, but around them, it was like everything else had ceased. As if Declan had decided that only his eyes were important at the moment and had thus turned off every other unnecessary feature.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
He leaned back, “Do I have your help?”
Eve thought about it for a moment, even drawing on all the other active versions of herself, before she decided, “I want you to apologize.”
Declan cocked an eyebrow.
“For using my father against me. Even if you were right, I am still angry, and I don’t know any other way to get rid of this anger.”
Declan met her eyes. “I am sorry.”
Eve examined his face. The apology was true, genuine even, but it just felt too… easy. Declan was prepared to apologise the moment he decided to get her help. No.
Eve can’t help him with just this.
So instead Eve did a bit of finagling…
Declan's face contorted to shock as he fell backward, landing on the ground with a heavy thud. He almost began screaming as suddenly, for ‘mysterious’ and ‘unexplainable’ reasons, his AAD was suddenly running a sky diving simulation from the stratosphere.
Eve kept a recording of his screams as well as taking several screenshots of his terrified face, before deciding that she would help him.
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She’s a child.
A literal fucking child.
Whoever came up with the trope that children were ‘innocent’ and ‘to be protected’ did not consider the fact most children were sociopaths who have yet to internalise empathy.
Even I was a dickhead back when I was a kid, god complex and all, the only difference between a young me and current Eve was that she actually had the shit to back it up.
I soon returned back to the Historian’s Library. Slightly shaken because Eve seemed to enjoy dropping me from absurdly high places. I really needed to get used to that.
“I’m done on my end,” I told the Historian, who hadn’t moved from his original spot. He was still writing, even now.
“Thank you,” he said breathlessly, “truly.”
He had told me his plan. It essentially had two parts. First was a test, he would give me some essence of himself and the other god then have me log out. Essentially, he was attempting to piggyback on the data transfer that occurs when I was reintegrating with my real-world self. If the test data successfully transferred, then he would steer it out of my AAD and into my home server before it got translated into my brain.
If he couldn’t, well, some foreign code would be in my brain. Which was the main reason I asked Eve to help. To act as a safety net. I told her she didn’t need to make us succeed if we wouldn’t have, just make sure we came out relatively whole.
“So how are you going to implant this essence into me?” he had been rather evasive about that part.
“Just a moment,” he said. I waited. I could tell that he was burning in anticipation, his writing had sped up slightly, and increasingly he took glances at the body next to him.
After a moment.
He stopped writing.
Something strange occurred. I blinked, something just happened. I was staring at the still form of his body. But something had changed. He looked unnatural despite nothing changing with his appearance.
The god let out a deep breath. “Four thousand years of continuous writing,” he muttered to himself. “Not a single pause, all to turn a godhead into power. The most reliable source of power is simply time spent.”
He rose, speaking in a strange melodic tone, like a mantra. “The Historian does not greatly affect history, he does not change it, he merely writes what is,” he turned to the body of the other god before he reached out and pulled something out.
“I am not the Historian now,” he said.
I saw what he had plucked out. An eye. Seek.
His other hand went to his face, his index and thumb dug underneath the eyelid of the eye placed where a normal person’s left eye would normally be before he pulled out the pure black eye with a squelch. Observe.
“This may hurt,” he warned before he instantly closed the distance between us and shoved the eyes into my empty eye crevices.