Devorah was tempted to use her extra charge to grab back her glasses. Make her hand manifest and snatch them right out of Jacob’s pants. But Devorah wasn’t sure she wanted a rumor to go around about a ghost molesting anyone in the office. That would isolate her even more. And worse, she didn’t want anyone to think she was into men. Gross.
So as Jacob prepared to leave the office with Georgie and Kefilwe, Devorah was prepared to lose one of her final ties to life as a human being. Goodbye, right to property. Goodbye, right to having an actual working body with which to touch said property. To put it on the bump on your nose and see with it.
But then something strange happened.
When Jacob walked past the office boundary, something pushed Devorah forwards. It was as if that wall that had been keeping Devorah in place had rallied behind her, slowly moving her at the pace of Jacob’s walking speed.
Confused, Devorah stumbled forward. Further and further until she approached the original wall. Bracing herself, she prepared to be crushed, or worse. Dispersed again. Anxiety welled up in her throat, and she was ready, if scared, but then. But then!
Jacob opened the door to the office, and Devorah was pushed along with him.
Painlessly, she shuffled past the barrier that Devorah assumed would keep her tied to the room.
With a start, Devorah came to a very happy realization. She wasn’t tied to the office! She was tied to her glasses!
Relief washed over Devorah, as sudden and intense as a tidal wave in a storm. The feeling was so heavy it felt physical, as if there was a boat on that wave and it shipwrecked right into the heart of her. This was no soft relief- this was a kind of desperation.
Like a dog on a chain, Devorah was dragged along with Jacob as he exited the office and closed the doors behind Georgie and Kefilwe.
It seemed that the office they were in was connected to a library. And honestly, based on the location and the apparent setting, it would probably be more appropriate to have called it a study. The library itself was a moderately sized room with high arched ceilings and a richly patterned rug atop hardwood floors. Like the study, the room was packed full of bookcases, though the shelves held a wide assortment of items. Books, busts, Earth globes and more, everything one should expect in a library would likely be found there.
Devorah noted that the furniture in the room was mostly relegated to overstuffed couches and chairs. This was likely a personal or family library, as opposed to a library meant to hold enough books for a school or religious facility.
Sitting in a bronze, stuffed chair close to the doors Devorah had just exited from was a new man. While Georgie easily looked at place in the setting, and even Kefilwe and Jacob looked comfortable enough, this man did not fit in an ornate library. For one, a cowboy hat was perched atop his head. The rest of his outfit fell in line- boots, belt and buckle, work pants and shirt. But more than that, the man looked uneasy. His work hardened hands clutched the arms of the chair, and his brown eyes ran up and down everyone, as if looking for signs that something had gone wrong.
He was not one of the people on Devorah’s list to haunt.
“We’re back!” Kefilwe said, cheerful. “Thanks again for letting me in!”
The man stood from the chair. He was quite tall, and towered over the rest of the party. “No thanks necessary, ma’am. Y'all find anything good?”
“Well,” Jacob started, “I didn’t expect to find Kefilwe in there.”
The man and Kefilwe had matching winces. “I didn’t think Miss Kefilwe here would be a bother.”
Georgie elbowed Jacob in the side. “She wasn’t!” She turned to Kefilwe. “You weren’t. Jacob’s just giving Gabe here a tough time, yeah?”
That’s right- Gabe was meant to be guarding the doors. On the surface, he was a better choice than either Georgie or Jacob. Years of hard work definitely made him strong, if he really was a cowboy. But based on how Georgie had wrapped her hand and then tried to punch through a window, Dev would be willing to bet she would have been the better, tougher choice.
“Yeah,” Jacob laughed, clearly uneasy, “I just wanted to make sure we got to sweep the room first. You know how it is, people get pretty competitive around here looking for clues.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“But that’s why we should help each other,” Kefilwe argued. Devorah had the feeling this was well-tread ground. Discussions like this one had happened in her first game, too.
Naive, Devorah had wanted a policy of open information. If Anna hadn’t been there, she would have told everyone everything. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. She couldn’t think about Anna. She couldn’t get distracted.
“If we all share what we know,” Kefilwe continued, “maybe people won’t fight so hard. And maybe they will want to share!”
Jacob laughed again, but this time it was tinged with disbelief. “You think Faith will share everything? Or those two?”
“Maybe not,” Kefilwe allowed, “but if the majority comes together-”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Gabe said, interrupting, “but maybe we should put this discussion aside for now?”
Georgie nodded. “Gabe’s right. I want to go over what we found, while it’s still fresh.”
“That’s fine, but I’m going to head off for now, okay? I want to check in with Mathilde and Nour.” Kefilwe said. The others assented, and waved Kefilwe off with promises to see her at dinner.
Gabe, Georgie and Jacob settled close together on the couch, voices low to ensure no one could listen in. Of course, they didn’t know there was a fourth head in their huddle.
In soft voices, Georgie and Jacob went over everything that happened in the study- the secret room, Devorah’s ghostly attack, and the strange flowers Kefilwe noticed out the window. And then Jacob took Devorah’s glasses out of his pocket.
Devorah let out a huff of relief. The short trip hadn’t broken them, and even the lenses looked unscratched.
“I found these glasses on the desk. I bet they belong to whoever owned the library.” Jacob said. How nice, to be so confident in something so incorrect.
Georgie poked at them, leaving a smudge on the lens. Great. “You think something will happen if you wear them?”
“Worth a try.” Jacob said. He removed his own glasses and put Devorah’s on his face. He blinked a few times, then grimaced. “Woah, the guy who wore these was as blind as a bat.” Dev considered using a charge to yank them off his face.
“Let me try.” Georgie grabbed the glasses off of Jacob’s face and slid them on. “Shite.” She quickly took them off then held them towards Gabe. “You want a turn?”
“Not me, Georgie. I can see just fine.” Gabe paused, then continued speaking. “Sides. It feels mean, somehow, wearing someone’s glasses without their say so.”
Gabe immediately became Dev’s favorite of the three.
Carefully, Gabe took the pair of glasses and folded them up. He was careful to avoid touching the already smudged lenses. Gentle, he handed them back to Jacob who then ruined it all by shoving them in his pocket again.
“Maybe we need to wear them in a specific place? Then they’ll get clear and reveal something,” Jacob suggested.
“Or maybe they’re like a key, and we have to put them somewhere?” Georgie offered.
That gave Devorah pause- would there be another use for her glasses? Obviously, Devorah could assume that she was bound to them. Where the glasses go, she goes. But what if they broke into two pieces? Would Devorah’s radius expand?
Would Devorah’s AI be locked away, condemned to oblivion?
A chill took root in the pit of Devorah’s chest. A chest that wasn’t real. A chest that had been stabbed in another life that felt like just hours ago and was now perpetually frozen, blood hanging like icicles. Even that moment of dematerialization hadn’t knocked them loose.
What did it matter, if Devorah’s AI was dismissed? In her brief return, Devorah had felt empty like a cup overturned. A tap that had once been full of love and fear and anger and more- it had been made glacial in a winter storm. Slow to move and slow to accept.
It wasn’t until Devorah found herself alone in a new room that she even realized she, and by extension the glasses, had been moved.
The furnishings in the room looked simple, if old fashioned. From the bedframe to the desk and chair, everything was made of plain, dark wood. The linens on the bed were mussed, and one of the three doors in the room was ajar, revealing a modern bathroom.
Devorah’s glasses rested atop the desk. Another desk. She was destined for desks, it seemed.
Suddenly, the situation seemed hilarious. Laughter bubbled in Devorah’s chest, and quickly broke out. This entire facsimile of a day- from booting up in nothingness, to seeing old dead friends, and now this! Back on a desk, just like in the office-study-whatever!
And she had been so lost in her moping that Devorah hadn’t even realized she was moving again!
Being moved from place to place, with no agency, like an object… Devorah’s laugh stuttered, then turned from something tinged with mania to a full-on sob.
Fuck. She really wasn’t a person anymore, huh?