Ethan woke to the sound of crying. He snapped wide awake. A blurred memory of what he had done the night before came to him. The horror of what he had done filled him. He grabbed the girl, now naked, and quickly ushered her out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

‘Oh No! Oh No! Oh No!’ he thought, ‘That was wrong’.

He was too wrapped up in self-disgust to recognize his perspective had fundamentally changed from the night before. In reaction to the complete violence of his act, the gen-mod he had taken had activated. He now had full spectrum consciousness; conscience and empathy included. He was looking at the incident completely with empathy.

Ethan dressed quickly. All he wanted to do was get away. Head down, he rushed out. On his way out he noticed Jimmy naked and passed out on top of a pile of bodies. When he reached the door, he saw the young girl. She was hiding in the same spot he found her last night, now naked and crying uncontrollably. He called one of the servants over. ‘Get some clothes on that girl’, he said, and left.

When he got to his office, Dawn was there, intently focused on her work as usual.

‘’How was the party?’ she asked.

‘Good,’ he responded without stopping, ‘Your egg did the trick.’

‘I knew it would. Did you work your magic? Change a few minds? Screw up a few lives?’

‘Oh yeah’, he responded, ‘Did a good job of that’. Once in his office, he closed the door behind him.

He couldn’t stop pacing. He couldn’t believe how it was possible to do something that evil to another person. It was so real.

At first Ethan tried, vainly he knew, to find a loophole to diminish what he had done. Was the girl real, or a simulation that somehow didn’t have the feelings of a human? Maybe she couldn’t feel? Ethan remembered she could cry, but that surely would only last until the quest was over?

Dually had said all his actions were real unless they prevented the overall outcome of the quest. ‘I think what I did was real,’ he said to himself. ‘I think I just ruined that girl’s life.’

Just then, he heard his door open and Jimmy wandered in still half asleep and smelling like sex and booze. Ethan’s war room was nowhere near as secure as Eldon’s. It was more like a place of work. Pretty much anyone with access to the building could walk in. Jimmy dropped into a chair and raised an ass cheek like he was going to fart again.

‘Jimmy, so help me if you fart in this office. I will plant that trophy in your skull,’ Ethan declared, after eyeing a trophy to plant into Jimmy’s skull.

Jimmy's eyes opened in surprise. He noticed the trophy had a granite base, and lowered his ass cheek. ‘What the fuck man?’

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

‘Jimmy, tell me,’ Ethan said, looking at him intently. ‘What happens to those girls?’

‘What girls?’

‘The girls last night.’

‘Well, you know,’ Jimmy replied, a little uneasily.

‘No I don’t. Where do they come from and what happens to them?’

‘Well, Eldon has his guys pick up girls on the North Side if they look like no-one will miss them too much. He puts very capable people on it. There’s no line pointing towards us, if that’s what you’re worried about’.

‘What happens to them afterwards? Today? What happens to them today?

Jimmy was wide awake now and watching Ethan as intently as Ethan was watching him. ‘Come on man. It’s Eldon. No loose ends,’ he replied.

Ethan sat back in his chair, and ran his fingers through his hair. Jimmy was watching very closely.

‘Who does it?’ Ethan asked.

‘What?’

‘Who gets rid of them?’

‘I do.’

Ethan jumped from his chair, and placed himself physically over Jimmy. ‘You don’t kill those girls?’ almost as a threat.

‘Sorry dude. Like I say, it’s Eldon. I can’t get out of it. If he gives you a job, you do it.’

Ethan thought about this. It was true. You didn’t go against Eldon on something like this. He’d see you as weak, and probably get rid of you. Not just fire you either. He’d get rid of you.

Ethan sat down in his chair. Why didn’t he think a little about this simulation before jumping into it?

‘Listen. Do you know the girl I was with?’

‘I suppose I can figure out who she was’.

‘She was young. Maybe 13 or 14. You can’t kill her.

‘Come on man. You know I have to. I’m not putting my balls on the line for a street kid. You can’t ask me to do that. What’s wrong with you anyway? You sound like you suddenly developed a conscience.

What Jimmy said backed Ethan up. He had developed a conscience. It was the first time he recognized the change in himself. Yesterday, he would have been able to overlook what happened to the girls. Today, it was not acceptable. Jimmy saw this recognition come to Ethan’s eyes. Jimmy saw everything.

‘I think I did,’ Ethan replied honestly. ‘You can’t kill her Jimmy,’ he persisted. ‘Look at me. You can’t kill her. Do me this favor’.

Jimmy’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s a big ask’.

‘Yup’.

‘Hmm,’ Jimmy mused, as he sat back in his chair. Ethan could read his mind too. He was measuring the risk to the reward. Sometimes he frowned. Sometimes he smiled. Then he got up to leave.

‘Where are you going?’

‘My boys are rounding the girls up right now,’ he said. ‘If I don’t hurry it might be too late to ‘grant’ you this favor.’ He turned to leave, and then turned back.

‘And Ethan.’

Ethan looked at him.

‘We’re tied together now. If this gets found out, it will look like you did it, not me. Don’t forget that. You owe me’.

‘I know’.