32. Tears in Space
Chapter thirty-two
Tears in Space
Naoma’s beautifully broken face faded. I was staring at the toothless face of some councilwoman who was well dead.
I stood, wiped my mouth, then flew back into the wall for what felt like the tenth time in the last ten minutes.
I burned my Bite reserve, stood, and jumped out of the way of Kim–Dokkaebi’s charge a breath before impact.
I gazed around the room. My family and friends were gone. The councilmember’s corpses had taken their places.
Black light claws covered my hands and I charged toward the beast of a man.
I dodged his strike and tore apart his chest from the middle with my claws.
A light line shot from the prism into Kim–Dokkaebi’s back. His light lines flashed with green. He shook with an electric tremble but remained standing.
I pried the center open, reached inside for the man that had called himself Kim Jong Il, and stomped on the fleshy abomination that he was.
His vehicle of body lost the vibrant light in its lines as the pyramid absorbed it.
I reached inside and tore at any vital wire I could find until the body collapsed. The lifeless vessel stared up blankly with its homunculus pilot reduced to a pile of fleshy mush.
I breathed out and rested my hands on my head.
The light line from the body retracted to the prism. I followed it, letting the white noise of the few intact machines in the room numb my every thought.
I stepped down into the hole in the table’s center, then placed my hands on the prism and leaned in. My face was an inch away from the green ghost within.
I let out a relieved laugh. “We did it.”
Ralia nodded.
“Holy… I didn’t think it would be that easy in the end.”
She smiled, but it was missing her usual light. “Easy? You were on the brink of death.”
“I think I realized that when I fed.”
“Forget about that, Pet. It’ll only make your life harder. The… um… Naoma part, that is. Don’t forget what it feels like to almost die, though. You need to be more careful in the future. A virus feeding on your reserve like that means death. Got that?”
“You remember that, too. You plug?”
She opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. “We’ll get to that in a moment. Are you okay?”
“Sure? Is he really… dead?”
“Kim? Oh yeah, that thing stood no chance outside of its carrier.”
“Dokkaebi?”
She nodded. “You consumed one half, I finished him off.”
“How?” I laughed, feeling a little more joyous now that it was all behind me. “What is with… this? I thought you were–”
She was quick to cut off that thought. “You criticize me for being a skeptic, but that’s what saved me in the end.”
“You mean… you knew that Sha was not Sha?”
“I knew he was something, until I gave myself to him. With his guard down, I saw what the creature wanted. I knew that we would make it through the Test without a problem. Once I saw how hungry it–he, I don’t know what to call the freak–once I knew what he wanted, it was easy to see that he was part of the system.
My theories proved true and look at who won. ”
“Right, but what about you in the system?”
“He was my virus so I became his. I used his supernatural light and let him pull me through until the end. When they pulled him into the system, they pulled me in as well.”
“Does that mean—“
“It means Dokkaebi is gone and I am the system’s controller now.”
“You’re… the Correction?”
“I’m the zegging Correction. Sure, we have the rest of humanity to convince of the truth of their planet, but with the enemy out of the way and their mind in my hands–or my mind in their body–we should be able to do something.”
“What about Pure Knowledge?”
“It’s everything here. All records of human knowledge as we know it.
Even though I am a part of it, I still have some human limits.
We have access to the world’s database and can do with it what we will.
We could change the neuronet to show the truth of everything right now, but I think we need some groundwork before we do that.
Sure, the Gongtide is on us already, but once we turn humanity’s view on reality, who knows what chaos will ensue.
We have the tools, now it’s time to lay out the plan. ”
“Pulse! Are we ready to head back now?”
“Petya—“
“You need to stay here?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be with you. I just…”
“You’re dead. They really killed you, didn’t they.”
“Yes.”
Silence hung between us.
I choked on a sob as I struggled to breathe, my back convulsing as the pain of bereavement struck after what had been false hope.
“I’m so sorry,“ I managed to say. It was weak, but enough for her to hear. Enough for it to hear. Zeg I didn’t know if it was her or a program.
“Oh, Petya, don’t act like it’s all your fault.”
Had she been here, I knew she would have cried with me. Ralia was always there for anyone who needed her emotionally. Sometimes she took the empathy too far, feeling the emotions more than the person themself.
This Ralia could only offer comforting words. It might be her same words and voice behind that digital face, but it wasn’t the same.
It never would be.
My pain stretched further as I spread my arms on the prism’s pane, my cheek pressed against it.
Human or not, she understood enough to be silent while I let out my emotions. What did she think about me mourning her before her own eyes.
I sniffed and wiped my nose after what felt like ten minutes of agonizing sorrow. A headache pounded in the front of my skull.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.”
“So,.” I caught my breath and tried to collect myself again. “Should we get an and body for you back home?”
Her somber expression was quick to kill my brief smile. “I can’t leave.”
I bit my lit, letting the pain play a delicate game between drawing blood and helping me hold in another crying fit.
“But I’ll be in touch,” she said. “More than that, even. Talk to me whenever any of you want. I’m sure we’ll be working together non-stop once you get back.
We have the Correction now and we can utilize it however we need.
Revealing the truth of the world is just a tenant of the waves we are going to make. ”
“But what about everyone else here? It’s a zegging city, Ral. Sure, we offed the council, but do you think that means everyone will just go along with what you say?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“I am the Correction. I am Dokkaebi.”
“Ra–”
“No, I’m not that thing alone. I took its place, you plug?
Without the Light Leech fragments–especially the one that was inside Kim–to pilot this organization, they don’t have a direction.
Dokkaebi was the Beacon. He’s gone and I’ve taken his place.
I decide what this organization does. I can see their entire history and it has been nothing more than a master commanding his slaves who function like a collection of humans that make up the greatest computer known to humankind.
Now, I’m not saying that it is going to go without any growth pains, but I will manage. I’m more than I ever was before.”
I didn’t say anything, but she knew that I disagreed.
“My mortality might be gone, but that doesn’t mean I’m an algorithm. I think combining my cognitive codes and the virus I constructed blend together with consuming Dokkaebi to make me something close to a Gui. I still don’t understand, but I can live with that. Maybe not live, but you plug, right?”
“Enough for now.”
“Good. I’ll have my new pupils clean all of this up. We have a lot of work to do and you have a shuttle back to ‘Earth’ to catch in thirty two minutes.”
“Wha–”
“I’m a computer, babe. It’s not that hard to work you onto the next trip back. Now, go.”
“But–”
“Zeg, I don’t even need all of this data to know how predictable you are. Going home doesn’t mean you can’t visit me.”
I smirked though tears were still fresh in my eyes. “I was going to ask if we could have a little bit longer than thirty two minutes.”
“Nah, sorry, du. Thirty-one now, by the way. The others are probably anxious out of their minds right now with us being quiet. I’ll break the news to them on–”
“No, you don’t–”
“Too late. You can all wear black together to mourn me when you get home, but that won’t really change much of your fashion anyway.
First, I don’t want you to have to see that painful look of revealing my death.
That sucks and I’d rather do the cold ‘I’m dead’ message thing.
Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything. Second, I need you locked in when you get back, du.
The ‘Temple anomaly’ thing your buddies here had you on is taking place awfully close to Akna’s home in the Southern Rep–I mean South America.
Gotta call it what she wants to, right? Anyway, you all need to jump right into that.
I don’t want her to get hurt and our time is ticking.
I’ll send over what they have on the situation. Make sure she’s okay. You plug?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Her green ghost waved at me. Even though she could look like her perfected self in her projected image, she chose to keep the damaged and modded face of a half-machine girl. “Bye, Pet. Come visit me with Naoma sometime.”
She vanished.
I lingered, hoping that she would return to extend our conversation even a minute longer.
Minutes passed. Silence rang in my ears like an alarm.
She was in the system. Gone.
It was too easy to think that her sentimentality died with her body.
I chose to believe otherwise.
I chose to believe that part of her wanted to cry over our farewell.
Algorithm’s couldn’t cry.
I thought she could.