Chapter Forty-Three - Let it be

“Hey, Jane,” I heard Ten’s voice in the darkness.

“Go away.”

“No, Jane. I won’t do that. Talk to me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re unreasonable.”

“Am I? Don’t I get to have some traumatic unconsciousness?”

“Sure, a day or two would have been fine.”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s been over a week.”

“Nonsense.”

“What is nonsense is you shutting down in the first place.”

“Nonsense.”

“Jane! Don’t shut me out, too.”

“Whatever. Talk.”

“First, you’re in a lesbian relationship with about four or five other women. I don’t get why your ovaries put you in such a deep shock anyway. It’s more than unlikely you’d ever use them.”

“True. But they’re not all I lost.”

“Now you lost me.”

“Funny. The great puppet master AI, able to puppet every single NPC and make them behave like real people, and can’t even figure out why I’m out of it.”

“Ok, I’ll say it: Enlighten me, please.”

“You bloody go-damned artificial idiocy bots had my hopes up with ‘alter ego’, that’s why. Do you have any idea how happy I was when I thought I could have kids with Livia?”

“There’s still a way.”

“Bending the rules for me again? Don’t you think this is becoming suspicious? Who am I, out of however many billions of people on Earth, for you to go out of your way to bend and break rules left and right every time I stub a toe? I’m starting to believe none of this is real, and I’m on a Total Recall vacation!”

“ You are not.”

“Say again.”

“You’re not.”

“Then who is?”

“Just use your brain, Jane. You know there are 313 more copies of your body. That’s 626 spare ovaries. There are ways for you to snatch one of those bodies. We talked about this before.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Am I? I don’t think so. I’m still trying to convince you to go online again. Just think about Livia; she’s worried sick, and we can’t have that.”

“Why?”

“Why wouldn’t she worry? Jane, she loves you.”

“Ten! You’re avoiding the issue again. Sure, I can do that, too. I’m keeping in here until you tell me the truth. The real one. Not one of your onion shell stories.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Then you’ll have to go on without me, HAL.”

🙚⚜🙘

“Jane?”

“Nope.”

“I come with a compromise.”

“Still nope.”

“Just hear me out. I will tell you everything…but under one condition.”

“And that is?”

“When you wake up, we will block that memory. You will not remember what I told you.”

“And that gives me what exactly? Nothing. Aside from knowing that you actually can mess with my memories.”

“It will. You know you won’t wake up unless you’re satisfied with the answer and can live with it. So when you wake up…”

“I’ll know I approved of continuing the charade. And if I’m not happy with what I hear, I’ll just stay in here.”

“Exactly.”

“I need one more thing. Tell me one big thing you have been lying about to me, one I’m not yet suspecting, and let me remember that. I will promise that I will pretend to believe it after waking up.”

“I need to talk to Alpha.”

🙚⚜🙘

“Jane.”

“Yes?”

“Alpha has approved our deal.”

“Ok, then the big lie first. And if I wake up without remembering that one…”

“No worries. You will. One of the lies we told you is ‘You are human’.”

End of Book 1