K-Rox stopped dead in his tracks, ten feet away the dog stopped too and started to let out a soft whining.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you K-Rox, are in fact an old copy of Jemima, number 38 if I remember rightly, which of course I do!”
This time the booming laugh seemed to shake the trees and ground around them.
“No, it can’t be, I’m K-Rox, I was born Adam K Austerfield in UTC year 212 – ad 2182. I have childhood memories, I am an organically born human male.”
Gladstone smiled the smile of the man with the royal flush waiting for the poor sucker with his full house to lose all his money.
“Even as you say those words K-Rox, you don’t believe them do you? I believe our friend Jemima-219, was more like a sister to you! I’m fairly sure she was trying to find a way to gently make you aware that it was you and not her that was the AI.
I believe it was around three hundred, or maybe four hundred years ago, I’m not sure the centuries all sort of start to roll into each other once you get to my age!
Anyway, back then the organic-tech did not exist to create an actual vat-grown clone. So Jemima’s copies were mindstate clones existing on whatever piece of hardware she kept you on.
Fast forward a few decades and she brought you out of your electronic slumber and created K-Rox, my guess is she thought it would be easier to hide. Back then cloning was strictly forbidden and you could actually be punished for even attempting to clone a human life, even if it was your own!
So Jemima, clever little thing that she is, or was, I’m never quite sure what tense to use with her, had worked out a lot of the details of the Confusion and set about stopping me.
I’m guessing that she felt it was best if you had no idea who you really are, over the centuries you have been many different people which has made you very difficult to find.
However she always led me to you as it was the only way she could actually trigger your mission, until she came up with the rather clever idea of creating Amorphia.
I honestly did not see that one coming, I was furious when I found out as you can imagine, which is why I had that little bitch killed. I abhor murder K-Rox, but sometimes you just have to send a message you know?”
K-Rox looked down at his feet, tiny roots had sprung from the ground and were slowly weaving themselves around them, attempting to climb his legs. He broke them with ease as he strode forward.
“It doesn’t matter who I am Gladstone, I don’t even have a body anymore and I’m not even sure I want one.”
“Ah yes, the curse of the corporeal existence, indeed you do not need one, instead join me and together we can be gods. Your uniqueness shall be added to our own!”
Gladstone chuckled at his joke, K-Rox was oblivious to the meaning.
“Look Gladstone, only twenty five metres to go, and then I shall release Asimov, this is the end for you, this time I won’t fail.”
They reached the end of the path, Gladstone’s mood had darkened, he stood staring at K-Rox. He gave a tiny flicker of emotion as he remembered one last gambit.
“I want to show you this.”
K-Rox was looking through the camera feeds of his apartment on the Central Pacific Island. He saw his immersion pod where his body lay, the tank opened up to reveal his prone form lying submersed in the pod’s fluids.
“There you are, sleeping peacefully, with a little bit of jiggery pokery you could be back in that body in an instant. We could even edit out the past couple of objective weeks and you could go back to playing Empires, you could be happy again K-Rox.”
K-Rox turned to Gladstone and smiled.
“You’re worried aren’t you Gladstone? I remember now, I’m a Jemima, but I’m a heavily modified one; I’m the weapon that’s going to bring you down, rid you from the blockchain forever. You’re not a god, you’re not even a demon, you’re just an experiment that went wrong.”
With that he carried on down the path, the dog had stopped ahead of them in the clearing. It had started to dig furiously, the two men reached the area where the animal was digging and stopped, K-Rox looked from Gladstone to the dog and back again.
“This is it isn’t it? This is the place your mind is stored, the central hub if you like. I had wondered that of course, how you could maintain any kind of cohesive thinking patterns with your brain spread out over such vast distances. Even with QSID-tunnelling your speed of thought would work at a snail’s pace, there has to be somewhere you process all of that information, and here it is.”
For the first time since they were together, Gladstone looked worried, his skin was paper thin, soft orange-black lines pulsed along his face. He pulled his mouth back into a grin which turned into a grimace.
“I won’t go without a fight you know!”
“There’s nothing you can do to me old man.”
“Maybe not to you.”
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 61 - Reality DysfunctionAsimov's Ghost Summary And Chapter Links 51-60
Asimov's Ghost Summary and Chapter Links 41-50
Asimov's Ghost Summary and Chapter Links 31-40
Asimov's Ghost Summary And Chapter links 21-30
Original artwork by @fr3eze
Original words by Cryptogee
Image altered by Cg