K-Rox and Ziper reached the shallows at the same time, Ziper stood up smiling at his friend, the intense sun refracting through glass beads of water settling on his portly shoulders. K-Rox smiled back at him.
“You should race me unaugmented one of these days; you would be so much more impressed with the time I just pulled into the beach there.”
“Yeah, uh, sure, one day..”
The thought of performing activities like swimming without using his various augmentations, had not occurred to him before, or since Amorphia’s death.
She was always encouraging him to sense the world without the aid of his NPlants. She would tease him endlessly, as he tried to explain to her that the augmentations were natural, he was so used to using them, that not doing so was the unnatural act.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons he liked Ziper, he was the only other person that he knew who barely used any augmentation, and was a fan of doing things the ‘natural’ way.
The two friends walked up and away from the beach, a narrow and twisting, dusty stone path took them through a tiny glade, dappled sunlight lit their way, as they descended down towards Ziper’s dwellings.
Ziper’s house was set in just such a way, that were it not for his NPlants alerting him to the fact, K-Rox would not have known they had entered into the dwelling.
They were still surrounded by trees and other local fauna, though above, the canopy had closed so much that sunlight was no longer getting through.
K-Rox turned to look at where they had come from, but all he saw was a long convex wall, covered in holos of what looked like Ziper and some family or friends, he couldn’t tell which.
The two men walked for another minute or so, down some stairs along an ever-darkening corridor; when they got to the end, the wall to K-Rox’s left, gently sighed and hissed to reveal an ambient lit room.
“Come on in, I wanted to make sure this conversation was in completely privacy.”
K-Rox gave his friend a puzzled look, as he stepped forward into the room, the eternal background chatter inside K-Rox’s head abruptly came to a stop, it was the same sensation, K-Rox thought, as entering Empires but somehow more, complete.
Ziper continued;
“This room is a few stories below my main house, I had it built a while back, it is completely cut off and shielded from any electronic intrusion; the only tech is the dampening field suffusing the entire room right now, we can’t even use our empLinks in here.”
“OK, I’m not really getting why we’re doing this Ziper…”
K-Rox attempted to throw some humour into the situation.
“…you’re starting to worry me!”
Ziper’s expression didn’t change, instead he walked over toward some seating in the far corner of the room, and gestured K-Rox to follow him. As he deposited himself onto the soft, pink sofa, Ziper started to speak.
“Sorry for all the cloak and dagger stuff, especially here in the real, but I’ve got something pretty big to tell you, and with all the stuff happening onBlock, I figured it was time.”
K-Rox took a moment to notice that the dull, distant thudding he could feel, was his heart beating in his chest.
He was used to Ziper behaving like this in a quantum virtuality, but never in the real. It seemed to take whole minutes before Ziper spoke again, when in fact it had been less than a second.
“What I’ve got to tell you is pretty unbelievable, however it is very real, and unfortunately for you, you’re right in the middle of this whole sticky situation.”
“OK, point taken, consider this –"
K-Rox gestured at his own body, as if showing off his new outfit for the night.
“- as me taking you very seriously..”
“Have you ever heard of Interim?”
“What; you mean the fictitious spy organisation, that doesn’t work for anyone but is somehow responsible for keeping information from the Great Confusion; along with loads of other crazy conspiracy stuff?”
“Yes, that Interim; accept they aren’t fictitious, and they are not responsible for loads of ‘crazy conspiracy stuff’, as far as I know.”
“Really? And how would you know that?”
“Because I work for them.”
Asimov's Ghost Previous Chapters:
Asimov's Ghost -Chapter 0 - Alone In The Game
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 2 - Phantoms In The Chain
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 3 - The Storms Of Malcraft
THIS HAS BEEN THE LONG AWAITED CHAPTER 6 OF THE FIRST BOOK IN THE CRYPTOGEE CHRONICLES; ASIMOV'S GHOST.
I AM PUTTING THESE OUT IN MORE BITE SIZED 750ish WORD CHUNKS, LET ME KNOW BELOW IF YOU'D LIKE THEM A LITTLE SMALLER OR MAYBE EVEN BIGGER.