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Gods for the Machines 17: Some Answers
PATREON:http://www.patreon.com/Morpheus
Paypal:https://www.paypal.me/AMKibbe
Discord:https://discord.gg/B5PJ2x2
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Chapter 17: Some Answers
“That looks rather odd you know” Sam said looking at the watcher. The sword had melted the instant she had grabbed it and was now in the process of melting and flowing over her body seemingly like an excited pet jumping all over her, though one made of liquid gold.
“Com-pared to what?”
“Fair point”
The trio was catching their breath in the now locked lab. With the smashed locking system the, things, outside couldn’t get through the reinforced door, but then again they weren’t getting out quickly either, not that any of them was in a rush to go out the door.
“OK, we do need to even-tually start planning our next…. Atasi you ok?”
Retching noises followed by a wet splattering noise said that the answer was more than likely ‘no’. The Snow leopard was bent over a lab sink and was presently in the process of relocating the former contents of her stomach. Some groans were her only response.
The watcher went over to her and put a hand on her back in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, “Uh. I guess its probably just stress sick-ness. We’re safe, well safer, for now so it should be fine.”
“Gnnnnn” Atasi swatted the watcher’s hand away and glared up at her, some vomit still clinging to her lower lip, “What are you?...” She paused to retch again, “I think its time you told us what the unholy FUCK is going on!”
“Same here” Sam chimed in standing up, and marching over to the watcher, “What’s going on. You have to know something about this. And we all need to know”
“Well, you switched off your fear of divine retribution quickly”, The watcher said giving him a look which caused the Fox to shrink back on himself, “Don’t think I’m an angel from heaven sent by god himself anymore?”
“YOU WERE SPYING ON ME” Atasi shouted drawing attention back to her, “In my ROOM!”
“And I suppose turning me over to be a lab rat, instead of calling the cops was what? the sane option?” The watcher countered, “I somehow doubt your robot boss would have let me go even without the demon thing”
Atasi groaned and wiped her mouth off with a paper towel, “Fine let’s… let’s table that for now. Let’s… let’s talk”
The three gathered lab stools around a workbench and sat. It was an awkward 30 seconds or so before anyone actually started. The watcher braced herself for what was sure to be quite the interrogation.
“So uh are you … like… an Angel?” Sam stammered out.
The watcher took a breath, “It might surprise you, but I don’t really have a good answer to that. I do fit the physical desc-rip-tion, I’ll give you that. I don’t age, I don’t NEED to eat, and keeping an eye on the city has always just sort of felt like what I was ‘supposed’ to do. So I guess I’m like a guardian angel, but that said… If I ever was sent by a ‘god’ or ‘heaven’ I’ve long forgotten them.”
“Forgotten? How?!” Sam asked, somewhat astonished, “How could you forget something like that?”
“Limited drive space in my head, I guess” The watcher shrugged and tapped a temple, “My detailed mem-ories only go back a few centuries. I can remember major events before that, but things get prog-uh-Progre-ssive-ly hazier the farther back I try to recall. Outside of about 1000 years I can’t remember much of anything. So I don’t know how old I am or why I’m actually here or any of that”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Like I can’t, you mean?”
“Uh I mean.. uh..” he stammered, “I assume modern speech isnt’ your native tongue so, is it just an accent?”
“No its… I don’t think I have a ‘native’ tongue.” The watcher tilted her head in thought, “At least not that I remember. The truth is I just haven’t spoken till recently and im still getting used to it.”
“Seriously?”
“Ya got a ‘hooked on phonics” book form the library and everything”
“A THOUSAND or more years and you didn’t know how to TALK!?”
“Hey its not like I’m Illiterate ok” The watcher huffed, “I can fully understand numerous languages, just didn’t ever need to SPEAK them. Until... well until her” The watcher waved at Atasi.
“Me…?” Atasi asked, “How… am… what… I…” She passed for a breath and to rephrase, “What made me special? Some Maybe-angelic immortal being has been stalking me of all people in the city. Am I like… something?”
“Well no. I… well its just that… You saw me. or rather your drone did. In the abandoned subway station. Early in your semester” The watcher explained.
“That long… It was you it detected. I though the obstacle avoidance just had a glitch, but… You’ve been watching me that long?”
“Not constantly, but please understand that NOTHING had ever seen me before. No person, No camera, once those got invented, the sensors at the super market. I’ve never been seen. I don’t even seem to have much of a scent for the long nosed to pick up. So that thing seeing me was… concerning. I wanted to know how it saw me”
Atasi burst out laughing, and the watcher realized that there was something cute about her when she laughed, despite the disheveled hair and unkept fur from being awake long ours and just recently stress puking, the girl’s laughing face was still cute.
It was Sam that cut in, “uh… whats so funny?”
“God, bloody hell” Atasi exclaimed between chuckles, “All this time and an ANGEL has been following me around because of some cheap sonar gear”
“Pardon?” The watcher asked.
“It’s a sonic rangefinder thing. Sonar, like subs use. You may be totally invisible, but you are still physical right?”
The watcher nodded.
“So you bump into the air and it bumps into you. Sound waves will bounce off of you, that’s how the drone ‘saw’ you.” Atasi leaned back, “All this time. any child with a DIY drone kit could have made the same detection. Pure fucking luck that I ran into you.”
Maybe she had imagined it but the watcher detected a bit of disappointment in Atasi’s tone, “Isn’t that like… good? You thought I was stalking you for some nefar-ious purpose before”
“I suppose” Atasi said, “But after all this I … almost wanted there to be a lot more meaning to it all, even if it was something bad, at least it would mean something. Not just luck.”
“Maybe there is meaning” Sam offered, “If she hadn’t… If you hadn’t ran into her in the station then, she wouldn’t’ be here now, and the… things… out there would… I’m glad she’s here right now.”
“So what? Divine providence that I’m the one that detected her, rather than some hobbyist from the suburbs?”
“Well if she was stalking around the suburbs, she wouldn’t be here to help with the…. Ok what ARE they?”
“Possessed, basically” The watcher said simply, “The wicked dead don’t rest easy all the time, sometimes they come back. Particularly in areas of violence. They can make uh.. I call it a ‘sin scar’ where they can manifest.”
“Sin scar?” Sam repeated, “Like a portal to hell?”
“Never been on the other side of one so, can’t say about the ‘to hell’ part, but other than that. Yes”
Sam’s eyes were starting to bug out, “For reals? Demons from a hell gate… oh boy”
Atasi took a breath, “And why HERE?! This place wasn’t a place of violence… until recently”
“No its not. but your uh… Materials… I guess. They were mostly criminals. Executed or died in shootouts. The kind who didn’t have families to claim their bodies… And you well… brought them all here”
“So there’s a ‘sin scar’ hell gate. HERE?”
“A big one. and unlike normal ones, in back alleys and MAYBE the city morgue. This one is at the bottom of a building built like a fortress with locks that can’t just be bypassed easily and… well I suppose its for the best that I got caught. I’m inside now, so that’s part of the battle”
“Wait we’re not just leaving?” Sam was sounding panicked, “All those monsters outside? we need to just get out of here!”
“I need to get to the bottom. The scar is still below us and I think we’re underground now right?”
The others nodded
“I won’t make you come with me. You two aren’t even armed now that Sam is out of ammo, but I have to get to the scar to seal it or there will just be more and more demons.
Atasi looked like she was biting her lip in a desperate attempt to remain calm. She was not built for this and everyone in the room knew it, just a college kid after all, but she needed to at least stay calm,
“Why aren’t we possessed?” Atasi asked
“Pardon?”
“Me and Sam” She said, “Why aren’t we already possessed by demons too”
The watcher tilted her head in thought, “actually Its more like how are THEY possessed? Possessing people is normally impossible”
“Wait isn’t that like, how possession works?”
“In movies sure, but in real like you are already in a manner of speaking, occupied. Your own soul is in the way. The demons could concentrate their energy to become temporarily physical to attack you, or they could possess something less animate”
“Like a corpse”
“A bit, but corpses are dead for a reason. They could make them twitch or something. MAYBE make them move if the body has JUST died and the muscles are still alive, but longer than an hour or so and with rigor mortis. It would be more effort to make a body move than to just spend power to make themselves physical. Most things they possess are like machines. Engines or something. No soul to get in the way and they can cause dangerous malfunctions. If they do go physical it takes a lot of effort to maintain, and I’ve never seen a demon make themselves physical for more than a few minutes at a time.”
“Those random attacks from invisible assailants we saw on the cameras?” Atasi asked, “Demon stuff”
“Most likely”
“So how are they moving the corpses around”
“Well… and this is gross… but my theory is that they aren’t corpses.”
Sam Jumped up. “You mean Jamison is still IN That thing?”
“I’m not sure. Either…” The watcher paused to gather her thoughts, “Either the body died long enough for the soul to be gone and THEN got reanimated somehow, OR the demon is possessing something that is controlling the body, bypassing the soul. Atasi…” The watcher turned to her.
Atasi stiffened, “uh, yes.. what is it?”
“Your boss. What IS… it?”
“Dr. Edwards, she.. she transferred her mind into a computer that we build into one of the corpses”
“So you have tech’s that can control and maintain physical bodies?”
Atasi nodded, “Its like super-secret, but yes… oh lord”
Sam seemed to be putting two and two together as well, “Demons in the nerve connectors”
“I don’t know much about your tech, but the demons jumping to it wouldn’t require them to displace a soul, and if it can control the body…”
“Jamison really might still be alive” Sam shuddered. “That thing they drove into his head”
“Doubt he’d survive its removal” Atasi said sadly.
“Still” The watcher said, “Not much to do but put a stop to it before we have more demons and more people hurt or killed”
“So what’s the plan” Atasi asked.
“You two hunker down while I slash anything between here and the scar and close it off”
“That’s a dumb plan”
“Well, I don’t know this facility, so I don’t have much more to go on”
“The cold storage is part of an old warehouse setup. It’s got different security, so it’s not networked”
“So might not be locked, so long as we have codes, Sam you can like write them down, right?”
He nodded, “And I assume Atasi could draw a map, but the only reason we’re safe now is that you fused the lock. You’ll have to cut your way out, and once you do the door won’t be secure anymore.”
“Shit. Look I have to get the scar sealed. I… I guess we could try escorting you out before I go back in but”
“It would take time” Atasi whispered, “People are probably dying upstairs. We have to go too”
Both of them looked like they might need new pants if the day continued like it had been so far. Atasi couldn’t stop fidgeting and squirming around, and Sam was trying to remain stoic, but he was clearly freaked out too. Sam nodded, “If there’s a supply coset on the way I should be able to get more ammo. or even another gun.”
“I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe on the way” The watcher said, Shifting her multitool back into a sword, “not much this can’t cut”
Atasi blushed again as the shift once again moved the tool off of the watchers body, “I uh.. have another Question, before we do anything”
“Shoot”
“What’s your name?”
Paypal:https://www.paypal.me/AMKibbe
Discord:https://discord.gg/B5PJ2x2
My Books for sale on LULU:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/amk1954
Chapter 17: Some Answers
“That looks rather odd you know” Sam said looking at the watcher. The sword had melted the instant she had grabbed it and was now in the process of melting and flowing over her body seemingly like an excited pet jumping all over her, though one made of liquid gold.
“Com-pared to what?”
“Fair point”
The trio was catching their breath in the now locked lab. With the smashed locking system the, things, outside couldn’t get through the reinforced door, but then again they weren’t getting out quickly either, not that any of them was in a rush to go out the door.
“OK, we do need to even-tually start planning our next…. Atasi you ok?”
Retching noises followed by a wet splattering noise said that the answer was more than likely ‘no’. The Snow leopard was bent over a lab sink and was presently in the process of relocating the former contents of her stomach. Some groans were her only response.
The watcher went over to her and put a hand on her back in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, “Uh. I guess its probably just stress sick-ness. We’re safe, well safer, for now so it should be fine.”
“Gnnnnn” Atasi swatted the watcher’s hand away and glared up at her, some vomit still clinging to her lower lip, “What are you?...” She paused to retch again, “I think its time you told us what the unholy FUCK is going on!”
“Same here” Sam chimed in standing up, and marching over to the watcher, “What’s going on. You have to know something about this. And we all need to know”
“Well, you switched off your fear of divine retribution quickly”, The watcher said giving him a look which caused the Fox to shrink back on himself, “Don’t think I’m an angel from heaven sent by god himself anymore?”
“YOU WERE SPYING ON ME” Atasi shouted drawing attention back to her, “In my ROOM!”
“And I suppose turning me over to be a lab rat, instead of calling the cops was what? the sane option?” The watcher countered, “I somehow doubt your robot boss would have let me go even without the demon thing”
Atasi groaned and wiped her mouth off with a paper towel, “Fine let’s… let’s table that for now. Let’s… let’s talk”
The three gathered lab stools around a workbench and sat. It was an awkward 30 seconds or so before anyone actually started. The watcher braced herself for what was sure to be quite the interrogation.
“So uh are you … like… an Angel?” Sam stammered out.
The watcher took a breath, “It might surprise you, but I don’t really have a good answer to that. I do fit the physical desc-rip-tion, I’ll give you that. I don’t age, I don’t NEED to eat, and keeping an eye on the city has always just sort of felt like what I was ‘supposed’ to do. So I guess I’m like a guardian angel, but that said… If I ever was sent by a ‘god’ or ‘heaven’ I’ve long forgotten them.”
“Forgotten? How?!” Sam asked, somewhat astonished, “How could you forget something like that?”
“Limited drive space in my head, I guess” The watcher shrugged and tapped a temple, “My detailed mem-ories only go back a few centuries. I can remember major events before that, but things get prog-uh-Progre-ssive-ly hazier the farther back I try to recall. Outside of about 1000 years I can’t remember much of anything. So I don’t know how old I am or why I’m actually here or any of that”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Like I can’t, you mean?”
“Uh I mean.. uh..” he stammered, “I assume modern speech isnt’ your native tongue so, is it just an accent?”
“No its… I don’t think I have a ‘native’ tongue.” The watcher tilted her head in thought, “At least not that I remember. The truth is I just haven’t spoken till recently and im still getting used to it.”
“Seriously?”
“Ya got a ‘hooked on phonics” book form the library and everything”
“A THOUSAND or more years and you didn’t know how to TALK!?”
“Hey its not like I’m Illiterate ok” The watcher huffed, “I can fully understand numerous languages, just didn’t ever need to SPEAK them. Until... well until her” The watcher waved at Atasi.
“Me…?” Atasi asked, “How… am… what… I…” She passed for a breath and to rephrase, “What made me special? Some Maybe-angelic immortal being has been stalking me of all people in the city. Am I like… something?”
“Well no. I… well its just that… You saw me. or rather your drone did. In the abandoned subway station. Early in your semester” The watcher explained.
“That long… It was you it detected. I though the obstacle avoidance just had a glitch, but… You’ve been watching me that long?”
“Not constantly, but please understand that NOTHING had ever seen me before. No person, No camera, once those got invented, the sensors at the super market. I’ve never been seen. I don’t even seem to have much of a scent for the long nosed to pick up. So that thing seeing me was… concerning. I wanted to know how it saw me”
Atasi burst out laughing, and the watcher realized that there was something cute about her when she laughed, despite the disheveled hair and unkept fur from being awake long ours and just recently stress puking, the girl’s laughing face was still cute.
It was Sam that cut in, “uh… whats so funny?”
“God, bloody hell” Atasi exclaimed between chuckles, “All this time and an ANGEL has been following me around because of some cheap sonar gear”
“Pardon?” The watcher asked.
“It’s a sonic rangefinder thing. Sonar, like subs use. You may be totally invisible, but you are still physical right?”
The watcher nodded.
“So you bump into the air and it bumps into you. Sound waves will bounce off of you, that’s how the drone ‘saw’ you.” Atasi leaned back, “All this time. any child with a DIY drone kit could have made the same detection. Pure fucking luck that I ran into you.”
Maybe she had imagined it but the watcher detected a bit of disappointment in Atasi’s tone, “Isn’t that like… good? You thought I was stalking you for some nefar-ious purpose before”
“I suppose” Atasi said, “But after all this I … almost wanted there to be a lot more meaning to it all, even if it was something bad, at least it would mean something. Not just luck.”
“Maybe there is meaning” Sam offered, “If she hadn’t… If you hadn’t ran into her in the station then, she wouldn’t’ be here now, and the… things… out there would… I’m glad she’s here right now.”
“So what? Divine providence that I’m the one that detected her, rather than some hobbyist from the suburbs?”
“Well if she was stalking around the suburbs, she wouldn’t be here to help with the…. Ok what ARE they?”
“Possessed, basically” The watcher said simply, “The wicked dead don’t rest easy all the time, sometimes they come back. Particularly in areas of violence. They can make uh.. I call it a ‘sin scar’ where they can manifest.”
“Sin scar?” Sam repeated, “Like a portal to hell?”
“Never been on the other side of one so, can’t say about the ‘to hell’ part, but other than that. Yes”
Sam’s eyes were starting to bug out, “For reals? Demons from a hell gate… oh boy”
Atasi took a breath, “And why HERE?! This place wasn’t a place of violence… until recently”
“No its not. but your uh… Materials… I guess. They were mostly criminals. Executed or died in shootouts. The kind who didn’t have families to claim their bodies… And you well… brought them all here”
“So there’s a ‘sin scar’ hell gate. HERE?”
“A big one. and unlike normal ones, in back alleys and MAYBE the city morgue. This one is at the bottom of a building built like a fortress with locks that can’t just be bypassed easily and… well I suppose its for the best that I got caught. I’m inside now, so that’s part of the battle”
“Wait we’re not just leaving?” Sam was sounding panicked, “All those monsters outside? we need to just get out of here!”
“I need to get to the bottom. The scar is still below us and I think we’re underground now right?”
The others nodded
“I won’t make you come with me. You two aren’t even armed now that Sam is out of ammo, but I have to get to the scar to seal it or there will just be more and more demons.
Atasi looked like she was biting her lip in a desperate attempt to remain calm. She was not built for this and everyone in the room knew it, just a college kid after all, but she needed to at least stay calm,
“Why aren’t we possessed?” Atasi asked
“Pardon?”
“Me and Sam” She said, “Why aren’t we already possessed by demons too”
The watcher tilted her head in thought, “actually Its more like how are THEY possessed? Possessing people is normally impossible”
“Wait isn’t that like, how possession works?”
“In movies sure, but in real like you are already in a manner of speaking, occupied. Your own soul is in the way. The demons could concentrate their energy to become temporarily physical to attack you, or they could possess something less animate”
“Like a corpse”
“A bit, but corpses are dead for a reason. They could make them twitch or something. MAYBE make them move if the body has JUST died and the muscles are still alive, but longer than an hour or so and with rigor mortis. It would be more effort to make a body move than to just spend power to make themselves physical. Most things they possess are like machines. Engines or something. No soul to get in the way and they can cause dangerous malfunctions. If they do go physical it takes a lot of effort to maintain, and I’ve never seen a demon make themselves physical for more than a few minutes at a time.”
“Those random attacks from invisible assailants we saw on the cameras?” Atasi asked, “Demon stuff”
“Most likely”
“So how are they moving the corpses around”
“Well… and this is gross… but my theory is that they aren’t corpses.”
Sam Jumped up. “You mean Jamison is still IN That thing?”
“I’m not sure. Either…” The watcher paused to gather her thoughts, “Either the body died long enough for the soul to be gone and THEN got reanimated somehow, OR the demon is possessing something that is controlling the body, bypassing the soul. Atasi…” The watcher turned to her.
Atasi stiffened, “uh, yes.. what is it?”
“Your boss. What IS… it?”
“Dr. Edwards, she.. she transferred her mind into a computer that we build into one of the corpses”
“So you have tech’s that can control and maintain physical bodies?”
Atasi nodded, “Its like super-secret, but yes… oh lord”
Sam seemed to be putting two and two together as well, “Demons in the nerve connectors”
“I don’t know much about your tech, but the demons jumping to it wouldn’t require them to displace a soul, and if it can control the body…”
“Jamison really might still be alive” Sam shuddered. “That thing they drove into his head”
“Doubt he’d survive its removal” Atasi said sadly.
“Still” The watcher said, “Not much to do but put a stop to it before we have more demons and more people hurt or killed”
“So what’s the plan” Atasi asked.
“You two hunker down while I slash anything between here and the scar and close it off”
“That’s a dumb plan”
“Well, I don’t know this facility, so I don’t have much more to go on”
“The cold storage is part of an old warehouse setup. It’s got different security, so it’s not networked”
“So might not be locked, so long as we have codes, Sam you can like write them down, right?”
He nodded, “And I assume Atasi could draw a map, but the only reason we’re safe now is that you fused the lock. You’ll have to cut your way out, and once you do the door won’t be secure anymore.”
“Shit. Look I have to get the scar sealed. I… I guess we could try escorting you out before I go back in but”
“It would take time” Atasi whispered, “People are probably dying upstairs. We have to go too”
Both of them looked like they might need new pants if the day continued like it had been so far. Atasi couldn’t stop fidgeting and squirming around, and Sam was trying to remain stoic, but he was clearly freaked out too. Sam nodded, “If there’s a supply coset on the way I should be able to get more ammo. or even another gun.”
“I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe on the way” The watcher said, Shifting her multitool back into a sword, “not much this can’t cut”
Atasi blushed again as the shift once again moved the tool off of the watchers body, “I uh.. have another Question, before we do anything”
“Shoot”
“What’s your name?”
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