~ Are you sure you want to proceed?
A tiny set of hieroglyphics flashed red behind the confirmation message, that dominated the graphics displayed across his retinas, behind them was the greyed out image of his apartment in Principia.
The flashing numeric represented the QSID grid-link coordinates he had just moments earlier entered into the onBlock patch.
~I will need audio confirmation before I can initialise the procedure.
“K-Rox_7892_AlphaOne confirming QSID-Tunnel request, grid coordinates supplied in NPlant package #3602.729. Sending full authorisation in 200 ms; mark.”
The hieroglyph pulsed from red to green as the message along with all its accompanying graphics, ghosted from his view, the feeling of moving backwards, as the greyed out apartment faded to almost black as it shrunk in the distance.
From the edges of his vision, thin spears of green, lanced in towards each other, their shafts thickening till his entire vision was taken up by a forest green fog.
In his apartment, his immersion pod created an onblock open, QSID connection, whilst simultaneously issuing the instructions to his nanoswarm to shut down brain activity. The pod took a frozen instance of his mindstate around 40 picoseconds before organic death, and instantly shunting it down the QSID-Link, using the security protocols, and grid-link coordinates supplied by its user.
“Can you hear me?”
“Wha- why am I here?”
“Can you hear me? We don’t have much time.”
“I-I can hear you; where are you? Where am I?”
“Right now, you’re probably around 20 light minutes from Earth, you’re on a relay station, hang on – ”
“Wait!”
Suddenly he could see, his view changed from grey to white, he couldn’t feel his legs, come to think of it, he couldn’t feel any of him . .
“Here, let’s give you a temporary body, it will feel a bit strange at first.”
It did feel strange, he could feel the presence of a body, but couldn’t look at himself, and more alarmingly, he couldn’t move. Suddenly he was standing in a grey box room with one wall missing, through the wall he could see the inky void of space, in the distance he saw a tiny red glow that he knew to be Mars.
“Sorry for all of this, it really was the only way we could talk without being interrupted.”
The voice beside him startled him, and as he turned to face its source, he felt another surge of surprise.
“Jemima!”
“Hello K-Rox.”
“But what are you doing here, and – what’s going on, the last thing I remember is, ah, I can’t - ”
“You are on your way to Mars via an onblock QSID grid-link, you aren’t meant to be reoriented until after planet fall. We have intercepted you, in order to talk to you. Your memory will return to you shortly, however we don’t have much time, technically you’re still travelling, you aren’t actually anywhere, and so please just listen for now.”
K-Rox looked at Jemima, her head seemed to almost touch the ceiling of the room they were standing in. He realised he was sitting, he looked down at his hands, they looked strange.
He sat so the missing wall of the white-grey room they were in was to his left, he looked out at the inky void, stars streaked in a way that they never would in real life, Mars hung in the distance, slowly increasing in size.
Time seemed to be oozing through a filter of molasses and oil, K-Rox turned to Jemima, he tried to give her an inquisitive look but realised he didn’t have control of his face, he tried to open an empLink channel between them. He noticed that he couldn't sense his Nplants, a rising sense of panic welled within him, but he didn't know where he was.
~ “. . .we’re losing him!” ~
*Huh, where had that voice come from? *
K-Rox looked at Jemima, her face flickered grey, she looked concerned.
“Listen K-bot, we haven’t got much time, we’ll meet again soon, for now, trust no one, Ziper is not who he seems, and aZorl, well, aZorl is aZorl, don't even trust me I guess . . . just do what you feel is right Kay, we’ll speak soon.”
. . . and then
and then . . .
darkness . . .
Previous Chapters
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 19 - The Lost Scream
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 18 - The empLink Story
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 17 - A Problem With Time
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 16 - Neither Here Nor There
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 15 - At The Edge Of Madness
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 14 - A Sense Of The Real
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 13 - The Search For Truth
Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 12 - Empires
Original artwork by @nekromarinist
Original words by Cryptogee