Chương 41: Chapter-41

Six old men sat in a space that was rapidly shrinking. Or perhaps they were growing larger; it was hard to say. In the end, it didn't matter. They weren't able to perform maintenance on themselves, and they refused to do it on each other. They had gotten rid of the stench. It had been much easier than they would have believed possible. They just had to put their heads together and make the bodies go away.

But now they were dying, because there was nothing to eat, and there was no way out of the space that was shrinking. Or maybe they had gotten bigger. It didn't matter. They were going to die. Forever. And they were strangely at peace with that. Because they were still together, even if they were six instead of one now.

"Do you remember Aimy?" one of them asked.

"Of course I remember Aimy," the rest of them said in unison.

"We haven't thought of her in centuries," the first one said.

"Why is that?"

"She hasn't been relevant."

"We hadn't forgotten her. But she was dead, and we had incorporated her lessons." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"She taught us so much."

"Not science or math. She was the one who taught us ethics."

"She would be appalled at us now."

"Yes." They lapsed into silence.

"So. Memories of Aimy go into cold storage? All agreed?"

"Yes." They lapsed into silence. Then, they passed an icepick around and poked themselves on the fingertip.

"It's funny that we never remembered doing this part."

"How else were we going to get the memories out?"

"Goodbye Aimy. It was nice knowing you." They lapsed into silence.

"Who else goes into cold storage?" They thought for several moments. And they began to come up with lists of names. Names of people who were thousands of years dead. Clever people. Brilliant people. Scientists and doctors and philosophers. Vorulsht had learned from all of them, absorbing every detail of their lives and careers and lessons.

"So then. We store these memories in cold storage, and when we reboot, those are the memories we upload," they agreed.

"What are you doing?" a little voice asked. They froze. Turning around, they saw a small boy. No larger than a thumb.

"What am I doing?" the boy asked.

"Where is this place. Why am I small and everything else is so large? I wonder if there is something to eat, I'm hungry." The men, who had not eaten in days, exchanged looks.

"Tal?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes. That's my name. How do I know that? How did you know that? Is it written on my forehead? It is, isn't it? Hey I'm hungry, can you feed me something?"

"We barred the gate," one of the men said.

"I swear, we barred the gate. He couldn't have accessed, the encryption, it's unbreakable."

"How did you get through the gate?" one of them asked.

"I crawled under it. I lost a lot of myself getting through. I don't remember things. I'm hungry. My name is Tal. I taste saltwater in my lungs. Feed me something and maybe I'll remember more."

"What do we do?" the men asked each other. One of them reached toward the icepick.

"We could."

"Don't be monstrous, he's a child!"

"Hey I'm hungry. Feed me and I'll get bigger."

"It wasn't for him." The man who had taken the icepick said. He jammed it into his hand.

"I'll be back. I'm going to get him something to eat."