Chương 252: Book 4 Chapter 21.3: Not Alone

The waves lapped at the shoreline, and at Kim's metal heels. She hadn't been out to the beach just to sit and think since she'd had her old meat-body. The entire incident with the Wish Fish had kind of soiled her on the ocean for a while, but she had used to like sitting and watching the waves. She needed a little peace and tranquility right now. She also needed solitude, but she apparently wasn't getting it. Hawke had found her again.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Loadrin told us what's happening," Hawke said.

"You want to talk it out?"

"Depends on how good you are at talking," Kim said.

"Mediocre at best," Hawke said, as he sat down in the sand.

"But maybe we can stumble into something."

"If I didn't stumble I'd never get anywhere," Kim said.

"Hit me."

"So, Loadrin wants you to go chill on robot planet."

"It's more of an orbiting platform," Kim said.

"Like a dyson sphere, but not a full sphere."

"So she wants you to chill on the robot not-a-sphere orbiting platform," Hawke said.

"Is there any reason you can't just go visit, come back if you feel like it? Give us a call and say goodbye if you want to stay?"

"It's like halfway to the Butterfly Guy, making portals that distance is really hard," Kim said. 004 had helpfully shared some specifics about the actual distance and technology involved. Humanity didn't even have the tools to detect the galaxy the AI collective was located in, much less communicate with it. The AI had the tools to travel, but they were expensive to use even by their technologically advanced standards. Loadrin and 004 were technically in trouble for keeping the portal open this long already.

"Okay, so what would the turnover time on a visit be?"

"Probably like... a decade?"

"Oh, wow, that's actually a while," Hawke said.

"By your standards," Kim said.

"When you're a thousand years old, that's basically a day or two."

"There's still a lot of stuff that'd happen in 'a day or two'," Hawke said.

"You take a few years, you're missing Vell's graduation, then ours, a whole lot of birthdays, probably a couple weddings, based on relationship trajectories... that's a heck of a lot of stuff to miss, Kim."

"Yeah, well, speaking of missing birthdays," Kim said.

"Are you going to be there when I turn one-hundred? How about two-hundred?" That caught Hawke off guard, and he didn't have an answer.

"I think I'm starting to get what Death meant," Kim said.

"There's this finality, that's there for all you guys, but it isn't there for me. You live a healthy life and stay safe and you get maybe a hundred years. I do everything right and I get... forever."

"That... feels dramatic, but I guess," Hawke said.

"Sorry. I guess I really don't get what this decision means for you."

"No, you don't," Kim said. It wasn't his fault, but there was a gap between their understandings of life, just like Loadrin had said.

"But I think I know who might." Kim stood up, brushed some sand off her chassis, and gave Hawke a pat on the shoulder.

"Thanks. But I think I need to go talk to an expert." Dean Lichman was right in the middle of his paperwork when Kim knocked on his door. Graduation was coming up, giving him a lot of logistical knots to untangle in very little time. He still set it all aside the minute Kim stepped into his office.

"Kim. Everything going well with those experimental drones on campus, I hope?"

"Oh, yeah, all good," Kim said. He was glad Dean Lichman was buying their cover story for Loadrin and 004.

"Then what can I do for you?"

"Answer a very weird, possibly uncomfortably personal question?"

"Is this about whether or not the undead use the bathroom?"

"No, I know that one," Kim said. They didn't.

"Ah. Well I get it a lot," Dean Lichman said.

"Ask away, then." Kim took a seat, propped her elbows on the arm rests, and folded her hands together.

"So, you're a wight," Kim said.

"You're on a mission of vengeance."

"Against substandard education, yes," Dean Lichman said.

"I died as a result of poor education, and so I swore to devote my un-life to quality education for all."

"Not exactly a vendetta with a clear end point," Kim said.

"Well, I was rather poorly educated when I made it," Dean said.

"Yeah. But, you're kind of stuck with an unending crusade here," Kim said.

"Do you have any kind of... exit strategy? Like, if you wanted to move on?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," Dean Lichman said.

"Given the nature of my vendetta, and, I assume, no small amount of pity on Death's part given my decision-making skills at the time, my contract with him included an escape clause. Theoretically I could give up on my vendetta at any time. I could stop this very minute and crumble to dust where I sit." He continued to sit in an entirely non-crumbly fashion.

"Of course, I have a lot of work to do, so that won't be happening," Dean Lichman continued.

"I am still quite happy with my unlife."

"But you have that exit strategy, yeah?" Kim said.

"Maybe you don't want to leave now, but what about when you do? Do you ever think about, you know... when you'll call it quits?"

"Oh yes, I reckoned with that a few decades ago," Dean Lichman said.

"I decided that I would pick something that gave me joy, and when it no longer made me happy, I would start to consider, well, my exit. To that end, I have a hobby." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"A hobby?"

"Yes. Here, let me show you." Dean Lichman stood from his desk and walked up to one of several completely identical cabinets in his office, then threw the doors open. Kim had always assumed all these cabinets in his office contained stacks of paperwork, and while most did, this one contained something else: hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny, painted figurines, with a stack of paint and brushes on the bottom shelf.

Kim stood up and looked over all the tiny dragons, knights, soldiers, and other miscellaneous figures.

"I paint miniatures," Dean Lichman said.

"And let me tell you, I did not think it was going to be this long-lasting of a hobby when I started. Back then it was all wooden farm animals and ceramic angel figurines, but now, well, I have quite a few more options, to say the least. Warhammer 40k alone has probably added decades to my life." The dean picked up an expertly painted figurine of an armored supersoldier holding a chainsaw sword and showed it off to Kim.

She glanced at it briefly, but her electronic eyes wandered across a field of knights, wizards, and dragons.

"Wow, you are good at this," Kim said.

"You just paint them, you don't use them for anything?"

"No, not really. I've tried, but I simply can't get into the games," Dean Lichman said.

"I just paint."

"Well, I run a Pathfinder game for my bocce club, and I could really use figures like this," Kim said, as she grabbed a large dire bear figurine.

"You're welcome to take whatever you need," Dean Luchman said. He usually ended up disposing of the figures or selling them to other hobbyists when he ran out of storage room anyway.

"That'd be awesome, thanks," Kim said.

"The game will be- wait. I run a Pathfinder campaign. What the hell am I moping about?"

"I have no idea, Kim, I didn't realize you were moping."

"Well I'm not anymore," Kim said triumphantly.

"I know what I need to do. I also know I'm going to take this dragon and make it eat Hawke's barbarian next week." She plucked a red dragon off the shelf and held it up for a second.

"Thanks, Dean."

"You're welcome," the slightly confused Dean said.

"And do apologize to Hawke for me, had I known that dragon would be so lethal to him I never would've painted it."

"Not your fault," Kim said.

"I've got to go talk to someone. Bye, Dean."

"Goodbye, Kim," Dean said.

"Glad I could help." He returned to his paperwork as Kim made a beeline back to her dorm. Hawke sat by the gray portal and looked up at 004.

"So, do you have like, robot music?" 004 made a beeping noise. Loadrin shrugged four shoulders.

"It wouldn't really parse well," Loadrin said.

"Audio frequencies imperceptible to your sensory organs, and all that."

"Stupid human ears," Hawke grumbled. His stupid human ears could not hear robot music, but they could definitely hear a robot voice shouting across the quad.

"Hey!" Kim was strutting their direction with a packed bag swung over her shoulder. Loadrin uncoiled herself and slithered in her direction.

"Kim! Packed and ready to go?"

"Nope." Kim shrugged the bag off her shoulder and then tossed it to Loadrin.

"Just got you a going-away present. And some prep materials." Loadrin reached in and pulled out a few round wooden balls and a book with a dragon on it.

"Bocce kit, Pathfinder rulebook, and some other Earth stuff I like," Kim said.

"Because if I show up there years from now and you losers don't have bocce, I'm turning right back around and going home."

"You're staying?"

"Yep. I still got stuff to do here," Kim said. Loadrin tried to hide a look of disappointment, while Hawke and the other loopers didn't bother hiding their relief.

"Things to do, place to see, games to play, that kind of thing. I'd be a real dick if I bailed mid-campaign."

"If you're sure-""I'm sure," Kim said.

"I know there's some bad times ahead, but I'll manage. I can't just uproot my life and run away because things'll go bad eventually. Hell, things go bad here every day. If we just gave up and ran we'd never get anything done." Kim nodded towards her friends. All of them were dealing with the exact same burden, albeit in a different way. One day, the good times would end, and they all had to be okay with that.

Kim cutting and running would be an inexcusable surrender in the face of what was, ultimately, the same dilemma they all faced. Running away from the inevitability of suffering would just deprive her of countless possibilities for joy. Living her life in fear of the bad would ultimately deprive her of the good too.

"I got a lot of love left to give, and so do they," Kim said.

"Maybe one day I'll burn out and need a fresh start, and when that happens, I'll come find you."

"It won't exactly be easy…" 004 made a beeping noise and ejected a small, spherical device from his chest, which landed directly in Kim's palm.

"Unless 004 happened to have an anchor signal for you," Loadrin said.

"Have you had that the whole time?" 004 beeped again.

"You did not know this was going to happen," Loadrin said. 004 beeped, and Loadrin shook her serpentine body in disgust.

"Fine. I guess you can use that to signal us to open a portal whenever you're ready."

"Will do," Kim said. She took one more look at the baseball-sized device and then tucked it away for later. Much later. 004 waved one of his arms at Kim and then floated through the portal. Loadrin lingered a little longer.

"I'm going to miss you, you little newbie," Loadrin moped.

"I'll miss you too, you big worm," Kim said.

"Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone."

"You know, I don't think you ever have been," Loadrin said. She scanned the crowd of organics—of humans—and nodded approvingly at Kim's friends.

"Alright, now you're getting sappy," Kim said.

"Get the fuck off my planet and go teach some robots to play bocce."

"Oh I'm going to," Loadrin said.

"You better practice, Kim, when you show up I'm going to be so good at this game, I'm going to destroy you."

"You can try," Kim said. Loadrin put the bag of earth games on one of her shoulders and gave her tail one last playful swish before turning around and slithering through the portal. After a few seconds, it flickered and vanished behind her. The torrent of data flowing from the other side of the portal stopped, and everything was silent again. Kim was alone again. For about half a second.

"Oh thank god," Hawke said. He sighed with relief and latched on to Kim in a crushing bear hug.

"I was scared you were actually going to leave."

"You seemed pretty chill about it earlier," Kim said.

"I didn't want to pressure you," Hawke said.

"I kept all my horror bottled up on the inside, like a good friend."

"Don't act like I'm not used to you screaming," Kim said.

"I know. Thank god you're still going to be around to punch monsters." Kim didn't have a throat to clear, but she played a loud "ahem" anyway. Hawke got the picture and backed out of the hug.

"And hang out with me, and play games, and all that other cool stuff you do, as my best friend," Hawke said.

"Of which monster punching is only a small part."

"Eh, I wouldn't say small, it's still like fifty percent," Kim said.

"I'm really good at punching." She gave Hawke a soft jab to the gut to emphasize her point.

"Now quit getting sappy about it," Kim said.

"I'm still here on Earth, let's do some Earth shit."

"You name it," Vell said. They had most of the day left, and it felt right that Kim decided what they got to do with it.

"Great! For starters: go to class." The otherwise exuberant mood did get dampened a bit.

"What?"

"Go to class," Kim repeated.

"I stuck around to attend you losers graduations, so you better graduate. Also, I need a couple hours to do prep work anyway." She pointed almost accusingly at Vell and Samson.

"Tonight: I'm teaching you nerds how to play Pathfinder."

"Why are you saying that like you're mad at us," Samson said.

"You've never asked us."

"Yeah, also, I know how to play Pathfinder," Vell said.

"I had a few games with some friends at MIT."

"Wait, really? Why haven't you joined us, then?"

"Like Samson said, you never asked," Vell said.

"Also, I'm really busy."

"Well make time tonight," Kim said.

"I guess we're teaching Samson, then. And Alex." Alex nodded. She appreciated the inclusion, delayed as it was.

"But like I said, classwork first," Kim said.

"Get going, nerds! All of you!" She shoved them away, and the loopers gradually broke apart and headed to their classes for the day. Kim saw them off, then returned to her dorm. A completed jigsaw puzzle and a shelf of curios still waited for her. She took out the communicator 004 had given her, examined it for a second, and then set it down on the shelf with the other trinkets. It would get used someday, but for now it was just a reminder of one more weird day in a life full of them -with many more to come.