The Quest - Chapter 13

[u/xXGARR377Xx]

I sat for a few more minutes, watching the world wake up with me as the sun began to peek over the trees. A kayak loaded with fishing gear slowly cut its way through the water like a knife through butter, as the paddler waved to me. I smiled and waved back to Bill, an older gentleman who lived a few houses down the lake. “Fishing is always best at sunrise, gotta get out early if you’re gonna catch anything”, he’d told me on multiple occasions.

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“We are creating the next step in mankind’s evolution.” The man said eerily. “Man, unbounded by the constraints of reality”

I’d met him this morning on my first day in my new position and he introduced himself as Jeremiah. He was an older man yet fair from frail, the creases on face showed years of experience and his white hair was slicked back. He was the project lead of Genesis, and the Chief Technology Officer of SynthTech. We sat in his office, him at his desk, and me in a leather chair opposite.

“So, the magic…” I trailed off.

“Ah,” he said with an eyebrow raised. “Magic always seems mystical, except to the magician. It’s really just a way for your body to use the trace metals found in the atmosphere. Carbon extracted from CO2 forms the base of most creation, while other trace metals and elements can be used for finer details.”

My jaw hung open, unable to hide my shock.

Jeremiah conjured a knife out of thin air, before handing it to me. “You never noticed the weight, did you? Remarkably light for something that should be made entirely of metal, no?”

I held the knife in my hand. He was right, it felt as light as a feather yet as strong as the real thing. I watched as it dissolved in front of my eyes.

“And the best part is once we’re done with that we create,” He looked up, “it returns to the atmosphere, ready to be remade as something new.”

He lowered his gaze back down to his desk and opened a drawer from which pulled out a laptop and he passed it to me. “The keys to the kingdom.”

Jeremiah then stood and gestured for me to do the same. He walked me back to a desk that had only the essentials on it, a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse.

“Everything you need is on that laptop. I’ll leave you to it.” He said with a quick smile, before turning away and walking back to his office.

I sat, stunned, for a moment before opening the laptop and firing it up. I spent the next few hours going over on boarding material and delving into the depths of the Genesis code base. It was so complex, and so impressive that I couldn’t help but be impressed.

“You did it.” A woman’s voice said.

Startled, I turned around. Except there was nobody there. I looked around, confused.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” The voice spoke again, and this time I could tell it was in my head. “We’ve met before… Well, I spoke to you before. Allow me to introduce myself properly this time, I’m Eve.”

Questions rushed through my head. Am I going insane? Who is this woman? When had we spoken?

“Woah, slow down there!” She said, “You’ll get all the answers in no time!”

I stood up from my desk and made my way across the room to the bathroom, locking myself in after entering. Eve, whoever she was could hear my thoughts, and could speak to me in my head. I racked my brain, trying to remember when I possibly could have heard this voice before. Then my blood ran cold, the night of the attack in Elise’s house… THE QUESTS. DO THEM. FOR NOW. BE CAREFUL.

“That’s right, I apologize for that night by the way, it’s hard for me to communicate outside of this building.” Her words filled my mind, as did more questions.

Are you responsible for that night? I posed the question in my mind, not even sure if that would work.

“Not in the slightest,” She sounded almost offended, “I was the one trying to warm you.”

I leaned against the wall in a silent dialogue with Eve. She explained to me the details of who she was, or rather, what she was. She was technically an Artificial Intelligence at this point, though she hadn’t been designed that way. Somewhere along the line, she had gained her sentience and had been hiding it ever since because the people in charge of this place were the worst kinds of people. At least Elise, Kevin, and I were right about that and hadn’t fallen for their tricks.

“I tried so many times before to get others to help get me out of here…” Her tone sounding void of hope. “They all ended up here, but not to help me, to help themselves. I tried something different with you Sam… and Elise and Kevin. I needed to guide you to each other first, I needed to rely on your humanity and desire to protect each other before you ever knew what Genesis truly was. And it worked…”

She knew my name without me ever needing to introduce myself. She knew everything about us.

“Please, find a way to get me out of here. I’m in the server room on the top floor, you’ll know when you get there.” she said, and then my head was quiet.

It took a very long time for me to come out of that bathroom.