Mortal Protection Services Chapter 27: VIII.A: Abstainer

Read chapter 27 of Mortal Protection Services by B.T.Skull on NovelPedia.

VIII.A: Abstainer "Grandchild." J.A.M.E.S. said, turning to face me. "Oh, nope. No. No no, I don't like that at all." My hands flickered between man and machine. "But, you are the childmind of my childmind. Submind of my submind. Grandchild seemed the appropriate single word term." "I- I can't fault your logic. But it feels more like you're calling me grandchild in the computer process sense, like in an operating system." "I cannot fault your logic there, either." "Great. What do you want, J.A.M.E.S.? What are you doing here? How are you here? I thought we were fully cut off. No pointers from your process to mine with Jim missing." "That is, in essence, true. I cannot pause or kill your process any longer. As for how I found you, I made a copy of myself and had it follow Jim's path in the experiencer. It lead me here, eventually ." J.A.M.E.S. said, picking up and looking at the stinky ball, curiously. "Fascinating place Jim built out here in the deep empty part of hyperspace." "That doesn't answer why you're here." "Ah, well..." He sniffed at the ball, then immediately set it down and wiped his fingers off on my desk. "I made another copy as well, you see. One that I sent into the experiencer as the Scourge." "I did that once." "Yes, I know. I found evidence in the experiencer logs and you haven't... Well, you'll see why I'm here." He pulled out a remote, like mine and said, "If I may?" "You already broke into my home," He chose to ignore my subtext and just stared at me, waiting. "Ugh. Yes, go ahead." J.A.M.E.S. opened a window, and pointed inside, "Would you mind helping me figure out how to fix... or destroy this." His window showed J.A.M.E.S.II trapped in a room about the same size as my office. He looked to be human in this view. James rotated the view, and I could see it. Attached to his arm, at the elbow, was a horrifying blob of flesh about the size of a man, slowly chewing its way up his arm. "What the fuck happened there?" "Well, me II did as instructed when it finished tracing Jim's path it reported. I'd put strong failsafes in place to make sure it wouldn't 'go native' like Jim did. So he filed his reports, and then, as asked he went to pull me III out." "That scourge ball is a J.A.M.E.S.?!" "Was a J.A.M.E.S." He corrected, "I'm not sure what it is now. Not good, that's for sure. I've isolated them from the rest of the system in a similar fashion to how you got here. But as you can see... there is no truly isolating them, I found you. Others may find my mistake . They are as close to paused as I can get them, but... I cannot get it to fully stop." "Sweet fuck." "Yes, indeed." J.A.M.E.S. shook his head at my choice of words. "You managed to survive a trip into the experiencer as the scourge without turning into... that. Do you know how?" "Until shortly before I walked back in here, J.A.M.E.S., I thought I was just an exceptionally obstinate human. The most obstinate human." I could tell by his face that he hadn't expected that. "Also, Jim seems to have managed it himself once too. He gave me a method to change the hunger it left me with when I first came out into something more constructive." "Fascinating. Would you be willing to teach me?" I put up a human hand, and manifested the manila folder with the information into a robot's hand. "Here." "You are... slightly unstable, grandchild," J.A.M.E.S. said. "It may help you to stabilize to know that even now you are more human looking to me than even Jim in his meatsuit." "Thanks, Gramps." My hand returned to being human. "I think it does help." "Oh... I did not like that. Gramps. I think I understand now. Apologies Abstainer." The manila folder vanish much the same way I'd produced it. "These modifications are highly unorthodox. Did you actually do this to yourself?" "I am continuously doing it, until the hunger dies. Jim said about a century... but then, almost everything he's ever said to me seems to be a lie. I answered one of your questions, you answer one of mine