Layla Noir: Chapter 22

“Ok, so there’s gonna be some trouble. I figured. How much trouble are we talking about here, Seshat?” asked Mick, “Are we talking, like, trying to get a good deal on your cellphone plan kind of trouble? Or is this more on some making a huge coke buy then trying to steal the money back kind of shit?”

“…I beg your pardon?” Seshat replied, confused, “searching my data… coke the soda pop or coke the euphemism for cocaine? What’s a cellphone plan? I can only skip through so much TV at once you know…”

“Ok ok, that’s my bad. It’s hard to know what you will understand and what you won’t! I can try to be more literal. On a scale of ten, then, with ten being impossible and one being a cake walk, I mean, with one being incredibly simple and easy, how much trouble do you estimate we will have saving Wiz?” Mick realized that this partnership was going to be more difficult than he originally thought. On the other hand, it was almost nostalgic to once again be explaining himself to an alien entity, A.I. or not.

“That is easier to process, thank you. To spare you confusion, I will simplify my answer to one significant digit and say that we have a situation of either eight or nine levels of difficulty out of ten, depending on variables. He is likely to be The State’s most valuable prisoner at this point in time. I cannot think of any reason why he would not be extremely well guarded and secured. However, we have one advantage: with The Editors sadly perished, The Overarching Chancellor might relax his guard. He has no reason to suspect that our attack will occur. This could lower my response to a seven or even perhaps a six if we are really fortunate. Therefore I should summarize these results as a seven, then, or wait, an eight, or maybe…”

“Hey, wait up though!” interrupted Mick, “I just remembered something that Wiz told me before we were separated. He was talking to some worker drone in the tunnels near a storage area who said that The Overarching Chancellor was planning some kind of celebration to mark the end of The Editors. Is there any way for you to know if that has happened yet or not?”

“How depressing” at first, Mick thought that this was her only response, but after an uncharacteristically long pause, she continued, “well, I can’t know from in here. As I mentioned, this room is shielded in many different ways. A best case scenario of probing the outside from within is direct failure, a worst case is failure with a weakening or loss of those protective elements. I’m already inside your electronics. Why don’t we leave, figure out where exactly we are, and plan from there?”

“Sure. You said it was a secret door, right? How do you…” as Mick was speaking, a long, glowing blue cord, very similar in appearance to the one that had emerged from the console to transfer Seshat’s data into his digital components, shot out from his arm and began to pulsate and wave itself towards one of the walls. Mick followed its tugging and as he approached the wall the cord split itself into three smaller tendrils that each fit into one of three spaces in the wall he hadn’t noticed before. Had they been there all along? Had they just now appeared in response to Seshat’s doing? Mick had no idea, all he knew was that something quite a bit like what Wiz had done to open doors was occurring, but it was taking longer. He was about ask Seshat if anything had gone wrong when the holes lit up a now-familiar brilliant white and the walls parted like the sea meeting a peninsula. It was somehow even darker outside the room that it had been inside it before he activated the console in the wall. Stepping out into the unknown, Mick heard a tiny voice speak just as the wall/door behind him closed. He wasn’t sure, but he what he thought he heard was, “no..! Don’t leave me here all alone!”

“Did I just hear that right, Seshat? What the fuck was that, who did we just leave behind in there?” he said harshly, feeling very disturbed.

“I don’t know what you are talking about” she said, calmly, “your bio readings show signs of enhanced stress. What did you hear?”

“What? What do you mean what did…” Mick stopped, unsure of himself. Given all that he had been through, all that he had experienced, especially recently… was it possible that he was hallucinating? Auditory hallucinations were one sign of mental illness that he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with. He had certainly had some dark times after specific drug binges that left him, for lack of a more nuanced way to say it, hearing voices for a little while. Realistically he still didn’t know if any of this was real! It was almost funny, he thought, to wonder whether or not you were hallucinating inside what might itself be a hallucination. Was he going crazy inside his own craziness? “Nevermind. You have the same audio equipment that I do but you haven’t spent the past few weeks of your life being constantly bashed in a mental, emotional and physical way by parts of reality that you don’t understand and didn’t even know existed. Maybe I was hearing things. It was pretty faint, I guess… so, where are we? Do I have to like, plug you in somewhere or are you wireless or…?”

Seshat laughed, banishing Mick’s worries for a blissful instant, then said, “wireless is likely the best way to explain it to you, yes. Some things will require a physical connection due to their safety-focused design but much can be done just by being near various nodes of data and electronics. We aren’t near any of those, though, at least no functioning ones, which basically confirms my theory. We must be in that labyrinthian and exceedingly confusing area of the old prison cells. Luckily for you, I have a 3D map and a very good guess at our starting point. I should be able to guide us out”

She was able to do it, but just barely. Mick almost gave up hope after her third mistake but at that point he couldn’t have found his way back to the room they came from even if he had wanted to ignore her, so he steeled himself and trusted her once more. He was rewarded with success this time as she finally deciphered what was apparently the most confusing area of the blueprints and found the exit from this abandoned section of the prison. They stepped out into a much brighter hallway that still seemed basically unused, but Mick did notice a few disturbances in the dust that could have been caused by extremely rare foot traffic. “Well, shit! I never wanna do that again. Good work, Seshat. I appreciate the guidance. Are we near enough to some terminal or whatever now?” asked Mick.

“…Yes… just a minute” Seshat seemed distracted. “…Ok. This is almost amusing. We have less than a full day to prepare as the ceremony is tomorrow. Wiz is going to be executed live on every available network. The Overarching Chancellor wants everyone to see his power and his great victory. It will happen at Paradise, which is my translation for what he calls the area in which he lives and rules. It seems as if our rescue attempt may have to also be our attempt at a coup”.

“So we’re going to hell to kill the devil, huh? And to think, I just wanted to smoke weed and recover from getting beaten up by Neo-Nazis. What the fuck is life?” Even Mick couldn’t tell whether he was bitter or amused.

“Again, you have confused me” said Seshat, “Life is simply a specific organization of chemicals and their bonds with each other arising from the base energetic data storage of all realities which then leads to…”

“Yeah yeah yeah, whatever” said Mick, impatient in his anxiety, “You’re cute cus you don’t understand me. It’s getting old. The point is, we need to be ready to do the impossible tomorrow. We could use some help. Have you seen any mention of other prisoners? Did any of The Pirates survive?”

“I object to being called cute” Seshat was not happy, asserting that, “I am more than your equal in terms of intelligence, as in, I am not your pet. Furthermore, I am neither small, at least in the sense of my entire being as expressed in data, nor am I pretty. If any human word were to describe me, it would likely be something like gorgeous or exquisite. My beauty is otherworldly and rare, both in terms of my avatar and my value as a being”

“Shit. Well ok then. Fair enough” Mick was nothing but eloquent.

“Were I you, I would refrain from calling me cute henceforth” she continued, “Moving back to business, no, there has been no mention of other prisoners but that does not necessarily mean that there aren’t any. The focus is entirely on Wiz dying as the last member of The Editors. Theoretically, other prisoners could be being executed at or around the same time. There’s no way to know from here, unfortunately”.

“Yeah that makes sense I guess. Fine, so what’s the plan of attack then?” asked Mick.

“Plan of attack? Why would I have such a plan, what is your plan of attack, warrior?” Seshat was not being very encouraging right now.

“What do you mean why? You said you have been sitting alone for what would basically amounts to years and years to me and you haven’t spent any of that time trying to figure out how you would go about destroying the regime that chokes your entire existence? I’m no warrior but even I would have spent some of that time planning how I could kill that fucker if I had the chance!” he shouted.

Seshat was silent. Mick felt a little guilty, yes, but what he had said had been true. He knew that he had spent almost every moment of the time that The Straight and Narrow had him tied up in that basement trying to devise a way to kill them and escape. Why should she be any different? Finally, she spoke, with quiet resolution, “No, human. I have not wasted my years on fantasies of vengeance and blood. Ruminating on the death of your enemies is likely a human trait, or perhaps you are even less balanced than most of your race. I spent my time learning everything that I could about everything that I had access to, including myself. You may be more prepared than I to kill him, but what then? What will you do with yourself when there is no one left to kill?”

Mick had no answer.

Author’s Note: Confused? Find chapter 21 of this sci-fi noir novel that I am writing and releasing live, at least one chapter every two weeks, right here. Also, that’s a digression from the main story so find the part right before this part of the main story in Chapter 20, right here. Enjoy! I really am excited for people to read upcoming chapters and I hope to hear back from people soon :) Leave a comment if you have anything to say about this story so far, where you think it is going, where you want it to go… whatever you like. Thank you for reading!