Tag Archives: proud infinity

Project: AKRA pt 13

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(They are down to three people, assaulting the base soon, will they be able to save AKRA?)

 

Raist spread his arms out while he was falling through the sky, seeing the two of them further down through clearings in the clouds of mist close to the bottom of the river.  He enjoyed the quick freedom of the descent when the small cord he was tied on began providing a counter to gravity as he rapidly slowed down, controlling the final length of his descent with a button on his suit.

Spinning around slowly, he lowered himself the final few body lengths to the small rock platform the other two were at.

Agrest took their three cords, pressing them into the wall and triggering their camouflage system, which caused them to fade into the rock color.

“What’s the likelihood of hostile creatures in this water?” Raist asked.

Philira shook her head rapidly.  “No way, this water is too fast.  Even if there are creatures, the water should hide our thermal signature with the outside of our suit being cold.  I’ll wave when I have the system set up on the other side.”

She knelt down, spiked another rod into the ground and dove into the water without waiting for any command from Raist.  Her body moved up and down in a rhythm as the wave started by her head swept through her whole body over and over as she flew across the rapids.  Scouts…good at everything.

“I am glad she is such a good swimmer,” Raist said.

“Yeah, never got good at that style.  Luckily I could pass all my tests doing the side-stroke.”

Raist was spiking his safety system, hooking it up to the line Philira was establishing when Agrest put his hand on his shoulder.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

Raist didn’t like the pit in his stomach hearing Agrest say that, but evenly responded, “Why, what’s wrong?”

Agrest shook his head.  “I don’t know, can’t explain it.  But call it a Sniper’s intuition.”  Raist was ready to dive into the water having seen Philira’s pink hair emerge from the other side and waved the two of them over when Agrest interrupted him.

“If I don’t make it out alive, can you deliver a letter I have in my room back on the ship?” Agrest asked coldly.  His joking demeanor was totally gone, replaced by a dim realism.  “It’s to that girl we saved last time on Azure 2.  I was always scared to write her back.  But at least let her know that I died, but was thinking about her, okay?”

Raist turned around, and pushed him hard.  “Don’t you dare say that!  What is everyone’s problem?!  We have been through way worse shit than this.  Border-Action 9, the assault on Klattu, being stranded on Kilo?  Come on, Ziko’s arm?  I lost both of mine on Kilo.”  Raist lifted both of his arms as he went on.  “These are bio-synths!  We sustained a few injuries early and everyone is thinking this is the end?”

“Heh.” Agrest pushed Raist’s hand away as his lip rose in a slight grin. “You feel it too, then?”

Raist turned around, mad Agrest had basically gotten him to admit his unease, and dove into the water.  He started swimming with all his might against the harsh current.  Memories of the drownings he sustained during swim ‘training’ came back to him, but only focused his mind as he crashed through the waves and rocks.  He felt a strong pull that was Philira’s line dragging him to the other shore.  He felt his back legs sweep to the right, pulling away from him, and suddenly went spinning into the water as he got trapped in a whirlpool.

Underwater, he tried kicking off a huge rock he was trapped next to, but the whirlpool was too strong.  He stopped struggling and went limp, conserving his oxygen.  His nanites would keep him conscious for a much longer time than even the best breath-holders on Terra were capable of before nanites, but still knew anything could happen.

He protected his head with his arms as he hit the rock over and over with every spin of the water.  Feeling the line on his suit finally tighten, it forcefully ripped him out of the whirlpool and back to the surface.  He turned on his back, took a breath, and continued covering his head as Philira dragged him to the other side.

“Brings back bad memories of water survival school!” he shouted over the din, standing up and shaking the water off his face and hair as he backed away from the spraying mist the river was generating.

“Haha, yeah,” she agreed as she smiled. “Lot of memories is for sure.”

He suddenly remembered that as much as he went through, while he was in tactics and strategy classes, she was probably still out there swimming and running.  He felt bad for even thinking about his hardship; he had no doubt the ‘expendable’ Scouts were trained far more cruelly than the Leaders.  She had swum through those rapids that likely would have killed Raist had he not had assistance.

Agrest was dragged to the shore and Philira hid the line across the river.  Now that this line and the descent line were established, on the return trip all they would need  to do is hook up to it.  The mechanism could pull them across the river, or up the cliff.

Proud Infinity – end

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Well here is the long awaited end of the story, please leave likes and comments!

 

My mind was still trying to comprehend everything when she started laughing, “I thought it was really funny about your white blood cell thought.  In a way, that kind of more accurately describes me.  I was ‘born’ to combat this problem, and now that it’s over, so is my purpose.  It may be hard for you to comprehend, but I am far more ‘white blood celled’ as you phrased it than you.”

“Why are you a girl though?  There are way too many aliens out there for me to believe that the universe’s form would be a Solarian.”

She laughed a long time at that.  “Hardly.  I was simply created in the form that the reactive element would find most pleasing.  As you are a heterosexual Solarian, this form seems sufficient, did it not?”

I started laughing.  “Wow, I remember you saying something like that a million times ago it seems.  No, you are perfect, but that’s what you were created to be, right?  Created in such a way I would find you impossibly intriguing, all to ensure I interacted with the element to stop the fracture.  So I don’t get it, I still am confused about two things.  You actually did stop those bullets in that battle right?  But how?”

“As you know, I am actually a physical element in true physical reality, but to make it so I appear to multiple people is hard.  But did I in any way change the reality of what those soldiers thought might be happening?  To them, they would never know where a spray of rounds ends up, so because you did not die, they simply would think they had missed, all at the cost of my energy of maintaining a physical body.”

I continued, “The other is you sometimes used the plural when we talked about this succeeding, and it was always like ‘it will happen, We won’t allow it to fail’ kind of thing.  It almost sounds like you have done this before?  Or is that some sort of ‘we are all connected thing’? ”

“No, to your first, yes to your second.  I am simply stating the connection We all have with everything.  I was created solely for this fracture.  I still have the knowledge of the universe though, for I am a major part of it.  I think I had told you before that the fracture would be created endlessly until it was fixed.  I had complete confidence it would come to completion.”

“So will you…can you stay with me?”

“Of course!  We will be together forever.  I will stay with you in this form while your physicality lasts, and I will personally escort and stay with your consciousness through the Line.  I think it is a way of the universe saying thanks!” she stated happily.

“Ha, so are you the prize for my service or what?”

“Is that what you think of me?  I would not think so.”

“No, you are right.  By the end of all of this, I was not doing any of it for myself, or for the universe, none of that.  By the end I was doing it for you.  Those million iterations, we became friends on a level beyond just you needing me to do something.  I hope it was not just some attraction created into you, because it feels very real.  We connected by consciousness or maybe it was our soul.  On the level where we are often alone, we…or I did anyway, felt like I was not alone.  Not in the place it counted.”

Her eyes were crying tears of happiness. “I do not know if I could have phrased it better about connection on that strange level.  I am proud of what you did Tre, infinitely so.”

“Ha!” I hugged her tight, weak as it was. “I think I definitely got the best universe incarnation, for sure.”

“Me too!” she laughed giddily.  “The reacting agent I mean!”

“Oh damn, my hair!”  In the reflection of a console, I noticed my hair was haggard-looking from being locked up so long, but the thing that had changed was now it was completely neon white.

“Yes, that is what happens to Solarians who have had contact with beings like myself.  I am composed of a high concentration of Axls, and such levels are deadly to you.  Well it would be if I let my essence out of control.  At the very least though, I constantly radiate them, and it causes you to be stronger and faster, but it leads to you dying earlier…and the white hair.”

“Damn, that’s pretty scary.  Being in love with you is killing me?”

“It is, in a way, but do not worry.”

“You will protect me, right?  You always have.”

“And I always will, Trego.”

“Forever?” I asked.

“For infinity.”

Proud Infinity pt 32

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Trego is in jail wondering if everything was just a dream.

 

“You would forsake me so fast?”  It was her voice.  I wondered how long before I would start hallucinating about her.

“Fuck you, go away,” I said to the darkness.  Damn, I hated just being used.  I kind of wanted to shoot her if the circumstances were such that way again.

Her…the cause of everything.  Guess it was not too long.  It was in the shadows of despair within my mind and the actual darkness in this cell that I definitely started to hate her.  I felt used beyond redemption.  White blood celled.

The bag was pulled off of my head, and her bright blue eyes were almost touching mine.  She smiled was wide as she brought her face back.  “Hi Tre!  My, what have they done to you?”

“Unfortunately…” my voice came haggard.  I had not spoken in a long time, and being deprived of water left my throat dry.  “My race has… our less than… glorious… moments towards each other.  Are you… real?  Or just here to…to torment me before I die?”

I honestly expected her to disappear, or maybe appear as the guy who was probably going to torture me.  But she stepped forward, putting her hands on my arms, and something happened as I was falling towards her.  I landed in her chest as she held me gently.  My arms hung limply at my side and I definitely could not feel them.

“Proud…you are real…” I mumbled, feeling her actually hugging me and feeling overwhelmed by that fact as I whimpered softly.

“Of course.  Why would I not be?  I had promised I would protect you, did I not?”

“Did…you?  Can’t… remember.  I can’t move…hunger…pain.  My arms…”

“I know.  I know.”  She held me there, and something warm was flowing from her into me.  I felt a strange awareness come over me, an awareness I once possessed slowly come back to me.

“Healing,” I stated and she nodded.  I could at least walk, even if I felt weak and out of it.  “But how can we get out of here?  I thought you cannot influence reality that much?”

“I have gotten stronger.  I am still limited, but enough to get you out of here.  I had to wait until everyone in your near reality counted on you dying.  To that reality it makes no difference if you actually die, or are simply gone.  The jail guard was killed in an accident today, he was the only one who knew you weren’t actually dead yet.”

“Complicated rules.”

Her eyes widened a bit at the simple truth of my statement.  “Indeed.  It is time we go.”

“Uh, are we going to teleport or something?  I don’t think we can just walk out.”

She disappeared, and I certainly did not make the trip with her.  “Uh, Proud?”

The door to my cell opened, and she was the one that had done it.  “Come on.”

“And if we are caught?”

“I will protect you.  It will not happen though.  Stay close.” She offered her hand and I reached for it, but my hand did not move.  She bent down, grabbing it, and I noticed my emaciated arm that she had taken.  I had been in this delusional state in this dark cell for longer than I likely knew.

At the very end of the hallway, I tried tugging her back as I saw the shadow of a guard coming.  She shook her head and sure enough the form on the wall had turned around and started walking away without ever turning the corner.  We walked through some sort of facility, and it was uncanny that at every turn someone would be walking through the opposite door, or turned engaged in something.  We continued in the strange ballad of perfect timing until we came out to a ship pad.

Proud Infinity pt 31

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Getting close to the end, what is going to happen!?

 

I woke back up, eventually, and was still in chains.  Okay, so this was definitely ‘reality’ as much as I had flirted with different states of that word.  My mind went through a few scenarios on what exactly this meant.  There appeared to be no doubt I did indeed bomb the ReCorp building.  Sounds like I am probably slated to be executed here, maybe after I’m tortured awhile to see what I can produce as far as my contacts or whom I was working for.  It was all for a girl, man, all for some crazy girl.

Proud.  Hmm, did she really exist?  Evidently Mitreah did, as the info screen referenced her.  Yet, I could have sworn that Proud absorbed some bullets that would have laid me out.

Did I really live all those cycles over?  Of course.  I had to have, because how else could I have gotten that bomb, or found Mitreah’s secret phrase, or figure out the perfect paths for everything?  Or…what if I always had that bomb and Mitreah was given to me from a shadowy contact?  Was I an agent programmed to forget what exactly I was doing, and come up with some massively delusional story to hide the simple truth that I was just a terrorist against the Solarian Federation?

Damn, was that the truth?  It was true I could not remember even two cycles ago.  Ha, holy shit, I literally could not remember what had happened two cycles ago.

Had my secret neural trigger activated and blanked everything out?  “Uhh…” I tried moving my arms, and groaned from the pain of the wrist locks and my arms not being able to move.

“Proud…were you just a lie?  Was everything just a lie?”  Was I just an agent with his combat android sent to eliminate whatever advantage the Federation was developing here?

Another thought came to me.  What if indeed the cycle reset over and over, and that was simply Proud’s goal from the beginning: not so much saving the universe, but simply preventing the time fracture after which I no longer mattered?  I prevented it, so her goal was accomplished.  Why would she care about one stupid little Solarian locked up for his crimes?  This was especially true if it was for the whole universe’s sake.  As long as I did my duty, I was completely expendable.  Wow…that was fucked up.  I got played hard.  Maybe I would have cried, but the emotion felt foreign to me.  Distant.

 

***

 

Sometime later – ha what an ironic word, ‘sometime’ –  I had thought I had lost my arms.  I could no longer feel them, and it had been at least a few cycles as my hunger had disappeared, replaced by the slow consumption of myself.  In the pain and dark despair I eventually decided that I probably did indeed experience a time fracture, and Proud was real, but I had done what she wanted all along and there was no reason to ‘save’ me or ever even say anything to me again.  Hell, I fucked her and shot her to make it even worse.

Do we cry over a white blood cell that kills itself in our service?  Hardly.  All we do is expect them to make that decision again and again.  And I was probably worth infinitely less.

I was just a single white blood cell.  It was the metaphor I had settled on.  I did my part to help pull the universe out of the problem it was in.  Proud was some director, and I did my sacrifice, everything else moved on.  Wow…I hadn’t felt so abandoned in a while.  Yet I sympathized in a way.  I did not care about the individual blood cells dying to save me.  Why would the universe?

Proud Infinity pt 29

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Hey guys Proud Infinity is going to be free on amazon tomorrow in ebook format so be sure to pick it up, and if you do, please rate it, rating help huge for new authors! I will continue the story here though.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MTB19WD

 

“Show some faith,” Mitreah said as she stepped up, stabbing her blade hand into the door.  I saw the muscles in her arms flex hard as a piece of steel came pulling out of the door with her appendage vaguely like a mutated hand.  “Try it now,” she said with a smile.

At about that time a siren started wailing.  “Attention all personnel, we are under attack.  The agent is located at Block Six.  Exercise extreme caution.  Repeat, hostile agent located at Block Six.  All combat personnel deploy immediately.”

Oh man, I forgot they have a security force.  That’s how I got killed so fast a long time ago and it made me stop trying.

“Hope you are close to the target,” Proud said as I pushed the door and it slid open on an emergency track.

The door opened, and in front of us was a voluminous room with a long blue mechanical tube stretched far beneath the small walkway we were on.  We were running on the thin walkway when a shot from below us exploded above my head on the roof.

“Damn!”  I dropped into a tightly compacted crouch as we crept forward. “Is this it!?  Is this what we need to destroy?  Do I just drop the bomb here?”

Though I suppose neither of them knew the answer.

“There they are!” Across the walkway a squad of three people appeared in the opening doorway, kneeling to take firing positions.  Rifles.  They were going to hit me way before I lucked a pistol round downrange to hit them.

Behind me I heard more noise.  With a skill I had developed over a long time I turned and expertly fired.  Three rounds tore into one guy’s chest, and the next two were into the other’s head.  Taking the two of them out required little thought or effort.

Turning back to the farther squad, I realized Mitreah was already halfway to them.  The loud explosions of their guns reached me long after I saw a few sparks of light fly off her body, the rounds hitting metallic substrates.  She stabbed her blade-arm straight through one of them, twisting and slashing the second one in half before stabbing her way through the final one and was already running back towards us before I could even realize we had to keep moving.

“Hey, are you okay?”  I nodded to the holes in her chest and arms that were leaking a dark blood.  It had not hit her deeper substrates yet.

“I can take way more before I am compromised.”

At this point I had never made it this far, so no longer ‘knew’ what to do.  All I had was my skills, which were substantial.  I saw movement below us and with a single shot killed the guy sighting us with his rifle.  My skills were far past what it took to be an expert marksman.

We hurried along the walkway, an occasional shot from below us hitting the walkway or the ceiling.  The walkway was a ‘T’ shape and we took the left instead of the straight path where the dead guards lay.  Below us the huge machines hummed ominously; the bright blue energy from the glass cylinder did not look very good at all.

The walkway ended at a door Mitreah front kicked off its rolling ridge, quite an impressive feat.  Inside were three scientists and a computer mainframe.  We entered quickly and soon the three of them were holding their hands up, begging to not be killed.

“Where is the center of the particle creator?!” I yelled to them.  One of them pointed behind him where beyond the computer was a railing overlooking something radiating light.  I was walking towards it, unhooking my satchel, programming the time charge on the bomb.

“Don’t do it!  Do you know how much research has been put into this?” someone behind me cried.

Proud Infinity pt 28

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We are getting close to the end, how is it going to resolve!?

 

The cute girl of the space port leaned far forward as she dashed inhumanly fast at the other man on the ship.  He barely had time to look surprised before she punched him in the stomach, and slipped behind him, her arms going around his neck.  For a moment I thought she was going to kill him, but he simply fell to the ground unconscious from being choked out.  I threw their two bodies out of the way of the truck and we hopped in.  I hit a string of button prompts on the screen before it went to flashing ‘Ready?’ and we were off.  I remember how many times I had died trying to get the damn truck moving.

“Am I crazy?” I asked to the two woman with me.  Mitreah shrugged, saying probably, but she wasn’t one to judge.  Proud said no.  If I was crazy, at least it was fun.

We rumbled through the streets, passing by the millions of places I had seen so carefully in the scope of a single cycle.  I was shot there, I killed someone there…  We came now to the single road into ReCorp.  The gate opened for our vehicle, and on both sides the ground fell away into the huge pit.  I hoped this controlled vehicle wouldn’t decide to spill us over the edge.

“In case you are wondering, we are taking out the particle accelerator or disabling it in some other way to stop it from causing the creation of a dangerous particle.”

“You don’t need to justify anything to me,” Mitreah said.  “I am simply happy to be back to my old self.”

“I thought you might like to know.  Do you really not care what I tell you to do?”

“Often it is only our Creators that know our override, and no, you do not possess complete control over me, in case someone was thinking of doing something perverted.”  She smiled slyly at me. “Though to you, I might do things willingly…”

I shook my head only once. “No, I outgrew that a long time ago.”

“You seem sincere.  But my Creator died, and you seem fun enough, so I might have done this mission anyway if you asked.  This is what I truly enjoy; not sitting in an empty room people rarely come to.”  I had asked before, she only came if I knew her code word, she was too loyal to the nearly defunct spaceport.

Damn, this was scary; I had rarely made it this far before.  Everything I had done had been to bring me to this position, and now, well, now it was time.

In my hand was my Liner pistol, and a small satchel of high explosives from an ex-special operative.  I had long ago in all my annihilations gotten over the idea or revulsion of killing.  If I could spare them like at the dock I would.  This was too important even if they were innocent.  I was not convinced of their innocence or not, but it did not matter to me anymore.

The vehicle stopped, and some guy opened the door.  “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said, lifting my pistol and plugging him right in the chest.  I turned back to the two girls. “Let’s go.”  Proud jumped out gracefully, landing and walking behind me.  Mitreah jumped out, dashed across the room insanely fast, slashing a man who was standing there.  The only thing I saw was a spray across the wall behind him.

“Any idea where to go?” I asked the two of them.  I had not been inside here for a long time, and this one the first where I had my skills and the two women with me.  They responded ‘no’.  “Well, let’s see if we can’t get lucky this time.  We can always try again,” I said as I started laughing at my own joke.  Turning to my left I ran through a door shaped like a circular portal that opened as we got close.  If it was an accelerator, I only had to work my way to the middle where the core would be, so that seemed a good place to start heading.

We were running down a hallway, eerily empty, with Proud behind me and Mitreah the combat android in front of me.  Some guy stepped out from a corner, and before I even realized he was there, he was dead at her feet.  She crouched back down in a scary combat stance.

“Hey, this way,” I said to her as I took to the right as we headed a new way, and within seconds she caught up with us and was back on vanguard.  There was a sign warning about having protective suits on and I figured we might be getting close.  My fear of dying was long since gone; I had done it so many times.  I neared the portal, but it didn’t open.  I tried the handle and it was locked.

“Damn it!”  I pulled my pistol towards it, firing some rounds into the locking mechanism and front kicked the door, but it remained solid.  “No way.  A damn door is going to stop us?”

Proud Infinity pt 24

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I am working on my first paperback, and it will probably be out in the next 2 weeks or so.  Here is the cover art

vl-chron-final

Of which Proud Infinity is a part of!

 

Anyway on with the story as Trego is navigating his way through the time loops:

 

I walked over to the space port, spending more time with the android, Mitreah.

I waved when I walked in and she gave a friendly wave back, but did not know me from anyone else at this point.

“Hi, Mitreah.”

“Oh hello!  I don’t remember your name.  Have we met?”

‘A few times…’ I thought to myself.

“Mitreah: Farewell Fallen Sword,” I stated cryptically.  Her face went blank like it always does, before her bright eyes returned.

“Override confirmed.  What are you orders?”

I waved my hand.  “Nothing major, I simple want to talk to you a bit.”

“An odd request, but certainly.”

I spent a long time talking to her.  Unlike the old man, she was much more fun, but I learned less.  There was not as much applicable to me due to her combat android form and background.  She could teach me so much about fighting, but not as much about the world.

Before the end of this loop I wanted to fight her more to train my combat ability.  That was perhaps the biggest boon from her, other than eventually using her to break into ReCorp.

To her, my words were novel, “Mitreah, I want you to train me to fight.  I want to use my pistol, and anything you can teach me.  Execute training protocol number 2.”

She smiled at me.  “This is so much more fun.”

She left to go get some training supplies she had in her personal locker.  I had never figured out why an ex-combat android ended up here, I could never get it out of her.  The best I could figure is that she was injured slightly, or had served long enough she got to retire.

Mitreah came back with a training pistol that would fire visible lasers that did not actually do anything but would respond if I hit her and she could react appropriately.  Combat androids could fight with guns, and melee weapons, but there most signature weapon was their arm would form into a very sharp blade, essentially like a nano blade.  Something like this would kill my obviously, so it was more like a blunt bat I was struck with.

She tossed the training pistol to me like always.  I caught it and started firing at her dashing form.

Probably an old Aelisha combat android based on Solarian form, evidenced by her dashing style was leaning super far forward: the same way Aelishas ran.  She slashed at me with her blade arm, I blocked with the pistol and dodged, firing at her.  I knew her moves well enough at this point I could end it easily.  My main goal at this point was to build up my own reflexes, not to use known paths.

I dove awkwardly a few times just to get off any previous path I would ‘remember’.  I felt blind once again which I liked.  Mitreah could easily take me out given her superior programming and speed but limited it during the training.

I fired a few times at her, impressed by how my own skills were coming along; she had to dodge which slowed her assault down.

She got close, swiping at me hard and connecting.  Her blade arm of course was dull for training, but in real combat I would have lost my arm.  Regardless it gave me a strong shock that made it numb.

I dove to the ground, grabbing the pistol out of my numb arm, turning around rapidly and hitting her in the chest.  A spray of the laser beams struck home, and if it was a strong enough weapon she would have been killed.  My aggressive push of not running and doubling down on the attack was enough to win.

“Uh…”  She moaned in pain from the ground a bit before standing.  We helped each other up.

“Dang, that was fun.”  We with standing there, hugging each other for support.  I was breathing hard.

“How are you so good?  I had to go to the very limits to even catch you.”

I stepped back.  “I’ve done this before.”

“Who was your teacher?”

“You.”  I pulled out my real pistol, aimed and reset.

 

***

Proud Infinity pt 22

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How many annihilations ago was that?  A thousand?  A million!?

In the absolute darkness of my being and existence Proud had saved me from the darkness of myself, showing me my own light by simply exposing hers.  Taking a few deep breaths, trying to wipe the tears away I recalled some of the positive things I had figured out during the focus of every time after that, since I decided to actually get serious.

Right, remember the things I had figured out even during the darkness.  Like how my repetition of a hundred different phrases and conversation branches allowed me to sleep with numerous girls, showing me I could find out almost anything from anyone with exactly the right prompts.  What was initially fueled by dark sexual desire proved to be very useful in the fact I could use perfect conversation choices positively, and not having anything to do with sex.

The old guy at the fence?  Indeed he was in the Space Forces as he claimed, but he also was a special operator.  What did I learn?  I rubbed my eyes, trying to recall.  Definitely some stuff about infiltration and explosives.  What exactly had he taught me?

What was hard was that I could no longer separate ‘my’ knowledge with what I had learned from others simply teaching me.  A thousand repetitions with the same person, each ‘cycle’ simply advancing the conversation as far as I had learned from the prior cycle, allowing me to eventually learn everything a person was capable of teaching.

I got up and left, slightly energized by the memory I was actually making progress.  Normally later in the day the old man would be over-looking the pit, but long ago figured out where he lived.

I went to his house, knocked on the door and he was much more suspicious and cold compared to his more jovial act at the overlook.

“What do you want?” he asked through a chained door.

“Coding Alpha Delta,” I let it sink in a little.  “We need to talk.”

From my view, I saw the one eye looking at me through the chain blink once, then he unchained the door.  He put the pistol under the slot on the table like he always did, not knowing I had been killed by it quite a few times.

By playing the role of an agent from the highest reaches of Solarian intel, I was able to learn a lot from him.  At this point I was sure I had exhausted everything he had to tell me, but it was a good reminder.

Had I always known that an innocent nano block used to repair stuff could be overrode to create controlled directional explosions?  Had I always known my Liner pistol could be turbo charged simply by taking over the cover and turning the limiter off?

I doubted it, but there was no way to know. Knowledge was a strange thing to me that often hung at the edge of my understanding.  Given all the loops I had been through, what was ‘my’ knowledge melted away into this strange mixture of things I now knew from others.

The old man had just finished showing me how to take the limiter off my Liner pistol; I could probably do it better than him at this point.

“You still have the explosives you were tasked with, right?”

“Are you requesting transference, Operator?” he asked back.

At this point everything was growing dark.

“Negative, just need to make sure.  But I always knew you still did.”  I lifted my Liner pistol up.

“What…are you doing?” he asked, concerned.

“Resetting,”  I said.  I pulled the trigger as I ended my life in a far less painful way.

Proud Infinity pt 9

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Hey guys thanks for reading, and commenting.  I love your comments, again I am a new(ish) writer to the world at large so love to learn and see how my writing comes off.  We last left our hero Trego wondering what he was experiencing in his ‘dreams’

 

“Unfortunately,” just with the first word my heart sank, “this spaceport has been decommissioned as a fully active port.  This stems from the fact this planet was demoted on the Solarian research colony status.”

I shook my head. “Tell me about it.”

“So while this does not have a ship off, down at Lest Rigo there is a small port with a ship that leaves about once every six or seven cycles.  Want me to come with you?”

I was a bit surprised by her request, the way she put emphasis on ‘come’ rather than ‘with’ caught me off guard.  Damn it, was that a double entendre like the Aelisha always are unloading?  “Uh, sure if you want to.”

“Haha, I’m just kidding.  My job is here; I just ask everyone to see what they say!”

I frowned a bit.  Dang, she was hot too; just teasing me.  I fell for that kind of stuff way too easy.  Might as well be a tricky fox girl.  “Well, hey, thanks for the info.  And I have a quick question, are you an android by chance?”

“Yes, I am.  What gave it away, out of curiosity?”

I was smiling that I finally had an edge on her. “A bit too-perfect of looks.”

“Aww…should I take that in the wrong way?”

“I don’t know, do you like taking things in…the wrong way?” I smirked at her, wondering if she would play along.

“I much prefer taking things in, the right way.”  Her smile widened.  “Is there anything else here I can give you a hand with?”  Whoa she was flirting right back.

“I’m pretty capable of doing it myself–”

“Me too!”  She interrupted.  Maybe I was reading into this, but she sure seemed like she was escalating the innuendo.

“But I am not one to turn down a helping hand.”

“Well my hands are extremely well taken care of.”  She offered her hand to me and I grabbed it, feeling how soft they were.  Our little banter and especially touching her hand turned me on pretty hard; it had been a while since I had explosive chemistry like that.  I’ll have to swing back here sometime and see if I can’t get with this girl.  Damn, I really wanted to take her out for some fun, if this weird mental thing wasn’t happening I’d be all over her.

I stepped back away from her lest my main mission get derailed.  “Anyway that reminds me of a random question I just remembered.  Is it true that androids either often have, or have to have, a secret phrase that can shut them down, or override their commands?  Sorry if that’s offensive or anything.”

She shook her head ‘no’. “Hardly.  I enjoy talking about our position in the universe.  You know there is not that much difference between an ‘android’, which may be completely made or restored from someone that died, and that of an engineered Solarian, implanted with nanites and so on.  In a way we are both made, just to different extents.”  I nodded to her point seeing as it was pretty true.  Anyone who hated androids didn’t really think about the subtle difference, her flesh and wit was real enough I was turned on by it.  “Anyway, yes, we do often have an override command.”

“Interesting.”  It was rumored that most androids had varying levels of combat capabilities installed in them ‘in case of emergencies’.  I had a very strong curiosity to reach over and touch her.  Could I feel difference?  Supposedly most androids could take bullets, but no one could tell the difference just by looking at one.

“You sure are curious.”  She put a hand on her slightly kipped out hip.  I tried to not look at how perfect her legs were, or how it seemed her hips were mathematically proportioned just correctly.  Ha, mathematically proportioned…that is definitely something I would notice.  Her long black hair was just so clean and straight.  As hot as she was, her intellect stimulated me the most.

“Yeah I used to be a scientist…” I might have continued flirting with her but then I heard a sound I was certain I had heard before, and it was unloading from the ship that had landed.  It was a supply vehicle with loose gravplates.  “I got to go,” I told her before I ran outside.  There was no way this was happening!

Proud Infinity pt 5

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Hey guys thanks for reading and liking, please leave any comments about your thoughts on the story!  Trego now is at the bar, and is going to meet the playful by myterious Proud.  Things are heating up!

story:

I laughed loud once. “Just kidding man.  Like anyone has a job since damn ReCorp came in.  Bastards,” I said shaking my head.  It was so weird.  I agreed with my statements, but I felt more like an actor watching and carefully picking my lines than actually living life.  “Get me your cheapest drink, I’ll be back.”

I turned and saw ‘Infinity Girl’ in the corner and went to stand up.  This time the man who wanted to fight me stayed seated.  He nodded to me while I walked passed him.  Good choice.  I laid you out once, I’ll do it again.

This girl had a very powerful aura about her that was intimidating, but I was more poised about this figure she represented compared to what might be happening to me internally.

“Hi,” I said, taking the seat across from her.  She had a deeply knowing smile on as she looked at me.  I kind of frowned for a moment as my poise left me.  Damn, it’d been a while since I had been unsettled like this by a woman.

Her dark green hair came a bit long around the face, leaving just enough room for bright blue eyes to look through like a window as the hair hung softly around the cheeks, leaving her Strive to be completely unobstructed.  She had a playfulness to her with the sly smile on, vastly out of position at a dump like this bar. Her pink bow spoke to her presumed confidence, and her tight black bodysuit she wore left nothing to imagination.

‘Ahh, the wonders of genetic engineering, eh?  Damn right.’  I conversed with myself.

I was staring at the shadows and shines on her adequate chest when she asked, “Enjoyable?” before softly laughing.  “I hoped it would be.”

“Damn, sorry.” I closed my eyes and shook my head.  I opened my eyes back up and concentrated on looking at her eyes, which was actually rather hard.  “Look, this is kind of a weird question, but…do we know each other?”

“That is an interesting question.  It is tough to tell.”

“Uh…it is?  Why?” I asked.

“If you do not yet know, perhaps we do not yet know each other?”  Her tone indicted she was asking a question, but I wasn’t sure.  I mean what kind of question is that?

She was as mysterious as her appearance.  Her eyes had a deep level of intelligence to them, as we stared at each other I felt like she knew far more than she let on.

“Is that a question for me?”  I asked.  “I don’t remember you, but it kind of seems like I know you.”

“Hey.” A new voice, I turned and it was the bartender.  He had my drink I didn’t really want.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”  I pulled out my credcard and he swiped it, deducting a few valuable credits.  I hoped it wasn’t the difference from getting a ticket off-world and not.

“Well you came in here before and ran off, now you are sitting at an empty table talking to the wall.”

My eyes flashed back to the girl, half expecting she would not be there and that I was going crazy.  Yeah, lock up ol’ Trego!  Ever since he lost his job he has just been on a downward spiral.  Next thing you know, he will be shooting people saying this was all a dream.

But she indeed was there, and perhaps that was even worse for my case of going crazy.  She smiled and nodded once.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine.  Just still a bit messed up over losing my job and all.”

“Join the crowd,” the bartender said before he left.

I leaned forward to the girl.  “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

“That is also a tough question with many layers of complexity.”  I felt like she was playing me for the fool.

I balled my fist in anger; her coyness was pissing me off.   “Look, I get it.  My questions are ‘tough’ but start talking.  Why do these guys pretend you aren’t here, and why did I dream a scenario close to this, except I died and didn’t talk to you in it?!”  As soon as I released the torrent, I regretted it.  I didn’t even know this girl, and now suddenly I was acting like some crazy person.

I was glad she didn’t make an issue of it.  “Maybe you were supposed to talk to me then?” she asked innocently.

“It was a dream, you can’t control those things.  Maybe that’s why I am talking to you now, because of that vision.”  I was far more open with her than I normally ever would be, but the intensity of that dream kept me going.

“Vision?  Is that what you thought it was?” she asked, her eyebrows went up in a ‘what the hell are you talking about’ kind of look, kind of like everyone else had in the room.  For a moment I considered that maybe I was part of some reality show, or some military test to see if I would break.  No, I was tougher than this.  At the very least I had to see what she would say.

I gripped my fist hard, gritting my teeth.  This stupid bitch, I didn’t do good with coquette behavior.  I wanted to slap her.  For a moment I thought about threatening her with my pistol, but I left that idea on the table, so to say.  For now I’ll just try a different approach.

I sighed and tried again.  I wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.  “Do you have a name?”

“I am a bit unsure on your standards, but isn’t it correct to give your name first?”

I frowned a bit; she was not making this easy.  “It’s Trego.”

“I know,” she stated flatly.

I raised an eyebrow.  “You already know?  Why would you even ask then?”  I realized that everyone in the bar had stopped talking and was looking at me.  I looked back at them, wondering how long they were going to keep their act up, and they went back to small talk.  Yes I get it; I’m probably part of a comedy show or some psyche experiment, go back to drowning your sorrows.

“Yes, I know your name,” she said.

“Uh, well okay, so what is yours?  Can you give it to me now?”  What was the point of her little show if she already knew mine?

“Proud,” she stated the single word and nothing more.

“ ‘Proud’?  That’s your name?”

She turned her head slightly, looked just a bit concerned.  “Is it not sufficient for a name?  Do I require something more?  I had hoped everything was sufficient, tailored specifically, in fact.  Does it need to be changed?  I’m sorry, this is my first time.  This is all new to me as well.”

“No, if that’s your name, it’s fine.  I just wasn’t sure I heard you right.”

Her tone of voice changed slightly, her pronunciation was now different.  “Is this easier for you to understand?”  It was not like adding or dropping an accent, which some people do, and it seemed beyond just a nanite filter of having them change the spoken words.  Her voice had changed.

My thoughts were racing, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’  I glanced behind me and everyone was staring at me.  I stared back at her, and half-expected her to be gone.