Tag Archives: time loop

Project: AKRA pt 5

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They are doing an orbital insertion down to the planet…here we go!

 

At this distance the descent suit did not block out the visual yet, and each prepared differently for what was coming.  For Raist he was always struck by the strange sensation of his appreciation of beauty in nature, even as his job was often to kill without remorse.  There was just something in the divine perfection of how color and motion came together.  He sounded stupid when he talked about it, so he tended to keep that part of his thoughts to himself.  It was easier to joke or swear than to be philosophical, or far easier to talk about banging Philira than wonder about reality with those around him.

All five of them had small micro tethers that kept them connected for the duration of the drop, and within the tether was an advanced processor that regulated each motion of their descent suits to keep it descending evenly and without problems.  With no warning the visual went black as spheres enclosed each of them, protecting them as they first hit the atmosphere and to prevent them from catching fire.

He hated this part the most, as nanites were blocking out the sound ever since he launched out of the ship, and now the black provided no distraction for his mind.  It was the questions that bothered him the most.  It was never doubt because he didn’t have any.  More like if his life could have been different, if it should have been different.  Unlike a lot of classes like Scouts, he had choices many of them never did.  With choices came responsibility, and the weights of deaths were weighing on him even if he did not overtly show it.

Did he think too much about things?  His previous Scout, Laiun, told him as much.

He knew above him the descent suit would have streamers deployed to slow their velocity, whipping violently based on the speed they were coming in with.  He knew underneath him the landscapes might now start to be visible, but all that was around him right now was darkness.

Light filled the void as the surrounding sphere melted away above and beyond him.  The planet had changed a lot since he last saw it from space: he could see clouds, the green/purple of plants, even mountains in the distance.  The melting of the sphere reformed into parachutes that variously reformed themselves with the synchronization orders of the rest to ensure the perfect descent of the team onto the planet.

Get through one jungle, a river, more jungle, and then the base of the mountain.  Sounds simple in premise.  Not too far to cross at all.  That mountain didn’t look too far away; he could get there by a single planet cycle.  This was going to be the easiest ‘hard’ mission they ever took.  He could ‘retire’ pretty quick, as he was burning out as a result of the destruction he caused.

That was before something went wrong with their descent system and Ziko suddenly fell out of the pentagon formation.  The rest of them went crashing into the strange upper-story plant life that ripped their advanced suits apart as if they were paper.

As Raist went tumbling to the dark forest floor, his only thought was that he had never felt this much pain this early in a mission before.  He had never lost someone before it even started.

“Ziko!”  He screamed before his head impacted something hard and he blacked out, still falling farther down.

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 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 30

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Here we go guys, getting near the end, I hope you are ready for some pretty big plot twists!

 

In a moment I realized it partly might have been a distraction.  From two sides we were attacked.  Mitreah was engaged with one group on the other side of the room.

“Tre!” Proud yelled my name.  I glanced to my left seeing her form between me and a squad that had come into the door.  The next instant her form was bending over as the rounds from their rifles were entering her body.  Her body moved a bit, dancing slowly from their energy hitting her.  I had once found out she truly could take rounds in our physical dimension if she ‘lowered’ herself enough to the base level, but was bound by certain rules regarding the consequence.

“Proud!”  I yelled to her slumping form as I lifted my unlimited Liner pistol and unloaded round after electro-magnetically propelled round into the group, leaving them holed and dead.  I had taken out four skilled men with a commercially available pistol.  That is how far I had come.

“Proud!”  I yelled again, running to her.

She was kneeling, and turned her head towards me, tears in her eyes.  “It hurts.  What a terrible sensation!  In future resets do not stand there so I will not have to feel this.”  She managed a grim smile and went back to looking downwards.  From her body there was not blood leaking out, but rather a light blue energy that was barely visible from her bullet holes before disappearing in the air.  Her eyes were closed, and despite how bad her body was massacred, I would almost swear the wounds were disappearing, but why were her eyes closed!?

“Proud!”  I yelled again, and then my eyes went wide as a fire ripped through my shoulder.  The momentum from the bullet entered my shoulder and threw me to the ground, stumbling forward over Proud.  I hit the ground, and panic from the pain threatened to completely take over my mind.  Only the simple thought of noticing Proud trying to get back up kept me sane.

I lifted my head to see a heavily armed squad from the other door that was firing at Mitreah.  A huge round entered her body, exploding out from her backside along with a grim mix of organic tissue and metallic substrates.  She staggered for a moment and continued onwards into the fire.  Another round hit her in her other arm, a piece of it flying off from the energy.  I could visibly see how much momentum there was pushing against her in bullets as she staggered forward.

She stabbed the first one though the chest as another round from the man next to him ripped through her body.  I saw her pause for a moment, gathering strength perhaps for her slash out of that body into the next one.  It cut the next man in half while the final man backed up professionally, firing coldly at the target in front of him.

“Mitreah!” I yelled, coughing from the pain.  I thought she was going to go down right there with her slumping form.  She was slowly going down, then I saw a poise take over her body as she launched at her final target, stabbing her arm into him, pulling downwards as the two of them fell into each other, dead or dying.

Another person came from the other door.  I used much of my focus I had gained with Mitreah while in extreme pain to line my pistol up and shoot the two of them dead before they could do anything to our wounded party.

‘No…It doesn’t end like this.’  I tried standing up, and when it failed I contented myself with crawling over to the railing.  Below me was a spherical core of blue and white energy that hung suspended between two huge rotating metal braces, a white light softly radiating outwards.  Though the light was white, I knew its true evil nature.  I had been its victim enough times.

I activated the bomb, and lay there as a thought hit me.  Should I just abort and try again?  But…a deep fear came to the surface that maybe indeed this was ‘real’, that I had no second chance, and that all my lives were really just an illusion; that thought seemed easier to dismiss, but the idea that something critical had changed and I would not reset seemed likely.  At the very least what if something had changed by me being so far in here?  I could not take the chance.  The sacrifices to get here been too great to risk it ending in failure.

I pressed on both out of a fear that maybe this really was my only life, and another feeling of if I really had lived a million lives that I just wanted this to end.  I rolled to my side, grasping the bomb with the opposite, non-shot hand, and laughing once as I pitched it off the edge to the core a few stories under me.  So this is how it ends…

I turned back around, maybe ready to die when I saw those three scientists still there.  “Like I’m letting you out of here.  We are all dying here.”  I lifted my pistol and shot the three of them who tried to run, before I felt fire enter my stomach from a different angle and I blacked out.

 

***

 

“Uhh…pain…” I woke up half expecting the softness of my pillow I had seen so many times.  But this time I was already standing, my body was trying to fall down held up by what seemed to be chains on my wrists.

“So the terrorist is finally awake, huh?”  There was a voice in front of me.  Something painful hit me in the stomach, and I coughed hard as my head swung back and forth.  I felt some saliva leaking out of my mouth, but I could barely bring myself to swallow it.  What was going on?

“Why did you do it, Trego?  Why’d you sell out your whole race?” the voice asked.  I couldn’t see anything.  Was I blind?  Fear flooded me at the thought of never seeing again.  “Is ‘Trego’ even your real name?  Who are you an agent for!?”

No strikes to my body from the voice, and no further prompts for a while let me think about what was just said.  Something critical had changed in my reality.  I definitely was not where I usually was when I ‘died’ or the cycle ended.  Was the loop I was in over?  The voice said selling out my race and being an agent.  I remember once a long time ago I had indeed thought that maybe I was part of an experiment to see how long I would go before I’d break.  Was this what it was about?

I thought not though, because I had lasted impossibly long.  I had resorted to killing myself before going through with this; what more would a military or whatever want with me?  How could I have passed the test any more so when I resisted for so long?

“What race?” I asked the darkness.  Maybe I was not even Solarian, just a butterfly dreaming he was…

Damn, was I really an agent?  No way…but why did I decide to blow up a reactor?

Proud Infinity pt 27

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Hey guys hope you are enjoying these free segments, let me know with a like or a comment!  Trego is deep in the time loops and starting to figure out what is happening to him.

Here we go!

 

I woke up and I started laughing.  Let’s do this.  Even the universe was with me on this one.  I had spent so much time learning and doing everything.  Each of my attempts got me further and further.  The last couple times spent talking to Proud helped calm my mind.  I felt ready.  I was never a soldier, but I had become one.  I knew how to move, how to think, how to fight.  I had been transformed into this nearly unstoppable fighting force.

Okay.  I reviewed everything in my mind.  I could get onto the truck heading into ReCorp at the port, I could pick up the combat android, Mitreah, disguised as a receptionist, and the old guy would give me some old explosives with the right conversation tread.  And lastly Proud would only come with me into ReCorp if I asked her first at the bar, she really on it because things had to ‘come full circle’ which apparently really mattered to her.

I walked into the bar.  Everyone there was staring at me like they had what I think was the very first time, so many times ago.  I turned straight to my friend, long ago giving up what others ‘thought’ of me.  “Proud, I think I might have it this time.  Would you like to come?”

Her lips rose slightly in a knowing way.  “Of course.  How nice of you to ask me.”  I left those fools I was saving at the bar in their confusion.

“Alright, so I think this time I stand a really good chance.  I woke up and remembered everything.  It was pretty overwhelming, but I think this might be it this time.”

We held each other’s hand as we dashed towards the fence.  The old guy would not be here for a while, but I did not have the luxury of time as everything was precisely orchestrated.  I ran down a few streets, up a building and knocked on the door.  He was surprised as he always was, with his gun hidden right behind the door as I had found out once dying in the hallway.  He probably wondered at my hand ‘floating’ in the air gripping nothing.

I said the right words, which were unfortunately lies, about how I was an agent and used his operator name and some key phrases such as “Coding Alpha Delta, Operator task transference requested”.  His innocent face hardened, and nodded when I said it was vital I have any explosive he might be able to give me to stop an implanted enemy.

Taking the small pack he gave me we ran out of there over to the spaceport.  Alright, still plenty of time.  At the very edge of the sky the ship was just barely visible to even my highest magnification I could overlay on my eyes.  I needed to be on that, but time was on my side.

“Mitreah: Farewell fallen sword,” I said while walking straight towards Mitreah.  Her eyes glazed over for a moment and they changed the color slightly before coming back into focus.  She looked right at me, cold but absolute focus.

“Override confirmed.  What are your orders?”

I smiled. “Alright!”  I shook my hand with Proud’s in it and she looked back and nodded happily.  “You wouldn’t believe how long it took to figure that one out.”

“So far, so good, Tre.”

Still talking to the girl, “We are going to go onto the vehicle that ship is carrying and are riding it into ReCorp.  I need your entire combat mode powers unlocked, and it is imperative I am protected at all costs.  Oh, and can you do it with a normal personality?  I don’t like the coldness.”

Mitreah laughed. “Sure.  That final part is a strange request, but I cannot deny it is much more fun this way.  This should be entertaining.”

“Do you want another weapon?”

She shook her head. “I prefer my own.”  Her hand changed from its thin fingers into a sharp blade the length of her forearm.  I had seen that trick before and I guess I never realized how serious of a weapon it could be.  She always just struck me without the actual blade, but the razor edge would end anyone easily.

I walked with the two girls who were here to protect me out to the landing pad.  I felt poised, I felt ready.  I would stop the time fracture.

We still had a little time while it was landing.  I felt poised but there was a little doubt creeping in.  What would happen after the fracture was over?  I was not sure, and I actually did not care.  I had lived more than long enough, with more than enough experiences.  I wanted to complete the divine task given to me.  Maybe this was Proud’s purpose all along.

The ship had landed, and a large bay door had opened, the loose grav plate vehicle sitting there as two people went through the final checks before they would drive off.

I started walking up. “Hey, are you authorized to be here?”  It is always a good idea to question people before they question you.

“What?  Yes we are…”  He lifted his face from the screen he was holding.  I took out my Liner pistol and smashed it across his face.  He fell to the ground before I looked to the next one. “Mitreah, take him out, but try to not kill him.”

Proud Infinity pt 25

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Hey guys hope you are enjoying the story.  For those that missed it, here is the link to the first part of the story where you can read everything up till now: https://vayneline.com/2017/01/16/sample-of-my-next-story-proud-infinity-stuck-in-a-time-loop-with-only-a-god-to-keep-him-company/

 

***

 

I spent a lot of time with Proud.  I had come to like her in a way no one else ever before.  We were utterly alone in this.  I could say any right move to manipulate anyone.  But every cycle, every loop it was the same. Not with Proud.  She was the only one who kept her consciousness through the resets.

I might have gone crazy actually if I had to ‘re-meet’ her every single time.

“Hey Proud, let’s take a walk,” I said, looking down the bar.  Everyone else stared at me, holding the door open for an invisible person.  These people stopped seeming real to me a long, long time ago.

“I am really impressed with you so far, Tre, you are making great progress.”

We took a walk over to a small park, where there was a fountain jetting upwards and a bench overlooking the pond.  We sat down.  I didn’t expect to do much this time period, mainly used it just for a break.

I turned, smiling at her briefly before sighing as I turned forward.  “The Emotion Field sure isn’t perfect for what is occurring here, is it?” I asked.  The Emotion Field I eventually learned was the term that referred to a dimensionality our experiences, especially the strong ones, are laid down on.  The somberness of graveyards was the easiest example.

“I sympathize with you.  The fact your recollection is imperfect is a testament to your fortitude and determination.”

I laughed.  “The words are nice, but the situation isn’t.  Thanks anyway, Proud.  So you remember everything?  Is that even possible from a memory point of view?”

She was twirling a piece of her hair and her ribbon in her fingers.  She acted like such a girl at times, it was endearing.  “You act like we have to play by the same rules.  What is it like for you?”

“Sucks,” I said, sprawling out on the bench, my arm was around her back.  She giggled, and leaned into me.  She nuzzled her head against my shoulder.  “I very rarely remember anything specific.  It’s mostly this endless overpowering vagueness.  I know that doesn’t make full sense.  But I come up to situations, and on this unclear level I remember how to do things.  I remember how to aim, how to fight, how to dodge, how to say things specifically to manipulate people.”

I stopped, pointing at two girls that were walking by.  “I don’t seem to know anything about the blonde, but the dark hair one, I get hit with these thoughts that she likes vanilla cake, likes showing off her flexibility, and is lonely.  Also she’d fall for my ‘come with me if you want to live’ gambit.”  I looked down, pulling Proud away from me for a moment.  “Then later I really get to see her flexibility in action…” I hit her with a sly smile.

Proud playfully hit me.  “You’re bad.”

“I joke, but in truth it really messes with me.  I start to forget what I know ‘for real’ compared to remembering from back fractures.  I have essentially given up on thinking that maybe I am just projecting or making up things like what I said about that girl and simple roll with that I have found all those things out in the past.  It is this disturbing thing where I ‘know’ so much, but can’t remember how I know any of it.”

“I am sorry, Trego.”  She was sincere.  “Is there anything I can help you with right now?  You know you only need to ask.”

I didn’t have any requests; simply being with her was enough.

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 23

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I hope you guys are enjoying the story!

 

***

 

The more loops I endured, the easy it was to accept it was happening.  What I meant by that is that I would not be crippled by existential terror of the situation, or of the acts I had taken.

There was a degree of random-ness of what exactly was remembered and why.  To me it was a bit akin to learning a new language by reading a complex book.  It often meant nothing to me but I would start to see patterns.  Many times the patterns were wrong, but again with enough failures these too would be refined.  Consciously it was tougher to explain than on a subconscious or intuitive level where I’d remember things on a ‘déjà vu’ type experience.

Had I always known the android girl, Mitreah, at the spaceport was the highest level combat android available?  Or how about that the android girl’s override phrase was actually three words long?  And it wasn’t just words: a big key was I had to say her name before the words.  A lot of these key facts were slowly extracted by practically begging, ‘How could I prove to you that I know you?’  And so slowly would she tell me, ‘Well if you can tell me X about myself,’ to which I’d spend cycles and cycles trying to figure out one little fact just so I could further advance the true search of finding her code word.

Every time, it would be the same with slightly more info.  I would tell her of battles she had fought in, what her favorite food was, where she lived, what number she was thinking of.  Silly things like that was what it took to get more vital info out of her, all for the eventual end of unlocking her control code.

Damn androids, not easy to deal with in a time loop; so much harder than Solarians, ironically.  This was a large reason why I bothered, it was part of a challenge.  I could figure out people a few cycles, but her programming was resistant which was so problematic.

How funny that the first cycle I felt embarrassed just standing there shouting things to her, but how fast my embarrassment died to grim necessity.

That took forever just to get to three words, except once I after busting out about two thousands words, I think I was around, ‘Mitreah: nanite uhh…Mitreah: nanites’, to her in the empty port she laughed and said it was three words long.  Considering I had not told her any of her secrets during that reset, I was surprised she volunteered the information.  Maybe in some little way was something of hers becoming implanted into the Emotion Field?

I asked Proud about it, and she could not answer like usual but said things work in ways I would not understand.  It was quite curious regardless, that this perfect programming may actually be affected by the Emotion Field.  It made me think that part of Mitreah’s body, the Solarian part, had an element of some type of ‘soul’ that so many would refuse to believe.

‘Mitreah: Farewell fallen sword’.  I found out eventually through thousands of cycles of dedicated attempts.  I think I skipped straight from ‘farewell fallen swift’ straight to ‘sword’ on a gut feeling.  Living in this cycle over and over, it was amazing to find out just how powerful intuition was.  Because I literally could try every path, the path my intuition would pull me on, and compare it to just about every other one.

I have no idea what ‘intuition’ is anymore, but it went far beyond anything simple as some might think.  This was one of the biggest examples.  Such a random thing as words, but it had saved me so much time.  I truly believed intuition was likely low levels of Chrono Senses manifesting.

Oh, I of course realized I did not possess any sort of Chrono Sense in a large scale like I thought once upon a long time ago.  The only reason I ‘knew’ what was coming is because I had died thousands of times to it.

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 20

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The killing sprees honed my abilities.  I learned to fight with my fists, knives, my Liner pistol.  Each cycle was a new challenge.  How many could I kill with just my hands, or could I beat my score using my gun?  It became this dark abyss where others only existed to see how many I could blow through.  It didn’t matter when I was maimed, shot or imprisoned, I was reset every morning.

With women it was another challenge and at this point I no longer cared about ‘knowing them’ as it was pointless.  It was easy at gunpoint but didn’t stimulate me the same way of manipulating their minds with perfect words and actions.  My respect for them tanked down to zero.  I could get any girl to be with me, it didn’t matter how loyal or pure she was.  Enough predictive power or perfect words and they all melted.  Eventually that game grew boring as well.

By the way, Proud?  It was easy.  I only had to ask.  She was more than happy for the overwhelming feelings of the physical realm, and indeed it was quite amazing from my end; but that was the largest regret I had.  Amidst my absolute depravity she represented perhaps the one untainted thing in this fractured world I inhabited, and I proceeded to destroy that as well.

My curiosities turned to sorrow and anguish.  The hedonism left me cold and empty, the shallowness overwhelming that I had given in to.  Soon it became a burden, thinking of all the crimes I had committed, even if they were not longer ‘actually done’.  The pointlessness of everything amplified by a thousand experiences I had now come to hate.  Especially what I did with Proud…or maybe it’d be better to say ‘what I did to Proud’.

We had come to love each other through the circumstance we were now in, a deep friendship from the stories we shared.  Our friendship was not one of two different races of a physical being and a near-energy being creating a physical body, but of two consciousnesses that liked each other from so much time together.

Then I had sex with her simply to satisfy a burning question of if she would.  And she did, and she loved it.  As soon as it was over, I started crying.  I was so stupid, so shallow.  Defiling the last totem of sanity in this world left me broken and under no more delusions of how messed up I had become.

What the fuck was wrong with me?  The universe was counting on my freewill to prevent this time fracture, and I was doing this to its incarnation?  I was murdering people, manipulating every woman I could into sex, and fucking LineGod Proud instead of doing anything productive.  I felt endlessly evil for taking advantage of her which I did many times ‘just to make sure’.  That sent me on an even darker spiral for many, many time fractures.

I swung my arm around, trying to grab something else.  I grabbed something soft, pulling it towards me; it was my white shirt.  On the floor, holding the white shirt and the desk brought forth more grim memories of the even further pits I fell into.

‘But she was the sensual one, she wanted it!’  I would lie to myself, trying to justify the single action I hated myself the most for.  My personal best for kills was over a thousand using just a pistol, most women was over ten, and that was due to my own physical limitation, but none of those compared to the final break in sanity by using Proud.

Her name was ‘Proud’ and that was nowhere near what I felt about my actions, only all-consuming regret and self-hatred.  The shame was overwhelming, and then it was eventually mixed with hopelessness of my position.  I had forsaken seeing Proud again because I felt so bad for what I did for so many times before I finally snapped.