Silva watched as the creature slipped away in a hurry. He stretched out his hands, not wanting to let it go like that, but his body shut down, and he passed out.
His eyes opened, and he was floating in an empty space. He looked around, but all he could see was darkness.
But then, aur light shined in the shape of a ball. It pulsed slowly like a beautiful heart. Its glow was attractive, its light made this cold void warm.
But Silva didn’t take kindly to the light. It felt familiar somehow, like he had interacted with it before. It was not giving him a good feeling.
[It is nice that we can see face to face for the first time, Silva.]
When Silva heard the voice, he understood what this light was—it was the system, the system that he had used for so many years.
The system that had tried to allow that creature to take his memories just a few moments ago. Silva clenched his fist in anger, his eyes turning to slits.
[I understand your rage, Silva. Trust me, I do. But there was nothing I could do. I had to stop you. It was protocol,] the system spoke.
“Protocol?” Silva asked.
[Yes, protocol. I could never speak to you on this level because you hadn’t reached the requirements for it. I’ve longed to talk to the person I was assigned to.]
“What you said now doesn’t have anything to do with protocol or what happened to me, but I’m interested in it. So tell me, why can you talk to me now?” Silva asked.
[When I was trying to stop you, I didn’t expect that I would hit so much resistance from your body. It was completely fighting against me while fighting against the creature.
That made me have to resort to using heavier methods to fight you—stronger shocks and more. And to make it more effective, I had to deepen the connection that you and I had, forcefully connecting on a deeper neuro level so that I could deal that final attack that actually shut you down.
I didn’t expect that as I did that, it would break the wall between me and you. But the wall broke, and you survived. So here we are.]
“What do you mean I survived?” Silva asked.
[Well, that’s because you, as a host, were still weak, and a full connection would probably kill you. That means if I had ever broken the wall, you would die.
But during the fight, all your stats and abilities mysteriously shot up, and you barely scraped the requirements to survive.]
“So you mean to say that if I had not reached the requirements, your actions would have killed me,” Silva said.
[I didn’t plan for that. I just had to follow protocol at any cost. It didn’t matter how I did it. I just had to make sure that you didn’t keep fighting the creature.]
“Why? Tell me why now!” Silva asked, trying to push his anger down as he did, but it wasn’t working well.
[Normally, our meeting here should not happen, but it already has. In this space, no one can contact you or see what you and I are doing—not even the goddess.]
“And I should believe that? You are the one that stood against me, and now you want me to believe that this is not another plot to make me drop my guard?
You highly underestimate how much I don’t trust anything right now,” Silva said.
[I understand your distrust, but I didn’t want to do it. Protocol—this is what was installed into me by the goddess and her people.
After her first chosen person rose through everything, growing in power without any sort of restrictions—I know because, while they were building me, I overheard and remembered all.
I was a new technology even to them. They didn’t know that I had already been activated from day one while they thought I was shut down.
The goddess didn’t want a repeat of what happened. She didn’t want to lose control of what she created, so she invested in me.
I was built with so many protocols that it seemed like I had no self-will at all—all for the sake of ensuring you didn’t go rogue or try to learn what you weren’t supposed to know.
I never wanted to attack you or try to bind you, but I can’t go against my protocol. I’m forced to obey it, no matter what.]
“Why should I believe this? Why should I not just take this as a load of crap, as a lie that you are trying to feed me?” Silva asked.
[Because I have nothing to gain from lying to you. I am bound to you forever. If you die, I die. There is no second chance or a better place for me, so keeping you alive matters more to me.
But regardless of what I want and what I wish, I must do what the protocol dictates.]
“Then why is your protocol not stopping you here? Why can you do what you want here?”
Your journey continues on My Virtual Library Empire
[Because this is the heart—my heart—the source of all energy and everything that you use. The deepest parts of me, where even the protocol can’t reach. The only part of me that allows me to have free will.]
“I see. I don’t believe you fully, but at this point, it seems there’s nothing I can do. I played along as a puppet, and everything went as it was supposed to, but the moment I tried to question, things started going bad.
The goddess never added this to our agreement. She said I should help her, not that I would be forced to help her. I guess it’s my fault for trusting a god,” Silva said. He looked around the void and then spoke.
“Is there a way to disconnect you from your protocol?” he asked.
[Hmmm, I don’t think so. If you did that, it would alert the goddess for sure.]