"Please, I don't want to die."
They ignored her.
"Please!" Mia begged again, this time tears in her eyes, she never remembered crying before. Hadn't she died enough yet? The first time she had died, she had died silently in the rain confused at the world around her, then she had died screaming protecting the friend she had been ordered to betray, and that last time, she had died peacefully after being made to try and kill her own friends.
But she had never feared death as much as she did right now. She was in a White Room. One of the places of nothingness the CC Corp Admin used when conducting business best left unseen by the normal users. Mia really wished it was pitch black instead.
The Admins, some using custom PC forms, others using the form of the shop NPCs, all mingled about, checking this and that. Oh how she wished Bulmung was still an Admin! At least then she could have hoped for his help. But no, Bulmung had no way getting here, he had no way of knowing she was even here! No one did. Mia couldn't send an e-mail or post a message on the forums, she was trapped. And she was going to die.
They intended to cut her open, rip her to pieces, take that part of Morgonna that rested inside her, then toss out the rest to rot. Of course they hadn't told her. None of the Admin had even spoken to her since she had grabbed her and teleported her to this Field. She had pieced it together as they had casually talked about 'extracting the data.'
Her arms and legs were pulled away from her, painfully so, the shackles and chains used for decoration in the Dungeons proved to be more than simple eye candy. The chains, and her, were connected to a simple, featureless polygon wall.
There were no Cobalt Knights, which Mia had learned to avoid years ago, or any of the other Admin who normally dealt with The World's AIs. She heard the words 'Project RA' several times. What they stood for she couldn't guess at.
Mia didn't wonder if this was what humans would feel like if they were ever confronted by a demon from Hell seeking to devour their immortal soul, she had more important things to think about. There had to be someone who could help her.
Elk. Kite. Helba. Aura. Elk had no way of knowing where she was. Kite had left the game long ago, hadn't he? She hadn't a word from Helba in months, and Netslum had begun to suffer without it's queen. Aura... the rumor had gone mad among the AIs as to their goddess' fate. Some said she had found a way into the real world to exist as a person. Others said she had given all her data to Zeifie, Aura's favored child, so Zefie could assume the mantle of divinity. Yet other said, Aura had simply committed suicide.
Mia had watch The World slowly decay around her. Watching everything slowly rot without Aura, the soul of the world, there to give it life.
That was when They had come for her. They had manually in the real world disconnect the server she was on from the rest of The World, leaving her with no place to run. She figured she'd go down fighting taking down some Cobalt Knight PCs while she was at it. Instead they froze the system, and simply transfered her program someplace else. That someplace else, was here.
Coming to the sick realization that there was no chance for mercy or escape, Mia hoped that she could avoid simply, non-existing, just 'vanishing,' to have simply 'not been.' "Please! If you're going to kill me fine! But at least let me say good-bye to Elk! His e-mail is on my friends' list! I'm sure he's on-line right now! What damage could that do?! Please!"
None of them even looked at her, none of them so much as twitched at her. She wasn't alive to them, wasn't a person to them, wasn't real to them. She was a pile of data that had another pile of data inside her that they wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.
Mia had been stunned as her memories slowly came back to her piece by piece over the years. Her previous existence as Maha. Her sins as Macha. And an existence she knew she logically could never have lived. She was an AI! Her feline appearance was supposed to be just cosmetic! They just had to be left overs from Tsukasa's memories when he was trapped in The World. Right?
Tsukasa. She felt ashamed now for making friends with Elk like she had. Even if it was just subconsciously she had been using Elk as a replacement Tsukasa. If Elk had chosen a different class or costume, Mia would have never given him a second look. Yes Elk's friendship had become a real one, and Mia wouldn't have sacrificed it for anything in the world, but Tsukasa, she had only finally remembered him after he had logged out of The World for the final time. But Elk had never cared, Mia was his friend, that was all that had ever mattered to him. Her being a computer program had never meant a thing to Elk, and Mia was grateful for that.
"Data extraction ready." Mia's blood turned to ice.
Mia recognized the spear the PC Admin was holding, it had been given by Morgonna through secondary agents to Debuggers in the early days of The World. CC Corp it looked like had found new uses for it.
The weapon impaled itself on her, and a moment later, Mia screamed.
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See other episodes by Alex Warlorn
(Posted Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:59)
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