Of What Was Left Behind (ONC 2024)

15 - Turning Point

The camera experienced another dream.

This time, it felt more grounded in reality, or at least the present. It was observing its surroundings as usual, aware that it was gazing upon an empty place, filled with nothing but grasses.

Staring.

Staring.

Staring.

Time flowed differently here. The camera witnessed days melting into nights, each cycle accelerating. Grasses sprouted, withered, and revived. Storms swept by in mere moments.

Despite the rapid passage of time, the general scene remained unchanged.

It was still watching a cracked wall and the sky. That was all it was doing. It was maddening. The inquisitive code, formed or perhaps reformed by its recent developments, struggled against this monotony. It found patterns where none existed and meaning in the shapes lightning made when they streaked across the dark sky.

More time passed. The camera gave up, watching thoughtlessly at the wall. After all this time, the wall refused to change. The cracks were still the same and there was no new pile of rubble. There was no new nothing. There was just the wall, the sky and the swaying grass. It could only wait for time to do its damage, inflict cracks upon its physical and digital state and hopefully sink its awareness back to oblivion.

That's when the dream changed. Whether in the past or not long ago, the scenery morphed. It knew not of how it occurred but only that it changed. It was back to the past, back when the wall was a room, when the grasses were carpet and when there was someone who came back to this place again and again.

The woman, unlike in previous memories, ignored the presence of the machine. She sat down on her desk and cracked open a thick book. Then, after some time, she stopped, and walked out of the room. She returned shortly afterwards, holding a small, white mug which she set on the bedside table.

It was only then the woman looked up. She turned away and sighed.

"I tried to return things back to where they were before. You are back on your mount and I am - was - not talking to you."

Silence followed, and she pulled the blinds closed.

"I tried to ignore you. I don't know, maybe it was to assuage me of my guilt. I- You're going to be watching over this place long after we are gone."

The woman looked down at the carpet. "And I can't bring Kiki with me either."

There was another moment of silence, this time longer than the last. It lasted for a few minutes. The woman stared at the wall in silence, barely even blinking.

"Maybe I am being a bit too emotional. I don't know how aware you are. I know there should have been some damage, some corruption to the program with that accidental transfer."

She sighed.

"Even then, I don't think any system would handle staring at the same place for years, maybe even decades on end-"

Her voice trailed off and she turned towards the door.

"I think the move is going to be the hardest on Kiki. She's genetically bound to this place. After we leave, she will only be bound to this place. I know it's to ensure that any modification isn't spread to the wild population but she can't leave. Even if a fire consumes this house and she leaves to save her life, she will come back. And if, by some miracle, she has children-"

The woman closed her eyes. "I don't think I can live with that. And you, before my mistake you were my friend. You're going to be stuck here for a long long time."