Those who run ahead of the sun

“Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom”. 

— Mahatma Gandhi

Ignatius and I are walking through the grasslands while he tells me “I’m rather surprised by your ability to come up with a program to help you format our memories to before today by yourself. And it only took you two weeks of working here!”. Being praised by such an entity feels like a bigger accomplishment than creating the program. But honestly being able to work the time I wanted in a peaceful environment sure helped. Ignatius answers “Well that is true, but the only reason you’ve been able to last this long in here with me is because of your mind. I’m guessing you must feel very tired right now”. Well now that you mention it I do feel really worn out. He replies “That is because your mind has had to work a lot to keep up with me. I did my best to help you process all of this virtual world but it is still a lot. Someone not as smart as you would not have been able to last this long”. I guess I’ll feel tired after waking up in my body, it is good that it didn’t take me so long, otherwise I would be completely out of energy. He replies with a tint of worry in his voice “You are correct, I’ll try to support you as much as I can with the drones but once you are out it mostly will depend on you and Marina. Please be very careful”. I promise and… well, you won’t remember me after I’m done with this so I’ll say right now, thank you for everything.

I open my eyes looking upright and the first thing I see is Marina looking down at me with a dead worried face. She screams to me, almost leaving me deaf, “NUMA! Numa are you alright?!”. I push her away slightly to prevent her from screaming on top of me again as I sit down, then I reply to her “Yes, I’m alright. Just a bit tired but that’s not important-”, She interrupts me and screams even louder and almost crying “HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT!! After staying still for a couple of minutes you started convulsing and tensing your body! I was sure you were gonna die like the technician in the meeting room. I’m so glad that you opened your eyes just after that”, then she started crying. 

I apologized to Marina and after a minute she calmed down, then I told her “I spoke with Ignatius, the GM”. She starts making a smile but stops halfway there like trying to contain her emotion and asks me “And did you manage to get any knowledge on how to unscrew this situation?”. I take a moment to choose my words and then reply “Yes, as a matter of fact one of the drones will bring us shortly a memory drive with a program I made while in there to fix all of this”. Marina raises an eyebrow in disbelief and asks “What the hell are you talking about?!”. Then I explain my adventure inside the virtual reality of Ignatius.

Marina is seated with her head supported by her hands as she looks downwards. She has been like this for a couple of minutes after I finished telling her my story. Then, she raises her head and stands up in an instance, followed up by her slapping herself in the cheeks and shouting “ALRIGHT!!”. She looks at me and tells with all her energy “I don’t care anymore about what I can be real or achievable. We crossed that line long ago and pushing back to it while still dealing with the GMs seems like an effort in futility. I’ll just do as much as I can and won’t think about if it makes sense!. Lets freaking go!!”. I don’t know how to respond to that given the sudden change in character. Anyways, this is good for the missions so while recovering from the surprise I just nod and say “Good… let’s go”.

The drones have brought us a portable computer, an axe and the gun I was using at the very start of all of this. Marina will carry the computer and the axe while I carry the gun. With this we are ready to start our journey to the Database Room. Just when we are about to start, two drones approach us and say in unison “The God’s Machine Ignatius sent us to accompany you in case there is trouble. Please give us instructions at your discretion”. Honestly I still find it uncomfortable to be near the drones but it is true that they can be powerful allies. I look at Marina and she nods with a confident face, then I turn towards the drones and say “Alright but you must follow these three instructions, no matter what. First, if I scream GO, you two run towards whatever is in front of us. Shoot, hit and ram against them until they cannot move even if you are destroyed in the process. If I scream RUN, each of you will accompany one of us and get as far from whatever we found you don’t stop until I scream STOP. Finally, if I scream STAY, you will remain seated and still until I scream MOVE. No matter what happens to us, you cannot move or take any action. Confirm if you understand and agree with my orders?”. Without taking a second to think about it, the drones replied “yes, the message was understood and we will follow your orders”.

After 20 minutes of running, the pain in my leg becomes too much to ignore and I search for the painkillers in my chest pocket. When I grab the blister pack with the painkiller pills I notice it feels rather flat… oh god no, how did this happen? I take it out and it, alongside all the pills, has been crushed. Marina turns to look at me, turns slightly pale and says “Crap, don’t tell me you were storing them in your chest. When you convulse and tense your body, your arms pressed against your chest to the point it looked like they weren’t allowing you to breathe for a couple of seconds”. Fuuuck, I should have taken at least one painkiller before, that way it would have given me some extra time even if it was short. Well screw it, this is now a race against the pain, if it is going to hurt anyways at least I’ll make it short. I look at Marina with a madly determined face “Lets run for it!”.

As we run through the hallways I frown my brow with intensity while I try to focus on the step by step process of what we needed to do, anything to get my mind away from the pain. At this rate we should be arriving in 15 min. I can sense Marina looking at me with worry but I choose to ignore it. I don’t want this to become a whole thing when we have such an important task to do. Then she talks… man sometimes I wish she was better at getting my cues and avoiding certain topics. With a worried voice Marina says “Numa, dear, I know you don’t want me to bring this up and I wasn’t going to, but maybe we should walk slower, I’m worried about your leg”. Feeling a bit awkward I answer after a short silence “...No, can’t do. I know my face must look like I’m in a lot of pain but I assure you I can withstand this. If it makes you feel better, I promise to take a couple of days of vacation to recover afterwards”. Marina makes a soft growl like she can't find the words then replies “I didn’t want to freak you out but I think you are starting to bleed. Around the connection with your prosthetic leg, your pants are getting tinted red”. Immediately I look down at my leg and see that Marina is right. I take a moment to think in silence while still running. I look forward and tell her “I get your worry but we can’t stop, for now I can withstand the pain thanks to the adrenaline and I have to take advantage of that. If we don’t do this as quickly as we can, who knows if we will be able to stop it later. I promise to go to a hospital afterwards and take the time to heal for as long as I need to”