Consoulia Chronicles: Booting Up [~ read description]

Chapter 18: Reality

Myrtle thought they'd never get to the motel in less than an hour, but thanks to Zerrin's driving, if she could call the nearly impromptu game of bumper cars driving at all, that record's been broken twofold. Myrtle went to the bedroom that lacked windows and had what looked like old blood trail towards underneath the bed. Upon moving the bed, she lifted up a wooden panel from the floor to reveal a shallow, three feet deep hole that held what looked like Identity Chokers, but miniature and not attached to a Consouloid. "Bingo." Myrtle then heard the rhythmic sound of water drops and bass from the living area, sighing.

She slipped one in her pocket, walking carefully with it lest it fall out with the motion of her walking. She came out into the living room to see Zerrin planted in front of the TV just as she was perusing her menu. "Zerrin, we've got no time to play games. I got what we came for," she halfway admonished. 

"Hold on," Zerrin put a hand up without looking at her. "Agent Dolphin's got something of mine, I know it." 
"You couldn't have checked this at the base earlier?" Myrtle rolled her eyes. 
"I'm at an age where I can't focus enough to navigate my menu in a room full of other people." 
"You are twenty-six!"  Myrtle ranted. "You're just not trying hard enough." 
"Don't make me throw my controller at you." 
Myrtle scoffed, backing down. That bulky controller looked like it could do some damage to her.  "Excuse me, princess," she said under her breath. To her surprise, Zerrin let it slide. 

Zerrin navigated her memory files. On a standard console, it would just be game files and the player would have the option to remove or duplicate the files marked as icons. On a Consouloid, however, it's game files and actual memory stored by the neural network. Myrtle abandoned her impatience for curiosity as she sat beside Zerrin as she looked for a specific memory and a specific timestamp. 

It was her perspective of Agent Dolphin revealing herself after Satara's defeat. Myrtle was caught in between watching the scene again and reliving her own memories of the humans' deaths and the deaths of her friends and leader. She paused. It was exactly like her dream. "Right there. You see that?" Zerrin pointed to the screen. "That, in her bag. That's a book." 

"That looks like the book those two dweebs brought with them," Myrtle confirmed. 
"But I can't tell if it's just my mind referencing a dream or what? There's only one way to figure it out." Zerrin smirked, eyeing her Identity Choker and then gesturing her eyes to the television. "Y'know? Right? Hmm? You gonna? Well??" 

Myrtle sighed a heavy sigh. 

Agent Dolphin looked over her documents and a book that she had in her possession. She was writing a report based on what she had gathered from her time in Satara's lair, which she in fact stored in what looked like a transparent floating cube with a gray frame, she was also hooked up to a retro television in the study room browsing her memories. 

She had to snap out of it every time, but it was hard not to pause whenever the image of Zerrin and her group showed up on screen. It took a good six hours, but the report was finished and ready to be shared. Curiously, she wrote two versions of the same report. As long as she memorized which one to give to whom, everything would be fine, right?  

Having packed up, she left the coffee shop. She didn't even take ten steps away from the exit as the bell announced her leave when she heard the sound of a clearing throat. Her green eyes glowed as her scowl said everything it needed to say to her. Uncrossing her arms, she loomed over Agent Dolphin. "You." 

"Oh!" she stepped back, clutching a dated programming textbook to her chest with both arms. "How do you do, prof-?" 
With a hard slap, she was stopped in her tracks. Mia could've swore that she heard the ending note of Agent Dolphin's boot up on impact. "Don't you "professor" me, you turncoat. You're going to explain everything to me and tell me why I shouldn't break your Identity Choker where you stand." 
"Fighting me is counterproductive, professor," she calmly countered. "You're better off reading this. The one on the right is yours - y'know, with the purple marker in the corner?" she continued as she gave Mia her reports. Her glowing green eyes calmed down as she skimmed the reports. They were identical, but the one on the right had more information. On the bottom of the right report was a simple message. 

"I'm not safe. Don't associate with me for the time being. I'm sorry." 
- Larkspur