Janus 02.Redemption #Wattys2018

3.06 Death's orbit.

"You know that I have your answer Janus." Jim replied while pouring some more tea to his teacup.

"Speak it then Jim." Janus left her cup of tea on the table and looked at Jim.

"Over there I still get to live but you don't, just like he said. There is nothing but death expecting for you." Jim poured some tea at Janus' teacup as well.

"There is nothing but death here for me as well. Regardless of whom I kill, I am still an assassin." Janus picked up a sugar cube.

"Yes but here you get to kill other people. It prevents you from killing yourself."

"So the safe choice is to stay here with Alex?" Janus asked and let the sugar cube slip into Jim's teacup.

"There is no safe choice. You die here as well." Jim added one more cube to his teacup.

"You don't get to survive without me. Tell me how you managed to do that since you don't have a body here" Janus took Jim's teacup and drunk from it.

"I go on existing because over there you are deprived of your own. Alex  managed to upload your conscience on a quantum computer there. I converted you into a virus spreading all over their network. Over there you are dead but you are free at the same time."

"Which is my target as a virus Jim?" Janus took one more sugar cube.

"Which is your dominant feature?"

"I get access. Then I kill." She let that cube fall on Jim's teacup as well.

"That's what you do there as well. A lot can change but not what you really are." He took his teacup from the table.

"Since I was killing myself whom do I go on killing over there?"

"You assassinate everyone reminding of yourself. You extinguish your own tribe."

"I don't have a tribe." Janus was almost annoyed with Jim's calmness.

"Do you really think that you are the only one who has access to other people's consciousnesses? Furthermore over there you have instant access to every digital print. You run in every recorded thought of theirs. You play your favorite game, Sudden death."

"A computer virus can't kill anyone!" She was trying to fill her own cup of tea with some more tea but the teapot was empty. She placed it back on the table and lifted it again. She  poured some tea on her teapot. 

"Yet it can provoke malfunctions on every digital device connected to the network. You can turn a cell phone into a bomb with the proper malware. You can create a car accident simply by blocking the traffic lights exactly on time. You can create and send your own digital messages, pretending to be someone else, using what you know against them so that they commit suicide. There are dozens of different ways. As a virus, you go on inventing more."

Janus sat on her chair holding her head  in her hands considering herself in a killing spree. She took a deep breath and raised her head again. She needed her answers.

"So Jim why did you upload me there, if you already knew what was going to happen?"

"If you die, I die. Your gravity would place me in death's orbit once your last version had deceased."

"Do you realize what you just told me?"

"Do you?" Jim asked Janus back in profound sandness.

"I can't go there without her killing me. I only stand a chance if I find you there and assassinate you before she locates me."

"That's right." A tear appeared on his eye but he pretended that it wasn't there even when it run down his cheek. 

"We are not controlling Alex, are we? He's still running a simulation to find out what will happen if I jump across." Janus left her cup of tea on the table next to her armchair.

"No, we are not controlling him" 

They both turned their heads slowly towards Alex's place but he had disappeared into thin air. His bunny ears kept clapping on the floor.

"It was you whom I hesitated to kill, wasn't it? I didn't expect you to have your own body." Janus uncrossed her legs and leaned her arms on them looking into Jim's eyes.

"No, you didn't. I had to emerge here otherwise Alex would kill you. You can't wake up unless he allows it. You submit to him, you get to wake up. You deny and we go on repeating till you are brain dead."