Chains of Loss by Robert

Author:Robert
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

***

Mycah looked around the simulation. Nothing had changed; as far as she could tell, they were still standing by the ruined tree. She glanced down at the ground; Derek was casting an entirely normal shadow. She waited for something unusual to happen.

A voice called out, “Hi there. No, up here.” She followed its voice and gaped. The sun was talking to her. It grinned.

Derek guffawed. “Oh, stop that right now!” He turned to her. “Honestly, he’s without me for just a couple days and this is what he does to a friend?”

The sun’s face abruptly disappeared and a dark-haired man stepped out of nowhere. “Hey, I’ve been locked up in that ship while you’ve been running around, having adventures and fighting orcs! You gotta let me have some fun.” He punched Derek on the shoulder. The two looked like they could have been brothers. Mycah shook her head.

“Okay. You’re a shadow?” She pointed at the newcomer.

“Not just a shadow. Derek’s Shadow. That’s my name – or at least, what you should call me. Derek gets to call me Shadow; you’ll get to call your own shadow that also.”

“Okay. I thought you were going to be my shadow.”

“It’s more complicated than that. I’m Derek’s Shadow. I don’t want to change that; the poor kid would be lost without me. No, the best way to summarize it is that the plan is currently for me to have a daughter, and for her to be your shadow.”

“You’re going to have a daughter – with who?” She backed away a step; Derek hadn’t mentioned this part.

“Shadows don’t…oh boy. This will take some time.”

“We probably can’t afford to stand around. Especially if we’re not seeing what’s really here.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they’re tracking us, every second we stand around is another second that they gain on us.” She waved a hand at her surroundings. “More, if this isn’t real, we’re looking at a dream while they could be sneaking up on us.”

“Okay, then. I think I have a topic to start on.” Derek’s Shadow looked reproachfully at Derek. “You didn’t teach her about the rush?” He turned back, not waiting for a response. “Roughly every twelve minutes we spend in this simulation, a full second passes in the real world. We’re just fine.”

“You can control the passage of time?”

“No, we can control our perception of time. In a simulation, you can move as fast as you can think – and you can think significantly faster here than you could elsewhere. I can explain as needed. So, as I was saying. I’m not human; I look human in this simulation, but I’m actually a machine.”

Mycah noticed something odd as Derek’s Shadow spoke. He didn’t actually breathe except when it was part of what he was saying; he might sigh, but he never stopped to inhale.

“As a machine, I can create a copy of myself without help from anyone else. I can entrust it to you, but you have to understand what that means first. Your Shadow will live in your head, with you.

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