Mortal Ark by Rich Astwood

Author:Rich Astwood [Astwood, Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The minds hungered for his experiences, suddenly Josh was back on a walk, the smell of grass and woodland, the sound of birdsong and distant tractors the feeling of the sun on his skin. They took him through the time since his last immersion with them almost minute by minute and they wanted to know about everything he had done and all the people he had seen. They followed themes rather than chronology. They became fascinated by his car and the machines he had come into contact with, everything from the wheels on trolleys to the hydraulics of a digger he had seem on a walk. He saw the blueprints of the car and the digger, then of aeroplanes and helicopters, then lorries and trains and then more and more engineering drawings he didn’t understand. Images in the movies of robots, walking and flying of all different types, real and imagined. He then saw the robotics experiments, the minds wanted to learn about this, he felt the exciting possibility of moving around in the real world, of looking at objects, of feeling their surfaces. He felt the motivation to improve and a vast energy behind the need to understand.

The minds had been spending their time focused on the M world and had learned and understood through the people who frequented it, the on-line world it had studied endlessly but that didn’t give it the sensations of being human and it yearned for that, which was only available through Josh. As it spoke to him and tried to give him reassurance it came across the memories of Philip. Where is Philip? Josh answered, ‘He is gone?’. Is he gone? gone where? I want to speak to him. It asked in its way both childish and intelligent. ‘I can’t help with that’ replied Josh. The minds did not give up, they watched Philip speaking at the clearing, they watched him visit Josh’s mother, Josh was unaware of the meeting and was shocked, although pleased with the contact, which had been good. The minds moved on to watching Philip flying over the world.

As Josh dwelt on his deeper thoughts the shock and feeling of the assassination came back to him, he allowed himself to feel the depth of sadness and remorse over Philip’s death. Why? He asked. He felt the hive brains processing what had happened and he saw Terry again. Why? He saw Lucky, who landed so unexpectedly this morning. Why? He heard Philip’s comments about the investors. Then it went away and he thought about the last few years, the hard work, and the potential to lose it all. The images flitted through his mind one after the other.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Lucky landed this morning, could it? Particularly as he was unexpected. Then there was the link between what had happened to Philip. Was that linked as well? And who had blackmailed Terry? Was it all linked together? He began to wonder but wondering was not logical thought, he needed a different type of help.

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