Ravens and Writing Desks by Chris Meekings

Author:Chris Meekings [Meekings, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Omnium Gatherum
Published: 2016-07-11T04:30:00+00:00

Chapter 17 Locked Away

“There is only one certainty in this world. None of us will make it to the next life without scars.”

General Thrax, Year After Ice 11946

Conscience was not happy, not happy at all. He stood upon his starship’s bridge and worried, gnawing at the problem like a rat at a bit of wood.

Lucy had gone, and he was left alone. Luckily, there wasn’t much of a call for walking or talking as she was in prison. He didn’t fancy having another go at walking in Lucy’s shoes. The last attempt nearly destroyed the ship’s bridge. He was still worried though—where did she go? She thought she was in a hospital but at the same time in the Dimn’s dungeons. Could she be in those two places at once and still be here? Could she, in fact, be split into three: in her world, in the Dimn’s world and in this world? That was a worrying prospect—tortured, healed and left alone all at once.

This kind of hopping from one body to another can’t be doing much for her sanity, he said.

“No, Captain, it can’t,” said Miss Pride, her eyebrow slightly raised.

What do you think is going on? he asked.

“I think the same thing as the ship Lucy. I am part of her, so my thoughts are the same as hers. You are the independent thing on this ship. It is you who have an opinion.”

That doesn’t help at all.

Conscience just couldn’t make up his mind about what it all meant. Was it a story, or was it real? And, most importantly, who in the heck was Ravi? That one really bothered him.

Miss Pride, check the databanks again for any mention of Ravi.

Ravi was important. He could feel it. Ravi must mean something, otherwise Lucy wouldn’t have hidden him. It was so annoying. It meant Conscience didn’t have all the information. Without that, how could he tell what was going on? He only had his own interpretation of an incomplete data set. It just wasn’t enough information to decide on what was happening to Lucy and to himself.

There was also the matter of the box’s riddle. Lucy should have been able to solve that riddle. As he had pointed out, it was the thing she did, so why couldn’t she even come up with a plausible answer? Her own idea of needing someone else to solve the riddle wasn’t a very good explanation. That implied the world was a story, and Conscience just couldn’t accept that idea. If this wasn’t a story, then why couldn’t she solve the riddle? It was infuriating. Pride had already checked the databanks four times for a mention of Ravi, but each attempt came up blank. The screen that Pride typed at blinked red: data not found.

It was so frustrating. Why wasn’t Ravi in the computer system? The system was just an interface with Lucy, so why wasn’t Ravi in there? Why wasn’t the answer to the riddle in the system? There was only one conclusion.

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