Chapter 565

“Honey, I’m home,” Chris’ voice echoed through the house, accompanied by the jingling of keys. Jenn was sitting in the kitchen, watching me prepare dinner, salivating a little at the scents coming from the wok I was using.

“In here,” she called back, a grin on her face.

“It smells great,” he complimented, the voice coming closer, “but isn’t cooking too tiring in your state…?” he asked, only for the voice to suddenly stop. Looking over my shoulder, he was standing in the kitchen doorway, his hand still loosening his tie, a confused from on his face.

“Huh?” he grunted, his eyes flicking between Jenn and me. The obvious confusion on his face made me assume that Jenn had forgotten to tell him about the plans we had made. Maybe she had wanted to give him a surprise, though Chris hadn’t been a huge fan of surprises unless he was in on it.

“Sam messaged a few days ago, asking about your plans for dinner. Out of consideration for me, and my condition, she offered to visit here and even cook for us,” Jenn explained, a wide grin on her face.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, thanks for that,” he told me, a grin on his face. It looked a little weird, a bit stiff, but I couldn’t really focus on him, the food was almost ready and burning it now would be bad.

“It’s nothing. You asked about dinner before, but I was busy. Now, I can reciprocate.” I replied, my eyes focused on the wok in front of me. With a quick shake, I made sure nothing was sticking to it, before stirring with the chopsticks once again.

“Dear, why don’t you get out of the suit.” Jenn suggested, “Sam, you said it’ll take ten more minutes?”

“It will, yes.” I nodded, “If you direct me to the dishes, I’ll set the table.” I added, looking over once I was certain that nothing would burn if I diverted my attention for a moment.

“That closet over there,” Jenn pointed, before giving a glance to Chris, who had yet to move. “Don’t you want to change? It’d look a little silly, with you all dressed up and the two of us in casual clothes.” she prodded and I had to agree. While I wasn’t dressed shabbily, I was in simple jeans and a blouse, while Jenn’s maternity wear was obviously tailored for comfort first, and fashion a distant, secondary consideration. Chris, on the other hand, was dressed in a neat, black suit, a white, starched shirt and a dark tie, giving him a serious, almost sombre, appearance. The type of person you wanted to entrust your money to, hoping that it would come back with a lot of friends. It was such a departure from the extremely casual, maybe even sloppy, appearance he had in high school, I almost couldn’t recognise him.

Curiously, while conversation during dinner was mostly an exchange of old stories, told by Chris and myself, it was Jenn who kept the conversation going. The longer we talked, the more I realised how she managed to guide us, I even noticed some of the interrogation techniques Mrs Wu had spoken about in action. I wasn’t certain if she was using them consciously, but it was an interesting discovery.

At one point, the conversation shifted a little, and Jenn started to gently prod Chris, trying to get him to tell stories about me. Now that the shoe was on the other foot, the previous story-telling felt a lot less fun and I felt myself blush when he mentioned some of the foolish things that had happened to me. When she started to ask about relationships, there was an awkward silence settling over the table.

“It wasn’t like that. Sam’s been one of the nerds, not a girl.” Chris objected, only to blush even stronger when I snorted at the idea.

“It has been difficult for me. Learning about that kind of thing, without the emotional context is…” My words died on me, a first in a while, and I sat there like a fish out of water, my mouth opening and closing.

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“Now you broke her.” Chris grinned, having seen me in that state before. He even told a story just a few minutes prior, during which I had ended up in the same state. Jenn suddenly looked worried, her eyes going to the amused Chris and even as I began to feel guilty, I focused on the lessons I had been taught for mental overload.

With my eyes closed, focusing inwards, I slowly calmed my breathing, letting the roiling sensations within me flow out with my breath. Memories of Sigmir sprang to my mind, of her scent, and it gave my mind a focus and direction, letting me snap out of my stunned state much faster.

“I’m so sorry,” Jenn told me, once my eyes opened back up.

“It is no problem,” I shook my head, trying to dispel the negative emotions she was subjected to. “It sometimes happens, my mind simply gets stuck in a loop.”

“You got better, didn’t you?” Chris asked with a faint note of concern in his voice.

“I believe so.” I nodded, “I mean, it has been a while since it happened but that might be due to less social exposure.”

“Or because of your girlfriend?” Jenn suggested, getting me to blush again.

“Maybe,” I allowed, not really wanting to go deeper into that topic. It was one thing to experience the sensations and even faintly verbalise them, but talking about a relationship with an artificial being? As that was what I was now convinced Sigmir was. An artificial intelligence, with enough sophistication to experience emotion, though I wasn’t certain if the Sigmir I knew was the entirety of the entity or if there was more to it, a single artificial entity controlling a multitude of characters within Road to Purgatory.

It wasn’t a comfortable topic to think about. It was one thing for the person you…

It was one thing for your person to be non-human, as long as the person was yours in their entirety, but it felt different if your person was only a small fragment, a shard or role that a larger entity played.

“You’re in a relationship?” Chris asked, his voice a little weird. “When did that happen?”

“It’s been a while.” I pushed the messy thoughts in my mind away, focusing on the present.

“Bring her next time. I’m sure Chris would love to meet the girlfriend of his best friend, right?” Jenn suggested, emphasising the two titles for some reason. Why was my girlfriend important to my best friend?

“Yeah, that sounds great.” Chris agreed, though with far less enthusiasm than shown by Jenn.

“We’ll see.” I stalled, before deflecting, “There are some circumstances I can’t really get into.”

“Oh, that’s so sad. People should just learn to let others live as they feel right “ Jenn shook her head, a morose smile on her face. “What does it matter a relationship is between the same sex?”

It made me wonder if she had misunderstood something, but I was glad that I wasn’t forced to come up with lie after lie, to keep away from that topic.

“If you need help, you only need to ask,” Chris promised, with Jenn next to him nodding along.

“Thanks for that, but it is not something anyone can really help with,” I explained, before resolutely shaking my head.

“Anyway, it is what it is.” I shrugged and for a few moments, silence settled around the table.

After the awkwardness around the mention of my relationship had passed, Jenn did her best to get the conversation going again but it never regained its earlier vigour. It didn’t take long for dinner to be finished and for me to leave their house. In my mind, the earlier discussion was still percolating, the questions I didn’t have an answer for, the thoughts I didn’t want to consider, even in the privacy of my own mind.

What was Sigmir? Walking through the dark suburb, I began to wonder. What could I even know about her? All my interactions with the entity behind the character were through the filter of that character. Even the world within which we were interacting might be partially controlled by that entity.

Why were emotions so complicated? I could barely recognise them in other humans and now I was supposed to comprehend and understand them in an entity I couldn’t really comprehend and only interact with on its terms?

And yet, despite those questions and troubles, I couldn’t imagine not trying. Walking away from Sigmir, just the idea made me sad. Was there a way to reach the entity behind the character, without going through the interface provided by Pantheon Entertainment?

A question worth considering, while I continued to try travelling the Road they had laid out. Even if it might lead me to purgatory.