“It’s not alive” he said to Goober who had joined to see what he was looking at. “It’s not alive” he repeated shaking his head. “Not got a soul” he explained.
Dwarves have a premium sense for what has a living energy and to that which has a dying one. It is their specialty when tending to gardens and minerals and the like. His observation proved correct. Although the child appeared to be a growing human, it was simply flesh in the form of a person, and there was no real life within.
They began to go from one pod to the next to find that each was the same, regardless of what stage of growth it had come to.
“Do you think Marsden knows?” Goober asked Puck.
“Do you think he cares?” responded Puck, recoiling from the hideous warehouse they were in.
“Give me two reasons why I shouldn’t end it all for you now” hollered Marsden - suddenly appearing as if out from nowhere. He had returned after escorting the baby buyer to the upper level. He then of course saw firsthand the damage done to the entrance of his property and had come looking for them immediately. He was seething.
Enraged, Romulus-Marsden threw a blanket of psychic dread over the entire level where they were standing. It was a stifling, chocking experience, suppressing the three in thoughts and blocking their ability to become unseen again.
“Why does evil have a smell to it?” asked Goober, genuinely wondering. He also was trying to deflect from the dawning truth that they could be in serious trouble coming up against Romulus deep down in this deathly place - afterall, they were not invulnerable. Even immortal beings can be held captive and injured when they are far away from their natural home.
Puck realised also the danger the three were in, and that was part of his courageousness which led him into situations that other beings would rather ignore, or avoid altogether.
He called out to Romulus who was striding across the floor towards them: “Even if you were to expel the souls from this world, each and every one of them, demon-hood cannot take over. Aliens cannot thrive here either, life here is all about the Mortals … it, this, is, their home. AI will never be self realising. It has neither karma or an angel to guide it.”
Romulus was not a man of reason however, even though everything he did was calculated - it still departed reason. Perhaps in his own world, within his own logic, all of this had meaning - had weight - but it didn’t have reason, and nor was it reasonable.
What did make sense to Puck was when he realised that this was indeed Marsden whom he had encountered not so long ago - and that he is no ordinary being, for he literally had no heart anymore.
He called out to Romulus who was striding across the floor towards them: “Even if you were to expel the souls from this world, each and every one of them, demon-hood cannot take over. Aliens cannot thrive here either, life here is all about the Mortals … it, this, is, their home. AI will never be self realising. It has neither karma or an angel to guide it.”
Romulus was not a man of reason however, even though everything he did was calculated - it still departed reason. Perhaps in his own world, within his own logic, all of this had meaning - had weight - but it didn’t have reason, and nor was it reasonable.
What did make sense to Puck was when he realised that this was indeed Marsden whom he had encountered not so long ago - and that he is no ordinary being, for he literally had no heart anymore.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series
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