Chapter 20 - Research

After some time, I awaken peacefully, my mind still hazy but satisfied after a moment of rest. As my senses return and I rub my tired, sleepy eyes, I spot a familiar green light on the other side of the room. Ell1s sits there idly, reading a holographic book of his own. It takes him a few minutes to notice me, but once he does, he calmly puts down his novel and trots over, taking a seat in the comfortable chair next to me.

“Rest well? Reading sure makes you tired, huh?”

“I guess I was more drained than I thought I was.”

“Ah, yeah, I suppose that happens.”

He takes a quick glance at the book I was reading, the page I left off on still open.

“Ooh, gardening? I didn’t know you had an interest in plants!”

“...I mean. My girlfriend did, but… I was never any good at it.”

“Really? I’m sure you could with practice. Anyone can have a green thumb! And look at me! I’m completely green! Who knows what horticultural madness would spark from that?! It only takes some water, sunshine, and a nice big pot of soil to make your dreams grow true. Nothing too complicated! If you fail, you can always try again.”

“I appreciate the advice, but…”

I sigh and rub my forehead, before carefully adjusting the bandages on my chest and standing up.

“I just need some time alone for now. Thanks for the help though, I guess.”

Why, of course! If you need me, just say my name. I’ll be there in a jiffy!”

I silently walk to the door, just about to head back to my room when Ell1s speaks up again from behind me, and I hesitantly turn around to listen.

“And… if you want to talk, or anything, um… I’m here. Although I kind of doubt you want to after everything I did, but… I still want to try and make up for it. I promise I won’t pressure you to, but I’m always here to lend a helping hand.”

“...Yeah. Thanks.”

—

I walk back out into the hallway, the typical quiet returning once more. I suppose I should look through the file folders I found during my exploration earlier…

I walk inside my room, grab the stack of files off my bed and spread them out across the floor. I open up one of them, beginning to skim through the contents. Let’s see here… construction plans …security… Oh, here we go. Power management. I was wondering how this place even manages to remain in operation and have functional electricity. Clearly this place has gone through some deterioration over the years, but the fact it’s still up and running is a bit impressive…

I spend many minutes trying to make sense of the documents, a lot of them being highly technological nonsense I don’t understand, I close the file and conclude this place runs on some sort of self maintaining nuclear power, and numerous data servers functioning off of that strange power source. If I want to get out of this place, I’m going to have to find them, but first, distract and get past Him. Obviously, it would be pretty strange for me to be snooping around the place, but I could come up with some dumb excuse. Knowing him, he’d probably believe it anyway. I’m still surprised he didn’t question why I was snooping around earlier. He probably took it as a simple mistake, but I should exercise caution with my research…

Maybe he already knows I’m up to something. Maybe he’s already waiting for me to do something stupid so he can watch me fall to the ground in defeat again. I swear, though, he ranges from “complete dumbass” to “smug idiot”. The fact that he even has some sort of sentience is strange. His emotions appear to be restricted in a way, with fear and anger only triggered by intense situations such as my previous escape attempt.

I run through a few more of the documents, searching for anything about Ell1s. Most of them just list security measures for exterminating threats and maintaining and protecting human lives. The security measures this place has is a bit concerning, although by no means is he allowed to injure humans unless they are a threat themselves. Interesting. I guess his programming has deteriorated a significant amount for it to mark me as a threat? Or he’s so desperate for human interaction and to carry out what he was programmed to do?

That’s also so strange to me. The basic need for some form of social interaction is typically a human thing, yet Ell1s seems to has grown a sense of desperation for interaction. I guess it’s fair since he’s been alone in this place for so long, but the fact it’s possible is odd… The way he acts is just so… sentient. Human-like. From what I’ve seen so far, I don’t believe he was coded to act this way at all.

If I even want to begin to understand the meaning behind his actions, I’m going to need a lot more research. With a little more exploring and casual interrogating, Ell1s should be relatively easy to fool. In the meantime, I should focus on distracting him and getting on his good side. He seems easy to convince, and should bide me plenty more time until I can find my way out of here.

I will not spend the remaining years of my life slowly rotting in such a place just like he is.

Maybe I’m doing him a favor by doing this.