568,389¥ (Chapter 23 of 38)

Once again, Gil dons the Occip and enters the Song Dynasty with his posse. There are many strange sights and sounds as they approach the city. But strangest of all is a mysterious old man who knows more than he should. 

Transcript

When Park, his friends, me, and Bob, joined back in the game we were still in the countryside, heading towards the city. And it was still early morning. We met two women riding donkeys with a male servant each, passing three houses. There were other voices in the distance, but we didn’t see them until we passed the houses and saw a train of servants and a beautiful woman being carried in a sedan surrounded by brooms. 

“They have to sweep down everywhere to lodge her down?” I asked.

“Excuse me,” Park said to one of the trains that was walking by. “Why is she carrying all those brooms?”

The man laughed. “You hear that boys? Our young master here wants to know what she’s doing with all the brooms!” They all chuckled. 

“She’s collecting them for good luck!” someone shouted further up, to more laughter. 

We all looked at each other in confusion. 

“Even grandfather doesn’t seem to know,” said one of the servants, nodding his head towards me in disbelief. 

“You can’t sweep graves without a broom,” another servant said over his shoulder as he walked past us. “Unless you want to get on your hands and knees and blow the dirt away. I bet that would really impress our ancestors though.” 

“My dead mother-in-law would still hate me, even if I picked out each grain of sand with my fingers,” another servant said, to more laughter. 

“Believe it or not, they don’t celebrate Qingming everywhere,” the last servant said, staring at us with a grin as he walked by. “Some places are very ignorant of such things.”

We passed an old man playing with a child, no more than four or five, probably his grandson, and then we finally started to see signs of civilization, even though we had heard the clatter and bustle of the city miles back. Although this wasn’t the city. This was just the outskirts, the suburbs I guess you could say. 

As we got closer it was obvious that all the shop owners were just opening up and getting ready for business. To our right a man was standing outside his restaurant, yawning and putting on his tunic, and to our left, a bunch of labourers were unloading two boats from the river filled with sacks of what I figured was rice or grain. It was hard to tell. Some kind of official sat on one of the sacks pointing and gesturing with irritation. I figured he was an official because the higher-ups all seemed to have longer, brighter tunics than regular people. 

Then a withered old man holding a staff approached us. He even looked older than my avatar or the real me. He was wearing a long tunic, but it was faded and dirty around the edges. 

“Good morning weary travelers,” he said, bowing difficultly to us. “Would you like to solve your doubts as to where this adventure will bring you? My powers of divination are unrivaled. I can also break wind on demand. It’s a very rare talent.”

“So he’s like a fortune teller?” I asked everyone.

“I’m more interested in the farting,” Park said.   

“An examiner of doubts is how I prefer to name it, grandfather,” the old man said, turning and appraising me. 

“He’s a fortune teller,” Bob said. 

“Many paths stretch out before us,” the old man continued, “but we can only choose one. The question is, do we really choose, or is choice an illusion?”

“So can you play songs with your farts,” Park asked, “or is it just single bursts. I farted for almost four seconds straight once.”

The old man laughed. “Four seconds? My child I can release gusts of wind up to ten seconds without breaking a sweat. I played my anus for Emporer Huizong once to great fanfare.”

“Eight seconds?” Isaac said. “That’s impossible.” 

“It’s not impossible when you don’t actually have a colon,” Park said. 

The old man ignored Isaac and turned to me. He stared into my eyes and scanned over my avatar’s face. “Our future is already written into our bones. It has been there from the first day we came into the world. Before it actually. Although not written as plain as it is on you now, with all those lines and folds tracked across your hands and face.” He looked over my companions. “Their faces aren’t as easy to read, but they can be read nonetheless, by a skillful and experienced hand such as myself. This is not magic my friends, it is a craft, and I have been studying it for decades.” Then he turned and walked to the back of the riverside restaurant.

“I wonder is this a side mission?” Park asked. 

“I don’t even understand the main mission yet,” I said. 

We followed the old fortune teller. When we rounded the corner of the building there was a door that led to a small dimly lit room which was no more than a hundred square feet. When we entered, he stood up and bowed. 

“Ah. Good morning weary travelers. I see you’ve heard of me. My skills are known across the kingdom. Would you like to solve your doubts as to where your adventure will bring you? My powers of divination are unrivaled. I can also break wind on demand, for a modest price of course.”

“That’s a falsehood,” Bob said. “There’s fortune tellers in the city on every second block.” But of course, the fortune teller couldn’t hear him. None of the AI could see or hear Bob. That was one of his main powers as a Guardian. No one else seemed to have powers or if they did, know how to use them yet. I certainly didn’t.  

  “How much?” Mabelle said. 

  “Many paths stretch out before us, but we can only choose one. But the question is, do we really choose at all? Or is it—"

“You already told us all this,” Francis said. It was the first time he spoke since we hopped in. I think it was the first time he spoke at all. 

The old man stared at us. “Really? When?” 

“Less than five minutes ago,” Park said.

The man’s face looked pained and I felt genuine pity for him, which was a strange feeling, considering he was AI. 

“Forgive me,” he said. “It’s a curse of the gift. Soon I will only be able to remember the future. The past will be lost to me. Sit down, sit down. Rest your weary legs.” He gestured towards the worn old cushions piled in a corner. We grabbed one each and sat on them in front of him. He sat cross-legged on his own cushion with a small table in front of him. 

“Who’s going to go first?” he asked. “Oldest to youngest is the usual way. Who is the oldest?”

“I think that’s obvious,” Park said. 

“The naked fat one?” the fortune teller said, pointing at Bob.

“He can see me,” Bob said. 

“Of course I can see you, guardian. I may be losing my past, but I’m not blind. I can see you, and through you.”  

“None of the AI is supposed to be able to see me,” Bob said to the rest of us. 

“Never mind that foolishness. Are you the oldest or not, guardian?” 

“Obviously not,” Park said, thumbing toward me.  

“Oh, sorry, I forgot you were there,” he said.  “Excellent. Rise. Stand in front of me and let me take you in, grandfather.”

“Why does he call me grandfather? He looks a thousand years old.” 

“It’s probably a term of respect,” Mabelle said. 

“No,” the fortune teller said. I rose and he stared at me so hard that I couldn’t help but look away. Staring into the eyes of an AI so smart was almost like staring into the eyes of a gorilla at a zoo because I swear I could see a soul. But there was no soul, it was all an imitation. That only made it worse. Like I was staring into something evil. 

“Hold out your hand,” he said. I held out my hand and the old man held it, closing his eyes. I swear I could almost feel it, like a ghost, and the hair stood up on my arms. My real arms. “It isn’t the touch of your flesh I require, but the bones beneath. They shout your past and whisper your future. One simply has to listen closely.” He held up his finger. “Everyone silent now. As silent as your graves.”

There was no noise for a long time except the birds outside. 

We waited and waited, and eventually he began to snore. 

“Hello?” I said. 

He woke up, “Oh! Oh, yes, hello weary travelers, I am the great—"

“Yes, yes, we know, I said. You were about to tell my future, you were reading my bones?”

 “Right. Yes,” he said. “I hear it. It’s like placing one’s ear against a wall to listen to a conversation. Like staring into a dark, pond on a sunny day, when the reflection of the sun is clearer than the bottom, but the bottom can still be seen if you look on just…the right… angle…” 

He shook his head and tut-tutted. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Oh, that was stupid.” 

“What?” 

He shushed me quiet. 

“Why would you do that? Did you even think about what you were saying?” 

“What did I say? When?” 

He opened his eyes and looked at me, annoyed. “I can’t read your mind if you keep interrupting —With a drumstick? What did you do that for?” he suddenly screamed. “No, no no! You foolish ignoramus! Not now, I’m not ready.” 

“What?” I asked. “What did I do?” 

“Why would you do that?” he said. “I am the greatest examiner of doubts in all the Song!” 

“But I don’t know what I did.” 

He snatched his hand away. “No! You don’t deserve it.” 

“Don’t de —how can I not do what you’re saying I’m going to do if I don’t know what I did —will do?” 

“You can’t control the future, you old fool. Don’t you see? The past dictates every action that falls in front of it.” 

“So what’s the point in telling it?” Park asked. “And how can he be a fool for something he has no control over?” 

“Who said he has no control?” the fortune teller asked. 

“You did. You just said the past dictates the present.”

“It isn’t that we don’t make choices young man, it’s that we’ve already made them.” 

“Aww nuts,” Isaak said. “Let’s go.” He got up from his cushion. 

“How could a child like you understand the makings of the universe? I am the greatest teller who ever lived, and this man,” he said, pointing at me, is “the dumbest man that ever lived.”

“Will you stop insulting him?” Park said, “You’re telling us he’s going to do something stupid in a future he has no control over, so how is he stupid?”

“Because I say he is!” the old man shouted. “And if you saw what I saw you would believe me!”

“We should leave,” Bob said. 

“Shut your mouth you phony!” 

“Isn’t it literally your job to tell us?” Mabelle asked the fortune teller. 

“Only if I accept payment,” the fortune teller said. “I refuse payment. I will not tell you. Now get out of my sight.” He hauled on his hair. “Why am I saying that?” he said to himself. “I of all people know I can’t change the future. Am I so weak as these imbeciles? But I can’t control these words either! I can’t control anything. It’s all meaningless! It’s all a joke! Do what you will. Kill me, it doesn’t matter.” Then he began to sob. 

“Why would we kill you?” Park asked. 

“You’re not going to kill me,” he said with tears catching on the wrinkles in his face and then jabbed his finger towards me. “He is.” 

 “Me? Why would I hurt you?” I asked. 

“Because you’re stupid!” 

“Maybe I am,” I said, laughing. “But that still don’t mean I’m going to hurt you. I never hurt anyone in my life.” That last part was a strange thing to say because I was talking like I lived my life in Yi and not in the real world.  

“See how stupid you are? You keep saying you’re not going to hurt me. I didn’t say hurt me, I said kill me. Murder! Oh you fiend, you scoundrel, how dare you extinguish the life of such a noble and modest soul as the Great Han Zao, the Thunder Chief.”

“But I haven’t extinguished anyone —the what?”

“We should leave,” Bob said again, heading towards the door. “I heard about AI like him. He’s a glitch. He’ll ruin the game for us. I have to say, I expected better from this verse.”  

“All I have to say are two words,” the fortune teller who was apparently named Han Zao The Thunder Chief, said.

“Well just don’t say them,” I said. 

“I have no choice!” he screamed. “Have you learned nothing, Silly Gilly?” 

“What?” I said, almost a whisper. 

“Are you deaf, Silly Gilly? I said I have no choice!” 

“Please don’t say that again,” I said. 

“What, Silly Gilly, Silly Gilly, Silly Gilly? I can say it a thousand times. What difference does it make now Silly Gilly? The silliest of the Gillies.” 

“Stop,” I said. “Judas! Stop!” 

“Why don’t you get up and sing, grandfather? Show your fellow travelers how well you know the words.”

Without thinking about it, I willed my avatar to reach in over the table and grab the fortune teller by his lapels. I didn’t even know how I did it. I just did.

“Shut up!” I screamed.

“Pop, relax,” Park said. “You know this isn’t real.” 

“It’s very real to him,” the fortune teller said, with a terrified smile. 

“How do you know this stuff?” I asked. 

“I told you, I know everything…Silly Gilly.”

Everything started to get foggy then. Literally. Bob had turned himself into the dragon and was blowing fog into the room. Maybe he saw what was coming, but either way, I snatched one of the bamboo fish-drum sticks in my pocket and drove it into the fortune teller’s chest. Everyone screamed, including me, and the old fortune teller fell to the ground with the stick still sticking out of his stick —chest, I mean. He moaned as blood began to ooze out of the wound and soak his tunic. 

“Look upon these dirty deeds,” he said. “How dare you murder the Thunder Chief.” Then he let out the longest fart I have ever heard and died. 

I tore the Occip off my head and realized tears were on my real face. Everyone else was still in the verse with their headgear on. “Where did he go?” Mabelle said, her head whizzing around. She looked ridiculous. They all looked ridiculous with their Occips on in the real world. 

“Why did you do that?” Park said. “Where are you?” 

“Shit, now we’re all going to be hunted by the law,” Isaac said. 

Francis said nothing. 

I patted Park on the shoulder. “I’m here,” I said, speaking loudly so he could hear me over his headphones “I jumped out.” 

Then Park and all his friends jumped out too, taking their Occips off. 

“Why did you kill him?” Park asked. “If you go back in the authorities will be searching for you. And the rest of us. Unless we let ourselves get arrested.” 

“How did he know those things?” I asked. “He knew things that he shouldn’t have known.” 

“What do Silly Gilly mean?” Park asked and even hearing him say it made me cringe, like he found out some awful secret about me.  In a way he did. 

“Nothing. Just some stupid nickname people gave me when I was young. I didn’t like it.”

“No doubt you didn’t like it,” Mabelle mumbled. 

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to do that. But it’s not like it’s a real person. I didn’t really hurt anybody.” 

“No one thinks you’re a murderer, Pop,” Park said, laughing. “It’s a verse. But things are going to get very complicated when we go back. We were looking forward to the mission. That’s probably not going to happen now. Oh well. I guess our new mission will be avoiding the authorities. Or facing them.”

“I’m never going back in there again,” I said. “I’m sorry, but how did it know those things?” 

“That’s a good question,” Park said. “Maybe your palm heard you talking about it. All these gadgets communicate with each other. You know that.”

“That’s not something I talk about. Is that thing reading my mind more than it says?” 

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Mabelle said. “It’s not supposed to, but I wouldn’t rule it out.” 

“Is anyone talking about it online?” 

“I haven’t checked,” Park said. “But I will. That’s a real infringement on our privacy if the Occip is reading our minds like that.”

“I don’t know,” Isaak said. “I don’t see the big deal. I’d rather have protection than privacy.” 

“So would I,” Mabelle said. 

“Have you two lost your palms?” Park said.

Mabelle and Isaak shrugged. Francis smiled. 

“Speaking of palms,” I said and took out mine. “Lig, what’s up with the Occip?”

“You’ll need to be a bit more specific, Gilbert,” Lig said. 

“Is the Occip lying?” 

“Still not specific enough, Pop,” Park said. “Lig, are there consumer reports of the Occip reading more from people’s brains than it is supposed to?” 

“Don’t know,” Lig said. “There are user reports of the Occip being more intrusive into the psyche than it is supposed to. Of course all of these reports are anecdotal and unverified. On November 2 of this year the Occip maker, Snowstorm, also released a public statement stating that it is, quote, not possible for the Occip technology to read anything in the human psyche other than in the occipital lobe, unquote.”  

“Well, they got to be lying,” I said. “They got to be.” 

“Are corporations even allowed to lie?” Isaak asked. Park stared at him.

“I’m never going back in there again,” I said. “Never.” 

“Oh come on, Pop,” Park said. “It’s probably just like I said. Your palm or Big G or some gadget heard you talking about being bullied when you were young, and the game picked it up. So what.”

“Well, ask your shadow if all our devices share information with each other.” 

“That’s like asking the tap if it runs water. Of course they do.”

“I don’t even know if I want to do the v-cast again.” 

“Well, you know what that means,” Park said holding out his hands, and I knew I had no choice. No v-cast for me. No Jesus for him.