Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 7 - Alone In The Dark

K-Rox took a moment to digest what his friend had just said to him, then cracked a huge smile and burst out laughing.

“You’re a good friend Zip! I did need a distraction from Empires and being onBlock all the time. I mean, you could have worked a bit better on the story, but I like the whole, shielded room and no empLink bit, that had me going. . .”

K-Rox trailed off, as he saw the expression on Ziper’s face frozen, his lips screwed tight, his eyes distant and melancholic. K-Rox reflexively reached for a mental switch to activate his empLink, before being reminded that he couldn’t.

When Ziper spoke again, his tone was low and distant.

“I’m not joking, I wish I was, but now with the whole Malcraft thing, I’ve been informed that you must be told.”

“So wait, you’re telling me, that not only does Interim exist, I mean the Interim, the mythical spy arm for the equally made-up, Earth Alien Defence League. Not only does that exist, but you work for it, and you are somehow right now, acting under orders?”

“Yes, EADeL, does indeed exist, it was formed some time around the Great Confusion, apparently there was enough genuine fear at the time to create the League. Interim is indeed their spy arm, we’re not soldiers or anything like that, we’re just a group of individuals that have been charged with certain, special duties.”

“Oh right; and what do these duties involve?”

Despite the lack of empLink Ziper still sensed K-Rox’s incredulity surrounding the whole situation.

“Nothing sinister you understand, quite the opposite in fact. Some years ago some files where discovered from the time of the Great Confusion. These files revealed that there was a faction of people who were set on ending the influence that the quantum blockchain has in our lives, they call themselves Veritum”

“But why would anyone want to bring down the blockchain?”

“They believed that our growing fondness for virtuality, would somehow destroy our efforts in the real. At first when we uncovered these files, it seemed like this faction was an old one, and had not survived the Great Confusion.

However it soon became apparent that Veritum were operating among us, EADeL was re-established and with that Interim was born.”

K-Rox paused his friend briefly.

“I dunno Zip, this is a lot to take in; I mean, who ended up making these decisions?”

“I’m not sure, as I wasn’t part of the original discoverers, all I know is, that some kind of consensus group was formed about fifty years ago, on a secret blockchain somewhere, with only high level access.

I’ve been told that what they found could cause mass panic, and so they felt that rather than create fear over what was probably minor, it was best to deal with it in this way.

I was recruited into Interim about four objective decades after these events, the reason for the name is because Interim was only ever meant to be a temporary agency, one without a base or head, just individually recruited members operating on a need-to-know-basis.

Up until the time of Amorphia’s murder, I’d been more or less a kind of sleeper agent, really nothing exciting I filed the odd consensus report, but apart from that, nothing.”

“Was Malcraft part of Veritum?”

K-Rox noticed Ziper relax slightly when he mentioned Malcraft, K-Rox realised that Ziper was probably embarrassed about keeping such a major secret from him for their entire friendship. He briefly wished he could send him a ~ no worries signal on his empLink.

“Yes, well we’ve suspected Malcraft ever since he killed Amorphia, we couldn’t be sure, but somehow we felt that the murder was somehow linked to Veritum. The theory was, that Amorphia was such a stunning example of how the blockchain could evolve, that it made her a target somehow . . .

Anyway, we couldn’t figure it out, but we felt that such a strange crime had to be linked with their warped ideology, so we started investigating.

Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot of the details of those enquiries, but what I do know, is that Malcraft is bad news, and the Empires evac, had something to do with him and his organisation.

The reason I’m telling you all of this now is because we believe that they are about to make a major move on the Qblock. Malcraft has disappeared and he did so using Empires, there has to be a connection.

In fact, when we were back in my private room onBlock, you mentioned something about a Youtuber approaching you?”

K-Rox felt a lurch somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach when Ziper referred to Jemima, the way she had disappeared still perplexed him. Most of all though, he wanted to see her again, there was something about the way she had spoke to him that had reminded him of her; and then,

she was gone . . .

Asimov's Ghost Previous Chapters:

Asimov's Ghost -Chapter 0 - Alone In The Game

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 2 - Phantoms In The Chain

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 3 - The Storms Of Malcraft

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 4 - Ghost In The Machine

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 5 The Reality Dilemma

Asimov's Ghost - Chapter 6 - The Confusion Labyrinth

Original artwork by @nekromarinist

Words by Cryptogee