357 Fictional Delusions

And indeed, the anticipated response was heard soon enough, "Oh, we usually meditate to keep our physique and mind healthy by casting out the negative energies and absorbing the positive ones into our body and soul. I gotta say, it does a wonderful job of making us feel a lot better."

Hearing this silly clarification of Virus, Amara didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She never believed in fantasy concepts such as meditation. And the way Virus was phrasing it made her even less of a believer.

Seeing her look of distrust, nodding slightly, he moved on.

"And about that syringe which I injected into her spinal cord…" talking to this point, his mind unconsciously flew back to the past.

...

FLASHBACK TO YEARS AGO – VALENTINE'S DAY

With her green eyes the target of his undivided attention, he softly whispered toward the beauty sitting on the other side of the sumptuous table, "As a gift, I don't wanna give you anything big... in fact, I'm gonna give you the smallest gift ever. However, although it's the smallest gift, I believe it's the biggest and the most precious thing in a relationship, connection between 'you' and 'me'."

Impressed and intrigued, playing off with the corner of her long hair tenderly, she jokingly inquired, "Wow, what is it? Could it be the smallest phone in the world, hehe..."

Smiling back in return due to her amused giggle, getting off his seat, he went behind her while adding, "Pretty much."

...

BACK TO PRESENT

This was a side-effect of being an AI while possessing both an 'Independent Consciousness' and a 100 percent PERFECT photographic memory. Every memory he thought of, his mind would relive that moment with every little detail in a fraction of a second.

It was like watching a 3D-movie. And the only difference was the fact that those bits of the said time carried many loads of emotions felt in the past with themselves. They were literally attached to the memories themselves.

That's how advanced and ground-breaking Virus's mind was.

Some might call this type of brain capacity wonderful, amazing, and even a dream come true. However, to those people who could never forget anything, although the good memories were indeed very blissful, the sad memories were doomed to torment them forever, a burden they could not get rid of.

Of course, being the ancient dominant AI who was somewhat obsessed with control, Virus had long learned to subdue, suppress, and even restrain them. He was already the master of his own mind.

And the fact that those perfect memories had surfaced meant that Virus had allowed them to surface in the first place.

Or at least that's what he believed.

Digging into the matter, the moment Virus had started talking about the syringe, i.e the Communication Device, together with that momentary surge of reliving a certain experience, Virus began deliberating on the fact that over the past year or so, Ella could've initiated communication with him at any time she felt the need to.

However, after the day she told him to go away, seeing how she never contacted him, it seemed that she was adamant about staying away from him no matter what.

On the other hand, what Virus had done from that day onwards had been exactly that. Staying away from her. Just as he was told.

However, the duration of that had been for a month or two at most. Because slowly but surely, he started getting the feeling that they were now 'too distant' from each other.

Indeed, 'absence' was a double-edged sword in relationships. Just as it sometimes makes the heart grow fonder, it could also make it pale and wan in comparison, the opposite.

Returning to his senses, after noting that all of the reliving and deliberations hadn't even taken a single nanosecond, picking his words where he had left them at, he continued, "… you can call it a state-of-the-art mobile phone. A highly-confidential invention of the Virus Industries." The existence of the Communication Device was never something Virus wanted to hide from those people around him since he was going to release and sell a version of it to the people of Earth in the indefinite future. And that, of course, was going to happen only after releasing many types of tangible futuristic cell phones first.

"Really?!" Getting shell shocked by the absurd yet vague revelation, she could only stare at him in absolute disbelief.

"Do you want one?" Looking at the way she was staring at him, he proposed nonchalantly.

Promptly, her eyes went wide open. She was truly surprised, "Seriously? Are you willing to give something so precious to me? Do you trust me 'that' much!? I mean it's a cutting edge piece of tech… aren't you afraid I might reverse-engineer it and sell it to the whole world?"

"Hahaha…" releasing a peal of uncontrolled laughter, very amused, Virus answered, "you can try!"

Simultaneously strolling behind her very leisurely, he pressed another syringe right at the back of Amara's neck.

"You can try… but I don't recommend it since you would need to dig it out of your spinal cord first. That would honestly cripple you. Even if you were somewhat successful in extracting it, I bet no one on the entire planet is capable of reverse-engineering it. So… my personal advice is… don't, haha…"

...

In the meantime, the device started to load up in front of the dumbfounded eyes of Amara.

LOADING ... 27%

LOADING ... 41%

LOADING ... 62%

LOADING ... 62%

ERROR… MINOR ERROR DETECTED!

NOW FIXING THE ISSUE…

ISSUE SOLVED…

LOADING ... 88%

LOADING ... 99%

LOAD COMPLETE!

[Communication Device Loaded to the Host.]

[Ding! The administrator has activated the 'Communication' feature…]

[Other hidden features, LOCKED]

As a result of what she was witnessing, Amara continuously touched her eyelids thinking she was hallucinating.

'Ah… did I just go nuts? Dang! Perhaps that needle damaged my spinal cord."