Sacrificing Sanity

[Szerano]

"It would be a lot easier to do things in accordance with a plan, if I knew what it was." Derilos dipped his finger in the hot chocolate and swirled his finger around. "Just be yourself and don't leave till we tell you, it's as simple as that, should you try to interfere with anything then you will mess with the plan, if you don't trust me that's fine but it's your life you are messing with not mine. I know what my end is like, it's not a pretty one if you ask me.." Espi was utterly confused at this point, but didn't let Derilos know. Something was terribly wrong with this thing. It thought it's human, it was afraid of some other sort of thing, and it knew how should it ... 'die' ? Was this sme sort of a faulty program, or a bad dream? Never before did he see such AI behavior. "What exactly do you mean by that?" Derilos laughed to himself. "For a corsair you ask more questions then you shoot!" Derilos laughed some more before calming himself. "You know corsair, your a good friend, here, have my hot Choco." Derilos moved the cup toward Espi. "It's one of many gifts.." The Corsair took the cup, and smelled the brown substance. It's scent was bitter, but somehow compelling. "Well ... You took my gun, remember? It is kind of special to me, so I must request you return it to me soon, if possible. I don't care if you take all the ammunition out of it. The bullets are not that I'm interested in. It's the gun itself. We have a history together, you see." He took a sip from the cup, put it back on the table, and slowly pushed towards his host. "I'm also very interested in the ship and it's origin. I can be a man of great curiosity, you know. Especially when you have a biodome this big."

Derilos snapped his fingers and waited a few seconds, a solider made his way to the middle of the garden and rested Espi's gun on the table. The solider stood off to the side and waited for further commands. Derilos stretched a bit and stood up, "There is your gun, pick it up and shoot me here." Using his finger, Derilos pointed directly at his head. "Shoot me here, and then fight your way to your plane which is down that doorway." Derilos pointed behind Espi with his other hand, keeping his other hand pointed at his head. "And take the fifth door on the right. You'll have a slightly hard time but I'm sure you can make it. That is option one, option two is to leave your gun where it is, and follow the plan and I won't say if you'll meet your weapon again, so option one will always be an open door. Your choice corsair. Let's see what you decide.."

"No." Espi thought to himself. "That would be too easy, to just shoot my way out of here now. Besides - there are the biodome construction plans to obtain. Where do they keep them? Archives? But where are those? A lone Corsair on a ship full of robot soldiers, with less than one mag in my gun, if with some ammunition at all." He looked at his gun to check if the magazine was in it, looked at the thing sitting against him. "The gun is special to me, I told you that, and I'm not leaving this station without it..." He paused for a second or two, looked behind him and continued "... and what you propose sounds pretty much like a plan to me." With incredible speed, Espi grabbed his decorated sidearm from the table and aimed it at Derilos' head. "Go on shoot!" Derilos exclaimed. "You are meant to have this station, but a word of warning the plans here are low scale so terraforming or any biodomes in Crete will be...scarce so it won't have a huge impact on what you all face anyway. There is only 12 solider on this station. Your gun, if used correctly will be able to stop anyone in your way as the rest of the robots are unarmed." Walking up close till the gun was touching his head, Derilos removed his finger from his forehead. "Option one...start?"

And there they were - two emotionless faces, a gun, silence. A chance to get to Etna now, or to stay and take blueprints for mountains of nourishment back home later. Espi lowered the gun a bit and stepped back. "Is it your wish to die? Now? Here?" Derilos smiled slowly. "Don't change the subject so quickly corsair, either use the gun or leave it, there is no middle option." And the same moment, the gun fired twice. The thing that wanted to take Espi's sidearm permanently away from him fell to the ground, and shortly after it the robot that brought the gun did. Derilos gripped his shoulder red blood spreading on his clothes. "Heh...This is painful you know that right? It seems you have made your decision corsair I'd suggest you continue or else..." Espi shot the thing in both it's knees. "Or what? I know it doesn't hurt you, but it might be hard to move with those pierced." He looked at the substance flowing out of Derilos' body, "Is that blood? Sure doesn't seem like blood to me..." He pulled a small hidden blade from his gun, cut his index finger, and came closer to the immobilized thing. "This is blood, my good man. You have treated me well, that is why I did what I did - To show you what you are not." His blood started dripping right next to the small pool under Derilos. The color was significantly different. Derilos groaned in what seemed to be pain. "Corsair, your making it really hard on me. Is this..what I get for good hospitality? You consider me something else then you shoot me for it? W-what are you?"

"I am a man that had seen many strong and vital human specimens, but none moved as silently as you did. NONE bent metal bars as you did. If what you are experiencing was pain, and you were human, you would have been unconscious by now. Look at how much of that liquid has already flown out of your body, yet you are not even pale. No, my dear Derilos - The question stands, but it is the wrong person you are asking. What are YOU?" Espi raised his cut index finger one more time to show Derilos true blood. Derilos laughed then clutched his shoulder again. "Y-you missed something corsair. Do you k-know what that is?"

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