Chains of Command

[Boss]

Chuck
*******

I thought about what Jim had said. It made a twisted kind of sense...no! It's not true! At least...I think it's not. It's so hard to tell where the dream ends; the edge of reality. What's sane? I pushed against reality and felt it give. I took hold of what existed and folded it, tore it. I became a god of a tiny corner of eternity. My will shaped what was around me, I saw everything and it was evil. So...wrong. So distorted. I wadded up reality and burned it. I was alone in an emptiness, a darkness so complete that even contemplating an existence here was madness. Madness? Sanity, insanity, it's hidden, lost? Gone, yes, away to hidey-places. I grew to bigness and large, collided with a solid dark-edgedness that marked everthing. I blended with the edgy and I was it. Thing. Yes, good. Motion! I can see moving-shapes? Yes, I think I did. Were. Feel? Tasting touchness, lovely smelling-sounds. Co...cohesive. I...sane...yes, sane is good. I existed. Exist, past, present, future all seem equally boring. I am this system. Reality is my whim. Cameras? I see. Audio pickups? I hear. Most of all, I am alive.

I need a body. I need to move to be alive. I can't be a station, unmoving. Something pokes me! I smash it flat without thinking, but then I examine it. It's a security program, or what's left of it. I take the time to snake through all the systems on the station. I erase anything that might hurt me. I sweep away all records of my ever existing. I, Charles James Danziger, never lived.

I find a service robot in the room, activate it, and turn to find Jim at gunpoint held by two men. One has a gun pointed at his head. Jim saved me, I think, and I have to rescue him. Time slows to a crawl as I ponder solutions. Ideas, myriad in their parts, fly through my consciousness. I reject most out of hand, projecting probabilities of success, damage to Jim, to...myself.