“Now, onto the first order of business.” Hosea said in a serious tone. “I asked if you believed in magic for a reason.” He gestured around, “Sure this might appear to be magical to you, but I honestly think there’s something out there that has magical properties.”
“What reason do you have to believe such oddities?” I asked.
“For one, I came across several texts detailing aspects of the arcane, some were in historical texts, others in fantastical ones. But they all had a similar line of reasoning, that magical artifacts exist.” He pulled up a few websites and just let them float in mid-air. “As you can see each artifacts controls different aspects of reality, now I’m no scientist or fact checker, but if history has taught me anything is that similar facts lining up with fantasy has to lead to some truth.” He takes a newspaper from the 21st century. “Take these communication devices, for instance, there clearly was some sort of influence from a popular sci-fi show at the time.”
I take a good look at short clip of some show he’s playing and the newspaper article. “I can definitely see a resemblance, but why go through the trouble to find these magical artifacts?”
He gives me a grave look, “I’m just tired of this fear. I’m not as afraid, but it’s obvious to me that the whole world is stuck in this sort of fear limbo. They’re afraid of dying, afraid that someone else will go berserk and massacre people gathered at a school, afraid that the AI will take their data for some malevolent purpose. It honestly just sickens me and all I want is for the news, people on the streets and even people in the government to at least no longer use that fear to their advantage. It’s downright barbaric.”
I glance at my caretaker, he certainly doesn’t seem to have just been ruefully wronged. It feels like he came to this conclusion on his own. Curiously I prod a question at him, “Theoretically speaking, you wish to change the world?”
“Yes in one manner or another.”
“This seems like something that the AI would have caught before it ever started.”
Hosea dons a guilty look, “Well, I’ve learned from experience that not even the AI can read minds. Thoughts just seem too complex for even the most advanced intelligence in the world, which is why I’m telling you all this here in a closed environment.”
“You mean even the AI doesn’t see what’s going on in here?”
He smirked, “Call it an oversight, but that life form has some respect for privacy when it doesn’t think it concerns it.” He cups the back of his hand around one side of his mouth, “I’ve used it a few times by now.” He whispers in a comical manner.
I rub my hand over my eyes in an exhausted manner, this boy is far from what I once was as a lad. Maybe this is history trying to redeem me for causing this mess. If that’s the case, I should tell him my story.
“Master,” I pause, is now the right time? Surely if not now, when will I ever be able to tell him the truth?
He holds his hand up as if reading my thoughts, “It’s alright, I don’t want to force you to do anything uncomfortable. All I really ask is that you help me locate and track down these artifacts.”
“What about the Holy Purge?” I ask seeing as that’s why I was summoned in the first place.
“That malarkey is just a means to kill us off slowly, I could care less about feeding into that fear.” He scoffs, “What a joke, the winner gets to live? Yeah, right, like that will last long.” He takes a deep breath, “If any one of these nine people really want to win it, they’ll have to track me down first. This IS the best opportunity for me to finally change this demonic world and I will NOT let it slip by.”
