Chapter 4_ The Monkey brain

Mannequin city

Chapter 4_

'Hmmm, how do I put this, ...you lost your former vessel, and now you are no different from a naked burning candlewick with no wax coating. Got it?' Casually said C9's voice with a traceable flavour of disdain, like a professor lecturing a highschool student.

'Can you please explain it to me like I am five?' Whether the personality behind the unknown voice was wise or otherwise... nobody knew, but it was phrasing words in such a way that made it difficult for the average person to understand, much less a confused Sam.

'Monkey brain'. Snorted the voice and it continued saying, 'How about I explain it like to you like I'm explaining to a five year old monkey?' Sighed the voice of unknown origin.

'How about this, when you were alive you were like a happy little green banana on a tree.

'Then you died... which is the same as you falling off your happy tree, now, since you're no longer attached to the life sustaining tree anymore... you will ripen quicker and rot from the inside out'.

'And you know what that means right?...You ripen overnight and if you get unlucky, another monkey will have you for breakfast. If you get lucky...you might rot in peace, but neither result is still favourable.' Calmly said the hateful voice, like a caring mother narrating a sweet bedtime story to her beloved five year old.

'Either way, your consciousness is still getting a total wipeout and the...'

'And what does that have anything to do with the question I just asked anyway? ...I can't even see anything for chrissakes!'. Those were Samuel's words as he quickly interjected before C9 went on rambling more nonsense that he could not comprehend.

'That is my third question yet you haven't even given me any straight answer!' Screamed Samuel with a hint of frustration in his voice, or perhaps it was the fear talking...nobody knew.'You can not even count,...lord why am I even here.

'For what it's worth, that was the fourth question not the third and I said you are dead, you hear that?, dead!. Your corpse is probably dancing with the maggots as we speak...both your eyes, ears, nose and dumb brain have probably already been feasted on'. Said C9 as he dropped yet another bomb into Sam's ears.

Then silence....deathly silence.

'Hey primate, you still there?...Or have you lost the "sense" of thinking too?' Teased the voice that claimed to be C9.

'You know, if you had acted like this right from the beginning perhaps we would have already been buddies by now, but you decided to own a chicken heart and become an enemy of progress'.

'If I died as you claim then can you please explain this... how can I openly converse with you, no, the proper question is, how can I still exist?'

'I'll explain'.

'Your consciousness is safely housed in a type of energy core, capable of containing your lingering existence so that it does not dissipate... but only for a short amount of time though.

And you know what that means right? Listen to each and every word that I have to say if you will to survive'.

Then a bright image with a bluish hue appeared in Sam's "eyes". It was of a crystalline rectangular object that had two different coloured sections, one light blue and one a deep blue which appeared as if it was more purple than blue.

This strange crystal was pulsing with a mysterious energy, and its light would rythmically dim in and out of existence the same way a human pulse does. It is a misconception to even call it a crystal because with each pulse, the "crystal" would ripple like disturbed still waters.

'What you are seeing here is a mental projection that I am directly feeding into your thought processing section...since you no longer have a functional human brain, obviously'.

'That is your conscious core, the reason why you are still able to irritate me and give yourself confusion and, it's all thanks to it that you are still existing...such a beauty, if only I ca...'.

'Ummm hello, English please?' The terms being used by C9 were all new to Sam and before he digested the last one he was fed with an even stranger and unfamiliar term that he had never heard of. He felt like another splitting headache was coming, and for a moment Sam even thought that after his death he was sent to a hell of confusion...and that was how lost he was.

If C9 was sent to confuse him then the man behind that voice deserved a raise, because he was doing one hell of a good job at it. Every word he said left Sam in even more confusion that he could not recover from. Sigh. 'I said what you are seeing is your life!'. C9 felt like strangling Sam to death with frustration.

Every word he said bounced back as if he was talking to a wall, the monkey brain did not even spare a moment to listen to any word he said.'If you are not going to listen to me I might as well just keep quiet, I don't talk to walls'.

The voice was close to giving up this time because Sam was making him feel like he was teaching Advanced level Mathematics to a newborn baby...it was a fruitless endeavor.

But who could blame him? Samuel was literally a newborn and he knew nothing of the world he was being introduced to, in fact, C9 was the one bullying a day old child.Sam had no choice but to keep his newborn mouth shut as he got bullied.

'Your chances are almost up anyway, if it was not for the fact that my survival depends on yours I would not have spared even a single fraction of a second talking to you'.

'How do you expect me to keep quiet when all you are talking is nonsense? Fine talk, I'll listen'. Even though Sam was at the lower end of the stick he still managed to squeeze in a few stubborn words.

'This time you won't be asking any questions, now listen as I tell everything you need to know!', C9 the voice had realised that force was the only way to deal with this certain species of pests called Samuels.

'Let's start from the beginning, how you got here. You remember the red shadow that hit you on the road? That is not what killed you...what you saw was the tangible world energy, the most powerful force known to man'.

'Also known as the universal will, it is the force that governs and controls what happens to people's wills upon death...even I am not sure how it works. But just know it is the most powerful force and that's good enough for now'.

'As I said before, this universal will is the most powerful force meaning it has the most powerful core, but actually its core can morph into any shape and it is omnipresent. We call it "the fluid core" and only weaker than it is the twelve-core'.

'The weakest being the dual core, which you have right now... meaning you are currently as weak as a stick and a small casual sniff from a simple low level four-core will send you directly to your grave'.

If feelings could be worn like clothes and footwear, it is safe to say that Sam had removed his confusion sandals and wore a brand new classic pair of fear boots. Thankfully he had no tangible body, otherwise he would have already been shaking like a reed in a river with a strong water current.

'So-so how do I become a core i3?' Samuel had managed to construct that sentence after much difficulty, with a quivering voice that could not even conceal the fear he was in...but the reaction he received from the opposite party was not in his expectations.

C9 burst into laughter. 'I thought you were only good at being stupid, turns out you also have a stupid sense of humour. Our cores are not classified the same way as mobile computers are categorized...you are a funny one'.

'After after the dual core comes the tri-core, quad-core and so on'. And the number which a core is classified under is also the number of sides it has, which also corresponds to how powerful it is'.

'Normally a core only has a single colour, but your situation far from normal...you see... we are kind of sharing the same core.Yours is the blue part of the core and mine is purple, which is obviously cooler than yours...but that's not important'.

'The most important factor is that we are stuck together and if we don't work together, permanent destruction is guaranteed. So help me to help you so that we help each other and wake this vessel up and survive till I get my own body'.