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“Can I ask you a question?”
Ares’ eyes didn’t leave his board. “You just did,” he replied flatly.
Eve rolled her eyes. “Hah. I mean, I have a personal question I would like to ask you. It’s something I’ve been curious about.”
“B-9,” he said, raising his gaze to look at her. His head tilted curiously. “I don’t know that I have anything ‘personal’ to protect. But what is it you’re curious about?”
She pursed her lips, “Miss. C-8.” After a beat she followed with, “How many times have you derezzed?”
His eyebrows raised in surprise and he swallowed visibly. “Hit.” Ares cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “If data memory serves, approximately 723 times. Give or take.” He looked down, considering the board in front of him again. “E-2.”
She simply blinked in response. “That’s–”
“Every day for two years, mathematically. Or, rather, nearly. I don’t actually have a concept of time for any of it. E-2.” He took a drink of the water to his right, watching her over the rim of his glass. She was still just staring. Huffing softly, he set the glass back down and rubbed his palms together; he enjoyed the condensation on his skin. “Eve. I said E-2.”
Her head shook and she looked down at her board. “Uhm. E-2, E-2. Uh, hit. Damn.” She put a peg in the little plastic submarine. Almost as if she were ashamed to ask, she refused to look up and picked up another little peg to toy with. “I-9. Do you… did you feel anything? What I saw from Athena, from you…”
Ares had encountered very little, thus far, that made him feel genuine discomfort. “Hit,” he declared, picking up a little red peg. “I suppose you would consider the situation… complicated. At the time, I had no name for pain. Now, however, I would say yes. E-3.”
Over 700 times he’d died and he’d felt each one. Eve was having trouble processing that.
“Hit,” she said softly. “Why? What was even the point? Uhm. I-7.”
“Hmm.” There was such limited context that he had to figure out the most logical answer. “Hit. I suppose it was a form of– what term would you use? Negative reinforcement? Dillinger must have considered deresolution sufficient incentive to adapt to program patches faster. My directive was to protect the system– the Grid– by any and all means. To develop the skills I have did not come without challenging them in the first place. E-1.”
How was he so calm about this? “Hit. That’s my sub down. I8?” After another pause, “What–”
“Did it feel like? You’ll be pleased to know that I-8 is also a hit.” He sounded a little irritated and she wondered for a second if she was close to winning. This was their third round and he’d won the last two. He rested his chin on folded hands. “I don’t have a human sensation to liken it to, if I’m honest. Call it a sudden and inescapable dread. Like witnessing a horrific accident knowing nothing you do can stop it because someone else is in control. I could sense every piece of me, every string of code, crumble and fall away. Reconstitution was a violent consciousness and a burning in my lungs, like coming back from drowning. I think it was worse after being in this world. I had a greater sense of self.”
His eyes narrowed softly, reading her. Her cheeks tinged pink in what he assumed was embarrassment, her gaze focused on the game board and refusing to meet him. She felt she’d overstepped, he deduced. He broke the awkward silence with, “G-9.”
“That’s… G-9; it’s a hit.” She put a little red peg in her aircraft carrier. “I’m sorry, Ares. I shouldn’t have asked. That was insensitive.”
He scoffed, a soft smile on his lips. “Hardly.” He shrugged it off, hoping it would come across as more genuine than it felt. “I know practically everything about you against your will; you didn’t consent to my invasion of your privacy, which is what I know it was. I’ve known your deepest pain this whole time. It’s only fair to grant you access to mine.”
They exchanged looks, hers one of reluctant acceptance. He wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t believe an exchange of trauma was necessarily the best way for him to try and make up for that.
“Are you going to make a play?” he asked casually.
“Oh. Yeah. I-10, I guess.”
“Well,” he sighed dramatically. “There is something that supersedes deresolution on my list of crushing experiences, and it’s the fact that you’ve managed to sink my battleship.” He looked genuinely defeated, like she’d just stolen his favorite stuffed animal or something.
Despite her eyes stinging from fighting the urge to cry, Eve managed to burst into laughter. He soon followed, grateful to successfully let go of the subject. Being emotionally uncomfortable was an ongoing adjustment for him. He found some comfort, he now realized, in the fact that his next deresolution would be his last.