White Space
I was still tied to the chair, and my shoulder hurt like hell. Thinking I wanted to get myself untied, I looked over at the dark-haired woman who was still on the ground and found her staring at me in wide-eyed shock.
"Uh, hey... Sorry about the mess."
That seemed to trigger something inside her because she started screaming. She was clearly terrified of what I had just done. Maybe I had just killed her friend... perhaps that was a bit too rough.
"Hey, calm down. Everything's gonna be fine..."
She stopped screaming, but now she was whimpering and trying to crawl away. Since I wasn't going to get any help from her, I started using magic to break through the ropes that had tied me up.
Suddenly, the glowing chunks of the destroyed imitation Gilda, which had been scattered all over the floor, faded away, followed shortly by the dark room we were in and the chairs. It was only the two of us left behind inside a completely empty white space. And with the chair that was supporting me removed suddenly, I fell to the floor.
"Ow! Crap..."
The change in scenery seemed to get her attention because she was looking around for someplace to escape to, but there was nothing as far as the eye could see. Finally, she just stopped moving and hugged her arms around her legs while muttering quietly to herself.
I stood up and looked around while moving my stiff legs a bit. I felt both my AI and nanite enhancements come back online. I ordered the nanites to prioritize dealing with the injury to my shoulder while muttering to myself.
"What is this place? Are we in a simulation?"
I hadn't really been talking to her, but I still looked over at the dark-haired woman, who was terrified of me now. To be treated like that kinda hurt.
"Hey, look, I know that was pretty violent, but she started it. Don't worry... I'm not going to hurt you."
I walked over and offered to help her up, but she looked at my hand as if she couldn't comprehend what I was doing. I knelt down so I could talk to her at eye level.
"Seriously, everything is going to be fine. I won't hurt you."
"..."
"Ah! Um... sorry. I just realized I never introduced myself. My name is William, but my friends call me Bill or Willie. What's your name?"
That seemed to get her brain working again. She looked down and muttered something I could barely hear.
"...I don't have a real name."
"You don't have a name... that must be hard. So what do people call you then?"
"Mostly, she just calls me stupid... or harlot... sometimes, if she's feeling nice, she'll call me MIL."
"Well, that person was a real bitch, so you shouldn't take her insults to heart. But anyway, MIL, huh? What does MIL mean? I'm not familiar with that word."
Changing the topic seemed to help her regain a more stable state of mind.
"Magically Integrated Lifeform. It's my role here..."
"Your role? Is that like a job?"
I tried to keep the conversation going to calm her down. She had a distant look in her eye, but she seemed to be getting better.
"I don't have a job... I'm just fuel to stabilize the core."
That wasn't what I expected. That said sounded like an important detail, but I wanted to avoid interrogating this woman because she was already intimidated enough by me right now.
"I'm not sure what that really means, but I want to be able to call you by a name when I talk to you. Should I call you MIL too? Actually, scratch that. I don't like the idea of calling you an acronym... that seems too cold. A nickname based on MIL... hmm."
She was looking me in the eye now, with a hard to define emotion swirling behind those deep dark eyes. I felt a little more pressure to come up with a good nickname for this gentle and friendly woman.
"Ah... maybe Millie would be good."
She seemed to like that because she showed a faint smile after I said it.
"Okay, so I'll call you Millie from now on if that's okay with you. You can call me whatever you like."
She nodded her head, showing a wider smile. I sat down in front of her because I wanted to keep the conversation flowing without making her afraid of me again.
"So Millie, you say you are fuel for the core. What exactly does that mean?"
"I don't understand all the details myself. That's just what I've been told."
"Okay... well, forget that for now. What about that woman? I know she wasn't actually Gilda. Who or what was she?"
Millie furrowed her brows a bit like she was trying to understand the question.
"That's a silly question, William. She's obviously the core."
The way she answered was like she was correcting a small child who missed an easy question on a test. I wasn't so sure it was such an obvious thing, but that wasn't the issue right now.
"The core? I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the situation. You're saying she was the core, and you said you are fuel for the core. I'm confused..."
She seemed to be amused by that. I was glad she was getting back to normal.
"Silly boy. It isn't 'she was' it's 'she is."
"Huh? I'm not following you."
"She isn't dead. You didn't kill her. After all, as you can see, we're still inside her."
