Possibilities
Sorry for the long absence. I should be back to posting regularly again.
I wasn't able to stay conscious for long afterward. When I passed out, I found myself inside a lucid dream.
Surprisingly, Millie was also there inside my dream for the first time. But I couldn't clearly make out her face, and she didn't say anything at all. She just cradled my head on her lap as she absentmindedly softly hummed off-key while she stroked my hair. It was one of those frustrating dreams, there was something I needed to do, but I wasn't able to make my mind focus well enough to do it. I wanted to talk to her about how she was handling the situation. More importantly, I needed to tell her how Cordelia and I felt about her. But all I could do was lie there in her arms, comfortably numb.
In the corner of my mind, I had enough mental clarity to realize I hadn't foreseen this event because I couldn't see into dreams with my future sight. I could only see things that happened as they happened in physical reality. So, there was no way for me to know in advance that I would end up spending time with Millie like this. I wasn't sure what I could have done differently anyway, even if I had known since I was basically helpless right now.
Eventually, I woke up and noticed my body was more or less back in good shape. My head felt a bit fuzzy, but otherwise, I was able to move. When I sat up, I noticed Cordelia was gone. As I sensed some potential future memories fade away, I silently took stock of the future timeline I'd ultimately found myself in.
"Hey, Gilda. How long was I out?"
Gilda looked up from what she was working on, showing a slightly relieved look.
"Good morning, Willie. You were asleep for just over 12 hours."
"Ugh... That long, huh? Thanks for patching me up."
She turned, carefully facing away from me, so I couldn't see her facial expression. But having known her for as long as I had, I could still tell she was irritated at me. I felt some more previously possible timelines fade from my future memories.
"Yes, well, I would much rather have not needed to do so much to keep you alive. You really pushed your body and mind much too far this time. For a moment, it seemed as if you might truly die."
I rubbed my temples, trying to clear the fuzzy feeling from my head.
"I'm really sorry. I got carried away..."
A heavy silence hung in the air between us as I got up and started doing some stretches to see if moving my body would help clear my head. Gilda turned to watch me with a look in her eye, which told me she was in the mode of purely analyzing me as a specimen right now. After being a mystery to me for so long, it was a weird feeling to know what she'd say next.
"So, how are you feeling?"
"My body feels pretty good, but I have this fuzzy feeling in my head that I can't seem to shake."
I didn't miss the slightly satisfied smirk on her face.
"That is to be expected. Your recklessness resulted in burning out some of the hardware used by your onboard AI. That part of your mind has gone dormant during the repair process."
According to what I saw when I looked into the future, there was only a low probability of that outcome. So I hadn't expected that it would become the future that I actually arrived in. Unfortunately, it seemed like I beat the odds. I was aware that what I'd done put a lot of strain on my AI layer due to the intense amount of information processing, but I was still shocked that I'd pushed it past the breaking point.
"Wow. That sucks... Sorry I busted it."
"No Worries. Given enough time, the system will repair itself automatically. However, in the meantime, your nanites are limited, only running the base programming, and you will have no direct control over them."
I could almost feel the waves of disapproval radiating off of her. Her tone of voice was as businesslike as usual, but her body language sent a different message entirely.
"Yeah... sorry."
My apology was met with a slightly strained smile.
"As long as you understand and avoid doing something that reckless again."
I didn't have much I could say back to that. I really had gone overboard. Long after I found a safe course around the Demon Lord blockade, I still kept pushing deeper, hoping to find some way to bring Millie back to us. In the end, even when I searched through the least likely futures, I couldn't find the answer I wanted. I had been forced to accept that there was simply nothing I could do to get Millie to come out of hiding.
Satisfied now that she had expressed her frustration with me and seeing I was repentant, Gilda switched back into her normal researcher mode.
"So, how much do you recall of the possible futures you saw?"
"Not a lot, really. I'd say most of it has already gone hazy, like a half-remembered dream."
"Because those futures are no longer possible?"
"Yeah, that seems like the right answer after all. I can still clearly recall all the possible versions of this conversation we're having right now."
Gilda got a strange look on her face. For my part, I was enjoying this a bit too much. So much so that I had to be careful to not let my amusement slip out. Being careless here wouldn't lead to a good outcome in any version of the future, so I did my best to keep it in.
"So, you remember us having this exact conversation?"
"Yep."
As expected, she didn't seem to like that answer.
"What's wrong?"
Gilda was clearly bothered by something. But I was enjoying the tables being turned in our relationship, just a little bit. Usually, she was the person who led the direction of the conversations and always knew more than me. However, I remembered at least five possible ways she might respond to my question. She hesitantly paused before choosing the answer that then eliminated the other four possibilities and all of their resulting branches from my future memory. Almost nothing remained of my future memories now.
"The idea that my actions are now fully predictable is somewhat disquieting."
I was glad she chose to be honest with me here. I had regained my trust in Gilda to some degree, but honesty was always appreciated.
"Then, there ain't nothing to worry about. You've got the largest range of possible responses out of everybody here. Predicting what you'll do is one of the hardest parts of looking into the future."
I knew she would be pleased with that response. However, with that, my future knowledge was all tapped out. This version of the potential timeline was the last thing I had looked at because it wasn't even possible until after I had pushed myself so close to the breaking point. Which in itself was only a remote possibility when I'd started the process of looking into the future.
"Yes, well, a woman always wants to retain some mystery about herself. It keeps the man in her life interested."
I chuckled at the thoroughly unexpected response.
"Don't worry, Gilda. You keep me on my toes plenty."
