Babylon Lost

Chapter 14

The first thing Jiro heard were the waves, the sound of the water rolling in and out.

When his vision came back, he could see he was laying on a ramp, half submerged, water coming up around him, then rolling backout. Back to where he didn't know, a reservoir, the ocean? He must have fallen from the wall and been washed away.

He was alive.

The sun was shining brightly now, no clouds skewed it, a rarity in Babylon to have such a clear day. Was he still in Babylon, Jiro wondered? Was this really some municipal reservoir, or was it something else, had he washed up on the shores of the afterlife?

Only one way to find out.

Jiro brought his hand up to his head and felt the hole where the bullet had gone through. Yep, he was definitely still in the land of the living. He pushed himself upright in the water. The gun was nowhere in sight.

He was in another municipal reservoir by the looks of things, except this one was half filled. Lucky to have come to in a place so secluded, so beautiful, he thought. Then, all at one he felt another kind of lucky, one that filled his entire being with joy.

Lucky to be alive.

He brought his hands up to his face, looking at their robotic form, marveling at them. Next, he rolled his neck, with a chunk of his head gone he could feel the lightened load. It was a peculiar feeling.

He felt different, the world felt different. The last thing he remembered was this overhwleming sense of dread, of hopelessness. But now all that was gone. Everything that had come before, it somehow didn't matter. He was still alive, alive to do something, to make a difference, just plain still alive.

he sprang to his feet now and waded up the ramp, kicking water as he did.

He still couldn't comprehend why he was still walking, why his memories were still intact, why he was still here. But he loved it.

He threw his arms out wide and spun around to face the body of the lake, it looked even more glorious now that he was standing up to see it, the full sight of the sun on its surface was a joy to behold.

He took a quick scan for that huge wall he'd fallen off but couldn't place it anywhere. All he could see was the reservoir stretching off in the distance with cityscapes beyond.

"Good riddance for it" Jiro said aloud, happy to be away from that tunnel and bunker and the rest of those dark unknown places.

Then he remembered about his AI companion. What about Pax? Had the bullet disabled him?

"Are you there?" Jiro said making his way up the rest of the ramp "Pax are you still alive?"

"Yes, Jiro I'm fine" Pax said, his tone completely normal "I'm glad to see you are awake. Are you feeling ok?"

"Aside from this hole in my head I feel frecking fantastic" he said.

"Is the wound causing you any discomfort"

"Not at all" Jiro said, he was still getting used to the lightened load of his head, but it was more like getting used to the empty space in your mouth after losing a tooth than it was actually getting a chunk of your head blown off. He wondered what the AI thought about what had happened.

"Pax do you have any idea what I attempted to do?"

"Self termination it would appear."

"Do you know what that would have meant for you?"

"My own termination, in all likelihood."

Jiro stopped walking "and does that bother you?"

"I am indifferent on the matter" the AI responded.